Cover not available

In:Antipassive: Typology, diachrony, and related constructions
Edited by Katarzyna Janic and Alena Witzlack-Makarevich
[Typological Studies in Language 130] 2021
► pp. 43–64

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 2
Antipassive propensities and alignment

 | University of California
Published online: 23 March 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.130.02mit
Abstract
Antipassive constructions were once thought to be unique to languages with ergative/absolutive alignment. Subsequent work demonstrated their existence in languages with nominative/accusative alignment as well. Here antipassives are described in languages with a third kind of system, agent/patient patterning. The languages come from four genealogically and areally unrelated families indigenous to North America: Siouan, Haida, Pomoan, and Iroquoian. Antipassives in all three types of systems, ergative, accusative, and agent/patient, serve similar semantic and discourse functions, eliminating less topicworthy participants from the core. But the perception of a special link to ergativity is not unmotivated. Two explanations are given. One is the formal salience of the shift in argument marking resulting from detransitivization in ergative systems. The other is a by-product of syntactic constructions which require absolutive status of one of the arguments. In many cases antipassivization is exploited to meet this requirement. These two factors are illustrated with material from Hiligaynon, a language of the Philippines.
Article outline
  • 1.Siouan languages
  • 2.Haida
  • 3.Pomoan
  • 4.Iroquoian
  • 5.Why the ergative-antipassive association?
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Note
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (26)
References
Bonvillain, Nancy. 1994. Reflexives in Mohawk. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics 19(2): 87–114.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bostoen, Koen, Dom, Sebastian & Segerer, Guillaume. 2015. The antipassive in Bantu. Linguistics 53(4): 731–772. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cennamo, Michela. 1993. The Reanalysis of Reflexives: A Diachronic Perspective. Napoli: Liguori Editore.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view. In Subject and Topic, Charles N. Li (ed.), 25–55. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Creissels, Denis. 2012. The origin of antipassive markers in West Mande languages. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, Stockholm, 29 August-1 September.
. 2015. Valency properties of Mandinka verbs. In Valency Classes in the World’s Languages, Vol. I: Introducing the Framework, and Case Studies from Africa and Eurasia, Andrej Malchukov & Bernard Comrie (eds), 221–160. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 1979. Ergativity. Language 55(1): 59–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enrico, John. 2003. Haida Syntax. Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fici, Francesca. 2004. Costrutti passivi, decausativi, medi e pseudo-passivi. Osservazioni sulla marca riflessiva del verbo in russo. Studi Italiani di Linguistica Teorica e Applicata 23: 205–219.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Genušienė, Emma. 1987. The Typology of Reflexives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janic, Katarzyna. 2013. L’antipassif dans les langues accusatives. PhD dissertation, Lumière University Lyon 2.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kemmer, Suzanne. 1993. The Middle Voice [Typological Studies in Language 23]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lawrence, Erma. 1977. Haida Dictionary. Fairbanks AK: Alaska Native Language Center.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leer, Jeff. 1977. Introduction. In Haida Dictionary, Erma Lawrence (comp.), 12–153. Fairbanks AK: Alaska Native Language Center.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nedová, Lucie. 2009. Reflexive Clitics in the Slavic and Romance Languages: A Comparative View from an Antipassive Perspective. PhD dissertation, Princeton University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mithun, Marianne. 1991. Active/Agentive case marking and its motivations. Language 67(3): 510–546. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1993. Reconstructing the unidentified. In Historical Linguistics 1989. Henk Aertsen and Robert Jeffers, (eds), 329-347. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. Grammatical relations in Hiligaynon. In Argument Selectors: A New Perspective on Grammatical Relations [Typological Studies in Language 123], Alena Witzlack-Makarevich & Balthasar Bickel (eds), 131–184. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nouguier-Voisin, Sylvie. 2005. Antipassif et langues accusatives. In Linguistique typologique, Gilbert Lazard & Claire Moyse-Faurie (eds), 193–206. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polinsky, Maria. 2013. Antipassive constructions. In The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds). Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. <[URL]> (28 December 2017).
Ramat, Anna Giacalone. 2008. Areal convergence in grammaticalization processes. In Rethinking Grammaticalization: New Perspectives [Typological Studies in Language 76], María José López Couso & Elena Seoane (eds), 129–168. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Renaudier, Marie. 2012. Dérivation et valence en sereer, Variété de Mar Lodj (Sénégal). PhD dissertation, Lumière University Lyon 2.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 1972. Chinook Jargon: Language contact and the problem of multilevel generative systems, II. Language 48(2): 596–625. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1976. Hierarchy of features and ergativity. In Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages, R. M. W. Dixon (ed.), 112–171. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spencer, Andrew. 1991. Morphological Theory: An Introduction to Word Structure in Generative Grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ullrich, Jan. 2011. New Lakota Dictionary. Bloomington IN: Lakota Language Consortium.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Creissels, Denis
2024. Transitivity, Valency, and Voice, DOI logo
Hemmings, Charlotte
2021. When an antipassive isn’t an antipassive anymore. In Antipassive [Typological Studies in Language, 130], ► pp. 579 ff. DOI logo
Janic, Katarzyna
2021. Variation in the verbal marking of antipassive constructions. In Antipassive [Typological Studies in Language, 130], ► pp. 249 ff. DOI logo
Janic, Katarzyna & Alena Witzlack-Makarevich
2021. The multifaceted nature of the antipassive construction. In Antipassive [Typological Studies in Language, 130], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Say, Sergey
2021. Antipassive and the lexical meaning of verbs. In Antipassive [Typological Studies in Language, 130], ► pp. 177 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue