Re: ergative? I don't know...

Sally Caves wrote:
> As for "antipassive," this is a term that is used mostly of
> ergative languages, as I understand it--to express "partially affected
> objects":  "He chopped at the tree," as opposed to "He chopped the tree."
Actually, antipassive is a form analogous to the passive in accusative
languages - it makes the ergative into an absolutive (A to S), while the
former absolutive is placed in some other case.  It can be used to make
the agent into the topic, in the same way that we use the passive to
topicalize the patient.  It's also used to indicate an unknown object,
analogous to our use of the patient for unknown agent.  I suppose that
partially affected objects may be covered by the antipassive, at least
in some languages, but that's not central to what the antipassive is.

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