Ferenc Havas:
Nominative, nominativity, nominativism

Abstract:
This paper discusses the emergence of the nominative case and the nominative sentence structure from the point of view of diachronic typology, in comparison with the ergative, the triadic and the active patterns. The claim is that these synchronic patterns stand in a systematic diachronic relation, which makes it possible to establish the model of their historical-typological evolution. This highlights the nominative case and the nominative sentence pattern as the most recent outcome of linguistic development. The organising principle of the nominative pattern can be discerned even in the not so distant past of such languages: the subject–predicate structure is operative as a formal principle even where it does not reflect the structure of the aspect of reality that is conveyed by the sentence. The formulas that emerge in this way then serve as measures in the cognition of language, but also in that of the world in general. This paper exemplifies this from the tradition of philosophy as well as linguistic description.

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