On the Conditions for Antipassives

Abstract

This survey of the triggers for Antipassives compares the most commonly known conditions under which Antipassive and accusative configurations occur in ergative and split-ergative languages. It is shown that Antipassives and accusative configurations are triggered by similar if not identical semantic conditions. These conditions are always in contrast to the conditions for ergative configurations. A comparison of those triggers in accusative languages shows that they follow parallel patterns. It is confirmed that changes in case configurations are triggered by similar semantic properties, regardless of the typological corner a language comes from.

Explaining the diversity of antipassives: Formal grammar vs. (diachronic) typology

“…From a diachronic‐typological perspective, the very same idea that there are antipassive “triggers” (Spreng, ) can be reversed: tense/aspect, person feature constellations, etc. do not trigger antipassive constructions.…”

“…The best‐known triggers for accusative configurations in split‐ergative languages are tense/aspect, the semantics of the internal argument (e.g., nonspecific objects), certain person feature constellations of the arguments, negation, and more generally, unactualized/counterfactual states of affairs. To account for these similarities, Spreng (: 556) argues that there is a nontrivial correlation between changes in alignment, aspect, and the semantics of objects “which applies cross‐linguistically and is not restricted to either ergative or nominative–accusative languages.”…”

“…The fact that the internal argument is assigned accusative case in (12) accounts for the similarity between the conditions under which antipassive and accusative configurations occur in ergative and split‐ergative languages (cf. Spreng, ; see below, Section 3.2). This universal tendency has a different and possibly more robust explanation within a diachronic‐typological approach.…”

“…I have already briefly discussed the analyses under (17a) in Section 3.1. Some of these analyses draw a parallel between the conditions for antipassive constructions and those for accusative constructions in split‐ergative languages, which happen to be the same or very similar across languages (Spreng, ). The best‐known triggers for accusative configurations in split‐ergative languages are tense/aspect, the semantics of the internal argument (e.g., nonspecific objects), certain person feature constellations of the arguments, negation, and more generally, unactualized/counterfactual states of affairs.…”

Split Ergativity is not about Ergativity

“…We might also add to this group "antipassive" constructions, described in a number of ergative languages (including Iñupiaq, Chukchi, Salish, and Dyirbal; see for example Heath 1976 andSpreng 2010). 8 Generally speaking, antipassive constructions have the effect of demoting the notional P argument, by relegating it to an oblique, by incorporating it into the verb, or by omitting it altogether.…”