tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Nov 25 14:30:48 2009
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Re: The topic marker -'e'
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'