Re: Active and Passive please help.

Hi!

Joe Hill wrote:
> AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!
>
> My language has no passive sentences.  I can't seem to
> translate it was called into and active sentence...
>
> Can anyone help?
Simply use an active sentence without subject.

In Tyl-Sjok, which also has no passive, you simply drop the subject if
there is none.  E.g. instead of

  `I am called Peter.'

you'd get a modified version of an active sentence like
`They call me Peter' and say:

  `Call me Peter.'
   (looks like imperative in English, but isn't in Tyl-Sjok.)

There are many such words in Tyl-Sjok, because those verbs that don't
have a controlling subject don't have any subjects.  E.g.

  `The snow is melting.'
would be:
  `Melts the snow.'
  (German: *`Den Schnee schmilzt.')

I think Chinese has traces of this, too, because `It's raining' =
`Rain is falling.' is `Xia4 yu3.' (yu3=rain is object of
xia4=down/fall).

**Henrik