In Kuriyet, an ergative-absolutive, very pro-drop conlang I'm making, I've noticed something curious happening in sentences with pro-drop:
So essentially, removing the ergative argument makes the sentence sound "passive". Now, this is pretty boring, but I then thought, what if I analyze <monda> as an intransitive verb meaning "to be eaten"? Then we haveKuma pada monda.
ku-ma pada monda
1-ERG fish.ABS eat
"I eat a fish"
Pada monda.
fish.ABS eat
"[somebody] eats a fish" = "a fish is eaten"
So essentially, it seems like the whole language can be reanalyzed into not having any "real" transitive verbs, and all sentences with an ERG argument simply being causative. So we can also say things likeKuma pada monda.
ku-ma pada monda
1-ERG fish.ABS is.eaten.CAUS (zero-marked)
"I cause a fish to be eaten."
Pada monda.
fish.ABS is.eaten
"A fish is eaten"
Is this sort of reanalysis totally off the rails? It does allow an interesting way of zero-marking causatives of intransitive verbs like "to be many" without introducing any ambiguity. For "higher order" causatives, would the following be crazy?Laulai molos.
laula-i molos
flower-PLUR.ABS be.many
"Flowers are many".
Ossema laulai molos.
spring-ERG flower-PLUR.ABS be.many
"Spring causes flowers to be many".
Is this "real" ergative-absolutive alignment anymore, or did I just turn the ergative case into simply an oblique agent marker? How do real-life erg/abs languages that have pro-drop handle stuff like causatives and passives?Pada monda.
fish.ABS eat
"The fish is eaten."
Amma pada monda.
3-ERG fish eat
"He eats the fish" = "He causes the fish to be eaten"
Mokyattem amma pada monda.
tiredness-ERG 3-ERG fish eat.
"Tiredness made him eat the fish." "Tiredness causes he causes the fish to be eaten"