Sunday, January 17, 2016

Backwards with Idea #246: Some Ergativity

Post #246 originated upon reading a post that had been left to die in the drafts folder. Basically, the last clause was a cue to myself to come up with something. This was finally done about 120 posts later, and to some extent, this post in some sense only serves as a window into how ideas develop for me, if that interests anyone. So here goes, a peek into the creative process:

Getting back on the ergativity track, we can imagine a language that otherwise is very nominative-accusative, but where infinitives are ergative in alignment:
I see you = I see you
to see you =  you to see
seeing you = you seeing
to see (subj: you)= for you to see
seeing (subj: you) = your seeing
However, we could complicate this a slight bit.

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