LACUS FORUM XXX Language, Thought and Reality © 2009 The Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States (lacus). The content of this article is from lacus Forum 30 (published 2004). This article and others from this volume may be found on the Internet at http://www.lacus.org/volumes/30. YOUR RIGHTS This electronic copy is provided free of charge with no implied warranty. It is made available to you under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license version 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) Under this license you are free: • • to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work to Remix — to adapt the work Under the following conditions: • • Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. 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The lacus “lakes” logo and University of Victoria logo on the cover are trademarks of lacus and the University of Victoria respectively. The University of Victoria logo is used here with permission from the trademark holder. No license for use of these trademarks outside of redistribution of this exact file is granted. These trademarks may not be included in any adaptation of this work. LOCATIVE AND BENEFACTIVE VOICE CONSTRUCTIONS: A LOOK AT PREPOSITION INCORPORATION Jarren Bodily Brigham Young University . discussion. .. focus selection. Cebuano, one of the major languages of the Philippines, has a complex voice marking system that consists of selectional agreement between verbal affixes and a focus nominal marker, ang. The application of verbal morphology to a verb stem selects a specific argument from the verb’s argument structure as the focus of a resulting sentence. Although focus selection is not exactly equivalent to voice distinctions, i.e. the distinction between active and passive voice constructions, as noted in Sells (997), the correlation provides a framework within which to discuss the functionality of the Cebuano affix -an. What has been termed as dative shift may be closer yet to the Philippine notion of focus, though in Cebuano any definite nominal may be selected as the focus of a sentence, not just an accusative object through passivization or a dative object through dative shift. The English sentences given in examples () and (2) demonstrate a focus or voice change much the same way as is done in Cebuano, minus the verbal morphology. The sentence in example () focuses on the recipient, the teacher, while the sentence in example (2) focuses on the object, the book. This can be seen by asking the questions, To whom did the child give the book, and What did the child give to the teacher. The first question elicits the response found in example (), while the second elicits the response found in example (2). () The child gave the book to the teacher. Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus. PRE-PRODUCTION COPY - NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION this paper discusses the formation of locative and benefactive voice constructions in Cebuano while addressing the observation that the verbal affix, -an, in addition to selecting an oblique nominal as the focus of a resulting sentence, also functions as an applicative by expanding a verb’s subcategorization frame to include an oblique nominal as an internal argument. In the process of forming these voice constructions -an also appears to take on the lexical meanings of prepositions since an erstwhile oblique argument now functions as an accusative or dative argument. This paper further discusses the possibility that all of these functions of -an are the result of preposition incorporation as outlined in Baker (988). Through this paper, the coverage of incorporation theory is expanded to include a Philippine language, which unlike the languages addressed in Baker’s discussion, has the typology of a VSO language, thus adding to the syntactic robustness of incorporation theory. 260 Jarren Bodily D I F ang ’y Prep NF sa og sa Figure 1. Cebuano nominal markers. PRE-PRODUCTION COPY - NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION (2) The child gave the teacher the book. Much like the difference between the two English sentences in () and (2), the notion of focus in Cebuano moves one nominal to the forefront of an utterance or sentence. The three possible Cebuano sentences resulting from the two English sentences in examples () and (2) are given in examples (3)–(5), with (4) added as a kind of passive equivalent. Each sentence has a different noun focus. (3) (4) (5) Nag-hatag ang bata sa basahon sa tigtuldlo¹. AF-gave FM child the book to teacher. The child gave the book to the teacher. (Active Voice) Gi-hatag sa bata ang basahon sa tigtuldlo. OF-gave the child FM book to teacher. The child gave the book to the teacher. (Passive Voice) Gi-hatag-an sa bata ang tigtuldlo sa basahon. LF-gave-AP the child FM teacher the book. The child gave the teacher the book. (Dative Shift) It should be noted that although all three of these voice constructions are possible, the most natural is the object focus, or passive sentence found in (4). This is due to the definite nature of the direct object, the book. When the direct object is indefinite, then the sentences in (3) and (5) would seem more natural. .2. nominal marking. Every nominal in Cebuano is