Re: Voice question
From: | Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> |
Date: | Tuesday, December 30, 2003, 19:24 |
takatunu is misattributing here; I did not wrote the piece he's quoting. I
don't remember who did, unfortunately. Robert Jung?
Andreas
Quoting takatunu <takatunu@...>:
> Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
>
> > I ask because I'm currently working on a language that has strict word
> > order (SOV, S-PO-SO-V for ditransitives), and a couple of voice
> > suffixes: a passive that demotes the subject and promotes the object(s)
> > (of transitives; intransitives end up ambient), and something I've been
> > calling an "antipassive/applicative" that demotes the primary object
> > (and promotes the secondary object to primary object position in
> > ditransitives). I'm not sure how plausible this is. It's supposed to be
> > like the difference between "He gave the dog a bone" and "He gave a bone
> > (to the dog)" but marked with a suffix.
>
> Very plausible indeed and exists in the best possible IAL---Indonesian (of
> course :-))
> That was part of a recent thread, I think--and I gave the example of the
> Indonesian suffixes -kan/-i.
>
> Petani me-nanam-i sawah. The peasant plants the paddy.
> Petani me-nanam(-kan) nasi. The peasant plants the rice.
> Sawah di-tanam-i (dengan) nasi oleh petani. The paddy is planted (with) rice
> by the peasant.
> Nasi di-tanam(-kan) di sawah oleh petani. The rice is planted in the paddy
> by the peasant.
>
> There's also a very handy resultive passive:
> Sawah ter-tanam. The paddy is "planted up".
>
> BUT I wish Indonesian was more consistant enough to allow the following:
> *Sawah ter-tanam-i.
> *Nasi ter-tanam-kan.
>
> OBCONLANG
>
> After trying a hundred tricks I ended up doing exactly the same in my
> conlang (although the suffixes and clitics change their endings every second
> day):
>
> Kitali-pomiki a milamilato-tai pasila. The peasant plants the paddy.
> Kitali-pomiki a milamilato(-nai) pitona. The peasant plants the rice.
> Pasila a mi-milamilato-tai (ipai) pitona ikai kitali-pomiki. The paddy is
> planted (with) rice by the peasant.
> Pitona a mi-milamilato(-nai) itai pasila ikai kitali-pomiki. The rice is
> planted in the paddy by the peasant.
>