Symmetrical voice

Symmetrical voice, also known as Austronesian alignment or the Austronesian focus system, is a typologically unusual kind of morphosyntactic alignment in which "one argument can be marked as having a special relationship to the verb".Template:Sfnp This special relationship manifests itself as a voice affix on the verb that corresponds to the syntactic role of a noun within the clause, that is either marked for a particular grammatical case or is found in a privileged structural position within the clause or both.

There are two alignment types of languages with symmetrical voice, the Philippine type which mostly retains the original system from Proto-Austronesian with four voices (or sometimes three), and the Indonesian type which reduced them into only two voices.

The Philippine-type languages include languages of the Philippines, but is also found in Taiwan's Formosan languages, as well as in northern Borneo, northern Sulawesi, and Madagascar, and has been reconstructed for the ancestral Proto-Austronesian language. In the rest of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, including Proto-Oceanic, symmetrical voice was lost almost entirely.

The number of voices differs from language to language. While the majority sampled have four voices, it is possible to have as few as two voices, and as many as six voices. In the examples below, the voice affix on the verb appears in red text, while the subject, which the affix selects, appears in underlined bold italics.

Terminology

The term Austronesian focus was widely used in early literature, but more scholars turn to the term voice recently because of the arguments against the term 'focus'. On the other hand, Starosta argued that neither voice nor focus is correct and that it is a lexical derivation.

Schachter (1987) proposed the word 'trigger', which has seen widespread use. As one source summarized, 'focus' and 'topic' do not mean what they mean in discourse (the essential piece of new information, and what is being talked about, respectively), but rather 'focus' is a kind of agreement, and the 'topic' is a noun phrase that agrees with the focus-marked verb. Thus using those terms for Austronesian/Philippine alignment is "misleading" and "it seems better to refer to this argument expression as the trigger, a term that reflects the fact that the semantic role of the argument in question triggers the choice of a verbal affix."

Studies

A number of studies focused on the typological perspective of Austronesian voice system. Some explored the semantic or pragmatic properties of Austronesian voice system. Others contributed to the valence-changing morphology.

Properties

Agreement with the semantic role of the subject

In languages that exhibit symmetrical voice, the voice affix on the main verb within the clause marks agreement with "the semantic role of the [subject]".

For example, the Actor Voice affix may agree only with agent nominal phrases. (The asterisk means that the sentence is ungrammatical for the intended meaning.)

Kapampangan

Tagalog

The sentences in (b) are ungrammatical because the patient nominal phrase is marked as the subject, even though the verb bears the Actor Voice infix. The sentences in (c) are ungrammatical because, instead of the agent nominal phrase, the location nominal phrase is marked as the subject.

The patient voice affix may agree only with patient nominal phrases.

Kapampangan

Tagalog

The sentences in (b) are ungrammatical because the agent nominal phrase is marked as the subject, even though the verb bears the patient voice affix. The sentences in (c) are ungrammatical because, instead of the patient nominal phrase, the location nominal phrase is marked as the subject.

The locative voice affix may agree only with location nominal phrases.

Kapampangan

Tagalog

The sentences in (b) are ungrammatical because the agent nominal phrase is marked as the subject, even though the verb bears the locative voice affix. The sentences in (c) are ungrammatical because, instead of the location nominal phrase, the patient nominal phrase is marked as the subject.

Types of semantic roles

Across languages, the most common semantic roles with which the voice affixes may agree are agent, patient, location, instrument, and benefactee. In some languages, the voice affixes may also agree with semantic roles such as theme, goal, reason, and time. The set of semantic roles that may be borne by subjects in each language varies, and some affixes can agree with more than one semantic role.

Promotion direct to subject

Languages that have symmetrical voice do not have a process that promotes an oblique argument to direct object. Oblique arguments are promoted directly to subject.

