# PIE was (split-)ergative?



## Luigi Terrio

So I recently read a Hittite grammar, and it turns out Hittite was split-ergative. When an inanimate/neuter noun is the subject of an intransitive verb it appears in the absolutive case which typically has no case marker. If however such a noun is the subject of a transitive verb it uses ergative suffixes, –anza if singular and –antesh if plural. When the subject is animate the language is nom/acc like other IE languages.

So this begs the question, was PIE an ergative or split-ergative language that lost its ergativity in most daughter languages? I searched a book on PIE and found no reference to ergativity, and going through wiki articles on the grammar I found one vague reference to vestiges of ergativity, but with no elaboration. Does anyone have any insight on the matter?


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## ahvalj

_Kloekhorst A · 2008 · Etymological dictionary of the Hittite inherited lexicon:_ 185:


> Without a doubt, this suffix _-ant- _must be equated with the suffix _-ant- _as found in the participle, which reflects *-_ent-_



I am almost sure there are no indications outside Hittite of such an extended usage of this or any other participial suffix, even in Luwian (which by the way has lost the _nt_-participles as a category). Early Proto-Indo-European is rather suggestive of the active/stative typology (Active–stative language - Wikipedia).

By the way, Hittite descriptions I have seen only present examples without case government — I wonder what happens when this _-anʦ/-antes_-enforced neuter noun has a direct object: the proper Ergative morphology requires an Absolutive (~Nominative) here (Ergative–absolutive language - Wikipedia).


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## fdb

ahvalj said:


> I wonder what happens when this _-anʦ/-antes_-enforced neuter noun has a direct object: the proper Ergative morphology requires an Absolutive (~Nominative) here



In Hittite the direct object is accusative (usually in -n), not nominative. To call the neuter nouns with -ants "ergative" very is misleading,


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> In Hittite the direct object is accusative (usually in -n), not nominative.



Thank you.



fdb said:


> To call the neuter nouns with -ants "ergative" very is misleading,



Yes, I remember your comment about the wrong terminology of this case (or case-like form) in Hittite. I think you're right, but 
most writers (and I) are familiar with the ergative morphology from short descriptions in vocabularies and reference grammars and simply can't imagine these constructions in the real life: it's like to imagine the Passive for a person whose language lacks this category.


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## Luigi Terrio

fdb said:


> In Hittite the direct object is accusative (usually in -n), not nominative. To call the neuter nouns with -ants "ergative" very is misleading,


According to the grammar I have the direct object in such cases _is_ absolutive, marked with a null, and the accusative suffix -n only appears when the direct object is in the a-stem and singular. Now that I'm thinking about this critically though its not hard to imagine that the other instances are unmarked accusatives.



ahvalj said:


> Thank you.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, I remember your comment about the wrong terminology of this case (or case-like form) in Hittite. I think you're right, but
> most writers (and I) are familiar with the ergative morphology from short descriptions in vocabularies and reference grammars and simply can't imagine these constructions in the real life: it's like to imagine the Passive for a person whose language lacks this category.


It confused me so much at first, but its actually really simple and intuitive once you get used to it.


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## ahvalj

Luigi Terrio said:


> According to the grammar I have the direct object in such cases _is_ absolutive, marked with a null, and the accusative suffix -n only appears when the direct object is in the a-stem and singular. Now that I'm thinking about this critically though its not hard to imagine that the other instances are unmarked accusatives.


Do I understand correctly that when the direct object is a noun, of a common gender, of a consonant, _i-_ or _u-_stem, it stands not in the Nominative but in an unmarked case, different from both the Nominative and Accusative?

Diakonoff explains the ergative construction with the following Sumerian examples:

_*lú-e g̃idru i-n-g̃ar_ "a man put the stick" — is not Active since the logical object _g̃idru_ "stick" stands in the Absolutive case and the logical subject _lú-e_ "man" stands in a quasi-oblique (Ergative) case — it is also not Passive since the subject marker in the verb (_i-n-g̃ar_) agrees with _lú-e_ and not with _g̃idru;_

_*lú-e g̃idru i-b-g̃ar-e_ "a man puts the stick" — is not Active for the same reasons as above and is not Passive since while the first subject marker agrees with _g̃idru_ (_i-b-g̃ar-e_) as in the Passive, the second one agrees with _lúe_ (_i-b-g̃ar-e_) as in the Active,

thus, neither the Absolutive nor the Ergative are oblique cases in these examples since the verb agrees with two subjects here: the subject of a state (Absolutive, in the second example) and the subject of an action (Ergative, in both examples). In such languages intransitive verbs usually possess subject conjugation and transitive ones possess bisubject conjugation.


