Re: Is this a passive?

Quoting Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>:

> Incidentally, there's a universal that if a language has
> split-ergativity by tense or aspect, the past or perfect will be
> ergative, and the present or imperfect accusative
It's worth pointing out that this reflects the scalarity of
transitivity.  There is no universal binary distinction between
transitive and intransitive verbs;  different languages have
different sensitivities to how genuinely agentive the action
is.  In some languages, imperfectives are not considered
transitive because the agent's control over the patient is
not complete until the action itself is finished.  In some
languages, plural agents cannot be considered fully in control
because no one member of the agents completes the action, even
if the action is taken to its logical end.  Thus split-ergativity
is a natural, indeed expected, epiphenomenon of human experience.

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