Re: Antipassives

Quoting John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> Christophe Grandsire scripsit:
>
> > If you mean that nominative languages always have a passive voice, it may
> > be a an exaggerated claim, but it's true that I don't know of any
> > nominative language without a passive voice (even Japanese as one). But
> I'm
> > pretty sure you can find examples (Mandarin maybe?).
>
> Randy LaPolla has argued convincingly (at least he convinced me :-) )
> that in Chinese the whole concept of "S, A, and P" makes no sense, that
> Chinese is neither accusative nor ergative nor active, and that case roles
> are assigned on a purely pragmatic basis.
>
> In particular, "The man-NOM dropped the melon-ACC and burst" has
> to mean that the man burst, in an accusative language; "the man-ERG
> hit the wall-ABS and shouted" has to mean that the wall shouted, in a
> (syntactically) ergative language.  Chinese-speakers can't believe that
> other people are *forced* to interpret these sentences thus: they take
> their literal equivalents to mean, naturally enough, that the melon
> burst and the man shouted.
What about sentences where both readings make sense? "He hit her and ran away"
seems to be some kind of standard example.

                                           Andreas

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