preceded, or marked, by a syntactic particle that bears that nominal’s grammatical features. Figure shows these markers and their associated features. The four markers in the main matrix are each associated with two features, one relating to focus specification, and the other to definiteness. The focus marker, ang, has the features definite and focus, while the remaining three markers are either non-focus or indefinite. As mentioned above, in order for a nominal to be brought into focus, it must be definite. The last nominal marker, sa, has a third feature associated with it, that of position. It is labeled in the figure as a preposition and is inherently definite and non-focus. .3. verbal morphology. Almost every Cebuano sentence containing a verb adds to that verb a voice marker or conjugation associated with a particular focus. It is these voice markers in conjunction with the focus marker, ang, that establish a certain, Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus. Locative and benefactive voice constructions: A look at preposition incorporation Actor NiPast NagNakaMoFuture MagMaka- Object 261 Locative GiNa- GiNa- -an -an i- / -on Ma- Ma- -an -an Figure 2. Cebuano verbal paradigm. .4. applicatives. The three Cebuano sentences from (3)–(5) are revisited in (6)–(8), only now the direct object in (6) and (8) is indefinite, providing for a more natural reading. (6) (7) (8) Nag-hatag ang bata og basahon sa tigtuldlo. AF-gave FM child a book to teacher. The child gave a book to the teacher. Gi-hatag sa bata ang basahon sa tigtuldlo. OF-gave the child FM book to teacher. The child gave the book to the teacher. Gi-hatag-an sa bata ang tigtuldlo og basahon. LF-gave-AP the child FM teacher a book. The child gave the teacher a book. In (6), the voice marker nag- selects the actor, or agent, of the sentence as focus. This nominal is therefore marked with ang. In (7), the voice marker gi- selects the direct object as focus, while in (8), the combination of gi- and -an selects the indirect object as focus. We further notice in (8) that the preposition marker, sa, which previously marked the indirect object, has been replaced by the focus marker, ang. Once sa is replaced by ang, the nominal can no longer function as an oblique or dative argument. Its position feature is lost, since ang only carries two features, those of definiteness and focus. Though the position feature has been lost from the focused nominal, it cannot just be deleted if the semantic integrity of the sentence is to be preserved. In remedy of the inability of ang and sa to swap features, the position feature of sa is realized by an applicative added to the verb stem. It is the voice marker -an in Cebuano that fulfills this role. Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus. PRE-PRODUCTION COPY - NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION definite nominal as the sentential focus. The voice marker -an, is associated with locative and benefactive voice sentences. Figure 2 shows a number of these voice markers along with their corresponding focuses. The voice markers are also separated by tense. Benefactive voice constructions are coordinated by the same voice markers as locative voice constructions. It is important to note that the voice markers for object and locative constructions vary only in the addition of -an to the locative column. PRE-PRODUCTION COPY - NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION 262 Jarren Bodily That is why in Figure 2 the only difference between the verbal marking for object and locative voice constructions is the addition of -an to the locative column. The applicative allows the verb to treat an indirect or oblique argument as if it were an accusative argument. In fact, generally the new accusative object syntactically replaces any other accusative objects by occupying the position closest to the verb. The original accusative object is then treated syntactically as a second object. As we have seen from example (8), once ang marks a nominal as focus, it can no longer function as an oblique or dative argument. In this sense,, it has become equivalent to an accusative object and therefore retains, in addition to -an, the object voice marking. Two further examples, (9) and (0), show -an functioning as an applicative where the applied object in (0) is the oblique object of (9). (9) (0) Nag-kuha ang bata og isda (gikan) sa lamesa. AF-took FM child a fish from table. The child took a/some fish from the table. Gi-kuha-an sa bata ang lamesa og isda. LF-took-AP the child FM table a fish. The child took from the table a/some fish. Up to this point the applied object in the examples has been an indirect object, which arguably is already part of a verb’s subcategorization frame. Oblique arguments on the other hand are generally considered adjuncts and not part of a verb’s subcategorization frame. The applicative functions in the same way regardless of whether the applied object corresponds to a dative or an oblique argument. This leads us to believe that in Cebuano the second object of double object constructions is treated as if it were an adjunct. This should come as no surprise considering the nominal marking on the second object always has position associated with it, and we have seen that when sa is replaced by ang