Re: What would you call this?

Quoting Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>:
> Quoting Tim May <butsuri@...>:
> > 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".
Subject and object relations are not what were talking about
really, though.  What valence-changing constructions do is
alter the *argument-structure* of verbs, promoting or demoting
agents or patients from their prototypical positions as specified
by the verb.  The syntactic structure is not changed in the sense
that the NP-1 of intransitive will still pattern like NP-1 of
transitives (in a nom-acc system).  But the argument structure
is totally changed in passive constructions.

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