Re: help: Naming Trentish voice markers

From: "JS Bangs" <jaspax@...>
> I thought I'd give this a shot, since this system of voice markers is
> really fascinating, and noone else appeared to have much to say.
Yay!

> _Describing Morphosyntax_ by Payne (easily the most
> interesting chapter, for me at least),
This book is on my "get" list already... hrf

> >           Agentfocus Patientfocus marking
> >            high       low             zero
> Active, as Eng "Fire burns paper."
>
> >            high       no patient   tli-
> Unergative, as Eng "Fire burns." (If I remember my syntax correctly, this
> is actually what syntacticians call such sentences in English.)
Okay.

> >            high       agt=pat      Uk-
> Middle or Reflexive.  The two are actually different: The sentence you
> glossed as "I brush my teeth" using this affix was middle, but "The teeth
> brush themselves" would be reflexive. You can conflate them if you want,
> though.
Hmm.  I think they are "conflated".

> >            no agent   high            zero
> Unaccusative, as Eng "Paper burns." I *know* that this is the proper name
> for such sentences in English.
Okay.

> >            agt=pat    high         (unattested.. *Uk- ?)
> Middle (again, although it seems to me that if agt=pat, the difference
> between agent focus and patient focus is pretty weak.)
Well, this is true, but more true for reflexives than for middles.  I wasn't
sure if it worked when I wrote the first mail, but I know it does now.   You
could have:

    (ñypa) enk'am Uklamenñy
    enk'apa Uklamenñy

...where the first emphasizes me doing it, and the second emphasizes my teeth
being done.

But if it was reflexive, I don't kn... hmm.   Actually I do know, I've done this
already... the reflexive words are more adverb than pronoun, .. follow the verb
and don't inflect, so you can't really say whether they're highly focused or
not.

Thanks!

    *Muke!
--
http://www.frath.net/