Passive, Stative, and Impersonal in Ugaritic: The G-stem Internal Passive Reconsidered
In this paper, I analysed around 57 relatively clear cases of the Gpass forms through a painstaking examination of their formal and functional characteristics. The collected data point at the following characteristics of Gpass usage in Ugaritic: the Ugaritic Gpass sentences do not allow agent-phrase...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2022
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| In: |
Journal for semitics
Year: 2022, Volume: 31, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-42 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Ugaritic language
/ Grammar
/ Morphology (Linguistics)
/ Stative (Grammar)
/ Passive mood
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| IxTheo Classification: | HB Old Testament |
| Further subjects: | B
passive voice
B Semitic languages B Ugaritic poetry B Ugaritic B Stative verbs B Impersonal sentence B Middle voice |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In this paper, I analysed around 57 relatively clear cases of the Gpass forms through a painstaking examination of their formal and functional characteristics. The collected data point at the following characteristics of Gpass usage in Ugaritic: the Ugaritic Gpass sentences do not allow agent-phrases; the Agent is demoted from the position of the subject without any syntactic traces. In semantic view, passive sentences regularly imply a concrete Agent or the information about a definite and referential Agent is recoverable from the close context, in contrast to the active impersonal usage. The promoted Patient/Theme is commonly fronted and topicalised in passive sentences. Most Gpass usages are promotional, derived from transitive verbs. I identified approximately eight cases of the impersonal passive. The language of poetry and the language of prose demonstrate a very proportional distribution of the Gpass forms. It is claimed in this paper that Gpass forms are not derived from G stative verbs, at least not on a regular basis, and are not used in middle voice functions. The contrast between the Gpass-stem and the N-stem has syntactic and semantic marking, and has diachronic implications. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for semitics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.25159/2663-6573/9435 |