the applicative -an always appears on the verb. It is also worth noting that in Cebuano there are a few prepositions that have fully lexicalized forms in addition to the marker sa. One of these lexicalized prepositions is seen in (9). The Cebuano word gikan ‘from’ can optionally precede the nominal marker sa. Generally, these lexicalized prepositions are used to alleviate possible ambiguities that may result from statements of directionality such as from, to, or for. () (2) (3) Nag-palit ako og tinapay gikan sa bata. AF-bought FM.ps bread from child. I bought some bread from the child. Nag-palit ako og tinapay para sa bata. AF-bought FM.ps bread for child. I bought some bread for the child. Gi-palit-an nako ang bata og tinapay. LF-bought-AP I FM child some bread. I bought some bread from/for the child. Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus. Locative and benefactive voice constructions: A look at preposition incorporation �� � �� �� � 263 � �� � �� �� �� �� Figure 3. Incorporation of a preposition into a verb (Garrett 1990:185). .5. incorporation theory. Baker’s incorporation theory is a syntactic theory of function-changing processes that proposes head-to-head movement as the basis of noun, verb, and preposition incorporation. It takes as its basic framework Chomsky’s Government and Binding theory (GB). This paper looks into preposition incorporation, as it appears to be able to explain the various functions of -an that have previously been described. As in GB, the sub-theories of government, binding, and case play a large role in the analysis of incorporation structures, especially when licensing of traces is concerned. Also, the Empty Category Principle (ECP) is active in determining the grammaticality of incorporating constructions. Figure 3 is a diagram of the syntactic structure of preposition incorporation. It shows the adjunction of a preposition by the main verb. This diagram can account for proper binding and government of the preposition trace through the theta criterion and the empty category principle. The applicative in Cebuano adds an argument to the verb’s subcatagorization frame to satisfy the theta criterion. Since the preposition, as an applicative, has adjoined with the verb through head to head movement, it both c-commands its trace and is co-indexed with the verb and is therefore not a barrier to government. Further, before the preposition moves out of the prepositional phrase it gives case to its complement. The result is a grammatically correct sentence and an explanation for the movement of applied objects next to the verb. In applying this analysis to -an with the help of examples (4) and (5) we see that in example (4) the oblique object is marked by sa, and thus there is no -an on Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus. PRE-PRODUCTION COPY - NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION The sentences in () and (2) would be identical if it were not for the lexicalized prepositions gikan and para that make the directionality of the bread-buying explicit. Further, in (3), the lexicalized distinction between ‘from’ and ‘for’ is lost with the replacement of the nominal marker sa by ang. Although -an is able to preserve the position feature of the applied nominal, it cannot directly code for any lexicalized information that accompanied the nominal. In this sense, -an codes for the whole gamut of possible prepositional meanings and is not able to discriminate lexically between individual senses. Other ways to deduce the exact prepositional meaning of -an must be found. Though a greater context is needed to discriminate between the two possible meanings of -an in (3), some ways in which the prepositional meaning of -an can be gleaned from the properties of individual sentences will be addressed later on in this paper. 264 Jarren Bodily the end of the verb. Yet, in example (5) when sa has been replaced by ang, -an has attached to the main verb, and the focused object, ang tigtudlo, has moved in front of the accusative object, og basahon. Baker’s incorporation theory can thus explain both the appearance of -an in the Cebuano verbal paradigm and the necessity for it to acquire the various prepositional meanings inherent in the nominal marker sa. PRE-PRODUCTION COPY - NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION (4) (5) Gi-hatag sa bata ang basahon sa OF-gave the child FM book to The child gave the book to the teacher. Gi-hatag-an sa bata ang tigtuldlo og LF-gave-AP the child FM teacher a The child gave the teacher the book. tigtuldlo. teacher. basahon. book. 2. application. 