Chapter 1. The multifaceted nature of the antipassive construction

Janic, Katarzyna; Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena

doi:10.1075/tsl.130.01jan

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 88 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…26 He notes 222 (73%) occurrences of the ergative construction against 83 (27%) occurrences of the antipassive. This is typical of antipassives, which tend to manifest a more restricted distribution cross-linguistically (see Rude 1988;Lazard 1989;Givón 1991;Cooreman 1988;Heaton 2017;Polinsky 2017;Vigus 2018;Janic 2021;Janic & Witzlack-Makarevich 2021;Seržant et al 2021) and also reported for West Greenlandic, a dialect group adjacent to Eastern Canadian Inuktitut (Berge 2011: 115). Thus, the antipassive is both formally and functionally marked in more conservative Inuktitut dialects: there is clear evidence for the P demotion on the formal side, and on the functional side, the antipassive shows low semantic transitivity and less discourse frequency than the ergative construction.…”

Section: The Antipassive In Eskimo-aleutmentioning

confidence: 83%

Alignment shift as functional markedness reversal

Janic

Hemmings

2021

JHL

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, we propose treating alignment shift as a process of functional markedness reversal in the domain of semantically transitive constructions. We illustrate how this approach allows us to capture similarities between the alignment shifts in Eskimo-Aleut and Western Austronesian languages, despite morphosyntactic differences in their voice systems. Using three diagnostics of functional markedness (semantic transitivity, topic continuity of P, and discourse frequency), we compare antipassive and ergative constructions in Eskimo-Aleut varieties and actor voice (av) and undergoer voice (uv) constructions in Western Austronesian varieties. We argue that ergative alignment is equivalent to a functionally unmarked P-prominent construction (e.g., ergative, uv), whilst accusative alignment is equivalent to a functionally unmarked A-prominent construction (e.g., antipassive, av). On this basis, we claim that both language groups are undergoing a parallel shift from ergative to accusative, since A-prominent constructions are functionally marked in more conservative varieties, but lose their functionally marked character and begin to function as unmarked transitive constructions in more innovative varieties.

show abstract

Section: The Antipassive In Eskimo-aleutmentioning

confidence: 83%

Alignment shift as functional markedness reversal

Janic

Hemmings

2021

JHL

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Since the detransitivizing operation is restricted to extraction, it can be characterized as a "structural" antipassive, a cross-linguistically rare phenomenon that is usually only found in "deep ergative" languages like Dyirbal (Heaton 2017;Janic & Witzlack-Makarevich 2021b). This means that the distribution of the Movima antipassive cannot be compared to that of the corresponding ergative (in Movima, the direct) construction, as is usually done in studies on the functions of antipassives (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between Symmetrical Voice and Ergativity: Inverse and Antipassive in Movima

Haude

2024

International Journal of American Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

show abstract