Re: antipassives in Tokana (long...)

At 3:10 PM -0500 2/5/99, JOEL MATTHEW PEARSON wrote:

>Snip
These following seem to be the really interesting bits (though the
explanation that I smipped was great!).

>The antipassive construction is used in a number of contexts.  For
>example, if the direct object is not affected (in the usual way) by
>the action, then it will normally appear in the dative case with
>the verb in the antipassive:
>
>        Na      Tsion kahte-m
>        the:Erg John  hit-me:Abs
>        "John hit me"
>
>        Ne      Tsion u-kahte-ma
>        the:Abs John  Antipass-hit-me:Dat
>        "John did some hitting at me"
>The second sentence might be used if John took a swing at me and
>missed, or if John hit me but it had no effect on me (e.g. I just
>ignored it).
>
Is this a variation of the partial effect usage, or are there some
differences? Are there any verbs that can't take the antipassive? Of
course, given that it's a new construction, it's greedy for us to expect
that you've had time to discover the lexical ramifications...

>The antipassive is also used if the direct object is only partially
>affected by the action.  Compare:
etc.

>The antipassive construction can also be used to indicate imperfective
>(or progressive) aspect.  Since "John is building the house" entails
>"John has built part of the house", the semantic extension from partial
>affectedness of the object to progressive aspect seems natural to me
>(and has precedents in other languages):
>
>        Ne      Tsion u-tiespe       katia-i
>        the:Abs John  Antipass-built house-Dat
>        "John is/was building a house"
>        or "John is/was building houses"
This is cool. I've been discovering ergativity in Toono, and though I think
I want to split it between nouns and pronouns, I don't want cases. I'd love
to steak this progressive usage, but I've put a moorphological progressive
in, so I  don't need it (or want that particular kind of redundancy).

>The antipassive construction also feeds nominalisation.  Consider:
>
>        iasa      "to eat"
>        iasi      "the one who is eaten"
>
>        ukiasa    "to do some eating"
>        ukiasi    "the one who eats"
>
>In the same series as the antipassive prefix "u(k)-" is the prefix
>"uma(k)-", which forms reflexive/reciprocal predicates.  As with "u(k)-",
>adding "uma(k)-" to the verb causes the underlying absolutive direct
>object to drop, and the ergative subject to change into an absolutive
>subject:
Totally sensible! I was wondering how this might interact with nominals,
and then I started to read this! I like it.

>
>What do people think?
It seems very nice and sensible, and seems clearer to me than the old way,
too. Though I think that's more my (old) failing than your (new-found)
virtue. Tokana continues great to read about and learn about.

   -- David
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Boston University Computer Science        \  Sr. Analyst
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