Re: Active languages

Patrick Littell wrote:
> They describe
> Choctaw as having neither a passive nor an antipassive, and Lezgian
> as having both. (Although Lezgian is sometimes described as ergative,
> it's active by their definition of active.) Lezgian does not appear to
> have a *morphological* passive or antipassive voice, though; it appears
> to simply allow the agent or patient to go unexpressed.
Do they run any of the standard tests for a change in grammatical
relations?  I ask, because just stating that arguments can go
unexpressed is a pretty naive way to talk about voice systems.

> Only three active languages are considered in their somewhat small sample,
> but they predict the following:
>
> No active language has a passive in which the patient takes NOM.
Georgian is counterevidence to this, at least insofar as NOM can
have any meany cross-linguistically.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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