Re: Passive and active....

> Behalf Of Barry Garcia
>
> In Saalangal, the actor and object focuses act like the active and passive
> tenses.
>
> As the passive calls attention to the reciever of the action, the object
> focus is similar to the passive voice. The object focus is used to call
> attention to the object or receiver of the action.
>
>  As the active calls attention to the performer of the action, the actor
> focus is similar. The actor focus is used to call attention to the
> performer of the action.
>
> The object focus is seen as the polite form, and is used whent alking
> about what others do (unless of course, if what another does, does not
> include an object, then the actor focus is used).
>
> Samples:
>
> - Sarakarísan ésan as kagkarís. - I ate the food.
> - Sarakarísin ésan yu kagkarís. - The food was eaten by me.
>
> So, how do all of your languages handle active and passive voice, if at
> all?
Well, amman iar is syntactically ergative.  While it has a passive form, it
is rarely used.  Like Saalangal, however, the passive in its rare
occurrences gives topical prominence to the patient while leaving the agent
either unexpressed or only obliquely referenced, thus,

active:  ner eleth ani masad ervathiel - I ate the food.
passive: eleth ani masad erimmathiel neren - The food was eaten by me.
passive: eleth ani masad immathiel - The food was eaten. (agent implied)

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, thus

active: ner eleth ani masad ervathiel - I ate the food.
antipassive: ner ervalmathiel eleth ani masad - I ate, the food.
antipassive: ner ervalmathiel eleth - I ate (patient implied)

[Note the English glosses above are approximations as English does not have
an antipassive.]

amman iar is syntactically ergative in that it imposes ergatively motivated
restrictions on coordination, relativization and subordination.  For
example, in amman iar, two clauses may be coordinated only if they contain a
coreferential NP which is in "pivot relation" to the their predicates, i.e.
in S- or P-function.  The occurrence of the correferential NP in the second
clause may then be omitted, thus

i galdran [S] erthulel eleth - Galdor came.
ir anarielle [A] eleth ani galdran [P] erthendelon - Anariel kissed Galdor.
i galdran erthulel eleth nair anarielle erthendelon - Galdor came and
Anariel kissed him.

but

i galdran [S] erthulel eleth - Galdor came.
i galdranne [A] eleth anir anariel erthendelon - Galdor kissed Anariel.

may not be coordinated since the syntactic constraints on coordination are
not met (The coreferential NP is in A-function in the second clause).  The
second clause must be cast in the antipassive voice to allow coordination,
thus

i galdran [S] ervaltendelon eleth anir anariellen _ Galdor kissed, Anariel.
i galdran erthulel eleth na ervaltendelon anir anariellen - Galdor came and
kissed Anariel.

In addition to active, passive and antipassive voices, amman iar also has
ambient, applicative, causative, reflexive and reciprocal voices.

David