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Re: What would you call this?

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 17, 2003, 21:37
Quoting Tim May <butsuri@...>:

> Andreas Johansson wrote at 2003-06-17 22:11:25 (+0200) > > Yza eze reimazo > > yza eze reim -azo > > 3f 3m see PAST > > "She saw him" > > > > As seen, only WO tells us that _yza_ is subject and _eze_ object - > _eze yza > > reimazo_ means "he saw her". Now, we can drop either argument, > provided we > > supply the appropriate suffix on the verb: > > > > Yza reimolazo > > yza reim -ol -azo > > 3f see PASSIVE PAST > > "She saw" > > > > Eze reimeizazo > > eze reim -eiz -azo > > 3m contact ANTIPASSIVE PAST > > "He was seen" > > > > Now, my "gut feeling" is that neither of these suffixes is changing > > any valences - they're only telling which argument has got dropped, > > the other being found in its normal place. If so, I guess they > > shouldn't properly be called "passive" and "antipassive", altho' > > I'm at a loss as what else to call them. > > > > How would you analyze these? > > > Shouldn't these be the other way around? I mean, I'm probably not > best placed to say, but they look like an antipassive (demoting > patient) and passive (demotng agent) respectively.
Damn, mixed it up. Should be: Yza reimeizazo "She saw" Eze reimolazo "He was seen" Aint that typical? One's trying to give a good example, and end up confusing oneself bad enough to make basic errors in one's own conlang ...
> I don't know that it's meaningful to say that they don't change a > valency - reimazo takes two core arguments and reimolazo only one, > yes? What does "valency" mean beyond that?
That I'm misusing the word "valency", apparently. I meant that the argument that is not dropped remains the same kind of argument, unlike the English pronoun that switches from object to subject in "She saw him" -> "He was seen".
> Is it possible to supply the dropped noun as an oblique argument?
With _-ol_ yes. I've not made up my mind whether there's a corresponding construction with _-eiz_, but there very well may be, since the language could certainly use any extra ability to move NPs around.
> Are there any syntactic structures in the language which show either a > nom/acc or erg/abs distinction, but will work on the other argument of > a transitive through use of the passive or antipassive respectively? > Examples might be reflexivization, relativization or conjunction > reduction (quoting from the table in _Describing Morphosyntax_.
The language is syntactically accusative - "he hit her and ran away" would indicate that he ran. Hm, what you're asking is whether a sentence like _eze izi nhazazo noy reimolazo_ "he cheese eat-PAST and see-PASSIVE-PAST" works for "he ate cheese and was seen", basically. I don't think so - it'd mean that the cheese was seen. You'd have to supply and additional _eze_; _eze izi nhazazo noy eze reimolazo_. Andreas

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Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>