tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sat Nov 15 04:14:19 1997
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impersonal verbs (was: Re: ghunlu'wI')
- From: "Anthony.Appleyard" <[email protected]>
- Subject: impersonal verbs (was: Re: ghunlu'wI')
- Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 12:13:58 GMT
- Organization: Materials Science Centre
- Priority: normal
"William H. Martin" <[email protected]> wrote:-
> ... You can't have an intransitive verb in the passive voice. I know. I
> tried. ... So, I agree that {-lu'} is not always the same thing as passive
> voice, ...
You can in Latin: from the intransitive verb {ire}: active {it} = "he/she/it
goes"; passive {itur} is an established usage = "unspecified is gone", "one
goes", "a journey is made".
The pronoun prefixes in {Dalegh} / {Daleghlu'} seem to show that {X-lu'} is
somewhere between a pure impersonal and a pure passive. {qoreQ Daleghlu'} =
"unspecified sees you, Korax"; moving the object of an impersonal transitive
verb to the subject's position e.g. would be about the only thing needed to
turn this into a true passive **{Daleghlu' qoreQ} "you, Korax, are seen".
As an oddity, French "il s'agit de X" = "the matter of X has arisen" is
a reflexive impersonal verb.