Voice In Phil Lang
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Voice in Philippine Language Masayoshi Shibatani
Introduction The paper examines the most
controversial subjects in the are of linguistic typology and universals; namely the voice system in Philippine languages. 1. typologization of PL 2. the status of subject
Typologization of PL
Concerns with the implications of voice phenomenon, centers on the dominant goal (patient)-topic construction. > PL are accusative in type (the goal-topic construction an other non-actor topic constructions are passive) > PL are ergative in type (the goal-topic construction should be identified as ergative construction, with a concomitant assumption that the actor (agent)-topic is an antipassive construction) > the goal-topic construction is neither passive nor ergative, and should be treated as a distinct topic construction)
STATUS OF SUBJECT > first view assumes that PL have subjects, and that they are typically marked by the prepositional ang. > second view holds that the notion of subject is not applicable to PL, and that ang-marked nominals are to be treated as topics. OBJECTIVE The discussion aims to resolve or at least clarify the issues mentioned.
PRELIMINARIES In Cebuano, personal pronouns have four forms while common nouns and demonstrative nouns have only two.
Personal names
si Juan
ni Juan
Personal pronouns
Siya
Iya/niya
Common nouns Demonstratives
kang Juan kaniya
‘he’
ang bata sa bata
sa bata
‘child’
kini
niini
‘this’
niini
Form Categories
Functions (Roles)
Topic
(following except possessor)
Genitive
Possesor Actor (agent) Goal (patient) Recipient Direction Location Instrument
Oblique
Focus categories
Actor Focus (AF) Goal Focus (GF)
Directional Focus Instrument Focus
Form labels, such as topic, genitive and oblique are not
functional categories. They are simple labels for the surface forms. In this paper, “focus” is used in the sense of Schachter and Otanes (1972), “focus is the feature of a verbal predicate that determines the semantic relationship between a predicate verb and its topic.” In the focus categories are coalesced a number of semantic categories. 1. in terms of nominal form (recipient, direction, location and instrument) take the same surface, the common noun takes the sa particle 2. in terms of focus marking in the verbal predicate
(1) Ni-hatag si Juan TOP ACTOR
sa libro sa bata. GEN GOAL
OBL RECIP
‘Juan gave the book to the child’ (2) Gi-hatag ni Juan GEN ACTOR
ang libro
sa bata.
TOP GOAL
OBL RECIP
‘Juan gave the book to the child.’ In (1) the actor Juan is the topic of the sentence (actortopic), and this is indicated by the prefix ni-. In (2) the libro is the topic (goal-topic), indicated by the prefix gi-.
NON-ACTOR TOPIC CONSTRUCTIONS AS PASSIVES As seen from the previous Cebuano sentences, each contains a topic, and that the topic is selected from various nominal constituents of a sentence. Topic markers differ from one language to another, ang in Cebuano, Tagalog and Hiligaynon, ti (Ilokano), an (Bikol), say (Pangasinan) and ing in Kapampangan. In older tradition of Philippine Linguistics, the different topic constructions were treated in terms of voice variation. The actor-topic sentence was identified as the active voice, and the goal-topic as the passive voice. (Blommfield, 1917 and Blake, 1925) Modern linguists like Bell (1983) and other relational grammarians consider the actor-topic form to be active and basic. Non-actor topic on the other hand are treated as passive.
Givon (1979) characterizes non-actor topic constructions as passives on the basis of his assumptions that they perform the same function of ‘promoting’ non-agents to a grammatically prominent role, just like the passive in English and other languages.
‘Voice’ is understood to mean a system that mediates between semantic functions such as subjects and object. The active voice is a system in which an agent is expressed in grammatical subject, while the passive voice puts a patient in the subject role. Thus, there is an obvious parallelism between the topic construction in PL and the voice system in other languages.
PROBLEMS > The problem of the traditional analyses is that the important differences between the Phil. topic construction and the passive construction in English and other languages are ignored in the interest of capturing the similarities. > A major difficulty with the works that analogize the Philippine non-actor topic constructions to the passive is the lack of rigorous and thorough understanding of what the passive voice is. PHILIPPINE SITUATION > past understanding of the passive voice have been too general, not being able to differentiate passivization and topicalization.
First, passives and topic constructions coexist, as in Japanese, and thus a distinction needs to be made between the two. Secondly, ergative languages, such as Mam, may have passives. And thirdly, Chamorro, which has the Philippine-type goal-topic construction, and Sama, a PL, have an additional passive construction. (Shibatani,1985) Among the properties of the prototypical passive construction that have been delineated by Shibatani, the most relevant is the pragmatic function of agent defocusing. That is, passivization involves the defocusing of an agentive entity that figures in the semantic frame.
