Re: Phaleran voices: active, passive, antipassive, etc.

Nik Taylor wrote:

> "Thomas R. Wier" wrote:
> >     Antipassive
> >     Syasei             [eotwo]   gethabronni
> >     PL.child-ABS [3SgDat] see.DETR.3PlPfRe.S
> >     'The children looked [at him/her]'
> >     (Demoted patient takes dative case if used in the sentence)
>
> Could this be interpreted as "The children were looked at"?
Ag! You're right: it's ambiguous if you do not explicitly mention the demoted
patient, and that won't do.  What's more, I should have realized that antipassives
usually are marked explicitly and distinctly from other voices.  Here's a possible
fix: the antipassive uses the the same detransitive suffix -(a)bro- as the passive,
but it also uses a verbal prefix su-/sw-. E.g.

    Syasei             [eotwo]   sugethabronni
    PL.child-ABS [3SgDat] ANT.see.DETR.3PlPfRe.S
    'The children looked [at him/her]'

Otherwise, it still marks the demoted patient with the dative case. In my recent
changes, I've been looking for the right balance of ambiguity and expressiveness:
no language is completely unambiguous, but the point of a language is, afterall,
communication.  I think this keeps to the spirit of my earlier decision, and seems
evolutionarily reasonable as well.

> > Any questions or comments?
>
>
> Very interesting use of case.
Thanks! I'm trying to load up the cases with interesting uses.

===================================
Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

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