Re: Is this a passive?
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, July 23, 2003, 0:07 |
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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.
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