[87156] in tlhIngan-Hol
Re: The topic marker -'e'
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ghunchu'wI')
Wed Nov 25 17:32:33 2009
In-Reply-To: <a1173fff0911251049v2d9179e0ia79511b123a201aa@mail.gmail.com>
From: "ghunchu'wI'" <qunchuy@alcaco.net>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:29:21 -0500
To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
Errors-to: tlhingan-hol-bounce@kli.org
Reply-to: tlhingan-hol@kli.org
On Nov 25, 2009, at 1:49 PM, Christopher Doty wrote:
>> I agree with you here. The {-lu'} can hardly be called a passive.
>
> *sigh* This is why I said *functionally* a passive: to the extent that
> passives are about the demotion of an agent, Klingon has a passive,
> because we're kicking out the agent.
If I try to follow your use of the S/A/P terminology in these
arguments about {-lu'}, I immediately encounter a blind spot. How do
you deal with "passivizing" a sentence like {bIr} that lacks an agent
in the first place? There's nothing to demote. Does that mean you
overlooked something in your analysis and it actually *isn't* a
functional passive, or is there another explanation that lets you
keep calling it one?
-- ghunchu'wI'
