>The question is : is there a real opposition between ergative and
>nominative languages ? Ergative languages tend to be more or less
>nominative to some extend, georgian is a perfect example,
Well maybe there is no clear cut distinction in a general sense, but I think
that the use of certain grammatical elements in a language can be tracked
back and determined to be of an absolutive/ergative nature as opposed to
nominative/accusative. The IE *-m for instance is quite clearly an
accusative since it is used for object only, and this is the case for the
Steppe languages as a whole. However, Georgian's /-ma/ is not. There is a
clear distinction in the way these grammatical elements are used.
- gLeN
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