Sanskrit

[Jacob Baltuch]

Sandra van der Geer wrote:

>>[in Drav. langauges?] locatives can be raised to subject position in a
>>passive context, whereas this is impossible in Indo-european languages,
>>like Sanskrit. There only indirect and direct objects can be raised thus,
>>like in English, Dutch etc.
>
>>Could you give some examples of this raising business?
>
>I don't know what your knowledge on generative grammar business is, but
>let's >assume it's almost zero, regarding your word `business'.

Thank you for your detailed answer to my question.

Sorry for the "business" business. It wasn't meant to be derogatory. It's
just that you seemed to be saying that raising of indirect *and* direct
objects was possible in all IE languages. Since that is obviously not
true I wasn't sure anymore that I knew what you were talking about.

Regarding your Sanskrit example: if pushed I would have probably guessed
that Sanskrit does not allow indirect objects to be raised to subject,
since I'd never have thought of the passive of the *causative*, but you
make an ingenious use of it, although it is not completely clear to me.

>1) rAmo nalAya pustaka.m dadAti
>2) rAme.na nalAya pustaka.m dIyate
>3) nalo rAme.na pustaka.m dApyate

I'd always thought the meaning of (3) was "N. is made to give a book by R."
(passive of "raamaH naalaM pustakaM daapayati" or "raamaH naaleNa pustakaM
daapayati", i.e. "R. makes/has N. give a book").

I could also understand something like "pustakaM raameNa nalaaya daapyate"
to mean  "a book is is made to be given to N. by R." or even I guess I could
maybe try to understand it, thru some specialization of meaning (where the
action producing the giving of a book to N. could be restricted simply to the
action of giving it to N.) to mean "a book is given to N. by R." (in other
words as synonymous to (2), i.e. to its simple non-causative counterpart --
but only maybe?)

But "nalo raameNa pustakaM daapyate" in the meaning of "N. is given a book
by R." with the crucial raising of the indirect object to the subject position
entirely stumps me.

I would really appreciate if you or any of the ziSTaas on the list (to use
an expression that's becoming traditional here) would enlighten me.