2 SYNTACTIC CONSEQUENCES: 1. the agent is neither not syntactically encoded at all or is encoded in less syntactically prominent, e.g. oblique position 2. a non-agentive nominal, typically a patient, is promoted to a grammatically prominent, e.g. subject position. This occurs in a large number of languages, but by no means in all instances of passives.
> In the passive, a patient is promoted to subject position, while in the Phil. non-topic constructions, a non-agentive (non-actor) nominal is placed in topic position, a position that is grammatically prominent.
SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES - in the passive, there are restrictions on what can be promoted. (In languages like German and Korean, only direct objects can be made the subject of a passive clause.) - in Philippine situation, in which, not only goals (patients), but also other nominal adjuncts including recipient, benefactive, location, and position can be placed in topic position.
>This wide applicability of promotion is a characteristic of topicalization rather than passivization.
CONSEQUENCE OF PASSIVIZATION > passive does not normally encode an agent syntactically, typically resulting in a syntactically intransitive clause. (there are a large number of languages that have passives without patient promotion, so called the impersonal passives, all passives involve defocusing of agent in one way or another (Shibatani, 1985).
! Goal-topic construction in PL, actor is not normally deleted in the PL non-actor construction, unlike in passive.
Examples of goal-topic sentences in which the actors are marked as genitive. (5) Didto na-hibalag niya GF
GEN
si Maria,
TOP (goal)
ang anak
TOP
‘There she met Maria, the daughter
sa ilang mangluluto. GEN of their cook.’
…gi-kawat ko kining sundang gikan sa bungbong. GF GEN TOP OBL ‘ I grabbed this bolo from the wall.’
Again, based from the statistics by Hopper and Thompson (1980), the goal-topic construction shows no tendency towards agent omission.
Based from the studies of Matthew Dryer, Shibatani in Cebuano and Cooreman in Chamorro, clearly indicates that the goal-topic construction is functionally different from the passive construction, and this precisely is the reason why languages having the goal-topic construction, like Chamorro and Sama, may develop am additional passive construction. To sum up this section, the goal-topic construction and the passive construction are different in an important way; an agent is an integral part of the GTC, while it is generally not included in a passive clause. The GTC and PC also differ in terms of markedness. Where markedness is correlated with at least 2 factors. 1. formal complexity 2. manifestation of markedness in text frequency
PHLIPPINE GOAL-TOPIC CONSTRUCTION 1. non-actor topic constructions shows no more formal complexity than do their actor-topic counterparts. 2. Philippine GTC is not a marked constrcution in text frequency.
> In conclusion to this section, it is clear that while patient and nominals in the GTC and the passive in English and other languages are similar in regards to subject/topic role, these two constructions shows far more significant differences.
4. Goal-topic construction as ergative > High frequency of patient-prominent constructions is an earmark of ergative languages. > In recent years, attempts have been made to characterize PL as ergative on the basis of arguments, on the high frequency of GTC. (Foley and Van Valin 1984) >Discussions on ergativity involves many issues at different grammatical levels, ranging from basic case marking to the discourse organization involving different types of clauses. > Recent studies in ergativity, indicates that such an overall characterization is often inadequate, for many languages show phenomenon reflecting mixed ergativity/accusative organization within individual languages.
MARKING OF NOMINAL ELEMENTS AND VERBAL PREDICATE (7) L-um-apit ang babae. intrans-come:past
ABS woman
‘The woman came.’
(8) B-in-ili
ng babae
trs-buy:past ERG woman ‘The woman bought the dress.’
ang baro. ABS dress
>The “subject” of the intransitive clause and the “direct object” of the transitive clauses are marked in the same way.
Payne (1982) claims that “in traditional sense Tagalog also can be said to manifest an ergative system”, for in sentences 7 and 8, those elements that correspond to the English intransitive subject and directed object are marked by ang.
The difficulty in the Philippine situation is that topicalization is grammaticized to the extent that a normal sentence, whether transitive or intransitive, must contain one topic nominal, which has the effect of masking the basic case marking system. In Pl, nominals reveal their basic case forms when they are not marked by ang.
(9) a. Gi-basa sa bata ang libro. GF-read Actor-child Top(goal) book ‘The/a child read the book.’
b. Ni-basa
ang bata
AF-read Top (actor) child ‘The child read a book.’
ug libro. Goal book
> PL still retain clause-types in which ang-marking does not take place and in which nominals expose their basic case forms.
