Re: Active languages

Date:    Tue, 26 Jul 2005 11:13:10 +0200
From:    Carsten Becker <naranoieati@...>
Subject: Active languages

> I've got two question about Active languages. First, is
> there a need for a (anti-)passive voice in an active
> language and second, is there any typical active language
> whose verbal morphology I could have a look at, except
> reading David J. Peterson's paper on active languages? I
> have begun with reading the paper a while ago but did not
> get very far because I haven't known enough about Linguistics.
> I do have Describing Morphosyntax and I'll also have a look
> there what Payne writes.
Georgian is an active language, but maybe not a typical one.
Henrik has already listed a bunch in his post.  I would like
to reemphasize what he said there about voice systems:  there
is no absolute relationship between alignment system and
voice system.  Yes, many ergative languages don't have a
passive, but some do; yes, many accusative languages don't
have an antipassive, but some do.  And many languages have
both.  (English has some lexicalized antipassives, for
example:  'hit at' versus 'hit', which function not dissimilarly.)
Besides those books, I would also look at Mithun's book on
languages of native North America, where she goes into some
detail on these matters.

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Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
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