Nisgha syntax and the ergativity hypothesis ...

• Main Author: Belvin, Robert S.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2010
• Subjects: Nisgha
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0096319; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0096319

Nisgha has been classified by at least three different linguists as syntactically ergative (Rigsby, Rood, and Tarpent). This is motivated by the fact that in certain constructions the agent of a transitive verb patterns differently than the patient of the transitive or the single argument of an intransitive. A new definition of syntactic ergativity has been proposed recently by Alec Marantz (1981) and is called the Ergativity Hypothesis. The definition essentially says, given the grammatical functions [NP,VP] and [NP,S], we will have the following associations of grammatical functions and thematic roles: Syntactically Ergative Syntactically Accusative Language Language Agent-[NP,VP] Agent-[NP,S] Patient-[NP,S] Patient-[NP,VP] Morphological ergativity is considered a different phenomenon. It is essentially defined as follows (following the traditional definition): Morphologically ergative languages mark the subject of a transitive verb, and leave the object of a transitive and the single argument of an ...