The so-called D-classifier
A large cluster of de-transitivizing functions are associated with the so-called D ‘classifier’ across Athabaskan (Thompson 1989). Of those, several are still attested, productively or in trace forms, in Tolowa.
Relatively few trace forms of the use of the D-classifier as a passive marker survive in the language, as in:
(1)
The D-marked passive is clearly a non-promotional passive, as can be seen from the retention of object status by the object of the transitive verb in (30e). However, it may well be that the D-marked passive was earlier a promotional passive, since this prefix is never used to de-transitivize an intransitive verb.
A now-defunct use of the D-classifier by itself to mark antipassive function is suggested by few surviving forms, as in:
(2)
For whatever historical reason, the D-classifier must be used with the reversive/ iterative prefix, as in:
(3)