Tagalog

In the Tagalog examples above, the goal nominal phrase can either be an indirect object, as in (1), or a subject as in (2). However, it cannot become a direct object, or be marked with indirect case, as in (3). Verb forms, such as "nagpadalhan", which bear both an Actor Voice affix and a non-Actor Voice affix, do not exist in languages that have symmetrical voice.

The Tagalog examples contrast with the examples from Indonesian below.

Indonesian

In the Indonesian examples, the goal nominal phrase can be the indirect object, as in (4), and the subject, as in (5). However, unlike in Tagalog, the goal nominal phrase in Indonesian can be a direct object, as in (6). The preposition kepada disappears in the presence of the applicative suffix -i, and the goal nominal phrase moves from sentence-final position to some verb-adjacent position. In addition, they can behave like regular direct objects and undergo processes such as passivisation, as in (5).

Proto-Austronesian examples

The examples below are in Proto-Austronesian. Asterisks indicate a linguistic reconstruction. The voice affix on the verb appears in red text, while the subject, which the affix selects, appears in underlined bold italics. Four voices have been reconstructed for Proto-Austronesian: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice and Instrument Voice.

Proto-Austronesian

Formosan examples

The data below come from Formosan, a geographic grouping of all Austronesian languages that belong outside of Malayo-Polynesian. The Formosan languages are primarily spoken in Taiwan.

Amis

Amis has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Instrument Voice.

The direct case marker, which marks the subject in Amis, is ku.

Atayal

While they both have the same number of voices, the two dialects of Atayal presented below do differ in the shape of the circumstantial voice prefix. In Mayrinax, the circumstantial voice prefix is si-, whereas in Squliq, it is s-.

Mayrinax

Mayrinax has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial Voice prefix selects for benefactee and instrument subjects.

The direct case morpheme in Mayrinax is kuʔ.

Squliq

Squliq has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial voice prefix selects for benefactee and instrument subjects.

The direct case morpheme in Squliq is qu’.

Hla’alua

Hla’alua has three voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial voice suffix selects for location and theme subjects.

While bound pronouns have a direct case form, nouns do not bear a special direct case marker for subjects in Hla’alua.

Kanakanavu

Kanakanavu has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Instrument Voice.

The direct case morpheme, which optionally marks the subject in Kanakanavu, is sua.

Kavalan

Kavalan has three voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial voice prefix selects for instrument and benefactee subjects.

The direct case morpheme, which marks the subject in Kavalan, is ya.

Paiwan

Paiwan has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Instrument Voice.

The direct case morpheme, which marks the subject in Paiwan, is a.

Pazeh

Pazeh, which became extinct in 2010, had four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Instrument Voice.

The direct case morpheme, which marks the subject in Pazeh, is ki.

Puyuma

Puyuma has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial voice suffix selects for benefactee and instrument subjects.

The direct case morpheme, which marks the subject in Puyuma, is na or i.

Seediq

The two dialects of Seediq presented below each have a different number of voices. The direct case morpheme, which marks the subject in both dialects, is ka.

Tgdaya

Tgdaya has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice and Instrument Voice.

Truku

Truku has three voices: Actor Voice, Goal Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The goal voice suffix selects for patient and location subjects. The circumstantial voice prefix selects for benefactee and instrument subjects.

Tsou

Tsou has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Benefactive Voice. In addition to the voice morphology on the main verb, auxiliary verbs in Tsou, which are obligatory in the sentence, are also marked for voice. However, auxiliaries only differentiate between Actor Voice and non-Actor Voice (in green text).

The direct case morpheme, which marks subjects in Tsou, is ’o.

Batanic examples

The data below come from the Batanic languages, a subgroup under Malayo-Polynesian. These languages are spoken on the islands found in the Luzon Strait, between Taiwan and the Philippines.

Ivatan

Ivatan has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial voice prefix selects for instrument and benefactee subjects.

The direct case morpheme, which marks the subject in Ivatan, is qo.

Yami

Yami has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Instrument Voice.

