[Lingtyp] demotion

[Christian Lehmann]

I thank everybody who bothered to deal with my question. I learn from 
the discussion that, by and large, the model of demotion is the 
antipassive construction. Also, while non-saturating incorporation is 
clearly a form of verb-compounding - a non-compositional process that 
has little to do with syntax -, saturating incorporation may be 
compositional and thus stand better chances to be describable by rules 
of grammar.

Both in the antipassive construction and in saturating incorporation, 
the direct object/absolutive actant position of the verb is blocked. The 
crucial difference is, however, that in the former case, some formative 
blocks the position so the undergoer cannot occupy it, while in the 
latter case, the undergoer itself blocks the slot, just as in the 
syntactically transitive construction. As I said before, one may ignore 
this difference, just concentrate on the fact that in both cases, the 
undergoer argument loses its syntactic position, and therefore subsume 
both under demotion.
-- 

Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
Rudolfstr. 4
99092 Erfurt
Deutschland

Tel.: 	+49/361/2113417
E-Post: 	christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
Web: 	https://www.christianlehmann.eu
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