Re: Accusative? The saga continues ...

Talpas Tim wrote:
>
>#
># Maoro mentu a dazuo nalu.
># [mao;ro mentu a dazu;o na;lU]
># "Maoro burns a spaceship in the den"
># (slightly unlikely, perhaps)
>#
># Maoro a dazuo nala.
># "Maoro burns (intr) in the den."
>#
>
>I see two different (differently marked?) verbs here...
>
>    nala - burn (intrans)
>    nalu - burn (trans)
>
>Is one verb derived from the other, or is there a stem 'nal-' plus an
>obligatory transitivity marker?
_Nala_ is simply the stem _nal-_ with a present tense marker -a, whereas
_nalu_ is the same stem with a suffix -u that, among other things, forms
causatives from intransitives, plus a zero present tense marker. However,
there are plenty of transitive verbs that doesn't have the -u ending, for
instance _nhaz-_ in _David izi a dazuo nhaza_ "David eats cheese in the
den".

># Know, I figure these sentences aren't enough to tell if it's accusative
>or
># whatever, but at least you've seen the thing.
>#
>
>I can't remember much of the previous thread concerning this, but is it
>your
>intent to be ambiguous with respect to accusative or ergative?
We-ell, the starting point was that I chose the syntax and (lack of) marking
I wanted, and realized that I couldn't tell if it was accusative, ergative
or something else.
>
>I can think of some good arguments for either, but all are conditional on
>further data... dropping of nouns which are understood, in trans and
>intrans
>contexts? reflexives? valency increasing or decreasing mechanisms?
>(causative,
>passive..)
As said, _-u_ can form causatives. Dunno about passives yet, but some sort
is probably needed to faciliate topicalization (syntax is very strict). A
passive would turn "David cheese eats" into "cheese by David is eaten", I
guess.
>
>I think maybe "transitive/intransitive" would be a good classification.
>
Eh, doesn't pretty much all languages have a transitive vs intransitive
distinction?

                                                 Andreas

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