jal wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2024 3:08 am
Ahzoh wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 5:23 pmThe verb is the head of the phrase, not the subject. So, VSO or VOS word order.
Yes, but the object is closer to the verb than the subject, so VOS makes it more head-initial than VSO. "Eating a peach" vs. "(Eating a peach) by me" (where "by" is the ergative).
What? VSO is equally as head-initial as VOS, just that the object in VSO is decoupled from the verb.
Ok, so you have split ergativity based on animacy?
Like Hittite
Also do note the absolutive case marker would be the same as the accusative marker, and the ergative marker the same as the instrumental marker.
If they are equal, I wouldn't name them differently. Also, the absolutive is typically unmarked, as is the nominative. Accusative and ergative are typically marked.
I wouldn't because calling the absolutive an accusative is confusing as fuck and will confuse other people when they encounter an accusative-marked noun in subject position. Also it fucks with the way I set up my declension tables. If I had only animate and inanimate gender, I'd probably have a table with, in descending order, nominative, accusative, and ergative. But I have three animate genders and one inanimate gender, so it would just result in an unnecessary and asymmetrical amount of empty space.
Also, my case system originates from a tripartite system, so all the of the cases have suffixes (
-m [animate nominative]
-s [accusative/absolutive], and
-n [ergative-instrumental]) and there are no null-morpheme marked cases.
No matter what, there isn't a change in alignment, only word order.
That doesn't make sense to me. You literaly change the alignment from nom/acc to abs/erg, so how is this not a change in alignment??
This was in reference to the aforementioned "hierarchical alignment"
What would make sense to me, is that given the strong head-initiality, combined with the desire to have a word order be animate - non-animate, that in case the animate participant is the patient, one would use abs/erg, so that the less marked participant is closer to the verb. Would also be swell if you then would have head-marking, instead of dependent marking, of the animate participant
.
This is more complicated than it's supposed to be. I just wanted to make animate constituents more topical than inanimate ones.
Word-order apparently has these principles:
- Topic-first principle (more topical NPs come before less topical NPs)
- Animate-first principle (NPs with more animate referents come before NPs with less animate referents)
- Verb-object bonding principle (objects are more closely linked to the verb than subjects are)
Vrkhazhian default verb order is VSO, which satisfies the topic-first principle and animate-first principle, but not verb-object bonding principle
Way I see it, requiring animate objects to precede inanimate subjects is a way to satisfy verb-object bonding principle and animate-first principle, though it would be ambiguous if it would satisfy the topic-first principle, since I reason that the subject is the topic and the verb phrase is the comment in a topic phrase, but inanimates would be less topical than animates.