The typology of nominal licensing
in Austronesian voice system languages(5)

Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine, Theodore Levin, Coppe van Urk{mitcho, tedlevin, coppe}@alum.mit.edu(7)Today we discuss the typology of Austronesian voice system languages and develop a new understanding of the attested range of variation.

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Squliq Atayal:
a. Cyux p-hapuy
sehuy
sa knobuy qu Yuraw.
��� ��.���-cook taro(���) ��� kitchen ��� Yuraw‘Yuraw cooks taro in the kitchen.’
Actor Voice (AV)b. Puy-un na Yuraw qu sehuy.
cook-�� ��� Yuraw ��� taro
‘Yuraw cooked taro.’
Patient Voice (PV)c. Hpuy-an na Yuraw sehuy
qu knobuy.
cook-�� ��� Yuraw taro(���) ��� kitchen‘Yuraw cooks taro in the kitchen.’Locative Voice (LV)
Agent extraction ) AV:�(3)
a. Ima wal m-aniq sehuy qasa?
who ���� ��-eat taro that
‘Who ate that taro?’
b. *Ima wal niq-un qu sehuy qasa?
who ���� eat-�� �� taro that

Patient extraction ) PV:
a. *Nanu wal m-aniq qu Y?
what ���� ��-eat ��� Y
b. Nanu wal niq-un na Y?
what ���� eat-�� ��� Y‘What did Yuraw eat?’⌘ But voice system languages can also look pretty diﬀerent...

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Balinese:a. Actor Voice (AV):Polisi ng-ejuk Nyoman.
police ��-arrest Nyoman‘A policeman arrested N.’

Patient extraction ) PV:
Apa *ng/Ø-alihci?
what *��/��-search you‘What did you look for?’• What do voice system languages have in common?

Introduction

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• Voice systems can have case or not, and have more or less strict word orders.

Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association 26
University of Western Ontario, May 2019

1

Agent extraction ) AV:
Nyen ng/*Ø-alihci?
who ��/*��-search you‘Who looked for you?’b. Patient Voice (PV):Nyoman Ø-ejuk polisi.
Nyoman ��-arrest police‘A policeman arrested N.’

This work is part of our ongoing work on the syntax of Austronesian-type voice systems within
Austronesian and beyond. We thank Edith Aldridge, Mark Baker, TC Chen, Julie Legate, David
Pesetsky, Masha Polinsky, Norvin Richards, and Lisa Travis for comments on this overarching
project, and colleagues at LSA 2018. Errors are each other’s.
�We use the terms “agent” and “actor” interchangeably. We apologize for any confusion.
1

Characteristics of AN-type voice systems:(based on ELvU 2017: 376�)a. A privileged argument: One argument is designated the “subject,” andis realized in a particular morphological form and/or structural position,
regardless of its original grammatical function.
b. Articulated voice morphology: Morphology on the verb varies with the
choice of subject, [often] including options for taking certain obliquearguments as subjects.
c. Extraction restriction: A-extraction (wh-movement, relativization, topicalization, etc.) is limited to the subject argument.
d. Marking of non-subject agents: Non-subject agents are morphologicallymarked, often coinciding with the form of possessors (i.e. genitive case),[or limited in their surface position].

⌘ How do we understand the range of variation observed across diﬀerent
Austronesian(-type) voice systems?
Today: We zoom in on (7-d) and propose two parameters of nominal (Case) licensing
for non-subject arguments:
1. the availability or unavailability of structural accusative;
2. two options for last-resort licensing: case-insertion and adjacency.
Together, these two parameters lead to a predicted — and attested! — four-way
typology for voice system languages.

Roadmap §2 Background and theory §3 Proposal §4 Typology §5 Extensions

�In ELvU, we referred to the privileged argument as the “pivot”; in other work, it has also
been called “focus,” “topic,” “trigger”... See Blust 2002, Ross and Teng 2005, Blust 2013 sec. 7.1 fordiscussion of these terms. Other additions to (7) are in [square brackets].
2

2Background: A theory of voice systems (ELvU 2015, 2017)_ A language may choose to regularly move the subject to Spec,CTP.
– This may yield descriptively SVO word order, as in a number of Malay/
Indonesian-type languages.

Previously at AFLA...�

– Following Pearson 2001, Aldridge 2004 a.o., this may be followed by vPfronting to yield a fixed sentence-final subject position, as in Malagasy,
Seediq, Atayal, Tsou, Pazeh (see e.g. Chen, 2017: 181ﬀ).

1. The subject argument receives structural nominative case from a high functional head.
• Nominative may be assigned to a nominal which already has a case value,
overriding its realization (see Chen 2018 on Amis; Richards 2013; Levin2017 for other examples).