*P. S.* Curiously, Ukrainian has developed a construction where the verb doesn't agree with either noun. The source of it is the Passive: Russian _im položena palka_ (by him — is put — the stick; Instrumental — Past Passive Participle agreeing with the next word — Nominative) → Ukrainian _jim položeno palku_ (by him — it is put — the stick; Instrumental — invariable form descended from the Participle — Accusative). Here the former neuter form of the Past Passive Participle has split into two: the declinable _položene_ and the invariable _položeno _(used here), and the subject of a passive construction in the Nominative has become the object of an impersonal construction in the Accusative.


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## Luigi Terrio

ahvalj said:


> Do I understand correctly that when the direct object is a noun, of a common gender, of a consonant, _i-_ or _u-_stem, it stands not in the Nominative but in an unmarked case, different from both the Nominative and Accusative?
> 
> Diakonoff explains the ergative construction with the following Sumerian examples:
> 
> _*lú-e g̃idru i-n-g̃ar_ "a man put the stick" — is not Active since the logical object _g̃idru_ "stick" stands in the Absolutive case and the logical subject _lú-e_ "man" stands in a quasi-oblique (Ergative) case — it is also not Passive since the subject marker in the verb (_i-n-g̃ar_) agrees with _lú-e_ and not with _g̃idru;_
> 
> _*lú-e g̃idru i-b-g̃ar-e_ "a man puts the stick" — is not Active for the same reasons as above and is not Passive since while the first subject marker agrees with _g̃idru_ (_i-b-g̃ar-e_) as in the Passive, the second one agrees with _lúe_ (_i-b-g̃ar-e_) as in the Active,
> 
> thus, neither the Absolutive nor the Ergative are oblique cases in these examples since the verb agrees with two subjects here: the subject of a state (Absolutive, in the second example) and the subject of an action (Ergative, in both examples). In such languages intransitive verbs usually possess subject conjugation and transitive ones possess bisubject conjugation.


If I understand the Hittite situation correctly, a common gender noun will always behave in a nom/acc way, and its only the neuter nouns that take the absolutive or ergative case. This is why its described as a split-ergative, rather than an ergative proper language.

That Sumerian example from Diakonoff is problematic because the second example uses the maru(durative) conjugation. In the maru Sumerian behaves like a nom/acc language, as it is a split-ergative language. The best way to think of ergativity is to abandon the preconceptions of our IE nom/acc grammar. For example in the first example from Diakonoff, (which is in the hamptu(preterite) and thus ergative/absolutive): _lú-e g̃idru i-n-g̃ar _- lu(man) is the agent because it has the ergative suffix -e. Ngidru is the patient because it lacks an ergative suffix, which can be thought of as it having a null as an absolutive suffix. The active vs passive distinction is not indicated by the ergative or absolutive markers, but rather with the conjugation prefix i-. If you wanted to emphasize the active/agentive nature of the sentence you would use mu- instead, and if you wanted to emphasize a mideopassive nature you would use ba-.


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## ahvalj

I need to refresh my understanding of the Sumerian grammar…

Concerning this Hittite construction: if it affects only neutra from both sides, then the only case when it can't be interpreted as a Passive would be when both nouns are in different numbers and the verb agrees in number with the noun marked with _-ant-._


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## Luigi Terrio

ahvalj said:


> I need to refresh my understanding of the Sumerian grammar…
> 
> Concerning this Hittite construction: if it affects only neutra from both sides, then the only case when it can't be interpreted as a Passive would be when both nouns are in different numbers and the verb agrees in number with the noun marked with _-ant-._


Hittite has a seperate set of verbal suffixes for when the mideopassive voice is used. It seems verbal suffixes were how Hittites communicated activity/passivity.


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## ahvalj

Yes, of course, shame on me.


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## M Mira

I thought the theory is that PIE nouns of the neuter/inanimate gender cannot function as the subject in a sentence, and daughter languages improvised?


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## Luigi Terrio

M Mira said:


> I thought the theory is that PIE nouns of the neuter/inanimate gender cannot function as the subject in a sentence, and daughter languages improvised?


Do you know where you read this? I'd be interested to read some theories. Even if we were to project the Hittite system back onto PIE, the Hittite neuter can still function as the subject of an intransitive sentence, even if it doesn't take a nominative suffix.


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## fdb

M Mira said:


> I thought the theory is that PIE nouns of the neuter/inanimate gender cannot function as the subject in a sentence, and daughter languages improvised?



At a hypothetical level this may or may not be true, but it does not describe the situation in any real IE language. In Hittite a neuter noun can be the subject of an intransitive verb (in which case it is nominative) or of a transitive verb (in which case it takes the suffix -ant-).


