wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (07/14/85)
I am seeking more information on so-called "ergative" languages.
In ergative languages, the "subject" and "direct object" concepts of
Indo-European and many other languages (wherein every verb must have
a "subject") do not exist. Rather, they have what might be called
"patient" and "agent" concepts; every verb must have a "patient").
(a) "Patient" basically corresponds to the "subject" of intransitive
verbs, or the "direct object" of transitive verbs.
(b) "Agent" basically corresponds to the "subject" of transitive verbs.
The best-known example of an ergative language is Basque. European
grammarians, never having encountered an ergative language before and
committed to casting every language into a Graeco-Latin mold, tried to
explain Basque by proposing that every transitive verb in the language
used the passive voice!
What I want to find out is, what other ergative languages exist other
than Basque? I have heard rumors that some Polynesian and Caucasian
languages are ergative, but I have not yet been able to verify this.
Also, are there any languages which use neither the "subject/object"
nor the ergative "patient/agent" concepts for binding nouns to verbs?
--
Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683
3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024 // USA
ARPA: wales@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA -or- wales@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
UUCP: ...!(ihnp4,ucbvax)!ucla-cs!walesmichaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (michael b maxwell) (07/19/85)
Re Rich Wales' request for info on ergative languages (I'm posting this
thinking there may be some general interest, although I apologize for
the length...)
First let me say that I wouldn't describe ergative languages in terms of
patient/agent terms as opposed to subject/object terms; the two ideas
are quite different (patient, agent... are semantic terms, subject,
object... are syntactic terms). There are languages which (it has been
claimed) use notions like patient etc. rather than subject, such as the
languages of the Philipines. These are not ergative.
The basic idea of an ergative language is that it (in some way) treats
the subjects of intransitive verbs like the objects of transitive verbs.
Let's try an example--in English, the subject precedes the verb in both
transitive and intransitive verbs, whereas the direct object (which only
transitive verbs have) follows the verb:
John (subj.) sees Bill (obj.). =transitive
John (subj.) runs. =intransitive
Now let's suppose that English were ergative. Then we might have the
following sentences:
John (subj.) sees Bill (obj.).
Runs John (subj.).
Actually, there are certain constructions of English that resemble ergatives.
If there is a prepositional phrase, that PP can often precede an intransitive
verb, and the subject follows the verb:
Into the room ran John.
In the garden stands a statute.
An article in a recent issue of the journal Linguistic Inquiry claimed that
certain other constructions of English were ergative, although they don't look
like what I'd call ergative sentences. At any rate, English is usually
considered nonergative.
Now--what are some other ways languages can treat subjects of
intransitive verbs like objects of transitive verbs? In many languages,
which NP (=Noun Phrase) of the sentence is the subj. and which is the
object is marked by case markers (typically suffixes) on the nouns,
rather than by word order (the word order typically being rather free in
such languages). Latin is such a language, and we have a vestige of
case marking in English in the pronominal system ("he" is the subject,
"him" is typically the object, "his" is the possessive). An ergative
case marking language would use the same case marker for the subject of
an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb. I'm not sure,
but I think Basque displays this kind of ergativity.
Finally, a language might use person markers on verbs to indicate which
NP is the subject and which the object. (Most Indoeuropean languages do
this; again, we have a vestige of this in the third person marker -(e)s
on most verbs, and more completely in the present tense paradigm of the
verb "be.") In some of these languages, this is the main way of telling
which NP is which, since either they have fairly free word order, or the
word order isn't enough (as in an SOV--i.e. Subject-Object-Verb--language
where neither the subject nor the object was obligatory). Tzeltal, a
Mayan language from the state of Chiapas in Mexico, is an example of an
ergative language using person marking on verbs. The subjects of
intransitive verbs and the objects of transitive verbs are marked as
suffixes on verbs, while the subjects of transitive verbs are marked as
prefixes on verbs. Some examples (with spelling regularized; the word
yash/ya is an incompletive marker, somewhat like one of our "helping"
verbs; it has a different form for transitive and intransitive verbs,
but this has nothing to do with Tzeltal being ergative):
Yash talon ta sna Antonio.
incompl. you-come from house-of Antonio
"I come from Antonio's house."
Yash talat ta sna Antonio.
incompl. you-come from house-of Antonio
"You come from Antonio's house."
Ya 'awilon.
incompl. you-see-me
"You see me."
Ya kilat.
incompl. I-see-you.
"I see you."
I believe most Mayan languages are ergative. Niuean, a Polynesian
language, is also ergative; a fairly extensive syntax is given in a
paper by William Seiter which appeared in Linguistic Inquiry about 1979
(sorry, I don't have the exact reference, but I can get it if you want).
There are many other ergative languages, although they are in the
minority.
A question remains: are ergative languages *really* that different, or
is it just a matter of "superficial" differences like case marking? I
suspect the latter--in fact there are processes in language which appear
to happen prototypically to subjects (Example: in infinitivals, the
missing argument of the verb is the subject: "John tries to run" =>
John is the runner; you can't say something like "John tries for Mary to
see" meaning that John is the one seen without using the passive.
Tzeltal is no different from English in this respect--it is always the
subject which is "missing".) An interesting article in this regard
is Stephen Anderson 1976 "On the Notion of Subject in Ergative
Languages," in Subject and Topic, edited by Charles Li, pg. 1-23. I
believe he discusses Caucasian languages, although it's been awhile
since I read it...
