Western Austronesian Applicative Constructions: Typological and Functional Approaches

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dc.contributor.advisorMcDonnell, Bradley
dc.contributor.authorTruong, Christina L.
dc.contributor.departmentLinguistics
dc.date.accessioned2024-07-02T23:42:21Z
dc.date.available2024-07-02T23:42:21Z
dc.date.issued2024
dc.description.degreePh.D.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/108376
dc.subjectLinguistics
dc.subjectLanguage
dc.subjectapplicatives
dc.subjectAustronesian
dc.subjectIndonesia
dc.subjectlinguistic typology
dc.subjectMalaysia
dc.subjectSundanese language
dc.titleWestern Austronesian Applicative Constructions: Typological and Functional Approaches
dc.typeThesis
dcterms.abstractThis dissertation investigates applicatives in the western Austronesian languages of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore—that is, West Nusantara—and adjacent areas of the Philippines and mainland Southeast Asia. As used in this study, an applicative construction (AC) is a kind of clausal construction in which overt morphology on the verbal complex coincides with the selection of a peripheral semantic role (e.g. beneficiary, goal, instrument) as a core clausal argument. In many of these languages, applicative alternations signalled by such verbal morphology—as well as causative, aspectual, and semantic alternations signalled by the same morphemes—shape and color the use of verbal predicates throughout the entire language. A primary goal of the study is to understand the applicative systems of West Nusantara in typological context, but also on their own terms, in the context of the diachronic and synchronic systems in which they developed and are used. Special attention is also given to broadening the description and cross-linguistic comparison of West Nusantara ACs and their functions, properties, and usage. In Part I of the study, I present a case study of applicatives in Sundanese and show how these data and similar examples in other West Nusantara languages present several problems under previous approaches. These include the non-discrete nature of applicative and causative functions marked by applicative morphemes (AMs), and marking of canonical and non-canonical ACs with the same AMs. I argue for a constructional approach—one in which ACs are viewed as associations of form and meaning at different levels of specificity—which allows these data to be better accounted for. I also show how the unique Philippine-type voice systems found in western Austronesian languages may be understood using a descriptive category of symmetrical voice and a comparative concept of applicative (see Haspelmath 2010), and I propose the terms pivot-selecting applicatives for Philippine-type locative voice (LV) and circumstantial voice (CV) constructions as opposed to pivot-neutral applicatives found in the so-called ‘Indonesian-type’ languages. Part II presents a typological survey examining 85 languages from lower-level subgroups indigenous to West Nusantara. Based on distributional patterns and evidence from languages showing transitional states, I argue that the development of pivot-neutral applicatives is associated with the demise of Philippine-type voice, but not the rise of a coherent ‘Indonesian-type’ grammatical profile. I further argue that the pivot-neutral ACs selecting locations and goal roles are derived from earlier LV constructions in Proto Malayo-Polynesian, while the pivot-neutral ACs selecting beneficiaries, instruments, and/or themes are derived from earlier CV constructions. Earlier LV morphology gives rise to pivot-neutral locative/goal AMs, while many benefactive/instrumental AMs are reflexes of the Proto Austronesian CV imperative suffix *-an. However, this *-an has been replaced with newer suffixes like -kan and -akən in a number of subgroups. In Part III, I develop a typology of ACs and other AM-marked constructions in West Nusantara languages according to functional and formal properties. Notably, beneficiary-selecting ACs are much more likely to be valency-increasing while most other ACs are more likely to show remapping of the selected peripheral role and patient/theme. The observed patterns underscore that ACs have their own consistent, non-derived properties. I also explore the relationship between lexical semantics and functions of AMs. Across languages, some lexical bases show consistent attraction to constructional meanings of AMs based on compatible semantic properties. Large variance is observed, however, in the productivity of constructions with different functions across the lexicon and across languages. I conclude that functional patterns for applicatives observed in better known languages like Indonesian and Javanese cannot be generalized to Sulawesi languages and other West Nusantara languages spoken outside of a narrow band of western Indonesia.
dcterms.extent379 pages
dcterms.languageen
dcterms.publisherUniversity of Hawai'i at Manoa
dcterms.rightsAll UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.
dcterms.typeText
local.identifier.alturihttp://dissertations.umi.com/hawii:12198

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