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Austronesian Alignment

Austronesian alignment refers to the unusual morphosyntactic system found in many Austronesian languages. It combines features of ergative and accusative alignment. Prototypical Philippine languages have two voices - an ergative-like voice called the patient trigger voice and an accusative-like voice called the agent trigger voice. These voices perform functions similar to active and passive voices in other languages but are both transitive. The system is best known from Philippine languages but is also found in other regions and has been reconstructed for Proto-Austronesian.

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185 views

Austronesian Alignment

Austronesian alignment refers to the unusual morphosyntactic system found in many Austronesian languages. It combines features of ergative and accusative alignment. Prototypical Philippine languages have two voices - an ergative-like voice called the patient trigger voice and an accusative-like voice called the agent trigger voice. These voices perform functions similar to active and passive voices in other languages but are both transitive. The system is best known from Philippine languages but is also found in other regions and has been reconstructed for Proto-Austronesian.

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Linas Kondratas
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Austronesian alignment

Austronesian alignment
Linguistic
typology
Morphological

Isolating
Synthetic

Polysynthetic
Fusional
Agglutinative
Morphosyntactic

Alignment
Accusative
Ergative
Split ergative
Philippine
Activestative
Tripartite
Marked nominative
Inverse marking
Syntactic pivot
Theta role

Word order

VO languages
Subjectverbobject
Verbsubjectobject
Verbobjectsubject
OV languages

Subjectobjectverb
Objectsubjectverb
Objectverbsubject
Timemannerplace
Placemannertime

Austronesian alignment, commonly known as the Philippine- or Austronesian-type voice system, is a


typologically unusual morphosyntactic alignment that combines features of ergative and accusative languages. It is
best known from the languages of the Philippines, but is also found in Taiwan, Borneo, Northern Sulawesi,
Madagascar, and Guam, and has been reconstructed for the ancestral Proto-Austronesian language. (Only traces of
this system remain in other Austronesian languages, such as Malay and Old Javanese.)

Descriptions
Whereas most languages have two voices which are used to track referents in discourse, a transitive 'active' voice and
an intransitive 'passive' or 'antipassive' voice, prototypical Philippine languages have two voices which are both
transitive. One of the two Philippine voices is similar in form to the active voice of ergativeabsolutive languages,
while the other is similar to the active voice of nominativeaccusative languages. These perform functions similar to
the active and passive/antipassive voices, respectively, in those languages.
The ergative-like Philippine voice has in the past often been called the "passive", and the accusative-like voice has
often been called the "active". However, this terminology is misleading and is now disfavorednot least because the

Austronesian alignment

"passive" is the default voice in Austronesian languages whereas a true passive is a secondary voicethough no
substitute terms have been widely accepted. Among the more common terms that have been proposed for these
voices are patient trigger (the ergative-like voice) and agent trigger (the accusative-like voice), which will be used
here. These phrases are taken from the terms 'agent' and 'patient', used in semantics for the acting and acted-upon
participants in a transitive clause.
The three types of voice system and the grammatical cases of their core arguments can be contrasted as follows:
Morphological alignment
Accusative
(as most European languages)

Case of basic intransitive clause

Cases of basic transitive clause Cases of the secondary voice

nominative
(same case as Agent)

Active voice

Passive voice

nominative (Agent)

nominative (Patient)

accusative (Patient)
Ergative
absolutive
(as most Australian languages) (same case as Patient)

Active voice

Antipassive voice

absolutive (Patient)

absolutive (Agent)

ergative (Agent)
Austronesian
"direct"
Patient trigger
(as most Philippine languages) (the case common to the two transitive voices)
"direct" (Patient)
ergative (Agent)

Agent trigger
"direct" (Agent)
accusative (Patient)

