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. Linguistic Typology is an international Peer-reviewed journal in the field of Linguistic typology, founded in 1997 Morphological typology is a way of classifying the languages of the world (see Linguistic typology) that groups languages according to their common morphological structures In morphological typology (in linguistics an isolating language (also analytic language) is any Language in which words are composed of A synthetic language, in Linguistic typology, is a Language with a high Morpheme -per- word ratio Polysynthetic languages are highly Synthetic languages ie languages in which words are composed of many Morphemes Definition The degree of For fusion in Word formation, see Compound (linguistics. A fusional language (also called inflecting language) is a An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of Transitive verbs and those of Intransitive A nominative-accusative Language (or simply accusative language) is one that marks the direct object of Transitive verbs distinguishing them An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive An active-stative language, or active language for short is one in which the sole argument of an Intransitive verb is sometimes marked in the same way A tripartite language, also called an ergative-accusative language, is one that treats the subject of an intransitive verb the subject of a transitive verb and the object A direct-inverse language is a language where clauses with transitive verbs can be expressed either using a direct or an inverse construction The syntactic pivot is the Verb argument around which sentences "revolve" in a given Language. In Generative grammar, (in particular Government and binding theory and the Standard Theory of Transformational Grammar a theta role or θ-role is the In Linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the different ways in which languages arrange the constituents of their sentences relative to each other and the systematic In Linguistics, a VO language is a language in which the Verb typically comes before the object (thus including SVO, VOS and In Linguistic typology, subject-verb-object ( SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first the Verb second and the object Verb Subject Object ( VSO) is a term in Linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages when classifying languages according to the sequence of these In Linguistic typology, Verb Object Subject or Verb Object Agent - commonly used in its abbreviated form VOS or VOA - represents the language-classification In Linguistics, an OV language is a language in which the object comes before the Verb. In Linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and Verb of a sentence appear or usually Object Subject Verb (OSV or Object Agent Verb (OAV is one of the permutations of expression used in Linguistic typology. Object Verb Subject (OVS or Object Verb Agent (OVA is one of the Permutations of expression used in Linguistic typology, although it is rare among Time Manner Place (TMP describes one possible ordering of Adpositional phrases in sentences Place Manner Time is a term used in Linguistic typology to state the general order of Adpositional phrases in a language's sentences "to the store by car In Linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of Transitive verbs and those of Intransitive An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive A nominative-accusative Language (or simply accusative language) is one that marks the direct object of Transitive verbs distinguishing them It is best known from the languages of the Philippines, but is also found in Formosa, Borneo, and Madagascar, and has been reconstructed for the ancestral Proto-Austronesian language. The Philippines ( Filipino: Pilipinas, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (fil ''Republika ng Pilipinas'' RP Taiwan ( Taiwanese: Tâi-oân/Tāi-oân (historically 大灣/台員/大員/台圓/大圓/台窩灣 is an Island in East Asia. Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic) is an Island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern
Whereas most languages have two voices which are used to track referents in discourse, an 'active' transitive voice and a 'passive' (referred to as 'antipassive' in the case of ergative languages) intransitive voice (with an optional oblique noun phrase like by all in "his call was heard by all"), in prototypical Philippine languages the two voices are both transitive. In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified In general a reference is a relation between objects in which one object designates by linking to another object In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified In Syntax, a transitive verb is a Verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified The antipassive voice is a Verb voice found mostly in ergative languages Like the Passive voice, the antipassive decreases the verb's valency In Grammar, an intransitive Verb does not take an object. In more technical terms an intransitive verb has only one argument (its subject An oblique case (casus generalis in Linguistics is a Noun case of Synthetic languages that is used generally when a Noun is the object One of the two Philippine voices is similar in form to the active voice of ergative languages, while the other is similar to the active voice of accusative languages. These perform functions similar to the active and passive/antipassive voices, respectively, in other languages.
The ergative-like Philippine voice has in the past often been called the "passive"; however, this terminology is misleading and is now disfavored, though no substitute has been widely accepted. Among the more common terms that have been proposed for these voices are patient trigger (the ergative-like voice) and agent trigger (the accusative-like voice), which will be used here. These phrases are taken from the terms 'agent' and 'patient', used in semantics for the acting and acted-upon participants in a transitive clause. In Linguistics, a grammatical agent is the Participant of a situation that carries out the action in this situation In Linguistics, a grammatical patient is the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from In Grammar, a clause is a word or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in some Languages and some types of
The three voice systems, with the cases of their core arguments, can be contrasted as follows:
| Morphological alignment | Case of basic intransitive clause | Cases of basic transitive clause | Cases of the secondary voice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accusative (as most European languages) |
nominative (same case as Agent) |
Active voice | Passive voice |
| nominative (Agent) | nominative (Patient) | ||
| accusative (Patient) | |||
| Ergative (as most Australian languages) |
absolutive (same case as Patient) |
Active voice | Antipassive voice |
| absolutive (Patient) | absolutive (Agent) | ||
| ergative (Agent) | |||
| Austronesian (as most Philippine languages) |
"direct" (the case common to the two transitive voices) |
Patient trigger | Agent trigger |
| "direct" (Patient) | "direct" (Agent) | ||
| ergative (Agent) | accusative (Patient) |
The Philippine cases are only approximately equivalent to their namesakes in other languages ("direct" as used here is commonly called "nominative", but could as easily be called "absolutive", for example), and are therefore placed in scare quotes. A syntactic verb argument, in Linguistics, is a Phrase that appears in a relationship with the Verb in a Clause. The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive In Ergative-absolutive languages the absolutive ( abbreviated ABS) is the Grammatical case used to mark both the subject of an The ergative case is the Grammatical case that identifies the subject of a Transitive verb in Ergative-absolutive languages In such languages In Indo-Aryan languages, the direct case is the name given to a Grammatical case used with all three Core relations the agent of Transitive 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 such as a genitive or locative. In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location
Lynch et al. John Lynch, born July 8 1946 in Sydney Australia is a linguist specializing in Oceanic languages. 2002 (p. 59) illustrate the Philippine system with reconstructed Proto-Malayo-Polynesian examples. (The asterisks indicate a reconstruction. ) The unmarked clause order was to have the verb first and the "direct" phrase last. Markedness is a linguistic concept that developed out of the Prague School (also known as the Prague linguistic circle) The voice (the patient or agent trigger) was indicated by an affix to the verb (suffix -ən and infix <um>, respectively). An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word An infix is an Affix inserted inside a stem (an existing word In modern Philippine languages, the practical effect of this voice distinction is rather like the difference between the use of a and the in English, and it is assumed that it 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 were also locative and benefactive voices. Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location The benefactive case ( abbreviated BEN) is a case used where English would use "for" "for the benefit of" However, these are not as central as the other two. The locative is illustrated here; the suffix on the verb indicates that the noun 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 best known language of this type. Tagalog is one of the major languages used in the Philippines. (In Tagalog orthography, ng is an abbreviation for the particle nang. )
| B<um>asa | ng | aklat | ang | tao. |
| <(present:agent trigger)>read | (indirect) | book | (direct) | person |
- The person reads a book.
| B<in>asa | ng | tao | ang | aklat. |
| <(past:patient trigger)>read | (indirect) | person | (direct) | book |
- The book was read by a person.