Re: Ergativity

--- takatunu <takatunu@...> wrote:
> Joe wrote:
> >>>
> I think the phrase 'soup cooks' is an
> Anglicism. I would translate 'Robert
> cooks' and 'soup cooks' as Robert<abs> cooks,
> and Soup<abs> cooks<passive>,
> respectively.
> <<<
> Oh! That's an intersting analysis... But in
> English passive voice is tagged
> with either a suffix (-ed, -t) or an inflection
> (and sometimes both) and I
> think--and may be wrong as well--that "soup
> cooks" is usually called a
> mediopassive rather than a passive.
Yeah - middle sounds about right, and is
perfectly good English even though it's form is
identical to the active in all verbs apart from
hight. I think we had this discussion a couple
years ago; and I'm pretty sure cooking soup was
one of the exemplars.

I recall that in Teonaht, when Marjan cooks soup
(hawehhti Murrçanar), it's active; when soup
cooks (hawehhtar sawectôs), it's middle. [Funny
that the agent, Marjan, is technically an
inanimate noun that can act on its own agency;
while the soup is technically an animate noun
which can't act on its own agency. Alas the
vagaries of stem formation!] Talarian usage is
similar, though it has an actual middle voice
verb form to distinguish the kinds of cooking:
Marjan cook-ACT; and soup cook-MID. Marjan's
cooking can be either transitive or intransitive;
while the soup's cooking can only be transitive,
mind. Also curious is that Talarian distinguishes
sawesctôs, soup cooking and sawecrôs, completed
soup.

Padraic.


=====
la cieurgeourea provoer mal trasfu ast meiyoer ke la cieurgeourea andrext ben trasfu.

--

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who'd had it, he just couldn't hack it;
   he stood with care
   on a cane backed chair,
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