Chapter 18
When an antipassive isn’t an antipassive anymore
The Actor Voice construction in Kelabit
This paper presents the Actor Voice
(av) construction in Kelabit, a Western Austronesian
language spoken in Northern Sarawak, Malaysia. It compares Kelabit
av with prototypical antipassives and related
constructions in the more conservative Western Austronesian
languages, using case studies of West Greenlandic and Tagalog. On
the basis of morphosyntactic, semantic and discourse diagnostics,
the paper demonstrates that Tagalog av constructions have
the semantic and discourse characteristics of antipassives but are
syntactically transitive. In contrast, Kelabit av, which is
also syntactically transitive, has a mixture of semantic and
discourse properties: some antipassive-like but many active-like.
This has important implications for Western Austronesian and the
theory of alignment shift, as well as the ways in which antipassives
vary and change over time.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Antipassives
- 3.The av construction in Tagalog and the
Philippines
- 3.1Morphosyntax
- 3.2Semantics
- 3.3Discourse
- 3.4Summary
- 4.The av construction in Kelabit
- 4.1Morphosyntax
- 4.2Semantics
- 4.3Discourse
- 4.4Summary
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusion
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
Abbreviations
-
References
-
Appendix
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