[Lingtyp] query: instrument voice

[Jess Tauber]

One can make the Yahgan circumstantial (which IS an applicative- the name
comes from the 19th century by an English missionary who wasn't exactly up
on all the grammatical jargon needed to write a grammar aimed at
specialists) specifically an instrument voice by adding suffix -a:ki to the
stem. -a:ki has a variety of different uses, so isn't really by itself an
instrument suffix.

Jess Tauber

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 9:24 PM David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:

> Thanks, Jess.  For this to qualify as instrument voice, it would have to
> be clear that the instrument is more like a subject than an object;
> otherwise — cf. Matthew Dryer's comment and my response — it would be more
> appropriately characterized as an applicative.  Can you confirm this?
>
> Also, as you describe it below, the semantics seems substantially broader
> than that of a pure instrument, though to be honest, there is also semantic
> leakage in so-called instrumental voice constructions in Taiwan and the
> Philippines, and perhaps also, though to a lesser extent, in some of the
> constructions in the New Guinea languages that I mentioned below.
>
> David
>
>
> On 22/02/2022 04:05, Jess Tauber wrote:
>
> In Yahgan, a nearly extinct genetic isolate from Tierra del Fuego, there
> is a 'circumstantial' voice prefix I write as T-, with various forms
> depending on following phonological contexts (that is, it is ch(i:) before
> /y/, /k/, /g/, /l/, tu: before labial stops or nasal, ts before other
> alveolar segments, etc., which can ambivalently mark the inclusion of an
> instrument, another non-core animate participant in the action, locations
> in space or time, and so forth.
>
> Jess Tauber
>
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 8:42 PM Matthew Dryer <dryer at buffalo.edu> wrote:
>
>> David,
>>
>>
>>
>> Why would you not say that the instrumental construction in Meyah, Sougb,
>> and Hatam is an applicative, since the A rather than the instrument
>> controls subject agreement?
>>
>>
>>
>> Matthew
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
>> David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>
>> *Date: *Monday, February 21, 2022 at 7:40 PM
>> *To: *"lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org" <
>> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>> *Subject: *[Lingtyp] query: instrument voice
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>>
>>
>> In the Austronesian languages of Taiwan, Philippines and Madagascar,
>> there is a verbal affix that is said to mark "instrument voice"; loosely
>> speaking, it marks the topic or subject of the clause as bearing the
>> semantic role of instrument.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is anybody familiar with similar instrument-voice constructions from
>> other parts of the world?
>>
>>
>>
>> The reason I ask is that a similar construction is present also in some
>> languages of the Bird's Head and Cenderawasih Bay regions of New Guinea,
>> eg. Biak, Roon, Wamesa and Wooi (Austronesian), and Hatam, Sougb, Meyah and
>> Moskona (non-Austronesian).  What's curious about this construction is
>> that, unlike the well-known Austronesian cases, it is the only
>> morphologically-marked voice in each of the languages in question; there is
>> no "ordinary" morphological passive construction.  My feeling is that this
>> construction is quite uncommon cross-linguistically, but I would like to
>> get a feel for the extent to which this is indeed true.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>
>>
>> David
>>
>> --
>>
>> David Gil
>>
>>
>>
>> Senior Scientist (Associate)
>>
>> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>>
>> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>>
>> Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
>>
>>
>>
>> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
>>
>> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>>
>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091
>>
>>
>>
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>>
> --
> David Gil
>
> Senior Scientist (Associate)
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
>
> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091
>
>
>
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