The Importance of Ergative Alignment

There's a single Creole in their database that has ergative alignment. Most, as you would expect, have neutral alignment unknowns. You know, I think I often feel that so many of the things that we think of as universal are probably sort of statistically more likely to be wrong. Don't be too afraid of breaking something that seems like universal because somebody may find a language buried in the house. It's buried somewhere in Papua New Guinea that actually doesn't work that way,. Not buried somewhere, but up in the mountain somewhere. Up in a tree. Two hundred and fifteen people.