[Multilingual Monday] Nominative, Ergative, Plus A Bonus!

[aadroma]

One of my biggest stumbling blocks in learning Georgian was -- as stupid as this sounds -- the NOMINATIVE. The nominative is the case used -- in most languages -- for the subject of a sentence. In "I speak terrible Georgian," "I" is in the nominative. "The cat is urinating on top of the television" features "cat", in the nominative. In most

Comments

[bluebear2]

The first time I heard sukoshi I thought of Scotia and didn't get it.

[muckefuck]

Some years ago now, when I was asked to design an artlang for a fantasy world, I decided to make it ergative and read up on Georgian syntax for inspiration. It was actually very interesting to see the the proposed explanations for how the current split-ergative verbal system arose and how the nominal cases come to be apportioned as they are. Damned if I can remember the reference any more, however.