Re: Active languages

On 8/2/05, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
> 
> Quoting Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>:
> 
> > Let me express my view that this is at least the same process
> > implemented by voices. Preventing it to be called a voice system
> > which be a missing characteristic marker on the verb.
> 
> Is there a name for a voice that drops the subject of a transitive and 
> keeps the
> object as an object?

In early work in OT-syntax, such as the aforementioned article, this is 
sometimes called "Passive2", to distinguish it from the construction 
Passive1 in which the patient "becomes" the subject. (I put "becomes" in 
quotes because within a parallel theory different voices aren't derived from 
each other or some base order; it's not treated as an object "moving" to a 
different case or position. Voices are simply treated as mappings between 
role and case, not as transformation processes.)

The best (and most used, I think) term is "Indefinite Subject Construction". 
You can find it, to name a few random examples, in Plains Cree and the 
Totonacan languages. You may define it as a voice or not-a-voice according 
to your preferred definition of voice. "Indefinite Object Construction" is 
the opposite: the object is absent and the subject remains a subject. 
English has this, of course, although it's not morphologically marked. 

-- 
Patrick Littell
PHIL205: MWF 2:00-3:00, M 6:00-9:00
Voice Mail: ext 744
Spring 05 Office Hours: M 3:00-6:00