Re: THEORY: Verb voice

On Mon, 3 May 1999, R. Nierse wrote:

> I don''t know for sure if the example I've encountered really is a voice. I
> haven't found it in other natlangs or conlangs, it is called 'Non-control'
> and I found in Sechelt (Salishan):
> k0u-St-la-waL-L@m-n@x-am  'now we have forgotten it (and there was nothing
> we could do about it)'.
> IRR-1PL-now-forget-NON_CNTRL-1PL
>
> The -n@x- indicates that the actor has no control over the action. I was
> very much intrigued by this suffix at the time I studied the language. Are
> there any others that have examples of 'non-control'?
I wouldn't call this a "voice" in the traditional sense - viz. morphology
on the verb which indicates a manipulation of the mapping between
argument structure or semantic roles (agent, patient) and surface
grammatical relations (subject, object; nominative, absolutive; etc.).
But it's certainly an interesting phenomenon.

My conlang Tokana also marks absence of subject control: Subjects which
have conscious control over the event typically appear in the ergative
case, whereas subjects which do not have conscious control appear in
some other case - typically the dative or instrumental:

        Na      Tsion supohen        kauen
        the.Erg John  killed-the.Abs chicken
        "John killed the chicken"
                [controlled event]

        Inan     Tsionne   supohen        kauen
        the.Inst John-Inst killed-the.Abs chicken
        "John killed the chicken (by accident)"
                [uncontrolled event]

        Inai    Tsione   niokonen           kauen
        the.Dat John-Dat remembered-the.Abs chicken
        "John remembered the chicken"
                [inherently uncontrolled event]

Matt.