• Constituents in vP are subject to scrambling. All linearizations of vP withthe verb (v+V) as the leftmost constituent can be generated. (See Erlewine,
2018: 673, Erlewine and Lim, 2018, and references there.)

2. The subject is uniquely positioned to be Agreed with by an A-probe — e.g. ishighest in the lower phase (Aldridge, 2004; Rackowski and Richards, 2005; Van
Urk and Richards, 2015 and many others) — or always in a high A-position_ (Richards, 2000; Pearson, 2005).
⌘ So the subject is associated with mixed A/A properties (Van Urk, 2015).

• The functional head(s) associated with the subject’s A- and A-properties
may in fact be a single head, bundling features traditionally associatedwith C and T. We call this CT (Legate, 2011; Aldridge, 2017; Erlewine,
2018; see also Martinović, 2015).

– Some of these resulting word orders will be filtered out below (for Toba
Batak and Bikol), due to considerations of nominal licensing.

3

Proposal⌘ How do non-subject arguments get licensed? The theory in §2 leaves thisunderspecified.

Three ways nominals can get licensed:

3. Every nominal requires licensing (e.g. Case).
Note: “Licensing” is not morphological case value determination (Marantz, 1991).

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a.

Actor Voice:
CTP
vP

CT
���

b.

DP
agent
subj

v

���

vP

... t ...

DP
subj

DP
agent

À Licensing by adjacency — under linear adjacency with the verb (Baker, 1988,
2014; Levin, 2015). See Levin 2015 on the theory of licensing by adjacency.
Ã Prepositional/oblique case-insertion — adding a K/P head as a rescue strategy(Stowell, 1981; Halpert, 2012; Imanishi, 2014; Van Urk, 2015).

Non-Actor Voices:
CTP
CT

Structural Case — requires a particular structural configuration.

Austronesian voice system languages vary according to two parameters:v(9)

Accusative parameter:
The language {does/does not} have structural accusative case.
(Technically: v {can/cannot} assign accusative case downward.)(10)

Last-resort licensing parameter:
If a DP lacks a source for structural licensing, it can be licensed...
a. under linear adjacency with the verb, or
b. by insertion of a case-marker (genitive).

... t ...

The fact that non-subject agents are also at the phase edge predicts that©
™
≠ — under the right circumstances — they may also be accessible for prob- Æ≠Æ≠ ing/attraction from above. See Erlewine and Levin 2018 and Erlewine and Æ̈
Lim
2018
for
precisely
such
evidence.
´�But on the relationship between voice morphology on the verb and the choice of subject
argument, we currently feel less committed to thinking of this as “extraction marking” as we
argued for in ELvU 2015, 2017.
3

4

À
Ã

4

A typology of voice systems

4.2

Our proposal in (9)–(10) predicts a four-way typology of voice system languages:
���

+���

Adjacency:
Toba Batak§4.1 Balinese§4.2
Case-insertion: Nanwang Puyuma §4.3 Katipul Puyuma §4.4
Here we concentrate on the behavior of core arguments: agents and themes.
4.1

No accusative + adjacency = Toba Batak (following Erlewine, 2018)

There is no source of structural licensing for non-subject arguments, so all
non-subject core arguments must be licensed by adjacency with the verb.
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Non-subjects must be immediately post-verbal:
a. Man-jaha {*nantoari} buku {nantoari} si Poltak {nantoari}.
��-readyesterday book yesterday �� Poltak yesterday
b. Di-jaha {*nantoari} si Poltak {nantoari} buku {nantoari}.
��-read yesterday �� Poltak yesterday book yesterday‘Poltak read a book yesterday.’See Erlewine 2018 for additional data which shows that post-verbal word order isfree, with the one exception of the adjacency requirement on post-verbal non-subjects.
⌘ This word order restriction applies symmetrically to non-subject agents andnon-subject themes.

Accusative + adjacency = Balinese (following Levin, 2015)

