Talk:Applicative voice

Not sure "voice" is the best choice of term to qualify applicative here... AnonMoos (talk) 22:27, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

"Patient" misused; "object" meant. Also, "transitive" misused; not related to applicatives, so eliminated.

"Patient" was misused. "Object" was meant. "Patient" is a Semantic Role; namely, the most saliently affected participant. "Object" is a Grammatical Relation, a Morphosyntactically-assigned Argument Position. An "Object" is any Grammatical Relation other than the Subject (the Subject is the most syntactically-privileged G.R.). Most languages with Applicatives have two and only two G.R.s; the Subject and the Object. Applicativization promotes an oblique (non-core) argument into the Object "slot". If the Object slot was already occupied, the quondam occupant has to be demoted out of the core, either rendered implicit or put in an oblique position. In that case the valency isn't changed; it remains "2". But if the Object slot was not previously occupied, the valency is raised from 1 to 2. However the result is not transitive, because the occupant of the Object slot is not a Patient; the clause still does not have a Patient, because it still does not state that any participant is affected. So "transitive" was misused also. Eldin raigmore (talk) 19:03, 1 June 2011 (UTC)