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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Chapter 1 Introduction
Austronesian languages have exhibited rich verbal morphology and unique subject-verb agreement that have been extensively studied in the early 1990’s. The uniqueness of Austronesian subject-verb relations refers to the property that the verbal affix always signals the thematic role of the clause subject, and this has been referred to as focus in earlier studies (McFarland 1976, Harvey 1979, Starosta et al. 1982, Ramos & Bautista 1986, Huang 1995, Holmer 1996, DeGuzman 1997, among others) and has been treated as voice by Austronesian linguists in the last few decades (Chang 1997, Ross & Teng 2005, Wu 2007, among others).
The term focus has been rejected due to its pragmatic usage, opaqueness for the research outside of this subfield, and difficulty for typological study (Teng & Ross 2005). The term voice seems to be a better choice and has been adopted for studies in recent years on Austronesian languages including Formosan languages.
The use of the term voice is not without controversy; first, the voice variants for verbs in Austronesian languages are not as regular and predictable as in English (Starosta 2002). A verb might have two or more voice variants, but few exhibits a full set of the voice variants that are available in the language. Second, Starosta (2002) has suggested that the voice
affixes are actually transitive and applicative affixes that attach to a verb to alter the argument structure of the verb. The appropriateness of using the term voice to refer to the unique
Austronesian subject-verb relation remains debatable.
Unlike the well-known English active-passive, the Austronesian voice system exhibits more than two voice variants as illustrated by Tagalog examples in (1). Clauses with actor subject are usually referred to as actor voice (AV), as in (1a), clauses with patient subject as patient voice (PV), as in (1b), clauses with location subject as locative voice (LV), as in (1c), clauses with instrument subject as instrument voice (IV), as in (1d), clauses with beneficiary subject as beneficiary voice (BV), as in (1e).
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While AV refers to actor voice, the other voice variants, including PV, LV, IV, and BV, are referred to as non-actor voice (NAV) in the literature as the subject role of these voice variants shares a common property—non-actor.
Starosta (2002: 581) has observed that the correspondence between verbal affix and thematic role of a clause subject in Austronesian languages is irregular and unpredictable and has offered an alternative view on the function of these verbal affixes. He has suggested that the so-called voice affixes in Austronesian languages are derivational and their affixation to the predicate is to alter valency of clauses. Accordingly, the function of the so-called voice affixes is to alter transitivity of clauses in Austronesian languages.
1 Foley’s Tagalog examples are adopted from his paper in 2008 to illustrate the
correspondence between the verbal affixation and the thematic role of a clause subject.
2 VC – voice, IRR – irrealis, CORE – term, OBL – oblique.
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While the function of verbal affixes is claimed to show agreement with the thematic role of the clause subject in voice analysis—grammatical voice (Reid 1992, Huang 1993, Chang 1997, … etc.), the correspondence between the voice affix and the thematic role of the clause subject is not as regular and predictable as the English active-passive voice (Starosta 2002). In addition to that, the affixation of the so-called voice affixes has been observed to alter valency, change meaning, and co-occur with other voice affixes across Austronesian languages (H. Y. Chang 2011, Shih 2013). Hence, transitivity analysis that attempts to account for these defects of the voice analysis—co-occurrence of two voice affixes and changes in meaning and valency has proposed that the so-called voice affixes are transitivity affixes. The voice analysis might have adequately explained the correspondence between verbal morphology and the thematic role of the clause subject, but transitivity analysis can better account for the co-occurrence of two verbal affixes and changes in meaning and valency after verbal affixation. Both voice and transitivity analyses attempt to treat all the verbal affixes as the same type of affixes, but these affixes behave differently in grammar and have different appearances—showing up as prefixes, infixes, and suffixes.
In Yami, a full-fledged verb that exhibits all voice variants is seldom observed and the correspondence between the verbal affix and the thematic role of a clause subject is observed to be irregular and unpredictable in some instances. Hence, the present study aims to
investigate the function(s) of the verbal affixes that appear to signal the thematic role of the clause subject and alter valency of clauses.
