Re: Passive and active....

> From: Nik Taylor [mailto:fortytwo@gdn.net]
>
> The Gray Wizard wrote:
> > The more important grammatical voice in amman iar is the
> antipassive which
> > not only serves to give topical prominence to the agent while
> rendering the
> > patient either unexpressed or obliquely referenced, but is
> often required to
> > meet the ergative constraints on coordination and subordination,
>
> That's the same way that Watakassi' does.  W. also has three other
> voices: reflexive, reciprocative, and one I call "Dative-Object", which
> turns the dative into an absolutive, and the absolutive (if stated) is
> made into an instrumental.  This is common in verbs like "fear" which
> must take dative for the subject, however, if the one fearing is a
> pronoun, dative-object is common (almost required), e.g:
amman iar has an applicative case that serves a similar function as your
"Dative-Object", i.e. it promotes an underlying oblique (typically DAT)
argument to derived P-function (typically ABS).  While the underlying
P-function may be expressed obliquely, it takes the DAT rather than the
INSTR, however.  This voice is typically used to focus the theme of a
ditransitive which in its canonical active form must be obliquely expressed,
i.e.

active:      alan eleth ani aldrothan erhiron narnen - He told Aldroth a
story.
             alan    eleth an aldrothan-0   erhir -o       -n narn   -en
             [A=AGT]          [P=PAT]  :ABS       :AGT/PAT    [O=THM]:DAT
             he      did      to Aldroth  tell              story

applicative: alan narn ertholhiriel eleth ani aldrothanen - He told a story
to Aldroth.
             alan  narn -0   er-tol-hir-ie      -l eleth ani aldrothan-en
             A=AGT P=THM:ABS    APPL   :AGT/THM              [OBL=PAT]:DAT
             he    story     tell                  did       to Aldroth

David