Structural accusative can license non-subject themes, but not agents. Nonsubject agents — but not non-subject themes — will require verb adjacency.
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Asymmetric adjacency restriction on non-subjects:
a. Cicing ng-uber (ke jalan-e) siap-e.
dog ��-chase into street-��� chicken-���b. Siap-e;-uber (*ke jalan-e) cicing.
chicken-��� ��-chase into street-��� dog‘A dog chased the chicken (into the street).’ (Wechsler and Arka, 1998)• Nominals licensed under adjacency in Balinese can be NPs or DPs. D heads
are post-nominal (=e), so DPs with nominal domains cannot be licensed byadjacency:(13)• In an NP, the highest head in the nominal functional sequence is N, so N
must be adjacent to the verb. In this case, we yield a ban on pre-nominal
adjectives:(14)• The verb and post-verbal non-subject form a phonological or intonational unit
for the purposes of main stress placement (Emmorey, 1984).
• Licensing by adjacency (Baker, 2014; Levin, 2015) requires head-head adjacency
between V and the highest head of the nominal, imposing a directionality
restriction. All nominals in Toba Batak are DPs and D heads are pre-nominal— e.g. si for personal names — so licensing by adjacency requires the DP to
be immediately post-verbal; being immediately pre-verbal is insuﬃcient.
• We predict that there are no ditransitives with three DPs in Toba Batak.
– Why? Because licensing by adjacency with its directionality restriction
can only license one non-subject DP.
– This appears correct; all verbs elicited in Toba Batak have at most two DPs,
with ditransitives taking an oblique (PP) goal; see Erlewine 2018: 678.
5

a. I Wayan ;-gugut cicing.
��� Wayan ��-bite dog‘A dog bit Wayan.’b. *I Wayan ;-gugut cicing-e (ento).
��� Wayan ��-bite dog-��� (that)‘The dog bit Wayan.’a. {Liu} cicing {liu} ŋ-ugut Nyoman.
many dog many ��-bite Nyoman
b. Nyoman ;-gugut {*liu} cicing {liu} .
Nyoman ��-bitemany dog many
‘Many dogs bit Nyoman.’• But this is not a definiteness restriction: Pronouns and proper names can belicensed under adjacency, unlike with pseudo-noun incorporation in Niuean(Massam, 2001).
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a. Be-e;-daar ida.
fish-��� ��-eat 3��‘(S)he ate the fish.’b. Be-e;-daar Nyoman.
fish-��� ��-eat Nyoman‘Nyoman ate the fish.’

We can derive this if pronouns and proper names occupy D0 (e.g. Postal,
1966; Longobardi, 1994; Elbourne, 2001) and lack an NP, satisfying head-headadjacency.
64.3

No accusative + case-insertion = Nanwang Puyuma

4.4

Accusative + case-insertion = Katipul and Ulivelivek Puyuma

There is no source of structural licensing for non-subject arguments — justlike in Toba Batak — so they will all be licensed with the same last-resort
prepositional/oblique case.

Structural accusative can license non-subject themes, but not agents — just likein Balinese. So non-subject agents alone will receive last-resort (genitive) case,distinct from accusative.

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The more conservative Katipul and Ulivelivek dialects of Puyuma distinguish thecase marking series for non-subject agents and non-subject themes:(17)

Non-subjects are all marked with the same case series:�
a. Tu=trakaw-aw na
palridring kan Siber.
���.3=steal-�� ���.��� car
���.�� Siber
b. Tr<em>akaw i
Siber kana palridring.
��-steal���.�� Siber ���.��� car‘Siber stole the car.’(Victoria Chen p.c.)(20)

Personal nameSubject
Non-subject agent
Non-subject theme

Common noun

singular plural definite indefinite
i
na
na
a
kan
kana
kana
dra
kan
kana
kana
dra

The case marker series for non-subject agents is again equivalent to that for possessors.�
4.5• We call this case genitive as it is the same as that on possessors (18) (althoughpossessor and non-subject bound pronominal series diﬀer).
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tu=tilrin
kana
sinsi
���.3=book ���.���� teacher‘the teacher’s book’

Summary

The four types of languages identified and highlighted here look on the surface tobe quite diﬀerent. For example...
• Puyuma has case markers; Toba Batak and Balinese do not.

(Teng, 2009: 828)

• In Locative and Circumstantial Voices, there are two non-subject arguments,
and they both receive genitive case:(19)

Common noun

singular plural definite indefinite
SubjectiN/AnaaNon-subject agent
ni
N/A
nina
za
Non-subject theme
kani
kana
kana
za

Case markers in Nanwang Puyuma (Teng, 2009: 827):
Personal nameCase markers in Katipul Puyuma (Teng, 2009: 827):

Tu=trakaw-ay=ku
drapaisu kan isaw.
���.3=steal-��=���.1�� ���.����� money ���.�� Isaw
‘Isaw stole money from me.’(Teng, 2008: 147)

Genitive case from last-resort case-insertion predicts the availability of multiple genitives as in (19). Unlike licensing by adjacency above, case-insertion
can rescue multiple nominals.�
⌘ Post-verbal word order is free (Teng, 2008: 148, Chen, 2017: 18); i.e. there is
no requirement for verb adjacency, nor any restriction on subject position.
�However, a salient diﬀerence is that non-subject agents but not non-subject themes are obligatorily clitic-doubled on the verb, as seen in (16). See discussion in Erlewine and Levin 2018.
�Teng glosses this as ���.
7

