Universal #262

Legacy number: 262

 Number  262
 Original  Among the lexical frequentalia of ergativity one can mention: Classes of possessive and affective verbs (verba habendi and verba sentiendi), forming special sentence constructions [and affective verbs can sometimes be implied — ??? ]; at the level of noun morphology the presence of a special affective case; a distribution of nouns into lexical classes; groups of verbs that are not lexicalized according to the feature ‘transitivity vs. intransitivity’, i.e. so-called labile or diffuse verbs; an opposition of inclusive and exclusive forms in the 1st person plural.
 Standardized  IF alignment is predominantly ergative, THEN there tend to be: possessive and affective verbs (verba habendi and verba sentiendi) in syntactic constructions distinct from that of verbs of action; a special affective case; nouns divided into lexical classes; "labile" (or "diffuse") verbs rather than a classification of verbs as transitive and intransitive; an opposition of inclusive and exclusive in the 1st person plural.
 Keywords  alignment, ergative, verb, affective verb, possessive verb, labile verb, affective case, noun class, personal pronouns, exclusive, inclusive, 1st person, transitivity
 Domain  inflection, syntax, lexicon
 Type  implication
 Status  achronic but presumably diachronically motivated
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  different language families surveyed in Klimov 1973
 Source  Klimov 1973: 72, 117

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Discussion
Notes
1. See comments to #264.2. Klimov being a "stadialist", these frequentalia are to be seen as characterizing developmental stages, with the ergative stage developing from the active stage and developing into the accusative stage.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
1. See comments to <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=263"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">

2. Klimov being a "stadialist", these frequentalia are to be seen as characterizing developmental stages, with the ergative stage developing from the active stage and developing into the accusative stage.