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## M Mira

I can't recall where I saw it, but I do recall it's based on how inanimate nouns in PIE have identical endings in the nominative and the accusative singular, and that the endings appears identical to animate/masculine nouns's accusative singular ending. (-om and null IIRC)


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## fdb

M Mira said:


> inanimate nouns in PIE have identical endings in the nominative and the accusative singular



....neuter nouns......

Inanimate nouns can be any gender.


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## Luigi Terrio

M Mira said:


> I can't recall where I saw it, but I do recall it's based on how inanimate nouns in PIE have identical endings in the nominative and the accusative singular, and that the endings appears identical to animate/masculine nouns's accusative singular ending. (-om and null IIRC)


Thats what I suspected was the reasoning. While this idea looks nice on paper, its hard to imagine a language at any stage lacked the ability to articulate a simple idea like "the rock fell." A more realistic version of the theory would be that PIE was a split-ergative language in the same manner of Hittite, but for me doubt is cast on the idea because no IE language besides Hittite shows this feature(not even Luwian) and the quasi-ergative suffix of Hittite has a very transparent etymology in a feature which holds a non-ergative function in other IE languages. I wouldn't completely rule it out though.


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## ahvalj

As far as I recall, the Active/Stative earlier Proto-Indo-European is hypothesized to have possessed special verbal forms servicing stative nouns (the Perfect / Mediopassive / thematic conjugation are believed in this scenario to be descendants of it vs. the athematic Present/Aorist as a descendant of the active conjugation). E. g. _Gamkrelidze TV, Ivanov VV · 1995 · Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: _Gamkrelidze TV, Ivanov VV · 1995 · Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans.pdf


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## M Mira

Wikipedia says:


> The reconstructed Pre-Proto-Indo-European language, not to be confused with the Proto-Indo-European language, its direct descendant, shows many features known to correlate with active alignment like the animate vs. inanimate distinction, related to the distinction between active and inactive or stative verb arguments. Even in its descendant languages, there are traces of a morphological split between volitional and nonvolitional verbs, such as a pattern in verbs of perception and cognition where the argument takes an oblique case (called quirky subject), a relic of which can be seen in Middle English methinks or in the distinction between see vs. look or hear vs. listen. Other possible relics from a structure, in descendant languages of Indo-European, include conceptualization of possession and extensive use of particles.


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## fdb

M Mira said:


> Wikipedia says:



Who am I to disagree with that sacred font of wisdom?


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> Who am I to disagree with that sacred font of wisdom?


Well, it aims at being not the font but rather an aggregator of wisdom. But seriously, this is an amateur forum. Most people need to make unrealistic efforts to get direct access to the scientific literature as the capitalist legislation guards the financial interests of the editors, not even of the creators of the scientific content. OK, scholars routinely ignore this and exchange pdfs illegally, but what laypeople can do? To go to the library? To pay dozens of dollars to get access to each individual paper online?


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## ahvalj

I turns out I was wrong when writing that this Hittite case doesn't exist in Luwian. Melchert in _The Luwians · 2003:_ 186 & 202 mentions the Ergative Sg. _-antis _and Ergative Pl. _-antintsi._

202:


> As shown by Garrett (1990a), Luwian like Hittite shows 'split ergativity'. A neuter noun cannot function as the subject of a transitive verb, but must be replaced by a special ergative form (singular /-antis/, plural /-antintsi/).
> 
> That this is fundamentally a grammatical feature, not one of semantic 'animacy', is shown by an example like KUB 35.54 ii 49ff, where _only _the neuter nouns for 'house' and 'statue' are replaced by the ergative, not the semantically equally inanimate words for 'pediment', 'hearth' and 'earth'. This is not to deny that, as in Hittite, the ergative is also occasionally used for genuine cases of personification, such as KUB 35.39 ii 14-15, where heaven and earth are to wash their mouths.


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## M Mira

Luigi Terrio said:


> Do you know where you read this? I'd be interested to read some theories. Even if we were to project the Hittite system back onto PIE, the Hittite neuter can still function as the subject of an intransitive sentence, even if it doesn't take a nominative suffix.





fdb said:


> At a hypothetical level this may or may not be true, but it does not describe the situation in any real IE language. In Hittite a neuter noun can be the subject of an intransitive verb (in which case it is nominative) or of a transitive verb (in which case it takes the suffix -ant-).





Luigi Terrio said:


> Thats what I suspected was the reasoning. While this idea looks nice on paper, its hard to imagine a language at any stage lacked the ability to articulate a simple idea like "the rock fell." A more realistic version of the theory would be that PIE was a split-ergative language in the same manner of Hittite, but for me doubt is cast on the idea because no IE language besides Hittite shows this feature(not even Luwian) and the quasi-ergative suffix of Hittite has a very transparent etymology in a feature which holds a non-ergative function in other IE languages. I wouldn't completely rule it out though.



