[lojban] nominative-accusative & ergative-absolutive

[tijlan <pascal.akihiko@gmail.com>]

Can it be said that Lojban is inclusive of both the
nominative-accusative type (e.g. English, Japanese, Esperanto) and the
ergative-absolutive type (e.g. Basque, Tibetan, Mayan)? Compare the
following Basque-Esperanto-Lojban sentences:

Gizon-a | etorri da.
Vir-o | ekalvenis.
lo nanmu | co'i/ba'o klama

Gizon-ak | mutil-a | ikusi du.
Vir-o | knab-on | vidis.
lo nanmu | lo nanla | pu viska

"-a" in Basque is the absolutive suffix, which is translated in
Esperanto as the nominative suffix "-o". Then "-ak" is the ergative,
translated in Esperanto again as the nominative, and this time the
Basque absolutive "-a" becomes the accusative in Esperanto. Esperanto,
because it runs on an explicit case system, cannot handle the
ergative-absolutive languages without explicitly distorting their
original typological quality. In Lojban, on the other hand, cases are
not (at least morphologically) specified. It therefore buffers the
difference between the nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive
languages. It allows a Basque/Tibetan/Mayan etc. speaker to
communicate with an English/Japanese/Esperanto etc. speaker without
being distracted at the aforementioned dissimilarity.

pe'ipei mu'o mi'e tijlan


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