Re: Is this a passive?

<delurk>

 --- Roger Mills <romilly@...> wrote: > Estel
Telcontar wrote:
>
>
> > I have a morpheme in mind for one of my languages,
> and I'm wondering if
> > it counts as a passive.  As far as I understand,
> passive normally
> >
> > (1) promotes the direct object to subject
> > (2) a. deletes the subject
> >  OR
> >     b. demotes the subject to an oblique
> >
> > The morpheme I'm thinking of is okay on (1) and
> (2)a. : The original
> > direct object becomes the subject, and the
> original subject can be
> > omitted.  It's in (2)b. that the question comes
> in: if the original
> > subject is still expressed, it is expressed as a
> direct object, not as
> > an oblique.
> >
> Hmm, sound like it could be confusing (maybe more in
> case of a fast
> reader)........
> Petrus amat Mariam.
> Maria amatur.
> Maria amatur Petrum
>
> Must it be in the DO case?
>
> Kash get around this by not having a real passive
> (but it does mark nom/acc
> for animates),  just a change in word order and
> probably intonation,
> basically stylistic variants:
> çenji ya-sisa mina-n
> NOM 3s-love ACC (3s=subject)
> Shenji love Mina
>
> minan yasisa çenji
> ACC  3s-love NOM.
bac gets over it by word order changes too. the verb
for 'love' isn't a good example here, so i'll use
'help'

'active'
sot Sanlaj wer Guw
I   help   you  benefit

'passive'
wer Guw     sot Sanlaj
you benefit I   help

topics can be dropped, giving, inter alia
|Sanlaj wer Guw|
|wer Guw Sanlaj|
as ways of expressing 'you are helped'

getting back to loving, 'you are loved' would be |Rakh
wer|, whilst 'I love you would take a subject |sot
Rakh wer|. these are in fact both examples of a
depleted verb, which should by nature take two topics
|sot wer Rak| 'you and I love each other', but has its
final lenited to indicate that here it only has one 'I
love you [and your feelings are not an issue]'

-----

eestaak has no passive as such, but can either change
emphasis by word order or use an impersonal
construction :

Notes:
?|kadr-| 'love', in common with many verbs of feeling,
has its object in the ablative
?the topic position is non-emphatic
?verbs of location and motion are used as auxiliaries:
|fed-| 'be in' to paraphrase the simple present,
|des-| 'go' for the incipient &c. they usually take
the simple verb root as topic of the sentence

anneg      (immegge) ahazrebi
you[topic]  I[nom]   love[1s]
I love you

emmeg    andehig  ahazrebi
I[topic] you[abl] love[1s]
I love YOU

anneg      ahazraka
you[topic] love[3impers]
you are loved

ahazr'      andehig  fedaka
love[topic] you[abl] isIn[3impers]
YOU are loved

-----

bn

</delurk>

=====
bnathyuw | landan | arR
stamp the sunshine out | angelfish
your tears came like anaesthesia | phèdre

__________________________________________________
Yahoo! Plus - For a better Internet experience
http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/yplus/yoffer.html