Introduction The paper examines the most
controversial subjects in the are of linguistic typology and universals; namely the voice system in Philippine languages. 1. typologization of PL 2. the status of subject
Typologization of PL
Concerns with the implications of voice phenomenon, centers on the dominant goal (patient)-topic construction. > PL are accusative in type (the goal-topic construction an other non-actor topic constructions are passive) > PL are ergative in type (the goal-topic construction should be identified as ergative construction, with a concomitant assumption that the actor (agent)-topic is an antipassive construction) > the goal-topic construction is neither passive nor ergative, and should be treated as a distinct topic construction)
STATUS OF SUBJECT > first view assumes that PL have subjects, and that they are typically marked by the prepositional ang. > second view holds that the notion of subject is not applicable to PL, and that ang-marked nominals are to be treated as topics. OBJECTIVE The discussion aims to resolve or at least clarify the issues mentioned.
PRELIMINARIES In Cebuano, personal pronouns have four forms while common nouns and demonstrative nouns have only two.
Personal names
si Juan
ni Juan
Personal pronouns
Siya
Iya/niya
Common nouns Demonstratives
kang Juan kaniya
‘he’
ang bata sa bata
sa bata
‘child’
kini
niini
‘this’
niini
Form Categories
Functions (Roles)
Topic
(following except possessor)
Genitive
Possesor Actor (agent) Goal (patient) Recipient Direction Location Instrument
Oblique
Focus categories
Actor Focus (AF) Goal Focus (GF)
Directional Focus Instrument Focus
Form labels, such as topic, genitive and oblique are not
functional categories. They are simple labels for the surface forms. In this paper, “focus” is used in the sense of Schachter and Otanes (1972), “focus is the feature of a verbal predicate that determines the semantic relationship between a predicate verb and its topic.” In the focus categories are coalesced a number of semantic categories. 1. in terms of nominal form (recipient, direction, location and instrument) take the same surface, the common noun takes the sa particle 2. in terms of focus marking in the verbal predicate
(1) Ni-hatag si Juan TOP ACTOR
sa libro sa bata. GEN GOAL
OBL RECIP
‘Juan gave the book to the child’ (2) Gi-hatag ni Juan GEN ACTOR
ang libro
sa bata.
TOP GOAL
OBL RECIP
‘Juan gave the book to the child.’ In (1) the actor Juan is the topic of the sentence (actortopic), and this is indicated by the prefix ni-. In (2) the libro is the topic (goal-topic), indicated by the prefix gi-.
NON-ACTOR TOPIC CONSTRUCTIONS AS PASSIVES As seen from the previous Cebuano sentences, each contains a topic, and that the topic is selected from various nominal constituents of a sentence. Topic markers differ from one language to another, ang in Cebuano, Tagalog and Hiligaynon, ti (Ilokano), an (Bikol), say (Pangasinan) and ing in Kapampangan. In older tradition of Philippine Linguistics, the different topic constructions were treated in terms of voice variation. The actor-topic sentence was identified as the active voice, and the goal-topic as the passive voice. (Blommfield, 1917 and Blake, 1925) Modern linguists like Bell (1983) and other relational grammarians consider the actor-topic form to be active and basic. Non-actor topic on the other hand are treated as passive.
Givon (1979) characterizes non-actor topic constructions as passives on the basis of his assumptions that they perform the same function of ‘promoting’ non-agents to a grammatically prominent role, just like the passive in English and other languages.
‘Voice’ is understood to mean a system that mediates between semantic functions such as subjects and object. The active voice is a system in which an agent is expressed in grammatical subject, while the passive voice puts a patient in the subject role. Thus, there is an obvious parallelism between the topic construction in PL and the voice system in other languages.
PROBLEMS > The problem of the traditional analyses is that the important differences between the Phil. topic construction and the passive construction in English and other languages are ignored in the interest of capturing the similarities. > A major difficulty with the works that analogize the Philippine non-actor topic constructions to the passive is the lack of rigorous and thorough understanding of what the passive voice is. PHILIPPINE SITUATION > past understanding of the passive voice have been too general, not being able to differentiate passivization and topicalization.
First, passives and topic constructions coexist, as in Japanese, and thus a distinction needs to be made between the two. Secondly, ergative languages, such as Mam, may have passives. And thirdly, Chamorro, which has the Philippine-type goal-topic construction, and Sama, a PL, have an additional passive construction. (Shibatani,1985) Among the properties of the prototypical passive construction that have been delineated by Shibatani, the most relevant is the pragmatic function of agent defocusing. That is, passivization involves the defocusing of an agentive entity that figures in the semantic frame.
