While on the OEDILF today a random limerick popped up on "antipassive voice".

I am vaguely aware that such a thing exists in some languages without really being able to describe it, but the limerick - especially the author's note - gives the impression that it exists in English.
Does it?
Can the antipassive voice actually be said to exist in a language that doesn't case-mark subject and object?

The limerick suggests that
I eat the pie. is Active
The pie is eaten. is Passive
and
I eat from the pie. is Antipassive.

Any opinions from those who know even more about grammar than I do, because I'd have bet my thesaurus that this didn't exist in English?

I'd never heard of it so I took a look in Wikipedia. The article says that most languages with the antipassive voice are Australian Aboriginal or Native American languages. The page also gives an example from Basque. There's no mention of it occurring in English. The example sentence might seem to fit the requirements for the antipassive, but English doesn't have an ablative case.

The antipassive voice is only found (as arnie hinted) in ergative languages. Ergative languages are different from nominative-accusative languages. In ergative languages the Subject of an intransitive verb is in the same case as the object of a transitive verb. N-A languages have active and passive voices and ergative-absolutive languages have antipassive voice. I do not think the limerick works.

It's called antipassive because it demotes the patient, while the passive demotes the agent.

The passive in English:

quote:

a. Joe-subj kicks the ball-obj.

b. The ball-subj is kicked (by Joe).

The patient (the ball) becomes the subject and the agent (Joe) is demoted to a by-phrase or deleted.

The antipassive in Chukchi:

quote:

a.
ʔaaček-a kimitʔ-ən ne-nlʔetet-ən

youth-erg load-abs 3pl.subj-carry-aor.3sg.obj

‘The young men carried away the/a load.’ (trans)

b.
ʔaaček-ət ine-nlʔetet-gʔe-t kimitʔ-e

youth-abs antip-carry-aor.3sg.subj-pl load-instr

‘The young men carried away the/a load.’ (anti)

The agent (the young men) becomes absolutive, and the patient (the load) is demoted to instrumental. So both the active and the antipassive sentences have the same English translation. I don't know if you can delete the patient in Chukchi, but if you can then the English literal translation of the antipassive sentence without the patient would be the ungrammatical "*The young men carried away."

"I eat from the pie" is supposed to be an approximation of what the antipassive does. The patient (the pie) is demoted. But this is cheating since "eat" can be intransitive. That's not what happens with the antipassive. AIUI the antipassive (and the passive) operates on transitive-only verbs. (Although now that I think about it, in Hindi intransitive verbs can be made passive.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

As I thought. In a language structured as English is structured the anti-passive not only doesn't exist but can't exist.

I'm not especially concerned about the limerick, but I was curuios about thee antipassive.

Thank you all.

Anti-Passive! It’s Like a Passive for Ergative Languages!.

That's wordpress.
Can't see it.
One of the less pleasant things about living in China.

Too bad, Bob, because it's excellent. Thanks, arnie, and how timely!

For the record, here is the limerick, and it has been approved (five workshoppers approved it, making it approved by their rules):

quote:

There are voices inside of my head.
"I hear voices," the Active Voice said.
Passive: "Voices are heard."
Antipassive demurred —
"Well I hear, but hear from them instead."

The note: In grammar, the antipassive voice is the least known of the verb voices, after active and passive. It removes the absolute object of transitive verbs (in the above example, the active "I hear voices"), and replaces it with a complementary phrase ("I hear from voices"), softening the verb's strength or valency in the same way that the passive voice does ("Voices are heard by me").

As an aside, I have only heard the noun patient to be used in medical topics. It's an interesting use of patient.

And, I am sure that there a peevers writing in ergative languages that deprecate the use of the antipassive in formal writing.

Bob, I think you should notify the workshop of this. He could just add an explanation to the author's note.