Re: A few questions about linguistics concerning my new project

Nick wrote:
<<
1: The language is supposed to have ergative alignment:
I fully understand how it works in principle but the only thing that is
bothering me is antipassives. I don't understand how it works, how
can one,
when trying to make a 'passive' construct (like: 'X is hit' , when
you don't
know who or what was hitting X) you have to stress the agent in an
antipassive. If you don't know what the agent is how are you supposed to
specify it? Would you maybe say: 'Y is hit X' where the object X is
optional, Y is the agent which is specified with something other
marked then
ergative case?
 >>

You seem to be asking two different questions there:

(1) How do antipassives work?

(2) How do you deemphasize an agent in an ergative language?

To answer (2) first, I'd just drop the ergative argument.  Seems
reasonable enough:

(a) hopoko sapu.
/man sleep/
"The man's sleeping."

(b) hopokor lamu palino.
/man-ERG. pet panda/
"The man's petting the panda."

(c) lamu palino (or palino lamu).
/pet panda (panda pet)
"Someone/thing's petting the panda" or "The panda's being petted."

Seems like the only argument you need is the unmarked absolutive
argument, just as in English, you can sometimes drop out the
objects, but not the subjects.

As for (1), an antipassive simply reduces the valency of a verb.
It does the following:

(a) Turns a transitive verb to an intransitive verb.
(b) Promotes the ergative argument to the absolutive argument.
(c) Demotes the old absolutive argument, turning it into an oblique.

So, using our example above:

(d) hopokor lamu palino.
/man-ERG. pet panda/
"The man's petting the panda."

The antipassive would like this:

(e) hopoko lamuto (palinok).
/man-ABS. pet-ANTI. (panda-OBL.)/
"The man's engaged in petting (and what he's petting is the panda)."

That's how a structural antipassive would work.  Often these
things get used differently, e.g.:

(f) hopoko lamuto (palinok).
/man-ABS. pet-ANTI. (panda-OBL.)/
"The man's petting at the panda (but not very successfully or
intentionally)."

Then some linguists, based on examples like (f), go on to analyze
sentences like "He shot at the bear" in English as genuine antipassive
constructions.  Others remain skeptical.

For more info on ergativity/antipassives, go here:

http://dedalvs.free.fr/notes/ergativity.php

-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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