Re: Voices

 --- "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> wrote:
> Except that some languages have explicitly distinct
> reflexive and middle morphology, e.g. Meskwaki.
> Voices in general alter the valency of the verb
> (increasing or decreasing), while reflexives and
> middles are quite diverse in their transitivity.
Ahh. I was curious about the valency operations of the
German 'sich' expressions; many times, it didn't look
like that altered the valency very much at all:

'Er schleppte die Paketen den Berg hinauf'
he.ACT dragged the.parcels.PAT the.mountain upwards
'He dragged the parcels up the mountain.'
= bivalent

'Er schleppte sich den Berg hinauf.'
he.ACT dragged himself.PAT the.mountain upwards
'He dragged himself up the mountain.'
= still bivalent

Doesn't look like a voice to me.

 --- "Steven Williams" <feurieaux@...> wrote:
> > English has some constructions that look
> > suspiciously applicative
 --- "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> wrote:
> Could you give examples? English AFAIK doesn't have
> anything
> like the applicatives of Bantu or Algonquian
> languages.
You know, I thought about that and I couldn't come up
with anything that wasn't so construed as not to be
ridiculous. I thought about 'he undermined the wall'
as one, but that seems like an anomaly, since
constructions like that often have entirely different
lexical meanings; consider the difference between 'go'
(motion, intransitive) and 'undergo' (experience,
transitive).

I retract my statement, after a bit of thought on the
matter.

> Hundreds of Bantu languages have applicatives. In
> fact, it's one of the things they're famous for (in
> addition to their tonal phonology).
Do you know of any good reference material on the
Bantu languages? I've been extremely curious about them.