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Re: Is this a passive?

From:bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>
Date:Wednesday, July 23, 2003, 8:54
<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