>Beekes give some compelling arguments that PIE may have descended >from an
>older ergative language, eg, the old genitive became used as >the new
>nominative (the agent in a passive construction is often a >genetive, eg,
>in German ("von") & Dutch dialects ("van").
How long ago is this ergative stage supposed to have existed? I'm not
fighting the idea that IE once was an ergative language but I'm thinkin'
along the lines of 12,000 BCE. It would be like saying that English once had
an inanimate heteroclitic declension.
Is this use of genitive somehow related to what is used sometimes in
English? (Eg: "_His being killed_ was not received well.") Is there a better
English example? Does this use of genitive necessarily have to be inherited
or could it be a special innovation in Germanic languages?
In connecting Uralic and IndoEtruscan together, I can't see even at this
"IndoUralic" or "ProtoSteppe" stage a use of ergative although I can see
ergative origins. There was definitively an accusative *-m even then (but
this might perhaps be from an ergative *-ma...)
Nostratic however is most likely ergative not accusative, as we see in
Kartvelian for instance, and I believe there is a case to ultimately connect
the subjective/objective pronominal suffixes in ProtoSteppe (later the
active/stative distinction in IE) to two distinct sets of pronouns - one
used only for absolutive, the other used for all oblique cases. This means
that ergativity would have existed circa 15,000-12,000 BCE during IE's
development (if we can call it IE).
Discussion welcome but please, don't call me a lunatic - I'm already
painfully aware of my eccentricity :)
-gLeN
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