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Thanks, Bill – I agree with all this. Indeed, the choice of
terminology is not straightforward and involves many considerations.
We don't want our technical terms to be polysemous, but we tend to
balk at too many new terms (I've had reviewers commenting negatively
on my submissions because of my neologisms).<br>
<br>
But I wanted to mention that I recently formulated a universal that
requires the definition of "passive" that I proposed earlier (in
terms of verb coding):<br>
<br>
"Universal 13<br>
If a passive alternation is sensitive to givenness, then the passive
alternant tends to be used when the original A is not given
information and/or the original P is not new information."
(Haspelmath 2021: 155)<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/ling-2020-0252/html">https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/ling-2020-0252/html</a><br>
<br>
If "passive" is defined functionally (as in Givón 1994), then this
tendency needs to be formulated quite differently. I'm not saying
that this is impossible, and I'm not even quite sure that the
universal is true. But what I like about Universal 13 is that it is
simply a special instance of a far more general universal (the
role-reference association universal, Haspelmath 2021: 125), which
also subsumes differential object marking and many other
generalizations.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 23.03.21 um 19:56 schrieb William
Croft:<br>
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Dear all,
<div><br>
</div>
<div> I'm afraid I will extend this discussion a bit
longer...The fundamental issue is that in defining comparative
concepts, one has to draw sharp boundaries on gradual
diachronic processes that lead to synchronic continua of
typological diversity. And then one has to choose terms for
comparative concepts that in many cases were devised for
non-typological theories based on a small, genetically and
geographically narrow set of languages (Western European, East
Asian, Middle Eastern, South Asian, to name some prominent
grammatical traditions). There is no ideal solution, even
among those who fully agree with the above statements.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> To elaborate a little bit: Martin's intuition about
"passive", and the intuitions of many about defining a
"construction", is that there should be dedicated morphosyntax
for the function of the "construction". There was already an
objection to this intuition in this thread, saying that
multifunctional "passive" morphemes should not be excluded.
More generally, a dedicated construction is a late stage in
the constructionalization process. The first step is
recruiting another construction, that is, recruiting a
morphosyntactic form used for some related function. Then the
recruited construction is gradually adapted to its new
function, diverging from the form used for the original
function.
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> Recruitment is the basic strategy that starts the
process towards a "dedicated" construction for a particular
function. It's a gradual process. Any choice to delimit a
comparative concept beyond the initial recruitment is
arbitrary. The definition of a "passive" construction (in my
terms) in terms of any form used to express the function is
actually the least arbitrary choice -- except that functions
(conceptual space) also form a continuum, so dividing that
continuum is also arbitrary. But it's necessary for practical
reasons, so we can talk about the phenomena we're studying.
This is what language is about.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> And language is also about using shared terms in a
community. A typological theory of, say, grammatical voice
could invent entirely new terms because the "legacy terms" are
not typological. But it's not like non-typological theories
have a single agreed-upon definition of "passive", or
"subject", or pretty much any other important theoretical
concept. So recruiting the terms for a typological theory and
defining them differently is not abnormal, though if it's too
different then a new term may be better. (We may disagree in
particular cases.) And in some cases there is continuity
between the functional analysis proposed by non-typologists
and the functional comparative concept that is useful for
typology.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> I think there's another reason that typologists
broadened traditional terms to the construction, rather than
just the strategy for the construction typical of Western
European languages. The point was to find (implicational etc.)
universals that hold across all languages. So excluding many
languages that don't use a particular strategy from the
category in question is not helpful for that purpose.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> I don't expect we'll all agree on the choice of terms.
For "relative clause construction", I have restricted the
definition to modification by action concepts; so modification
by property concepts is excluded. There are also theoretical
considerations. For instance, I believe that grammatical voice
is about the interplay between the relative
salience/topicality of participants and their semantic
(force-dynamic) interactions in an event. From that point of
view, constructions in the functional domain of voice should
be defined in terms of relative topicality of participants and
by their force-dynamic interactions in the event.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> I just added the (draft) Glossary to the (draft)
chapters of "Morphosyntax" that I have posted on my webpage
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.unm.edu/~wcroft/WACpubs.html">http://www.unm.edu/~wcroft/WACpubs.html</a>), to give an idea of
how I have constructed comparative concepts for many
constructions.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Bill</div>
<br>
</div>
<hr style="display:inline-block;width:98%" tabindex="-1">
<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt"
face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b>
Lingtyp <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org"><lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org></a> on
behalf of Bohnemeyer, Juergen <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu"><jb77@buffalo.edu></a><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, March 23, 2021 8:30 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Martin Haspelmath
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:martin_haspelmath@eva.mpg.de"><martin_haspelmath@eva.mpg.de></a><br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org">LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org"><LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org></a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Double-marked passive</font>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="BodyFragment"><font size="2"><span
style="font-size:11pt;">
<div class="PlainText"> [EXTERNAL]<br>
<br>
Martin, I don’t want to extend this discussion beyond its
best-by date, but the example you cite...<br>
<br>
> So the reason I would opt for the form-based
definition of "passive" (as opposed to the function-based
definitions favoured by Bohnemeyer and Givón-Croft) is
that the term "passive" is generally used for a strategy,
in actual usage. It would be very odd to say that a
sentence with a fronted object and focused subject like
German "Den Mann hat der LÖWE gesehen" (= 'The man was
seen by the LION') is a passive construction.<br>
<br>
… would not meet the definition of ‘demotion’ I was
assuming in my definition of ‘passive':<br>
<br>
> A passive is a construction that combines with a
causative description and whose semantic impact is the
demotion of the causer while retaining the causative
meaning.<br>
<br>
I would define ‘demotion’ such that the definition
presupposes a default assignment of the highest-ranked
semantic role to the subject or pivot (the highest-ranked
syntactic argument position). Demotion is then an
operation that blocks this default assignment. In your
example, the highest-ranked role is the experiencer, and
it is assigned to the syntactic subject, so there’s no
passive construction involved by my definition.<br>
<br>
Via this definition of ‘demotion’, which involves a mix of
semantic and syntactic properties (it is a form-meaning
mapping property), the definition of ‘passive’ acquires
enough syntactic anchoring to clearly target ‘strategies’,
as opposed to mere meanings, while still avoiding the
apparent pitfalls of including a purely formal property
such as verb-coding in the definition.<br>
<br>
Best — Juergen<br>
<br>
--<br>
Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>
Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>
University at Buffalo<br>
<br>
Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus<br>
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260<br>
Phone: (716) 645 0127<br>
Fax: (716) 645 3825<br>
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Web: <a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</a><br>
<br>
Office hours will be held by Zoom. Email me to schedule a
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specifically for remote office hours.<br>
<br>
There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets
In<br>
(Leonard Cohen)<br>
<br>
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<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522">https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522</a></pre>
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