The direct case morpheme, which marks subjects in Yami, is si for proper names, and o for common nouns.

Philippine examples

The data below come from Philippine languages, a subgroup under Malayo-Polynesian, predominantly spoken across the Philippines, with some found on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia.

Blaan

Blaan has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Instrument Voice, and Non-Actor Voice.

The non-Actor Voice affix selects for patient and location subjects, depending on the inherent voice of the verb.

Agent Prefocus Base		Patient Prefocus Base		Instrument Prefocus Base
(1)	Template:Interlinear	(1)	Template:Interlinear	(1)	Template:Interlinear
(2)	Template:Interlinear	(2)	Template:Interlinear	(2)	Template:Interlinear
(3)	Template:Interlinear	(3)	Template:Interlinear	(3)	Template:Interlinear

Cebuano

Cebuano has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Circumstantial Voice, and Instrument Voice.

The circumstantial voice suffix selects for location, benefactee and goal subjects.

The direct case morpheme, which marks the subject in Cebuano, is ang or si.

Kalagan

Kalagan has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Instrument Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial voice suffix selects for benefactee and location subjects.

The direct case morpheme, which marks the subject in Kalagan, is ya. The direct case form of the first person, singular pronoun is aku, whereas the ergative case form is ku.

Kapampangan

Kapampangan has five voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Goal Voice, Locative Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial voice prefix selects for instrument and benefactee subjects.

The direct case morpheme in Kapampangan is ing, which marks singular subjects, and reng, which is for plural subjects. Non-subject agents are marked with ergative case, ning, while non-subject patients are marked with accusative case, -ng, which is cliticized onto the preceding word.

Limos Kalinga

Limos Kalinga has five voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, Benefactive Voice and Instrument Voice.

Except for when the subject is the agent, the subject is found directly after the agent in the clause.

Maranao

Maranao has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Circumstantial Voice, and Instrument Voice.

The circumstantial suffix selects for benefactee and location subjects.

The direct case morpheme, which marks the subject in Maranao, is so.

Palawan

Palawan has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Instrument Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial voice suffix selects for benefactee and location subjects.

Subanen

Subanen has three voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The examples below are from Western Subanon, and the direct case morpheme in this language is og.

Tagalog

Tagalog has six voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, Benefactive Voice, Instrument Voice, and Reason Voice.

The locative voice suffix selects for location and goal subjects. (In the examples below, the goal subject and the benefactee subject are the same noun phrase.)

The reason voice prefix can only be affixed to certain roots, the majority of which are for emotion verbs (e.g., galit "be angry", sindak "be shocked"). However, verb roots such as matay "die", sakit "get sick", and iyak "cry" may also be marked with the reason voice prefix.

The direct case morpheme, which marks subjects in Tagalog, is ang. The indirect case morpheme, ng /naŋ/, which is the conflation of the ergative and accusative cases seen in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, marks non-subject agents and non-subject patients.

Tondano

Tondano has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Locative Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial Voice selects for instrument, benefactee, and theme subjects.

The subject is found in sentence-initial position, before the verb.

North Bornean examples

The data below come from North Bornean languages, a grouping under Malayo-Polynesian, mainly spoken on the northern parts of Borneo, spanning administrative areas of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Bonggi

Bonggi has four voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Instrumental Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial voice suffix selects for benefactee and goal subjects.

The subject is found in sentence-initial position, before the verb.

Kadazan Dusun

Kadazan DusunTemplate:Sfnp has three voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice and Benefactive Voice.

The direct case morpheme, which marks the subject in Kadazan Dusun, is i.

Kelabit

KelabitTemplate:Sfnp has three voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice and Instrument Voice.

Unlike other languages presented here, Kelabit does not use case-marking or word-ordering strategies to indicate the subject of the clause. However, certain syntactic processes, such as relativization, target the subject. Relativizing non-subjects results in ungrammatical sentences.Template:Sfnp

Kimaragang

Kimaragang has five voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Benefactive Voice, Instrument Voice and Locative Voice.