The Philippine cases are only approximately equivalent to their namesakes in other languages, and are therefore
placed in scare quotes. ("Direct" as used here is commonly called "nominative" or "absolutive", for example.) The
"ergative" case is identical in form to the Philippine genitive case, but it is common in ergative languages for the
ergative case to have the form of an oblique case such as a genitive or locative.
Lynch et al. 2002 (p.59) illustrate the Philippine system with reconstructed Proto-Malayo-Polynesian examples.
(The asterisks indicate a reconstruction.) The unmarked clause order was to have the verb first and the "direct"
phrase last. The voice was indicated by an affix to the verb (suffix -n for patient trigger and infix um for agent
trigger). In modern Philippine languages, the practical effect of this voice distinction is rather like the difference
between the use of a and the in English, and it is assumed that it played a similar role in the protolanguage.
*kan-n

na

manuk

wai

eat-(patient trigger) (ergative) chicken (direct) mango

'The chicken is eating the mango', or 'The mango is being eaten by the chicken'
*kuman

ta

wai

manuk

(agent trigger)eat (accusative) mango (direct) chicken

'The chicken is eating a mango.'


Some scholars maintain that Philippine-type languages have four voices, rather than two. Beside the ones shown
above, there were also locative and benefactive voices. However, these are not as central as the other two. The
locative is illustrated here; the suffix on the verb indicates that the noun marked by the direct case is the location of
the action rather than a participant:
*kan-an

na

manuk

kahiw

eat-(location trigger) (ergative) chicken (direct) tree

'The chicken is eating in the tree', or 'The tree is being eaten in by the chicken'

Austronesian alignment

In Tagalog
A broadly similar system is found in Tagalog, the most thoroughly documented language of this type. In Tagalog,
the ergative and accusative have been conflated into an "indirect" case, in contrast to the direct case. (Ng is an
abbreviation of the indirect-case particle for common nouns, nang.) Note that the root of the Tagalog verb is basa "to
read."
binasa

ng

tao

ang

aklat.

(past:patient trigger)read (indirect) person (direct) book

The book was read by a person.


bumasa

ng

aklat ang

tao.

(past:agent trigger)read (indirect) book (direct) person

The person read a book.


There are several viewpoints about the nature of the focus system in Tagalog:[1]
One is that Tagalog focus is voice. The following voices are then posited for Tagalog:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Active voice
Passive voice (AKA direct passive)
Local voice
Instrumental/benefactive voice

Another is that Tagalog focus is case-marking. For example, ang is used when the prepositional phrase is in
focus, while sa is used when it is not in focus. In the example given below, note that the root of the Tagalog verb
is bil, which means "to buy."
binil-hn

ng

tao

ng

aklat ang

tindahan.

(past:patient trigger)buy-(locative suffix) (indirect) person (indirect) book (direct) store

The book was bought by the person at the store. (Store is the focus.)
bumil

ang

tao

ng

aklat sa

tindahan.

(past:agent trigger)buy (direct) person (indirect) book (preposition) store

The person bought the book at the store. (Person is the focus.)

Notes
[1] "Austronesian languages." Encyclopdia Britannica. Encyclopdia Britannica Online. Encyclopdia Britannica, 2010. Web. Oct. 2010.
<http://original.search.eb.com/eb/article-75212>.

References
Lynch et al. 2002. In Fay Wouk & Malcolm Ross, eds., The history and typology of western Austronesian voice
systems. The Australian National University. ISBN 0-85883-477-4, ISBN 978-0-85883-477-4
Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross and Terry Crowley. The Oceanic languages. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2002.

Article Sources and Contributors

Article Sources and Contributors


Austronesian alignment Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=583455074 Contributors: 23prootie, Amire80, C777, Courcelles, Cuaxdon, Felipe Aira, Furrykef, GPHemsley,
Jarble, JorisvS, Kwamikagami, Lastorset, Ling.Nut, Marxolang, Mo-Al, Pairadox, Pi zero, PigFlu Oink, Siener, Stevey7788, Trobiawan, Troglo, Zollerriia, 21 anonymous edits

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