Re: Active languages

On 7/26/05, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:
> 
> 
> The languages I have seen mentioned most often are Lakhota,
> Central and Eastern Pomo, and Guaraní.

In their seminal paper on case and voice systems, Legendre, Raymond, and 
Smolensky (1993) describe Lakhota as having an antipassive voice with wa-, 
in which the agent takes NOM and the patient is absent. 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.

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.
No active language has indicates passive by reversal (in which the agent 
takes ABS and the patient NOM.)
No active language has an antipassive in which the agent takes ABS.

I can't say one way or the other whether or not this would hold for a larger 
sample. They seem to be reasonable predictions, at least.
-- 
Patrick Littell
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