Only intransitive verbs can be marked with the locative voice suffix, which looks similar to the patient voice suffix.

The direct case marker, which marks the subject in Kimaragang, is it for definite nouns and ot for indefinite nouns.

Timugon Murut

Timugon Murut has five voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, Benefactive Voice, Instrument Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

There is no direct case marker to mark subjects in Timugon Murut. However, non-subject agents are marked with the ergative case marker, du, while non-subject non-agents are marked with the oblique case marker, da.

Malayic examples

The data below come from Malayic languages, a subgroup under Malayo-Polynesian, traditionally spoken on parts of Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and the islands between.

Besemah

Besemah (a dialect of South Barisan Malay spoken in southwestern Sumatra) has two voices: Agentive Voice and Patientive Voice.

Indonesian

IndonesianTemplate:Sfn has two voices: Actor Voice and Undergoer Voice. Template:Interlinear

Barito examples

The data below represent the Barito languages, and are from a language spoken on Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa. Other languages from Barito are spoken in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Malagasy

Malagasy has three voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The circumstantial voice suffix selects for instrument and benefactee subjects.

Malagasy does not have a direct case marker. However, the subject is found in sentence-final position.

Non-Austronesian examples

Alignment types resembling symmetrical voice have been observed in non-Austronesian languages.

Nilotic

The Nilotic languages are a group of languages spoken in the eastern part of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Dinka

Dinka is a dialect continuum spoken in South Sudan. The two dialects presented below each have a maximum of three voices.

Agar

Andersen (1991) suggests that Agar exhibits symmetrical voice. This language has a maximum of three voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, and Circumstantial Voice. The subject is found in sentence-initial position, before the verb. The non-finite form of the verb found in the examples below is yḛ̂ep "cut".

However, the number of voice morphemes available in this language is reduced to two when the agent is a full noun (i.e., not a pronoun), such as in the examples below. In (5a), where the subject is a patient, and the agent is not a pronoun, the verb is marked with Circumstantial Voice. Compare to (2) above, in which the agent is pronominal, and the verb is marked with patient voice morpheme, Template:Text color.

Bor

Van Urk (2015) suggests that Bor exhibits symmetrical voice. This language has three voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The subject is found in sentence-initial position, before the verb. The non-finite form of the verb found in the examples below is câam "eat".

Kurmuk

Andersen (2015) suggests that Kurmuk, which is spoken in Sudan, has a construction that resembles symmetrical voice. This language has three voices: Actor Voice, Patient Voice, and Circumstantial Voice.

The subject in the examples below is found in sentence-initial position, before the verb.

Notes

Glosses

Here is a list of the abbreviations used in the glosses:

1

first person

Template:Sc

definite

Template:Sc

ligature

Template:Sc

realis mood

2

second person

Template:Sc

determiner

Template:Sc

locative voice

Template:Sc

reason voice

3

third person

Template:Sc

direct case

Template:Sc

masculine

Template:Sc

singular

Template:Sc

accusative case

Template:Sc

ergative case

Template:Sc

non-actor voice

Template:Sc

transitive

Template:Sc

animate

Template:Sc

feminine

Template:Sc

nominalizer

Template:Sc

morpheme of unknown semantics

Template:Sc

aspect

Template:Sc

genitive case

Template:Sc

nominative case

Template:Sc

actor voice

Template:Sc

goal voice

Template:Sc

oblique case

Template:Sc

auxiliary verb

Template:Sc

inanimate

Template:Sc

plural

Template:Sc

benefactive voice

Template:Sc

indirect case

Template:Sc

preposition

Template:Sc

circumstantial voice

Template:Sc

indefinite

Template:Sc

past tense

Template:Sc

declarative

Template:Sc

instrument voice

Template:Sc

patient voice

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