Antipassive Blues

A couple of years ago I wrote a paper concerning Chlìjha's syntactic alignment: I had the intention of submitting it to Fiat Lingua.  However, the paper I found to be quite boring, though the sample sentences I used are still amusing.

Since I barely even touched on the subject of the Antipassive Construction in the original paper (maybe two examples or so), I guess I might as well lay out the Antipassive Cards on the Table.

I shall attempt, in brief, to answer a few questions.  Why is the subject of the Antipassive Construction in the Ergative?  Can the subject be in a different case (such as the Absolutive)?  What is the etymology of the helping verb jáxë?  And why is the Antipassive Construction not quite parallel with the Passive Voice?

Now, in a perfect world I would use the original Antipassive example from yesterday to explain all this.  However, the verb "teach" isn't terribly well suited, since its object is usually the skill or abstraction being taught, and a person in the dative is the person being taught:

Qhìxie-r qraû lùon Shmasyímen.

Winter-ERG teaches one.dat humility.

Winter teaches us humility.

So, let us use a prototypically transitive verb and an intransitive one:  Chniêtlh "he kisses" and tànxhë "he dances."

So, why is the subject of the Antipassive Construction typically in the Ergative?  Well, let's look at the pattern of a typical sentence:

ErgativeVerbAbsolutive

              VerbAbsolutive

Now, there are verbs/constructions in which the subject is in the Instrumental, and there are verbs/constructions in which the object is in the Partitive or Allative - plus the Accusative Case is used for objects in certain circumstances.  But more often than not, we see the pattern above:  An Ergative transitive subject, an object in the Absolutive, or an Absolutive intransitive subject.

Hence:

O Qhaôm-er chniêtlh o Mùrukh.

The pirate-ERG kiss the mermaid

The pirate kisses the mermaid.

Tànxhë' o Mùrukh.

Dance the mermaid.

The mermaid dances.

So, what happens when we use the auxiliary verb Jáxë?

O Qhaôm-er jáxë Chniêrot.

The pirate-ERG ANT to.kiss.

The pirate kisses.

The pirate kisses someone or other.

The pirate kisses in general.

"Kisses someone or other" and "kisses in general" are a bit of a forced translation.  More often than not I'd just render it as simply "kisses," but I'm trying to give the feel of this construction.

An object can be expressed, but it cannot be in the Absolutive.  The object isn't assigned to a spatial case like the Allative or Partitive (a case which some verbs regularly take).  Instead, the object is expressed in a case whose function is to be reside somewhere between agent and patient.  I gloss this case as "the Ingeminate," which is a rather unfortunate name since the case has nothing to do with gemination but rather was meant to be the dark twin between agent and patient.  When one starts working on a language in childhood, there are weird little odds and ends that were poorly named and haven't quite been ironed out yet - and now is not quite the time to think of a better name for that case.

O Qhaôm-er jáxë Chniêrot o Mùrukh caë.

The pirate-ERG ANT to.kiss the mermaid INGEM.

The pirate kisses some mermaid or other.

The pirate kisses a mermaid - I don't know which one / it doesn't matter which.

The Ingeminate Case is the only case formed by a postposition, which indicates that it was the last case added to the language in ancient times.  It's barely even a case, to be honest.  It's more like the junk drawer of language.

Now, in the examples above the verb jáxë takes the infinitive.  However, only the most common verbs have infinitives.  Defective verbs can simply use their present stem:

O Qhaôm-er jáxë tùntan o Mùrukh caë.

The pirate-ERG ANT poke the mermaid INGEM.

The pirate pokes some random mermaid.

Is it possible for the Antipassive Construction to have a subject in a case other than the Ergative?  Well, if we use an intransitive verb:

Jáxë Tànxhi' o Mùrukh.

ANT to.dance the mermaid.

The mermaid dances (it seems).

Is it possible for the subject of the Antipassive Construction to be in any other case?  Ah, strangely enough, it can be in the Genitive, whether or not the verb is transitive.  An agent in the Genitive isn't unheard of in Chlìjha, for we find such a thing with gerunds:

Twìmnde-r o Qhaôm-o Cùshië' o Mùroch-ol.

Saw-he the pirate-GEN kissing the mermaid-ACC.

