DOI:DOI
10.30842/alp23065737181377411
Sideltsev Andrej V. Passive or
Intransitive? The case of hark- 'perish' and voice / transitivity
in Hittite. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. 2022. 18(1):
377–411.
The paper discusses the use of intransitive verbs as passives in
Hittite. In particular, it offers a new assessment of a number of
uses of the verb harkw hich is traditionally analyzed as
intransitive 'perish'. The careful study of the contexts as well as
cross-linguistic parallels suggest that in a number of cases the
verb functions as passive to the two verbs that are derived from
the same root - harnink- and harganu-, both
meaning 'destroy'. More generally, the paper argues that any
intransitive verb in Hittite can potentially be used as passive if
there is a transitive verb from the same stem, root or even just a
semantically compatible verb. This happens irrespective of whether
the intransitive verb is active or middle and holds true for the
New Hittite period. In this way the paper presents a single account
of three classes of verbs: suppletive passives (akk- 'be
killed' alongside kuen- 'kill'), intransitive verbs
alongside a derived causative (hark- 'be destroyed'
alongside harganu- / harnink- 'destroy') and
middles alongside active verbs (šarra- 'be divided'
alongside šarra- 'divide') in Hittite.
In the broader cross-linguistic perspective the Hittite data
attest the standard alternation anticausative —
causative from the same stem with anticausative attesting
a supplementary passive function for the causative verb, also
common in the languages of the world. The curious fact that one of
the passives for the causative verbs harnink- and
harganu- derived from the anticausative hark- is
supplied by the anticausative hark- itself is important
evidence in favor of the indistinguishability of anticausatives and
passives and an argument to divorce passive from the formally
marked middle voice or from analytical forms.
Hittite is a language with morphological marking of voice as
middle or analytical passives. However, voice in Hittite is closely
tied in with anticausatives. It was shown by [Luraghi 2010; 2012;
Inglese 2018] that passive voice is diachronically a reanalysis of
anticausative and synchronically in one of the periods of the
Hittite language evolution it cooccurs with anticausatives. I
extend the proposal to the broader domain and show that passive in
Hittite is not associated with any formal voice marking, but rather
with anticausatives generally. Anticausatives marked both by active
verbal morphology and by middle verbal morphology (both
synthetically and analytically) can occasionally function as
passives to the alternating causative verb.
Keywords
Hittite, syntax, (in)transitivity, voice,
unaccusative, anticausative, causative, passive
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