This is a part of the results of the Syposium “On Ergativity” held at the University of Tsukuba on June 14th, 1986, on the occasion of the 92nd General Meeting of the Linguistic Society of Japan.
The writer, who presided over the Symposium, discusses the various aspects of ergativity on the levels of morphology, syntax and discourse, and tentatively proposes the following ‘Universals’:
Univ. 1: If the verbal agreement of a language is ergative, then its nominal case-marking (if it exists) is always ergative. On the other hand, if the nominal case-marking of a language is accusative, then its verbal agreement (if it exists) is always accusative.
Univ. 2: If a language exhibits ergative construction for the verbal forms of “ACTION NOT COMPLETED”, then the verbal forms of “ACTION COMPLETED” are also constructed ergatively.
Univ. 3: If a language manifests ergative marking in the NPs higher on Animacy Hierarchy, then the NPs lower on the Hierarchy exhibits always ergative marking. On the other hand, if a language manifests accusative marking in the NPs lower on Animacy Hierarchy, then the NPs higher on the Hierarchy always exhibits accusative marking.(“Silverstein's Univ.”)
Univ. 4: If a language exhibits transitive construction for the verbs lower on Transitivity Hierarchy, then the verbs higher on the Hierarchy are also transitively constructed.
Univ. 5: If a language manifests ergative syntax, then its morphology is always ergative. On the other hand, if a language has accusative morphology, then its syntax is always accusative.
Univ. 6: If a language is ergative in the syntax of coordination, then it is also ergative in the syntax of subordination (or embedding).
Univ. 7: If a language is ergative in its syntax, then it has syntactic device called ‘anti-passive’ to switch the ergative NP to absolutive.
Univ. 8: Almost all languages are accusative (or Agent-oriented) in the pattern of Topicalization.
Univ. 9: All languages are ergative in the patterns of Nominalization and Word-formation.
Univ. 10: No language manifests ergativity by the word-order alone, whereas the accusativity can be encoded exclusively by the word-order.
Univ. 11: The language which has ergative syntax tends to place Patient NP before Agent NP.
Univ. 12: If the word-order of a language is of ‘strict’ SVO type, then it does not belong to the ergative language.
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