Re: not un-/anti-passive

Eldin Raigmore wrote:
>
> Josh; I'd never heard of the "circumstantial
> voice" before! Does it resemble any applicative
> "voices"?  How is it different?  Is there an online
> reference to how Malagasay uses it?
It's hard to find much info about Malagasy, but it
seems to have three voices: active, passive, and
circumstantial (which I personally refer to as the
oblique). Something like this:

Active: Sarah washed the clothes with the soap.

Passive: The clothes were washed by Sarah with
the soap.

Circum: The soap washed-with by Sarah the clothes.

This raises an oblique argument to a subject which
is needed because in Malagasy the headword of a
relative clause must be the subject in that clause.

"I bought the soap, washed-with-which by Sarah
the clothes."

I believe Tagalog works like this, too, but it has a
couple more "voices" like locative and benefactive,
perhaps. This seems to be a better approach to
analyzing "trigger" languages than "triggers."

--Ph. D.

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