2.. coverage. Now that we have seen that incorporation theory can explain the functionality of -an as a voice marker, an applicative, and in a sense a preposition, we will explore the coverage of this voice marker. One of the interesting issues with a language that explicitly codes its sentences for various focuses is how the non-native speaker can make sense of the focus selection. Though not the main concern of this paper, the discussion up to here sheds a lot of light on how these voice constructions can be understood. Voice constructions formed with -an have proven especially difficult at times to understand. There are a number of grammatical constructions that on their face seem as though they should not be marked by -an. Yet, considering that -an carries the feature position, and by extension acquires various prepositional meanings, many of these confusing constructions become clearer. The sentences in (6)–(29) demonstrate the applications of -an in forming voice constructions. (6) (7) Nag-kuha ang nanay og isda (gikan) sa lamesa. AF-took FM mother a fish from table. The mother took a/some fish from the table. Gi-kuha-an sa nanay ang lamesa og isda. LF-took-AP the mother FM table a fish. The mother took from the table a/some fish. Examples (6) and (7) show the difference between active and locative voice constructions when the applied object was a locative adjunct. Again, the lexicalized preposition gikan drops from the locative voice construction. The prepositional meaning is semantically recoverable due to our pragmatic knowledge about the verb ‘take’ and tables. It would not make sense to take the fish for the table. (8) Nag-luto ang nanay og isda (para) sa bata. AF-cook FM mother a fish for child. The mother cooked a/some fish for the child. Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus. Locative and benefactive voice constructions: A look at preposition incorporation (9) 265 Gi-luto-an sa nanay ang bata og isda. BF-cook-AP the mother FM child a fish. The mother cooked the child a/some fish. Examples (8) and (9) show the difference between active and benefactive voice constructions when the applied object was a benefactive adjunct. The lexicalized preposition para drops from the benefactive voice construction, but again, the prepositional meaning is semantically recoverable due to our knowledge about the verb ‘cook’ and the things that we cook. (2) Nag-hatag ang nanay og isda sa bata. AF-give FM mother a fish to child. The mother gave a/some fish to the child. Gi-hatag-an sa nanay ang bata og isda. BF-gave-AP the mother FM child a fish. The mother gave the child a/some fish. The sentences in (20) and (2) parallel those that we just looked at, but they differ in an interesting way. They are equivalent to double object constructions in English. Yet, as was previously mentioned, the dative arguments in these constructions do not seem to be part of the verb’s subcategorization frame in that -an still functions as an applicative here. The interesting thing, though, is that in constructions such as these, the suffix -an can only be interpreted as ‘to’. There is no other possible reading. Other verbs that follow this pattern are baligya ‘sell’, tudlo ‘teach’, tabang ‘help’, sulti, ‘speak’, and sulat ‘write’. ‘Speak for’ and ‘sell for’ are not possible readings of these constructions. This may be the result of overextension, in that sa must always be replaced by -an, regardless of whether -an is serving as an applicative or not. Whatever the reason, the result is a mandatory ‘to’ reading of -an. (22) (23) Nag-lingkod ang bata sa lingkuranan. AF-sat FM child in chair. The child sat in the chair. Gi-lingkor-an sa bata ang lingkoranan. LF-sat-AP the child FM chair. The child sat in the chair. Examples (22) and (23) are again locative voice constructions. But (22) and (23) have no corresponding object voice construction. One can only sit in or on a chair. The remaining examples are less intuitive and represent constructions that often confuse the non-native. (24) Nag-hugas ang nanay sa plato. AF-washed FM mother the plate. The mother washed the plate. Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus. PRE-PRODUCTION COPY - NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION (20) 266 PRE-PRODUCTION COPY - NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION (25) Jarren Bodily Gi-hugas-an sa nanay ang plato. LF-washed-AP the mother FM plate. The mother washed the plate. Examples (24) and (25) appear to be typical transitive sentences in which there is no oblique argument. It should not be possible to form a locative or benefactive construction from this sentence, but just the opposite is true. There is no object voice construction available for these sentences. Upon further scrutiny, the -an does in fact represent an incorporated preposition in example (25). Semantically speaking, the plate is not affected by the washing nearly as much as the objects that are washed off or washed from the plate. Even though no overt object is said to be washed from the plate in example (25), there is in fact an implied object or substance receiving the direct action of washing. This forces the plate to be a second object or an oblique object, as we have described it. Other verbs of this type are silhig ‘sweep’, trapo ‘dust’, and laba ‘launder’. (26) (27) Naka-limot ang nanay AF-forgot FM mother The mother forgot the fish. Na-limt-an sa nanay LF-forgot-AP the mother The mother forgot the fish. sa isda. the fish. ang isda. FM fish. Examples (26) and (27) also appear to be transitive sentences with no oblique argument to bring into focus. Yet, like examples (24) and (25), there is an implicit argument that forces the overt argument to be oblique. Since there is the possibility of forgetting some specific thing about the object, say where the fish was placed, the accusative argument is this information and the fish, the oblique one. Therefore, the -an in example (27) codes for the preposition ‘about.’ The Cebuano verbs hinumdom ‘remember’ and ila ‘know’ function in the same way. (28) (29) Ni-adto ang nanay sa merkado AF-went FM mother to market. The mother went to the market. *Gi-adto-an sa nanay ang merkado LF-went-AP the mother FM market. The mother went to the market. Finally, (28) and (29) represent a scenario where one would expect to find a locative voice construction, but instead find that it is disallowed. It is possible that this construction is disallowed because only ditransitive verbs such as those seen in examples (20) and (2) allow the prepositional meaning ‘to’ to be encoded. It is possible yet that even though the market is an oblique nominal, there is no need for an applicative Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus. Locative and benefactive voice constructions: A look at preposition incorporation �� �� ��������� �� �� ��� 267 �� ��������� �� �� ��� �� �� ��������� �� Figure 4. Subjecthood in Government and Binding. �� Figure 5. The subject position assumed under VISH since the verb ‘go’ accepts an oblique nominal as part of its subcategorization frame. In any case, the answer to this puzzle is worth pursuing in future papers. 2.2. verb-internal subject hypothesis. In GB it was first believed that the subject of a sentence was defined by a certain position in a syntactic tree structure. That position was the specifier position of the IP node. Figure 4 is a graphic representation of this subject position. For most typologies, this structural definition of subject worked well enough. But for languages with a VSO typology, there was no syntactic node left in which to place the verb above the subject. Because of this the verb initial subject hypothesis (VISH) was proposed. According to this new hypothesis, the subject of a sentence actually originates in the specifier position of the verb phrase. In most languages, it raises up to the specifier position of IP to check features. In VSO languages though, the subject has weak features and does not raise to check features until logical form. It is the verb in these languages that has strong features and which must move to the I node to check those features, thus moving over the subject before logical form. Figure 5 is a graphic representation of the subject position assumed under VISH. With this modification to GB, the incorporation analysis of Cebuano locative and benefactive constructions holds for the typology as well. When the verb raises to check features the applicative raises along with it, since it has already undergone headto-head adjunction. Figure 6 (overleaf) shows the syntactic parse for (2). In Figure 6 we can see that the verb now takes two arguments, the applied object and the original accusative object, as is shown by the subscripts. Further, we see that the subject of the sentence originates in the specifier position of the verb phrase and that the verbal complex raises over it to the I node in order to check features, thus supplying us with the correct VSO configuration. 3. conclusion. In this paper we discuss how locative and benefactive voice constructions are formed in Cebuano. Further, we see that -an does much more than mark a Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus. PRE-PRODUCTION COPY - NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION � 268 Jarren Bodily �� �� � ������������ �� PRE-PRODUCTION COPY - NOT FOR CITATION OR DISTRIBUTION �� �������� �� ���� �� ��� ��� �������� ������� Figure 6. A syntactic tree diagram of a benefactive voice construction. particular type of voice construction. It also serves as an applicative, expanding a verb’s subcategorization frame to include an oblique nominal functioning as an accusative object. From Baker’s incorporation theory, we learn that -an is not only an applicative, but an incorporated preposition, thus explaining why -an appears to code for various prepositional meanings. Through analyzing various voice constructions formed with -an, we have identified and possibly explained a number of the unexpected voiced constructions formed by -an. Why inherently oblique sentences formed by verbs such as ‘go’, ‘walk’, and ‘run’ disallow voice constructions formed by -an remains unresolved and remains an interesting topic for a later paper. Lastly, we see that by adopting VISH as part of the GB framework, incorporation theory can also account for the VSO word order of Cebuano. ¹ AF, OF, and LF represent actor, object, and locative focus, respectively. FM and AP represent focus marker and applicative. REFERENCES Baker, Mark C. 988. Incorporation: A theory of grammatical function changing. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Garrett, Andrew. 990. Applicatives and preposition Incorporation. In Grammatical relations: A cross-theoretical perspective, ed. by Katarzyna Dziwirek, Patrick Farrell & Errapel Mejías-Bikandi, 83–98. Stanford ca: csli Publications. Sells, Peter. 997. The functions of voice markers in the Philippine languages. In Morphology and its relation to phonology and syntax, ed. by Steven G. Lapointe, Diane K. Brentari & Patrick M. Farrell, –37. Stanford ca: csli Publications. Reprinted from LACUS Forum XXX: Language, Thought and Reality, edited by Gordon Fulton, William J. Sullivan & Arle R. Lommel. 2004. Houston tx, lacus.
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