Combing through old note, it appears that I remembered it wrong. It's "Inanimate nouns can't be the subject of a transitive sentence." Not "Inanimate nouns can't be the subject." If necessary, a passive construction will be used instead.

I don't have an academic source for it, but I do have one that discussed the theory that the ergative in Indic came from passive, and mentioned them showing split ergativity in the perfect, coinciding with ahvalj's post above:
Ergativity in Indo-Aryan




fdb said:


> ....neuter nouns......
> 
> Inanimate nouns can be any gender.


Aren't the the same thing in PIE?


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## fdb

M Mira said:


> "Inanimate nouns can't be the subject of a transitive sentence."



This is not true in any IE language. Simply not true.


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## M Mira

fdb said:


> This is not true in any IE language. Simply not true.


So what? OP is about PIE, not modern IE languages.


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## fdb

I am glad that we have on here fluent native speakers of Proto-Indo-European. I cannot compete.


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## Nino83

Maybe M Mira was referring to the fact that neuter nouns don't have different endings for the nominative and the accusative case. 
I don't know where I read it but this could be due to the fact that neuter nouns (inanimate things) were *often* the object of transitive sentences, but this doesn't mean that these nouns *couldn't* be the subject of a transitive sentence.


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## M Mira

fdb said:


> I am glad that we have on here fluent native speakers of Proto-Indo-European. I cannot compete.


What's with the hostility? A feature in a parent language need not be present in its daughter languages. Do any modern Chinese dialects have morphology or rolling R? Does that disprove their existence in Old Chinese?


Nino83 said:


> Maybe M Mira was referring to the fact that neuter nouns don't have different endings for the nominative and the accusative case.
> I don't know where I read it but this could be due to the fact that neuter nouns (inanimate things) were *often* the object of transitive sentences, but this doesn't mean that these nouns *couldn't* be the subject of a transitive sentence.


The "couldn't" part is a theory/conjecture based on the weird outcomes: some daughter languages have a merged nominative-accusative case for neuter that resembles their masculine accusative, others created an ergative case for neuter subjects in transitive sentences. There's almost certainly something unstable about it in PIE to generate such a drastic divergence.


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## ahvalj

A couple of citations from _Hoffner HA, Jr., Melchert HC · 2008 · A grammar of the Hittite language. Part 1∶ reference grammar:_

56 (perhaps related to the development of the "Ergative" use):


> *2.25.* The suffix _-ant-_ also has a delimiting or “individualizing” function (Melchert 2000: 58–61, 68–69). When it is added to names of the seasons, the reference is to a particular instance (Goetze 1951: 469–70): _ḫamešḫant-_ ‘the (next/following) spring’ vs. _ḫamešḫa-_ ‘spring-time (in general)’.



67:


> *3.9.* Rejection of an ergative case in Hittite has been based on two invalid objections (for both see, e.g., Starke 1977: 182 n. 24): 13 (1) Hittite does not show the features of a typical ergative language such as Hurrian; (2) _-anza/-anteš_ belong to a quasi-derivational _-ant-_suffix that semantically “animatizes” neuter nouns referring to inanimates (when they are functioning in what is loosely labeled an “active” sense). The first of these objections is irrelevant: since Hittite shows split ergativity, where the ergative pattern applies only to a subset of the nominal system, we would not expect it to show the features of a fully ergative language such as Hurrian. The second claim is simply false. As stressed by Hoffner (1998a: 37–40), the noun MUNUS.MEŠ_ḫazkara(i)-_ (female musicians) is semantically animate, referring only to persons, but as a collective it happens to be grammatically neuter. The fact that the word appears as MUNUS.MEŠ_ḫazkaraiyaza/ḫazkaranza_ just when it is the subject of a transitive verb confirms that the ending _-anza_ marks ergative case. It is illogical to say that _-anza_ here “animatizes” a noun that is already semantically animate. Nor is the notion of being “active” the determining factor. Grammatically neuter nouns referring to persons or things appear in the nominative-accusative (properly “absolutive”) when they are the subjects of intransitive action verbs: _ašeššar šarā tiyazi_ ‘the assembly stands up’, _wātar arašzi_ ‘water flows’. These and other facts confirm that the selection of the endings _-anza_ and _-anteš_ is grammatically conditioned (by neuter gender and subjecthood of transitive verbs) and has nothing to do with semantic animacy. “Ergative case” is the only proper characterization for such a feature.


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