Predicting voice choice in symmetrical voice languages

Abstract

Western Austronesian symmetrical voice languages exhibit at least two basic transitive constructions. This paper investigates what factors influence speakers’ choice of one voice over another in natural spoken discourse. It provides a thorough assessment of all factors that have been proposed to be relevant for voice choice in the literature on symmetrical voice systems. Using the Indonesian language Totoli as a case study, we show that unlike in languages with asymmetrical voice alternations, argument-related properties such as topicality, activation state, animacy, etc. do not play a major role in voice choice in symmetrical voice languages. We argue that for symmetrical voice alternations other factor groups are relevant than for asymmetrical voice alternations and that the clear structural differences between the two alternation types are mirrored in functional differences.

Examining voice choice in Tagalog: A corpus of web-based Tagalog

“…Comparatively, columns two and four demonstrate that there are quite a few lexical (less accessible) Undergoers. Furthermore, these columns show that when the Undergoer is lexical there are proportionately more Actor voice instances, which is similar to the findings in Totoli (Riesberg et al 2021). When the Undergoer is non-lexical, there is more Undergoer voice.…”

“…Forms were coded as being lexical (full NPs or free relative clauses) or non-lexical (pronouns, zeros, demonstratives, etc.). This analysis may provide a more accurate representation of an entity's accessibility compared to the given/new distinction (Riesberg et al, 2021).…”

“…This suggests that accessibility (argument realization) and definiteness may still capture slightly different phenomena even if they are related constructs that contribute to an argument's prominence. Utilizing statistical tests will be able to tell us if these associations are statistically significant and the extent to which a feature individually contributes to prominence and its influence on the mapping from argument to grammatical role (see Riesberg et al 2021). Like the prominence features of animacy and definiteness, the increase in the Actor voice appears to be affected by the Undergoer and whether it is high or low accessibility.…”

Between Symmetrical Voice and Ergativity: Inverse and Antipassive in Movima

“…3 The comparison here will be restricted to Tagalog, even though the voice systems of other Austronesian languages such as Totoli (Riesberg 2014;Riesberg et al 2021) are also strongly reminiscent of the Movima direct-inverse system. Apart from the patient voice in (1)a, Tagalog also has two additional undergoer voices, the locative voice (marked by -an) and the conveyance voice (marked by i-) (Himmelmann 2005b: 363).…”