Re: Mediopassive/labile verbs; was: very confused - syntax question

On Tue, 6 Jul 1999, Sally Caves wrote:

> Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
> > Voice normally means some type of morphological marking or analytical
> > construction that shows whether the subject is agent or patient or
> > both.
>
> And thus "middle" would mean that the subject is both?  This is where I
> have missed the point.  "I wash" is also "me wash"?  That makes perfect
> sense.
To me as well. Valdyan does this with the reflexive: obvious verbs
like _le cyla_ "to wash", _le grela_ "to shave", but also less
obvious ones like _le rada_ "to make up one's mind" (literally "to
swear to oneself"), _le tisa_ "to do the right thing" (literally "to
serve oneself"), _le loda_ "to presume" (literally "to favour
oneself").

It's also possible, of course, to wash or shave someone else, but
swearing to someone else, serving someone else, and even favouring
someone else are very different things than their reflexive
counterparts.

Many verbs of motion also take this construction: _le dena_ "to go"
("to put oneself somewhere"), _le fula_ "to set out, to leave" ("to
take oneself away"), _le mosta_ "to come" ("to get oneself"), _le
mura_ "to lie down" ("to push oneself over, to lay oneself down" from
_mur_ "flat, supine").

_Le_ is a generic *object* pronoun that resumes the *subject* of the
main clause; when it's in the main clause itself, it's reflexive:

Ferin na  le  grelat
Ferin NEG RFL shaves

"Ferin doesn't shave" (i.e. either he has a beard or he is too young
to shave)

Radan na  learne  le  grelat
Radan NEG himself RFL shaves

"Radan doesn't shave himself" (i.e. someone else shaves him)

and when it's in a subordinate clause it's resumptive:

Semte         rastinan dilat  alea cul  le  dilayt     puret
gifted-person people   treats all  like RES they-treat wants-irr

"A gifted person treats all people as he would want them to treat him"

Here _le_ goes all the way back to _semte_, and it can't be called
"reflexive" though it clearly refers to the subject of the main
clause.

This is the example I was looking for earlier, Jennifer, but
it doesn't seen to illustrate the point I was trying to make then,
though it illustrates the point I'm trying to make now: that Valdyan
uses the reflexive as a kind of middle voice, and I strongly suspect
that when I find a word for "win a prize" it will be reflexive.

   Irina

            Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
                     irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
       http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/index.html (English)
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)