He saw the pirate's kissing of the mermaid.

He saw the pirate as he kissed/kisses the mermaid.

Cùshië is a gerund, from a different kissie verb: Chlìjha is a language rather rich in verbs of osculation.  Oh, and you'll notice the object in the Accusative above.

So, what's the affect of having the subject of the Antipassive in the Genitive?  I'd say it's slightly archaic and/or emphatic:

O Qhaôm-o jáxë Chniêrot o Mùrukh caë.

The pirate-GEN ANT to.kiss the mermaid INGEM.

The pirate doth kiss some mermaid or other.

O Qhaôm-o jáxë tùntan o Mùrukh caë.

The pirate-GEN ANT poke the mermaid INGEM.

The pirate poketh this or that mermaid.

Jáxë Tànxhi' o Mùroch-o.

ANT to.dance the mermaid-GEN.

Danceth the mermaid.

One final word about the Ingeminate Case.  This case is used in a variety of instances, but I'll just give two examples to show its liminal place between agent and patient:

Twìmnde-r o Mùrukh, yol o Qhaôm caë chniêtlh.

Saw-he the mermaid, whom the pirate INGEM kiss.

He saw the mermaid whom the pirate kisses.

Wùrnde-r o Qhaôm caë Chniêrot o Mùrukh.

Caused-he the pirate INGEM to.kiss the mermaid.

He made the pirate kiss the mermaid.

So, where does jáxë, the antipassive verb come from?  Well, so far I've just glossed the stem J-X as "Do Something or Other," and the only other elements from that root is the adjective Jéxë "non-specific, general" and, amusingly, Sajexùshvë "a general store," which is, of course, a place-for-many-general-things (Sa-jex-ùshv-ë).

Àva-r jéxë Qhaôm Clupwuî-cun.

Be-he general pirate rough.seas-GEN.

He is a general pirate of the rough seas.

¿Wos o Qhaôm-eh sèma chniêr-ai' o Mùrukh Sajexushv-òshshë?

Why the pirate-ERG always kiss-RHET the mermaid general.storm-LOC?

Why does the pirate always kiss the mermaid in the general storm?

Finally we come to the final issue:  Why does the Antipassive Construction differ so much from the Passive Voice?  Well, I think the answer is quite simple:  the construction is something that was just put together - in fact it parallels the auxiliary verb Clànë "is able."  But the Passive Voice isn't a construction but rather a voice that's been cooking and brewing in the language since ancient times.  That's why some very common verbs have passive infinitives (Cùxhet "to kiss," Cùxhinë "to be kissed") as well as passive participles (Cùxhala "kissing," Cùxhda "kissed").

More often than not one can express the Passive just with word order and cases:

O Mùroch-ol chniêtlh o Qhaôm-er.

The mermaid-ACC kiss the pirate-ERG.

The mermaid is kissed by the pirate.

Or with a dummy subject:

Chnierà-lyë' o Mùrukh.

Kiss-one the mermaid.

The mermaid is kissed.

But, unlike the Antipassive Construction, the Passive Voice can be expressed with a verbal suffix:

Chnierà-llë' o Mùrukh o Qhaom-òllet.

Kiss-PASS the mermaid the pirate-INST.

The mermaid is kissed by the pirate.

In fact, the Passive Voice has its own forms for the present conditional (-lri), the past conditional (-lra), the imperfect tense (-lnë), the pluperfect tense (-lmo), and the injunctive (-lsu).

Finally - and now we're just getting silly - is it possible to front the object of the Antipassive Construction?  And, just to keep things extremely silly, I'm keeping the subject in the Genitive.

O Mùrukh caë jáxë' o Qhaôm-o Chniêrot.

The mermaid INGEM ANT the pirate-GEN to.kiss.

'Tis some mermaid, methinketh, the pirate doth kiss.

O Mùrukh caë jáxë tùntan o Qhaôm-o.

The mermaid INGEM ant poke the pirate-GEN.

This or that mermaid, 'twas, that the pirate poketh.

You'll note that when "Pirate" was the subject of an infinitive, it preceded it, but when it was the subject of a verb stem it followed it.

So, that's about it for the Antipassive Construction.  Happy Saint Hildegard Day!