Universal #898

Legacy number: 898

 Number  895
 Original  Provided there is actancy variation in terms of tense, accusative constructions will always be found in the future/present/imperfective while ergative constructions occur in the perfect/past/perfective tenses.
 Standardized  Provided there is actancy variation in terms of tense, accusative constructions will always be found in the future/present/imperfective while ergative constructions occur in the perfect/past/perfective tenses.
 Formula  accusative structure ⇔ future/present/imperfective tense;
ergative structure ⇔ perfect/past/perfective tense
 Keywords  alignment, ergative-absolutive, nominative-accusative, tense, present, past, future, perfect, perfective, imperfective
 Domain  inflection, syntax
 Type  no genuine implication; rather: provided that
 Status  achronic
 Quality  absolute
 Basis  languages surveyed in Lazard 1998 (see language index in Lazard 1998: 275-8)
 Source  Lazard 1998: 214-17

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Discussion
Counterexamples
Notes
1. Note the general “actancy-framework“ discussed in Lazard 1985: 8-13, Lazard 1991: 6-11, Lazard 1995 and Lazard 1998: The actants of a sentence are the NPs (and/or clitics or affixes) which have privileged relationships to the verbal predicate. These properties characterize them in contradistinction to other NPs, which are called circumstants.2. Trask (1979: 385): It is very common for ergativity to be confined to certain tenses or aspects of the verb; in such cases, it is always the past tense or the perfective aspect which is ergative while the non-past or imperfective forms show accusative constructions.3. Cf. a similar statement by Moravcsik (1978): #603. And by many others.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
1. Note the general 'actancy-framework' discussed in Lazard 1985: 8-13, Lazard 1991: 6-11, Lazard 1995 and Lazard 1998: The actants of a sentence are the NPs (and/or clitics or affixes) which have privileged relationships to the verbal predicate. These properties characterize them in contradistinction to other NPs, which are called circumstants.

2. Trask 1979: 385: It is very common for ergativity to be confined to certain tenses or aspects of the verb; in such cases, it is always the past tense or the perfective aspect which is ergative while the non-past or imperfective forms show accusative constructions.

3. Cf. a similar statement by Moravcsik 1978: <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=603"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">. And by many others.