Series | Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies
Monograph | Materials and Methods of Analysis for the Study of the Ainu Language
Chapter | 10 • Antipassive
Abstract
Antipassivisation is a process common in, but not exclusive to, ergative
languages and it usually concerns transitive and ditransitive
verbs. In a prototypical antipassive construction an original object
argument of the verb is demoted to be an oblique.
At discourse level, antipassivisation serves to de-focus an element
that has low referentiality in the context. Antipassivisation is therefore
similar to passivisation, the difference between the two processes
being that the former downplays the centrality of an object while
the latter downplays the centrality of the subject.
Published April 4, 2022 | Language: en
Copyright © 2022 Elia Dal Corso. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-585-8/010