Re: LW again -- Noun and verb
| From: | Wesley Parish <wes.parish@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, August 29, 2002, 12:45 |
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On Thu, 29 Aug 2002 19:31, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> En réponse à "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>:
> > ==========================================================
> > Passive:
> > (1) applies to an underlying transitive clause and forms a
> > derived intransitive;
> > (2) the underlying O NP become S of the intransitive;
> > (3) the underlying A-NP goes into a peripheral function,
> > being marked by a noncore case, prepositionm etc.; this
> > NP can be omitted although there is always the option of
> > including it;
>
> Are you sure about the "always"? I've read about Hebbrew (I don't remember
> if it was Modern Hebbrew or not) that it had two possible passive forms for
> transitive verbs, one for which the demoted agent could still be expressed
> obliquely, another where this was ungrammatical and the agent couldn't be
> expressed at all. Would such a construction be denied the name of passive
> (when it has the meaning of a passive) just because it cannot express the
> demoted agent?
>
> In my booklet on the structure of languages (where this example comes
> from), the definition of passive doesn't require that the agent must be
> able to be expressed obliquely. Indeed, it even says that in some languages
> the only possible passive form doesn't allow it.
Well, in yhe vala lakha, the passive formed by stem + -ni, is strictly
aorist, indicating that the passive has only a narrative function.
Expressing the agent isn't a focus, because yhe vala lakha can have active
with either minimal focus without or maximal focus with the |ya| topicalizer.
The presence or absence of the topicalizer is the equivalent - in single
sentences - of the use of the active to enhance or the use of the passive to
distance one's self from the action in languages such as English.
Wesley Parish
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."