Series | Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies
Volume | Materials and Methods of Analysis for the Study of the Ainu Language
Chapter | 10 • Antipassive
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 (Payne 2006, 255). 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 Sept. 4, 2024 | Language: en
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Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-861-3/010
