Re: C'ali update: Split-S cross-referencing, agentive pivot

Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> wrote:

> Actually, C'ali is like English is this respect, since "run off"
> is an agentive intransitive verb.
Oh my! You're absolutely right. Sorry.

> > and there's one that could solve the problem, the antipassive,
> > which makes a vi-P (intransitive verb with patientive subject)
> > from a vt (transitive verb).
>
> What you're describing here is the standard definition of a
> passive, actually, not an antipassive at all.
I didn't explain myself well. The antipassive demotes both
arguments -- A becomes P and P becomes oblique (passive voice
demotes A, not P, to oblique). Then also "run off" is not
transitive, so it's my mistake again. I must have been asleep
or drunk when I wrote that... :)

> > >    *"The woman died and [she] shot at the small game."
> >
> > Same here on "shot". The antipassive cannot take a vi-A verb,
> > but it's easy to make vi-A > vt using another voice, the
> > applicative, with a particle that indicates allativity or
> > goal.
>
> Hmm.  I'm not sure if I'm following you:   with "vi-A > vt"
> do you mean it would make an agentive intransitive *into* a
> transitive verb or *from* a transitive verb? What you wrote
> implies "into", but antipassives are normally considered to
> be "from".
My idea was as follows: the original verb "shot" (vi-A) can
take an oblique complement (the goal). An applicated version
of this verb could incorporate this oblique complement as the
patient (A-shots_at-P). Then, using the antipassive as described
above, you can make the subject into a patient and turn the
added patient into an oblique, again. Thus you will have two
patientive intransitive verbs, "die" and "*shot", with the
same subject ("the woman").

In any case, I was playing with those wonderful newfound voice
operators and didn't see that it was quite easier to do as follows:

    Namr     hwalon  na  namr  ye dúzeso tíg     stiaton.
    woman(P) 3s-died and woman A  game-O towards 3s-shot

    Namr     hwalon  na  dúzes kos gye     stiatton.
    woman(P) 3s-died and game  P   APP:DAT 3s-shot_at-3s

leaving "the woman" implied as the subject in the second
verb, at the expense of marking |dúzes| 'game' explicitly
as a patient.

> >     1. kapos 'A-speaks' (basic form)
> >     2. kappos 'A-says-P' (APP:OBJ = discourse topic = zero mark)
> >     3. gye kappos 'A-tells-P' (APP:DAT = hearer = |gye|)
> >     4. har kappos 'A-quotes-P' (APP:ABL = source = |har|)
> ...
> So, these are not bound to the head?
What does it mean to be bound to the head? If you mean the applicative
particles, they are similar to those used in English for phrasal verbs;
they can stray a bit away from it, but not much. Most times they're
(en)cliticized to it, and in some registers they displace the patientive
mark |kos| (see example above).

> Another alternative to avoid the pivot is to have derivational
> (not inflectional) pairs of intransitives, which differ only in how
> they assign case to their single NP, agentive or patientive.  Indeed,
> they need not even be morphologically related; they could simply be
> suppletive.
I'm planning on a mixture of those two, yes. Suppletion for some,
derivation for most, especially in the form of a "volitional" mark
(credits to Sally Caves), which makes e. g. "listen" from "hear".

> (I say this hoping I've understood what you mean by "unergative
> voice".  You seem to be using terminology in ways that are not
> always canonical or widely used.)
Probably. :) I understood unergative as agentive-intransitive, but
maybe that's not the whole issue?

> > Another idea: an "inversive" voice that exchanges the patient
> > and an oblique complement of a vi-P, using applicative particles.
>
> Yes, this is an interesting feature of some Bantu languages.
I stole from English actually: "This bed sleeps two people". Though
that, of course, is rather restricted and idiosyncratic.


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/nyh/index.html
  "The future is all around us, waiting, in moments
   of transition, to be born in moments of revelation.
   No one knows the shape of that future or where it
   will take us. We know only that it is always born
   in pain."  -- G'Kar quoting G'Quon, in "Babylon 5"