Re: preferred voices?

On Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 04:45:39PM -0700, Marcus Smith wrote:
[snip]
> Yes, the subject of a passive would be marked as a patient/object.  But is
> that all there is to being a subject, case?  Telek is active, and here is a
> small list of uses for the passive:
Oh. So Telek is both active and has a passive construction? that's
interesting...

[snip]
> 2.  Keeping the focus of the conversation on a single entity, whether or
> not is an agent or patient in any given sentence.  (Notice the different
> between: "I have a friend name John.  John was hit by a car" vs. "I have a
> friend named John.  A car hit John."  They have the same meaning, but the
> focus is different.)
Interesting. Focus in my conlang is achieved by word order -- case
markings remaing the same. For example:
1)      manga'     Kyy'kh     epitru'
        horse(org) harm(verb) Peter(rcp)
        "The horse harmed Peter."
2)      epitru'    manga'     Kyy'kh
        Peter(rcp) horse(org) harm
        "It is Peter who is harmed by the horse."

IIRC, Gevey (by Rik) has a similar focusing system using word ordering.

> 3.  Allowing one to say what happened to someone else, when the perpetrator
> is not known without recourse to structures like "Someone hit John".  (ie,
> the focus stays on John in the passive, as in #2).  This is useful for
> cases like "John got crushed" but I don't know if the "crusher" was a car,
> tree, boulder, etc.
In my conlang, the agent would simply be omitted. See my other post for
examples.

> A lang that does not allow inanimate agents would have a difficult time
> saying something like "A boulder crushed my car."  But "My car was crushed,
> it was a boulder's fault" -- that's simple to do.  This isn't an issue for
> Telek, since it does allow inanimate agents.
[snip]

My conlang is very free when it comes to which nouns should go with the
verb. Any noun can be marked for any case, and nouns can be omitted
freely. Examples:

1)      epitr0'    buy'jh 3lymo3'n     biz3tau'.
        Peter(org) give   flowers(cvy) woman(rcp)
        "Peter gives flowers to the woman."

2)      buy'jh 3lymo3'n biz3tau'.
        "Flowers are given to the woman."

3)      epitr0' buy'jh 3lymo3'n.
        "Peter gives flowers [to someone]*"
        [*Note: the verb is in the deliberative perfective, which excludes
        a general interpretation of this sentence "Peter gives flowers (in
        general)" -- the marking on the verb indicates the existence of
        the object, which is omitted.]

4)      buy'jh biz3tau'.
        "[Something] was given to the woman."
5)      buy'jh 3lymo3n.
        "The flowers were given."
6)      epitri' buy'jh biz3tau'.
        "Peter gives [something] to the woman."


T