Main description:
The volume's central concern is grammatical voice, traditionally known as diathesis, and its classical manifestations as Active, Middle, and Passive. While numerous problems in the meaning, syntax, and morphology of these categories in Indo-European remain unsolved, their counterparts in more exotic languages have raised still further questions. What discourse functions and diachronic events unite 'voice' as a recognizable phenomenon across languages? How are they typically grammaticalized? What stages do children go through in learning them? How does 'voice' link up with ergativity and with other categories and constructions such as the Inverse and the Antipassive?
The authors in this volume have different perspectives on these problems: they discuss voice, e.g., from a typological-universal view, in relation to language acquisition and to ergativity, and from diachronic and cross-linguistic perspectives.
Table of contents:
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Active Voice and Middle Diathesis
- Voice, Aspect and Aktionsart
- A Functional Typology of Antipassives
- Voice
- The Rise of the English GET-Passive
- Passive Participles across Languages
- Middle Voice, Transitivity, and the Elaboration of Events
- On 'Middle Voice' Verbs in Mandarin
- The Implications of Ergativity for a Philippine Voice System
- A Tale of Two Passives in Irish
- The Tupí-Guaraní Inverse
- Passives and Alternatives in Children's Narratives in English, Spanish, German, and Turkish
- Index of Languages
- Index of Subjects
The volume's central concern is grammatical voice, traditionally known as diathesis, and its classical manifestations as Active, Middle, and Passive. While numerous problems in the meaning, syntax, and morphology of these categories in Indo-European remain unsolved, their counterparts in more exotic languages have raised still further questions. What discourse functions and diachronic events unite 'voice' as a recognizable phenomenon across languages? How are they typically grammaticalized? What stages do children go through in learning them? How does 'voice' link up with ergativity and with other categories and constructions such as the Inverse and the Antipassive?
The authors in this volume have different perspectives on these problems: they discuss voice, e.g., from a typological-universal view, in relation to language acquisition and to ergativity, and from diachronic and cross-linguistic perspectives.
Table of contents:
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Active Voice and Middle Diathesis
- Voice, Aspect and Aktionsart
- A Functional Typology of Antipassives
- Voice
- The Rise of the English GET-Passive
- Passive Participles across Languages
- Middle Voice, Transitivity, and the Elaboration of Events
- On 'Middle Voice' Verbs in Mandarin
- The Implications of Ergativity for a Philippine Voice System
- A Tale of Two Passives in Irish
- The Tupí-Guaraní Inverse
- Passives and Alternatives in Children's Narratives in English, Spanish, German, and Turkish
- Index of Languages
- Index of Subjects