Re: Antipassive

| -----Original Message-----
| From: Jake X
| Subject: Antipassive
|
| > Antipassive: S(u)-
| What is the function of this voice?
| Jake
|

        From what I remember in the book "Describing Morphosyntax", the
antipassive voice is a way to demote the topicality of the object/patient of
a transitive verb so that the effective valance of the transitive verb is 1,
not 2 (nor 3 for transaction verbs). It's a valance decreasing operation
that leaves the subject/agent intact. The direct object takes an oblique
declension, such as dative or ablative (or whatever is appropriate for the
language).
        The example they give is that in some languages, such as Dyirbal,
verbs in subordinate clauses must have a valance of 1. So, the antipassive
is a way to put transitive verbs into such clauses. (Essentially, such
subordinate clauses must have passive or antipassive verb structures for
transitive verbs, or intransitive verbs.)

        For example, in the phrase:

        The girl who hit her brother was punished.

        "who hit her brother" is an adjectival subordinate clause. In
English, "who" is nominative/subject/agent, and "brother" is
accusative/object/patient.
        The closest antipassive construction that English would come to
would be:

        The girl, who hit at her brother, was punished.

        English doesn't have an antipassive, but the above is close. The
direct object "brother" is demoted from that position and turned into the
object of a prepositional phrase. There is no longer a direct object to the
subordinate verb "hit". "Who hit *to* her brother" could also be used to
demonstrate this, in which case "brother" would be the indirect object of
"hit".

        As a stand alone phrase, the closest would be:

        The girl was doing some hitting.

        Topicality is focused on the girl and her action. It's obvious that
she had to hit something or someone, just as the phrase, "The brother was
hit," makes it obvious that someone hit him. However, the direct object is
treated as unimportant, and can be dropped, or added in the oblique phrase
"at her brother".

        Hope that helps.

                Mike

______________________________________
Mike Karapcik   *       Tampa, FL
Network Analyst *       USF campus
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Research Center
ConlangCode: v1.1 CIT !h+ !u cG:M:R:S:G a+ y n30:3
B+++/R:Wic A+ E+ N1 Is/d K ia-:+ p-- s- m o P S----

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