Re: preferred voices?

On Sat, 23 Sep 2000, nicole perrin wrote:

> Are any of your conlangs prejudiced against the passive voice?
Valdyan doesn't really have a passive voice, only a pseudo-passive
expressed by an impersonal construction:

val.nute         custien    lea disut
king.child-nom-s frog-ill-s IMP change-PRT-3s

"The prince turned into a frog" or "The prince was turned into a
frog"; the prince's ranification was either spontaneous or caused by
person or persons unknown. We don't know, and we couldn't care less.

This kind of construction is quite usual and there's no prejudice
against it. Quite the contrary, in fact; I've just discovered that
it's also used when an inanimate subject appears where an animate one
is expected:

or.sean           val.nutea        custien    lea disut
magic.thing-acc-s king.child-acc-s frog-ill-s IMP change-PRT-3s

"The spell turned the prince into a frog"

Note that the impersonal construction takes a double accusative: both
the logical subject and the logical object. This is probably because
_lea_ is considered to be the grammatical subject, and all other
actants must be objects.

I'm writing something elaborate about this, which will appear on my
web page along with the things about the old woman who walked without
a stick and the people who didn't go to the market.

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas