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Re: Medio-passive (was: A Survey)

From:Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 1, 2003, 22:01
--- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> > the -r passive; though one could > > argue (and I think successfully) that the -r > > passive is simply a remnant of the Latin...
> One could indeed, for that is what the Latin > '3rd sing. passive' > once was - the impersonal form still found in > the Britto-Gallic > languages. It's one of several isoglosses > that have led many to think in terms of > an 'Italo-Celtic' language family.
Yep. I think that, perhaps, the learned form and the native form may have served to strengthen and reinforce the -r in the face of esser + PP, thus allowing it to survive. On the other hand, I could simply wave me magic wand and say "the bards did it!", considering that throughout history they have introduced any number of foreign and archaic grammatical forms (for their own pleasure). A few of them made it into the common language. On the third hand, if the bards took up or continued using the -r forms, then it could easily be injected into normal speech at any time.
> The Latin passive was a secondary formation > derived partly by extending the impersonal -r; > and it never > extended beyond tenses formed on the infectum > ("present > stem"). The perfect tenses were formed, as you > know, analytically with verb 'to be" as > auxiliary.
Yes. I think the Kerno must then have dropped the idea of -r = passive at some point. Even in the few verbs that have the Látin ending (-toer, rather than the presumably native -oer), the usual meaning is impersonal; while the passive is secondary. I don't remember now why I gave it two different endings. Any thoughts on the ethical dative in Brithenig and other British Romance? Padraic. ===== - Ke goueneremos dois Noeves, lis Apossoeil et lis Martheir; ke merite-nos la perdunació per y sew oriacèn - A Ddon ten mezer! -- Ill Bethisad -- <http://www.geocities.com/elemtilas/ill_bethisad> Come visit The World! -- <http://www.geocities.com/hawessos/> .