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Re: Antipassives

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Thursday, July 17, 2003, 15:04
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. -- John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants." --Isaac Newton

Replies

Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
BP Jonsson <bpj@...>