'Give'-type verbs and basic alignments: a comparison between Sikuani and Katukina-Kanamari

Resumo

Why verbs expressing events that necessarily involve three participants are not found as formally three-place verbs in languages of the so-called syntactically-ergative type? Although the fact is acknowledged in the literature, no thorough account for such state of affairs appears to be available. A comparison between two unrelated languages, one homogeneously accusative, the other homogeneously ergative, is put to the purpose of supplying some clues to the rationale behind this observed incompatibility.