[Lingtyp] Transitive verbs with both active and passive readings

[Wu Jianming]

Dear Randy

    The concept of nouns, verbs, voice, and transitivity indeed involves matching content and forms in language.  In Chinese, the expression "chicken not eat" can carry the same meaning as "chicken not eaten" or "chicken not eating" without a specific context. This implies that the active and passive content of voice, which determines how the verb relates to the subject, does exist in Chinese. However, within a known context, the expression forms can be omitted or become redundant.
   On the other hand, using constructions like "bei + Agent" or "ba + Patient" provides a better way to encode both the content and forms of voice in Chinese, particularly when necessary. This showcases the flexibility and uniqueness of the language in conveying meaning.
So, in Chinese, when it comes to voice, we indeed have both the content side and the expression side of voice, with constructions like "bei +A" , “ba +P” or the basic AVP order being utilized as needed.  But for an isolated NP+VP construction without a context, the active or passive status of the verb is sometimes ambiguous.

Regards,

Jianming Wu

Shanghai International Studies University


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From: Randy J. LaPolla<mailto:randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
Sent: 2023年7月27日 22:04
To: Sergey Loesov<mailto:sergeloesov at gmail.com>
Cc: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Transitive verbs with both active and passive readings

Hi Sergey,
Y. R. Chao argued that as Mandarin Chinese verbs have no inherent direction of action, a corollary of the topic-comment (not subject predicate) structure of clauses, Mandarin Chinese has no voice distinction (Mandarin Primer, 1948: 35, with his Romanisation replaced by Pinyin and glosses added):

“An important corollary to this [topic-comment structure-RJL] is that the direction of action in verbs is to be inferred from the context. Thus, in talking about feeding poultry, Jı̄ bù chı̄ le [chicken NEG eat PFV] means 'The chickens are not eating any more,' but as a reply to a host offering more chicken, the same sentence would mean '(As for) chicken, (I) am not going to eat any more.' Again, Liǎng-ge rén zuò yı̄-bǎ yı̌zi [two CL people sit one-CL chair]' Two people sit on one chair' : Yı̄-bǎ yı̌zi zuò liǎng-ge rén [one-CL chair sit two-CL people] 'One chair seats two people.' In short, there is no distinction of voice in Chinese verbs."

Hope this helps.

All the best,
Randy
——
Professor Randy J. LaPolla（罗仁地), PhD FAHA
Center for Language Sciences
Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai
A302, Muduo Building, #18 Jinfeng Road, Zhuhai City, Guangdong, China

https://randylapolla.info
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On 27 Jul 2023, at 5:28 PM, Sergey Loesov <sergeloesov at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear colleagues,
Do you know of languages that have past-tense forms of transitive verbs with both active and passive readings? In particular, languages in which the same token can appear as both active and passive, depending on the context?
This seems to be the case in the unwritten language Modern Western Aramaic, spoken in the Syrian Anti-Lebanon/Kalamoun. Thus, ifṯeḥ (a Perfect-Resultative verb form) may mean ‘he (has) opened’ and ‘he has been opened/he is opened.’

Thank you very much,

Sergey
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