[Lingtyp] query: instrument voice
Matthew Dryer
dryer at buffalo.edu
Tue Feb 22 04:40:29 UTC 2022
Mark says
However, every text study of either passives or applicatives, or non-core philippine-type voice choice, shows that there is a degree of pragmatic prominence associated with the use of these valency-rearranging operations. We might re-phrase the passive and applicative characterisations as
passive promotes pragmatically-prominent object to subject (and demotes initial less-prominent subject to non-core)
applicative promotes pragmatically-prominent (oblique?) to object (might demote initial (less-prominent?) object to non-core)
However, there are applicatives which are "obligatory" for a given semantic type. In one lg I work on, Ktunaxa, all applicatives are obligatory in the sense that the only way to express a benefactive, instrumental, or comitative is to use the relevant applicative. In Walman, the only way to express a benefactive is to use the applicative. Since they are obligatory, there really isn't any pragmatic prominence associated with these applicatives.
Matthew
From: Mark Donohue <mhdonohue at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, February 21, 2022 at 10:24 PM
To: David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>
Cc: Matthew Dryer <dryer at buffalo.edu>, "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org" <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: instrument voice
Hi David,
The issue, as I see it, is what we mean by 'promote'.
We can agree that
passive promotes object to subject (and demotes initial subject to non-core)
applicative promotes (oblique?) to object (might demote initial object to non-core)
(and the philippine voice is something like " … promotes (anything) to subject (and doesn't demote initial subject to non-core)
However, every text study of either passives or applicatives, or non-core philippine-type voice choice, shows that there is a degree of pragmatic prominence associated with the use of these valency-rearranging operations. We might re-phrase the passive and applicative characterisations as
passive promotes pragmatically-prominent object to subject (and demotes initial less-prominent subject to non-core)
applicative promotes pragmatically-prominent (oblique?) to object (might demote initial (less-prominent?) object to non-core)
We typically describe applicatives as involving just the grammatical function change. Thus, we have examples like this cited for Indonesian (from Shiohara 2012):
1. (2)a Pelayan mengambil segelas air.
waiter AV.take a.glass.of water
‘The waiter took a glass of water.’
1. (2)b Pelayan mengambil-kan tamu segelas air.
waiter AV.take-APPL guest a.glass.of water
‘The waiter brought the guest a glass of water.’ (Sneddon 1996: 80)
As Susanna Cummings showed, however, (2)b examples are not really attested in naturalistic discourse; rather, we have examples like the following:
(2)c Tamu di-ambil-kan segelas air (oleh pelayan).
guest NONACTIVE-take-APPL a.glass.of water by waiter
'The waiter brought the guest a glass of water.'
(See also Donohue 2001 for similar data from Tukang Besi.)
So, this shows that (in some languages) the increased prominence of the argument that was sufficient to merit coding with an applicative construction is also sufficient to merit a non-active voice choice, with all that entails. A Philippine-type voice system by stealth, as it were.
The Tzutujil example has an applicative suffix; and it also has a verb with 3SG absolutive agreement (Ø), not 1SG (the in- in the first example I posted). It also has the requirement that there must be overt coding of the increased prominent of the instrument; like Indonesian, it does that by utilising existing high-prominence coding strategies; unlike Indonesian, it does that not by using a voice change, but by using a pragmatically-marked word order choice.
-Mark
Donohue, Mark. 2001. Coding choices in argument structure: Austronesian applicatives in texts. Studies in Language25 (2): 217-254.
On Tue, 22 Feb 2022 at 13:53, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>> wrote:
Mark,
Thanks for the Tzutujil example, which is indeed quite similar to the New Guinea constructions I have been looking at.
However, I remain unconvinced with regard to its characterization as an applicative, though to a certain degree this is a mere terminological question. Prototypically, applicatives promote to direct objects while passive voices (such as instrumental) promote to subjects — so, for any given construction, the question is whether the relevant argument, here the instrumental one, is more direct-object-like or more subject-like.
This begins to remind me of the seemingly endless ongoing debates over whether Philippine voice constructions are "really" passives or perhaps something else, the question generally boiling down to whether the relevant argument is more like a subject or more like a topic. Personally, I don't find these debates very productive, and I'm not sure how useful an analogous debate between applicative and instrumental-voice labels would prove to be in this case.
What's important is to have a clear description of the facts, and how the constructions in question differ from prototypical applicatives and from prototypical instrumental voice constructions — with the proviso that there are perhaps not sufficiently many of the latter to construct a clear notion of what is prototypical.
David
On 22/02/2022 04:26, Mark Donohue wrote:
I would agree with Matthew that these are best described as applicatives, but ones in which the 'pragmatic advancement' function monitored by an applicative is, in addition to the grammatical function coding changes, also required to be monitored by the use of a pragmatically marked word order.
Very similar facts are found in Tzutujil, in which the applicative, which indicates an instrumental role (despite having a morpheme cognate with the benefactive applicative in other Mayan languages) also requires the appearance of the instrument object in a preverbal role, which is a pragmatically marked position in a verb-initial language.
Data from Dayley (1985).
Xinruuch’eyi jaa7 tza7n chee7
he:hit:me he with stick
‘He hit me with a stick.’
Chee7 x(r)uuch’eyb’ei jaa7 inin
stick he:hit-with:it he 1SG
‘He hit me with a stick.’
-Mark
On Tue, 22 Feb 2022 at 13:15, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>> wrote:
Matthew,
The reason I don't call it an applicative is that (in most cases) the instrumental argument must occur before the verb in a topic-like position.
This can be illustrated with the Roon instrumental prefix u- in the following examples:
(1)
* Eros-i
t-u-karuk
ai-i-ya
Eros-pers
3sg:anim-instr-chop
tree-3sg:anim-def
'Eros chopped the tree'
(2)
I-seref
kaman
fa
Eros-i
t-u-karuk
ai-i-ya
1sg-look.for
axe
for
Eros-pers
3sg:anim-instr-chop
tree-3sg:anim-def
'I'm looking for an axe for Eros to chop the tree with'
(3)
I-seref
kaman
Eros-i
t-u-karuk
ai-i-ya-ri-ya
1sg-look.for
axe
Eros-pers
3sg:anim-instr-chop
tree-3sg:anim-def-3sg:inan-def
'I'm looking for the axe that Eros chopped the tree with'
Sentence (1) is ungrammatical, and cannot be salvaged by adding a postverbal NP or PP referring to the axe; in this respect it differs from typical applicative constructions. In contrast, sentences (2) and (3) are fine, because the instrumental prefix u- is licensed by the preceding NP kaman referring to the axe. True, this is not exactly the same as how things work in Philippine languages, but it is more like Philippine instrumental voice than anything else I can think of (including applicatives). In particular, in (3), the instrumental prefix is required in order to license relativization (in contrast, relativization of other oblique arguments is zero-marked). To use Paul Schachter's terminology, in both (2) and (3), "subjecthood properties" seem to be split between the agent (which, as you correctly point out, controls agreement) and the instrument.
Very similar patterns obtain in the other Austronesian and non-Austronesian languages that I mentioned, which — given the apparent rarity of this pattern elsewhere — is strongly suggestive of language contact.
David
On 22/02/2022 03:41, Matthew Dryer 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><mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de><mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
Date: Monday, February 21, 2022 at 7:40 PM
To: "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org"<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org><mailto: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<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091
--
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<mailto: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<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091
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