Austronesian alignment

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's Formosan languages, as well as in 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 ergative–absolutive languages, and the other is similar to the active voice of nominative–accusative languages. They perform functions similar to the active and passive/antipassive voices, respectively, in those languages.

The ergative-like Philippine voice used to be often called the "passive," and the accusative-like voice has often been called the "active." However, that terminology is misleading and now deprecated, partly because the "passive" is the default voice in Austronesian languages, and a true passive is a secondary voice; however, no substitute terms have been widely accepted. Among the more common terms proposed are patient trigger (the ergative-like voice) and agent trigger (the accusative-like voice), which will be used here. The phrases are taken from the terms 'agent' and 'patient', which are 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:

The Philippine cases are only approximately equivalent to their namesakes in other languages and so are placed in 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 like the genitive or the locative case.

^[3] illustrate the Philippine system with reconstructed Proto-Malayo-Polynesian examples. (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 -ən for patient trigger and infix ⟨um⟩ for agent trigger). In modern Philippine languages, the practical effect of the voice distinction is rather like the difference between the use of a and the in English, and it is assumed to have played a similar role in the protolanguage.

*ka’ən-ən		na		manuk		a		wai
eat-(patient trigger)		(ergative)		chicken		(direct)		mango

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

*k⟨um⟩a’ən		ta		wai		a		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 would be also locative and benefactive voices. However, they are less important. The locative is illustrated here; the suffix on the verb indicates that the noun that is marked by the direct case is the location of the action, rather than a participant:

*ka’ən-an		na		manuk		a		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'

In Tagalog

A broadly similar system is found in Tagalog, the most thoroughly documented language of this type. In Tagalog, the ergative and the accusative cases have been conflated into an "indirect" case that contrasts to the direct case. (The indirect case marker, ng, is pronounced as /naŋ/.) The root of the Tagalog verb is kain "to eat."

k⟨in⟩ain		ng		manok		ang		mangga.
⟨(past:patient trigger)⟩eat		(indirect)		chicken		(direct)		mango

The mango was eaten by the chicken.

k⟨um⟩ain		ng		mangga		ang		manok.
⟨(past:agent trigger)⟩eat		(indirect)		mango		(direct)		chicken

The chicken ate a mango.

There are several viewpoints about the nature of the focus system in Tagalog:^[4]

• One is that the Tagalog focus is the voice. The following voices are then posited for Tagalog:

1. Active voice
2. Passive voice (AKA direct passive)
3. Local voice
4. Instrumental/benefactive voice

• Another is that the Tagalog focus is case. For example, ang is used when the prepositional phrase is in focus, and sa is used when it is not in focus. In the example below, the root of the Tagalog verb is kain "to eat."

k⟨in⟩ainan

ng

manok

ng

mangga

ang

puno.

⟨(past:patient trigger)⟩eat-(locative suffix)

(indirect)

chicken

(indirect)

mango

(direct)

tree

The tree was eaten a mango in by the chicken. (Tree is the focus.)

k⟨um⟩ain

ang

manok

ng

mangga

sa

puno.

⟨(past:agent trigger)⟩eat

(direct)

chicken

(indirect)

mango

(preposition)

tree

The chicken ate a mango in the tree. (Chicken is the focus.)

See also

• Focus (linguistics)
• Topic (linguistics)

Notes

References