2 SYNTACTIC CONSEQUENCES: 1. the agent is neither not syntactically encoded at all or is encoded in less syntactically prominent, e.g. oblique position 2. a non-agentive nominal, typically a patient, is promoted to a grammatically prominent, e.g. subject position. This occurs in a large number of languages, but by no means in all instances of passives.
> In the passive, a patient is promoted to subject position, while in the Phil. non-topic constructions, a non-agentive (non-actor) nominal is placed in topic position, a position that is grammatically prominent.
SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES - in the passive, there are restrictions on what can be promoted. (In languages like German and Korean, only direct objects can be made the subject of a passive clause.) - in Philippine situation, in which, not only goals (patients), but also other nominal adjuncts including recipient, benefactive, location, and position can be placed in topic position.
>This wide applicability of promotion is a characteristic of topicalization rather than passivization.
CONSEQUENCE OF PASSIVIZATION > passive does not normally encode an agent syntactically, typically resulting in a syntactically intransitive clause. (there are a large number of languages that have passives without patient promotion, so called the impersonal passives, all passives involve defocusing of agent in one way or another (Shibatani, 1985).
! Goal-topic construction in PL, actor is not normally deleted in the PL non-actor construction, unlike in passive.
Examples of goal-topic sentences in which the actors are marked as genitive. (5) Didto na-hibalag niya GF
GEN
si Maria,
TOP (goal)
ang anak
TOP
‘There she met Maria, the daughter
sa ilang mangluluto. GEN of their cook.’
…gi-kawat ko kining sundang gikan sa bungbong. GF GEN TOP OBL ‘ I grabbed this bolo from the wall.’
Again, based from the statistics by Hopper and Thompson (1980), the goal-topic construction shows no tendency towards agent omission.
Based from the studies of Matthew Dryer, Shibatani in Cebuano and Cooreman in Chamorro, clearly indicates that the goal-topic construction is functionally different from the passive construction, and this precisely is the reason why languages having the goal-topic construction, like Chamorro and Sama, may develop am additional passive construction. To sum up this section, the goal-topic construction and the passive construction are different in an important way; an agent is an integral part of the GTC, while it is generally not included in a passive clause. The GTC and PC also differ in terms of markedness. Where markedness is correlated with at least 2 factors. 1. formal complexity 2. manifestation of markedness in text frequency
PHLIPPINE GOAL-TOPIC CONSTRUCTION 1. non-actor topic constructions shows no more formal complexity than do their actor-topic counterparts. 2. Philippine GTC is not a marked constrcution in text frequency.
> In conclusion to this section, it is clear that while patient and nominals in the GTC and the passive in English and other languages are similar in regards to subject/topic role, these two constructions shows far more significant differences.
4. Goal-topic construction as ergative > High frequency of patient-prominent constructions is an earmark of ergative languages. > In recent years, attempts have been made to characterize PL as ergative on the basis of arguments, on the high frequency of GTC. (Foley and Van Valin 1984) >Discussions on ergativity involves many issues at different grammatical levels, ranging from basic case marking to the discourse organization involving different types of clauses. > Recent studies in ergativity, indicates that such an overall characterization is often inadequate, for many languages show phenomenon reflecting mixed ergativity/accusative organization within individual languages.
MARKING OF NOMINAL ELEMENTS AND VERBAL PREDICATE (7) L-um-apit ang babae. intrans-come:past
ABS woman
‘The woman came.’
(8) B-in-ili
ng babae
trs-buy:past ERG woman ‘The woman bought the dress.’
ang baro. ABS dress
>The “subject” of the intransitive clause and the “direct object” of the transitive clauses are marked in the same way.
Payne (1982) claims that “in traditional sense Tagalog also can be said to manifest an ergative system”, for in sentences 7 and 8, those elements that correspond to the English intransitive subject and directed object are marked by ang.
The difficulty in the Philippine situation is that topicalization is grammaticized to the extent that a normal sentence, whether transitive or intransitive, must contain one topic nominal, which has the effect of masking the basic case marking system. In Pl, nominals reveal their basic case forms when they are not marked by ang.
(9) a. Gi-basa sa bata ang libro. GF-read Actor-child Top(goal) book ‘The/a child read the book.’
b. Ni-basa
ang bata
AF-read Top (actor) child ‘The child read a book.’
ug libro. Goal book
> PL still retain clause-types in which ang-marking does not take place and in which nominals expose their basic case forms.
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