• The Nanwang and Katipul varieties of Puyuma vary in the number of distinct
case marking series.
• Balinese and Toba Batak both have restrictions on post-verbal word order, butthey aﬀect diﬀerent arguments: Balinese requires non-subject agents alone to
be immediately post-verbal, whereas Toba Batak requires all non-subject DPs
to be immediately post-verbal.
⌘ The two parameters for non-subject licensing in (9) and (10) help us productively understand and relate these superficially distinct classes of languages.
– For example, the fact that Nanwang Puyuma and Toba Batak both treat all
non-subjects in a symmetric fashion can be attributed to a lack of structural accusative — despite these two languages looking quite diﬀerent at
first glance.
�This pattern could be derived through separate sources for the two case markers, but would
then need to treat the surface forms as a case of accidental syncretism.
�There is, however, a distinction reported for definite common noun possessors vs non-subject
agents for Ulivelivek but not Katipul; see Teng 2009: 827.
85Discussion and extensions

5.2

Our proposed parameters successfully describe the key behaviors of a range ofdiﬀerent Austronesian voice system languages. By way of conclusion, we consider
a couple extensions.
5.1

No accusative + case-insertion (Nanwang P.) + specificity DOM = Tagalog

Like in Nanwang Puyuma, non-subject agents and themes in Tagalog bear thesame, genitive case marking in many cases:
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(23)

Non-subject agents and themes in genitive case:a. B<um>ili ang babae ng tela.
��-bought ��� woman ��� cloth‘The woman bought some cloth.’b. B<in>ili ng babae ang tela.
��-bought ��� woman ��� cloth‘A/The woman bought the cloth.’(Schachter, 1996)(24)“N-bonding” (Keenan, 2000):(exx Pearson, 2005)
a. Vonoiko [vono-in-ny + -ko] amin’ny antsy ny akoho.
��.kill.1� [kill-��-��� 1��] with-��� knife ��� chicken‘I am killing the chickens with the knife.’
b. Vonoin-dRamatoa [vono-in-ny + Ramatoa] amin’ny antsy ny akoho.
��.kill-Ramatoa [kill-��-��� Ramatoa] with-��� knife ��� chicken‘Ramatoa is killing the chickens with the knife.’– One idea: Malgasy D heads expect to be valued for a morphological casefeature specification. But in the absence of such a specification, the headis realized as =ny.

Sino ang b<um>aril sa ibon?
who ��� ��-shot��� bird‘Who shot the bird?’– It is not unusual for the absence of feature specifications — or the mostunmarked feature specification — to result in overt morphology: Consider
English third singular -s.

⌘ Tagalog has no accusative for non-specific non-subject themes, but can assign(���) case to specific non-subject themes (see e.g. Sabbagh, 2016).
– With non-specific themes, Tagalog resembles Nanwang Puyuma; withspecific themes, Tagalog resembles Katipul and Ulivelivek Puyuma!

5.3[Your language here]⌘ Where does your language fit in?

Thank you!

�The unavailability of the specific theme interpretation in (22-a) could be described as due tothe availability of the competing form in (21-b). When the PV form is blocked, for example by the
extraction restriction, a specific theme interpretation becomes available:(i)Sino ang b<um>aril ng ibon?
who ��� ��-shot ��� bird
‘Who shot a/the bird?’(McFarland, 1978: 149)
9

(Pearson, 2005)⌘ But notice that a linker (-ny) appears in these contexts as well. What is -ny
doing?

(Schachter and Otanes, 1972; McFarland, 1978; Sabbagh, 2016; a.o.)(22)

Non-subject agents must be adjacent to the verb:
a. Nohanin’ ny gidro haingana ny voankazo omaly.
���.��.eat ��� lemur quickly ��� fruit
yesterday‘The lemur ate the fruit quickly yesterday.’b. *Nohanin(a) haingana ny gidro ny voankazo omaly.
c. *Nohanin(a) omaly ny gidro haingana ny voankazo.

The post-verbal non-subject agent forms a tight phonological unit with the verb,
which for pronouns and names results in being written as a single word, withword-internal phonological processes applying:*‘the cloth’⌘ But notice that there is an interaction with the theme’s specificity, with thegenitive non-subject theme in (21-a) necessarily being non-specific. Instead,specific non-subject themes are oblique, as in (22).�

Accusative + licensing by adjacency (Balinese) + -ny = Malagasy

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