The Interpretation and Transitivity of -un/-an in Truku

Abstract

The analysis of the verbal suffixes -un and -an in Seejiq morphology is controversial. Two distinctive ap-proaches are found in the previous studies. In the first, they are analyzed as “focus” markers and as separate morphemes. In the second, they are separate “voice” morphemes, under the cover term Goal voice mor-pheme. This paper presents an alternative analysis and shows that neither the focus- nor the voice-based approach successfully clarifies the difference between these two morphemes; careful attention to the use of -un and -an reveals that it is problematic to conclude that -un is patient focus, whereas -an is locative focus. In addition, the previous analyses are insufficient in terms of interpreting distribution. I (i) agree that -un and -an are separate voice morphemes under the cover term Goal voice; (ii) propose that their difference is not strictly one of voice/focus, but of the degree of transitivity in the sense of Hopper and Thompson 1980; and (iii) conclude that -un has high transitivity and -an low transitivity.