The verbal affixes in Yami are observed to participate in different types of clauses and the correspondence between the verbal affix and the thematic role of the clause subject appears to be irregular when it is compared with the English active-passive voice system.
More than one affix, such as m-, mi-, <om>/om-, man-/mang-, etc., are observed to
participate in constructing a clause with an actor subject (many-to-one correspondence), and one affix, such as ma-, is observed to participate in constructing clauses with both actor and patient subject (one-to-many correspondences), as summarized in Table 1.
Table 1 Correspondence between voice affix and thematic role of clause subject.
ma- m-, mi-, om-/<om>, man-/mang- Thematic Role of Clause Subject Actor
Patient
Actor
Correspondence One-to-many Many-to-one
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
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The affixation of the locative voice affix -an might have a patient clause subject, or the affixation of ma- could have either an actor or patient clause subject. These mismatches have also cast doubt on voice analysis in Yami.
The present study proposes that the function of the so-called voice affixes in Yami is not limited to signal the thematic role of the clause subject (voice analysis) or to
intransitivize/transitivize clauses (transitivity analysis) via investigation of clauses containing these verbal affixes in Yami and the semantic property of the clause subject via the modified version of Foley’s (2005) revised macro-role hierarchy. This hypothesis is demonstrated by comparing the number of participant(s) involved, case marking of involved participant(s), and the sematic properties of the involved participant(s) determined via the modified version of Foley’s (2005) revised macro-role hierarchy in different types of constructions. These constructions include declarative, negative, negative imperative, and interrogative.
The investigation of the function(s) of Yami verbal voice affixes is based on data from previous research, Yami bible, and field notes. The field notes were mainly collected from middle-aged native speakers of Yami on Orchid Island located near the southeastern coast of Taiwan. The following lists the language consultants who have contributed their knowledge on the language over the years of my study: Si Vagyatan, Syaman Manidong, Sinan Manidong, Syaman Mapanod, Syaman Yokalaman, Syapen Jinopna, Si Iking and many other friendly villagers that I have met during my visits to Orchid Island.
Our investigation has revealed that some voice affixes serve more than one function in Yami, and the lexical property of roots/stems appears to have some influence on the choice of verbal affixation. These might be the reasons that makes the correspondence between the verbal affix and the thematic role of clause subjects appear to be unpredictable and shaky, and leads to meaning and valency change. We have found that the affix -an that is originally a locative voice affix has served another function in Yami and that is to construct clauses with a patient subject—the same as the well-known patient voice affix -en whose function has been widely observed across the Austronesian literature. It is highly probable that the function of the so-called voice affixes is not simply to signal the thematic role of clause subjects or to transitivize clauses as our study has shown that some of them serve more than one function in Yami. Hence, a thorough study of these affixes is required before one could
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
fully understand the relation between these affixes and the clause subject. The present study has focused attention on affixes -an and ma-, a locative voice affix and a multi-functional affix, respectively, to confirm our proposed property of the voice affixes in Yami—multi-functionality.
This dissertation consists of six chapters. In the following chapter, related literature on voice analysis and transitivity analysis is discussed with issues regarding mismatches, valency and meaning changing, and the one-voice-per-clause constraint. A brief grammar sketch of Yami is provided, and Foley’s revised macro-role hierarchy and Dowty’s proto-role entailments are also discussed in chapter two. In chapter three, the clauses containing the voice affixes Ø, m-, mi-, ma-, <om>/om-, man-/mang-, -en, -an, ka- -an, and i- are
investigated. The number of participants, the case marking of participants, and the semantic properties of clause subjects determined via the modified version of Foley’s revised macro-role hierarchy are investigated. In chapter four, the function(s) of the affix -an and ma- are investigated via different types of clauses, including negative, negative imperative, and interrogative. In chapter five, the affixation of the verbal affixes and its relation with the semantic property of clause subject, including case marking of involved participants within complex clauses, are investigated to further support the multi-functionality of the Yami verbal voice affixes and to further confirm that signaling the thematic role of clause subjects is one of their functions. Chapter six concludes the dissertation.