I really appreciate you putting sources neatly and using original (albeit primitive) graphics. I really am looking forward to seeing your future works!
The Artifexian video on ergativity taught me a bit about how it works, but I knew most of what he was saying already. What I wanted to know was how it could form for my conlang. This video gave me a better understanding of how it could come about. Thank you.
I've developed a conlang which has a tripartite morphosyntactic alignment, with ergative, absolutive and accusative cases. It's such a rare alignment and that's what made it intriguing to me.
Your conlang sounds really cool! Tripartite alignment can get really tricky sometimes, as languages often display a split between ergative alignment and tripartite alignment. If you want to learn more about tripartite systems (especially as I don't focus on them too much in my videos), if you haven't already, I suggest reading the WALS articles on the alignment of verbal person-marking and the alignment of case marking.
@@wopnik1890 Thank you for the info and for loving my comment! Since all natural languages exhibit some degree of accusativity, all ergative absolutive languages are actually split-ergative languages. Artifexian mentioned this in his video about ergativity. Such a fascinating concept!
Portuguese and Spanish have some ergative verbs. For example: "Me gusta el pescado" ("I like fish", literally "Like me fish"). Even English has some ergativity: "There is a cake in the table" (cake marked as absolutive) in place of "A cake is on the table" (cake marked as subject).
Good catch! That's another valid way to look at things. The point that I was trying to illustrate was that in ergative-absolutive languages, subjects and patients are marked in the same way (i.e. they are assigned the absolutive case) while agents are marked in a different way (they are assigned the ergative case). Thus, "Him hit he" and "He sleeps" would display an ergative pattern since subjects and patients receive the same case (the masculine third person singular pronoun takes the form "he" when it is a subject and patient) while agents receive a different case (the masculine third person singular pronoun takes the form "him" when it in an agent). "He hit him" and "Him sleeps" would display an ergative pattern as subjects and patients receive the same case (the masculine third person singular pronoun takes the form "him" when it is a subject and patient) while agents receive different case (the masculine third person singular pronoun takes the form of "he" when it is an agent). Hope this helps!
I see what you did there with (S)amuel, (A)rnold and (P)eter.
Very cleaver.
Aha! Good eye!
I really appreciate you putting sources neatly and using original (albeit primitive) graphics. I really am looking forward to seeing your future works!
Agreed
Thanks for the for enjoying and the giving some great feedback!
The Artifexian video on ergativity taught me a bit about how it works, but I knew most of what he was saying already. What I wanted to know was how it could form for my conlang. This video gave me a better understanding of how it could come about. Thank you.
Wait the minute, did i really just get taught linguistics by an Amogus?
Yes, yes you did.
I've developed a conlang which has a tripartite morphosyntactic alignment, with ergative, absolutive and accusative cases. It's such a rare alignment and that's what made it intriguing to me.
Your conlang sounds really cool! Tripartite alignment can get really tricky sometimes, as languages often display a split between ergative alignment and tripartite alignment. If you want to learn more about tripartite systems (especially as I don't focus on them too much in my videos), if you haven't already, I suggest reading the WALS articles on the alignment of verbal person-marking and the alignment of case marking.
@@wopnik1890 Thank you for the info and for loving my comment! Since all natural languages exhibit some degree of accusativity, all ergative absolutive languages are actually split-ergative languages. Artifexian mentioned this in his video about ergativity. Such a fascinating concept!
Great explanation of a tricky-to-understand topic.
This is my 3rd video and i think i finally understand...(at least the basics)
Portuguese and Spanish have some ergative verbs. For example: "Me gusta el pescado" ("I like fish", literally "Like me fish").
Even English has some ergativity: "There is a cake in the table" (cake marked as absolutive) in place of "A cake is on the table" (cake marked as subject).
Really like your channel. Hope to see more.
Big Brain Linguistics. I learned a lot, great job!
Great content. Keep up the good work :)
Based linguistic
I’m a bit confused, wouldn’t the hypothetical ergativity in English be “Him hit he”?
Good catch! That's another valid way to look at things. The point that I was trying to illustrate was that in ergative-absolutive languages, subjects and patients are marked in the same way (i.e. they are assigned the absolutive case) while agents are marked in a different way (they are assigned the ergative case).
Thus, "Him hit he" and "He sleeps" would display an ergative pattern since subjects and patients receive the same case (the masculine third person singular pronoun takes the form "he" when it is a subject and patient) while agents receive a different case (the masculine third person singular pronoun takes the form "him" when it in an agent). "He hit him" and "Him sleeps" would display an ergative pattern as subjects and patients receive the same case (the masculine third person singular pronoun takes the form "him" when it is a subject and patient) while agents receive different case (the masculine third person singular pronoun takes the form of "he" when it is an agent).
Hope this helps!
@@wopnik1890 ohh okay I totally get it now, that’s awesome thanks! Love your videos!