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Stative passive

From:Carsten Becker <post@...>
Date:Sunday, December 28, 2003, 20:45
Hello!

I've once had for some years a German/English teacher who studied Hindi. In
a lesson about passives she also said something about how weird Hindi forms
passives. Because this is some five years ago and I did not have the
slightest idea of grammar then, I did not understand anything (I always
hated learning grammar, and she was too keen in teaching us poor pupils
German and English grammar). So for filling this hole for conlanging
purposes (might be helpful), I wanted to ask if someone knows about how
Hindi forms its passive. I already looked for grammars on the web, but I
only found "Learn how to read/write Devanagari" and such.

A second question: In German, we've got a "Vorgangspassiv"
(actional/active?! passive) and a "Zustandspassiv" (stative passive). That's
the difference between "The door is closed" (done by somebody) and "The door
is closed" (state of being). Is it really necessary to think about this in
conlanging or is one passive enough to express both.
And what about "The soup cooks"? It does not cook itself, and it is not
cooked by anyone, it just cooks. Because I'm working on a trigger language
at the moment (oh wonder! but hey, it was me who started the
trigger-language-boom again, actually!): There wouldn't be an agent here,
right? There is no cook, or is "the soup" the agent and a patient is
missing?

I've found a Tagalog grammar on the web and will look up those things
above - tomorrow. Here, it's 09:40pm... I don't feel like looking up
anything anymore now.

Have a nice day/evening,
Carsten

Replies

Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>
Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...>
Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>