passive/causative homonymy

David Gil gil at EVA.MPG.DE
Fri Sep 16 12:21:16 UTC 2011


What about English "get"?
> Passive:
> /tere         inenggi         mi-ni            jakûn     morin     
>            hûlha-*bu*-fi/
> that         day               1SG-GEN     eight      horse:NOM      
> steal-*PASS*-PFV:CNV
> 'On that day my eight horses were stolen (by bandits).'
On that day my eight horses got stolen
> Causative:
> /bi                morin    be        ule-*bu*-me/
> 1SG:NOM   horse    ACC     drink-*CAUS*-IPFV:CNV
> 'I let the horse drink (water).'
I got the horse to drink

David


-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550119
Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/



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