Re: Active again.

Daniel Andreasson Vpc-Work sikyal:

> Markus Miekk-oja skrev:
>
> > > Some sort of voice, like Henrik suggested, would perhaps be possible. I'm
> > > eager to see what you, Henrik, can come up with!
>
> > It's called antipassive - making an intransitive verb to behave like a
> > transitive one, taking an AGT instead of PAT as subject -
> > She:AGT hit him:PAT and fell:ANTIP, or, She:AGT ran and fell:ANTIP
>
> Yes, I know of the antipassive. But what it does is demoting the
> object of a transitive clause, unless the definition of the
> antipassive is wider than I know. So you make intransitive clauses
> out of transitive ones, just like with the passive voice. Just
> the other way around, so to say.
If I remember "Describing Morphosyntax" correctly, this is properly called
a "switch". He gives a couple of examples that behave exactly like what
you describe here--swapping the normal valency of the verbs.

> What you *could* use the antipassive for in the above examples
> is demoting the object in the first clause (him:PAT) to an
> oblique case. This wouldn't be very useful though, because
> case-marking in Piata isn't so much about transitivity, but
> about control. The "subject" of 'hit' is marked as AGT regardless
> of its being transitive or intransitive, because the hitter is
> in control. And the "subject" of 'fall' is always PAT, because
> falling isn't something you control (at least not in this case).
>
> So, what you would end up with is this:
>
> She:AGT hit:ANTIPASSIVE (at him:OBL) and [she:PAT] fell.
>
> The problem with the "subject" of both verbs taking different
> case-marking remains.
Don't do this. I really liked your previous solution (with the morpheme
labeled SWAP), and the antipassive construction seems far less elegant and
interesting.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

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