--
Mike Maxwellmmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (07/21/85)
There has been a lot of ugly disagreement on just how to describe
what's special about ergativity. So I'll just say, not that I think
Rich Wales's way of describing it is wrong, but that there are other
descriptions which I find easier to use. He wrote that ergative languages
use an agent/patient distinction while nominative-accusative languages use
a subject/object distinction. From my perspective, the former is semantic
and the latter is syntactic, and all languages use both; one dimension of
difference among languages is how they handle the mapping from one set of
roles to the other. (There is some justice to saying that classic
highly ergative languages must have a very different notion of subject from
classic nom-acc languages, and defining these syntactic roles is tricky
and should be done language by language.)
Let's start off with a very unhelpful definition:
An ERGATIVE LANGUAGE =df a language with a large number of
ERGATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS or PROCESSES.
This entirely leaves open what that threshold level would be; the idea is
not so much that you can draw your own line for saying which languages are
or are not ergative as a binary feature, but rather to encourage talking about
languages as "highly ergative", "slightly ergative" etc in a scale. Then
the real work has to be done in the explanation of "Ergative Construction."
Let 'S' stand for "the single term (noun phrase) in an intransitive
sentence". It mnemonically plays on the notion 'subject' but doesn't require
it as a more primitive notion.
Let 'A' stand for "the term referring to the agent in a
transitive sentence", and let 'O' stand for "the term referring to the patient
or goal in a transitive sentence". These *do* depend on more basic notions.
Then: An ERGATIVE CONSTRUCTION or PROCESS =df one which treats
S and O similarly, and in contrast to A.
A NOMINATIVE-ACCUSATIVE CONSTRUCTION or PROCESS =df one which treats
S and A similarly, and in contrast to O.
ERGATIVE ACCUSATIVE
S S
\ /
\ /
\ /
A O A O
The most important area for ergative vs nom-acc constructions is in positional
or case marking of central terms in root sentences. Originally, this was
all that was meant in the basic distinction of a language being ergative or
not, and is still what is usually meant by an unqualified statement that
such-and-such "is an ergative language".
English has only remnants of a case-marking system, but a pretty
rigid positional system. We say
He ran.
He hit him.
so English is a nominative-accusative language, to the extent that the
two-way distinction applies here at all. It would be ergative if the
pattern were
Him ran. or better yet: Ran him.
He hit him.
But, as I was urging in the general definition, there are
other areas of ergativity. These can be found even in a language which
is mostly accusative. For example, those who know French may want to
take a look at what happens in the faire-causative. My French is not
very good, so there will be some mistakes in this example, but I hope
it will illustrate the point anyway.
1. Jean mange. (john eats)
2. Jean mange le pain. (john eats the bread)
3. Je lui fais manger (`a Jean). (I make/have him [John] eat.)
4. Je le lui fais manger. (I make/have him eat it.)
I actually need another couple of sentences, to show that in (4) the 'le'
pronominalizes 'Jean' and the 'lui' pronominalizes 'le pain' -- better
choice of the food, for gender or number, would have done it.
Now, note that 'Jean' is the S in (1). 'Jean' is the A and 'le
pain' is the O in (2). Sentences (3) and (4) embed (1) and (2) respectively
in the causative construction (or they would, if the objects were spelled
out). Notice that the S and the O went to 'lui' while the A went to 'le'.
Thus this qualifies as an ergative construction, though we would hardly want
to call French an ergative language in general.
--
-- Mitch Marks @ UChicago
...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmaraeb@mcvax.UUCP (Andries Brouwer) (07/24/85)
In article <853@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) writes: > For example, those who know French may want to > take a look at what happens in the faire-causative. My French is not > very good, so there will be some mistakes in this example, but I hope > it will illustrate the point anyway. > > 1. Jean mange. (john eats) > 2. Jean mange le pain. (john eats the bread) > 3. Je lui fais manger (`a Jean). (I make/have him [John] eat.) > 4. Je le lui fais manger. (I make/have him eat it.) > > I actually need another couple of sentences, to show that in (4) the 'le' > pronominalizes 'Jean' and the 'lui' pronominalizes 'le pain' -- better > choice of the food, for gender or number, would have done it. No, 'lui' in (4) refers to 'Jean', so your example is void. { Make Jean plural and see 'lui' change into 'leur'. }
jack@rlgvax.UUCP (Jack Waugh) (07/25/85)
In a restaurant I saw an advertisement claiming that a particular meat-like product "eats like a boneless sparerib". I wasn't sure how such a rib eats anything. Now I suppose it is an ergative construction meaning "can be eaten as a boneless sparerib could be eaten". (Of course, the sign is in the Advertisingese dialect of English, a dialect that seeks to maximize connotation and affect while giving no denotation at all.) I have also heard people say a line "scans" or a programming construction "parses", meaning can be scanned or can be parsed by the parser we would normally expect to submit it to.
mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (07/29/85)
Examples like
This boat seats five.
This pizza chews a little tough.
(those are different) resemble not so much the ergative constructions as
something called the `mediopassive' or middle voice. This is not marked
by a special verb inflection in English, but in some languages (e.g. classical
Greek) it is, and gives a third alternative to the active and passive voices.
--
-- Mitch Marks @ UChicago
...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar