Bob,
My apologies if I was unclear. The point I tried to express was that Richard's Australian source probably drew from Systemic Functional Linguistics, which uses "ergative" to talk about what others call "middle voice" in English. Halliday treats it fairly
extensively, so it seemed worth pointing out for anyone interested in reading more. It would be interesting to explore ways in which English has this in common with other languages. That issue came up last time I mentioned it on list, with at least one person
voicing skepticism about whether his use of the term is mainstream. Do you know of anyone else who applies it to English? I have never followed that up.
C
Beth,
Nice summary.
I think it was Richard who mentioned "ergative" for an Australian source. They were probably drawing from Systemic Functional Grammar, which has a large presence in Australia. In the third edition of An Introduction
to Functional Grammar (Halliday and Mathiesson 2004--I don't own the fourth edition yet), it is covered on pages 284 to roughly 300 in the chapter on clause as Representation. Halliday makes the case that the distinction (ergative or non-ergative) is a choice within
the grammar. "Either the process is recognized as self engendering, in which case there is no separate agent; or it is represented as engendered from outside, in which case there is another participant functioning as agent" (290). I guess the argument would
be that a user of the language has the option of representing an event in two different ways by selecting from these syntactic options. "I cooked the rice for two hours." "The rice cooked for two hours."The one indispensable entity is the rice, which he labels
as "medium."
Like the Cambridge grammar, Halliday says that ergative patterns are expanding within the language.
Once you establish, for example, that an earthquake has hit the town, you can say things like "windows shattered, goods spilled off of shelves, water mains broke, cracks opened up in highways...." Since agency
is already established, you can maintain attention on results without having to remind the readers that these entities are not the agents of their own change. "The football sailed through the goal posts and on into history." I suspect this "middle voice" is expanding
precisely because of the utility of these forms.
I usually bring it up in a grammar class when I teach transitivity, but it's so hard to cover even the rough outlines of a grammar in a single semester.Anyone taking a grammar class needs exposure to traditional
views of transitivity, and then there's not much room for other perspectives.
Craig
This morning I discovered a study on the middle voice/middle passive. The researcher presents data showing a decline in the use of passive and a significant increase in the spread and use of the middle passive.
Here’s the title: Hundt, Marianne. English Mediopassive Constructions : A Cognitive, Corpus-based Study of Their Origin, Spread, and Current Status. 2007
Richard
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/