Malayic active voice meN-: One prefix or two?
Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (mitcho)1 and Carly J. Sommerlot2
Affixes symposium, University of Turku, August 2023

Introduction
Malayic languages (Austronesian) have an active/passive voice alternation. Eventive bivalentverbs in Standard Indonesian and Malay (SI/SM) bear meN- or di-:(1) Active/passive alternation with tulis ‘write’:b. Buku ini di-tulis

a. Fera men-ulis buku ini.

(oleh Fera).

book dem pass-write byFera act-write book demFera‘This book was written (by Fera).’‘Fera wrote this book.’

The verb is morphologically marked in both voices, leading to the description of such systems
as “symmetric voice” alternations (see e.g. Himmelmann, 2005).
 Today we discuss the nature of meN-, commonly described as the active voice prefix.
N in meN- represents a homorganic nasal, with a phonologically determined realization:(2) Some verb stems and their active/passive forms:
activepassivetulis‘write’me-nulis

di-tulis

pukul‘beat’

me-mukul

di-pukulkirim‘send’

me-ngirim

di-kirimsewa‘rent’

me-nyewa

di-sewa

beli

‘buy’

mem-belidi-belidengar‘hear’

men-dengar

di-dengar

ajar‘teach’meng-ajar

di-ajar

lihat

‘see’

me-lihatdi-lihat(based on Sneddon, 1996: 9–12)







 “coalescing” N:replaces the verb’s stem-initial consonant











non-coalescing N



no N

In contrast, the realization of di- and other voice prefixes are invariant.
1 University of Helsinki / National University of Singapore, mitcho@nus.edu.sg
2 National University of Singapore, cjsomms@nus.edu.sg

1

meN- reflects two prefixes:• the syllabic part me- ↔ active voice;• the homorganic nasal N- (which may or may not coalesce with the stem-initial consonant, and can be null) ↔ introduction of volitional agent;...as suggested in passing in Gil 2002 and Benjamin 2009.
However, in most (not all!) cases, me- and N- cooccur, obscuring this decomposition.

Formally, we analyze me- and N- as realizations of two functional heads:3• v (↔ N-) introduces the agent (Kratzer, 1996)4;• Voice hosts the grammatical subject; me- is its active form, where the subject is the agent.
The verb stem is pronounced at v and Voice lowers onto v+V under linear adjacency with v.
(3)

a.

b.

Active:Di-passive:5
VoiceP

VoiceP

NPNPvP

Voice
agent/subj

me-t

Voice
theme/subjvP

di- vPASSvACTVP

VP
V

N-Vt

NP
theme

 We present four classes of evidence that nonetheless motivate their decomposition:§1 peN- nominalizations§2 verbal reduplication§3 co-occurring N- and di§4 the position of agents
1 and 3 can be seen in the standard languages (SI/SM). We also highlight behaviors invarious non-standard, regional Malay(ic) varieties that challenge the unanalyzed meN-.
3 This contrasts with all prior formal syntactic analyses of Malayic voice (e.g. Aldridge, 2008; Sato, 2012), which invoke
a single functional head that combines these syntactic functions, associated with the realization of unanalyzed meN-.
4 The prefix ber- can also introduce verbs with volitional agents; these are generally transitive, but some formsof transitive uses are possible. Ber- verbs have been described as middles and are limited to expressing lower
transitivity (in the Hopper and Thompson 1980 sense); see Kemmer 1993 and Wee 1995.
5 Following Arka and Manning 1998, Cole et al. 2008, Legate 2014, among others, we take the agent to not be
introduced as an agent in di-passives.

2

1

Evidence from peN- nominalizations

Nominalizations in SI/SM may involve peN- or pe-, largely corresponding to verbal predicateswith meN- vs ber-, respectively. (See e.g. Denistia 2020 and citations there.)(4)

a. mengajar ‘teach’ ~ pengajar ‘teacher’(Nomoto, 2017)b. belajar ‘learn’ ~ pelajar ‘student’
The surface realization of the nasal N in peN- and meN- are the same (Sneddon, 1996: 9–14).
More generally, peN- nominalizations are agent-oriented:(5)

From stem kasih ‘love’:(Hassan 1974, in Benjamin 2009: 304)

a. pengasih ‘one who is loving’
b. pekasih ‘one who is loved’ Such correspondences support parsing N- as a shared agent-related morpheme in bothmeN- and peN-. (See Benjamin 2009: 303–304 for a suggestion along these lines.)2

Evidence from verbal reduplication

Verbal reduplication of active verbs targets N-V, but excludes the syllabic part me-.

We first demonstrate this in Riau Indonesian, where the effect is especially clear (Gil, 2002: 258–259). In Riau, the “active prefix” may be me- alone or N- alone, conditioned by the stem-initial
segment. N- is included in reduplication but me- is not:(6)

a. pinjam ‘borrow’ > active minjam(Riau)> minjam-minjam ‘borrow repeatedly’(cf *minjam-pinjam)b. lempar ‘throw’ > active melempar> melempar-lempar ‘throw repeatedly’(cf *melempar-melempar)

Returning to the standard languages SI/SM, verbal reduplication of active verbs includes thenasal N- when it undergoes coalescence with the stem-initial consonant, but does not include
me- (Lapoliwa, 1981; Sneddon, 1996).
(7) tulis ‘write’ > active menulis> menulis-nulis ‘write repeatedly’(SI/SM)(cf *menulis-tulis, *menulis-menulis)3 As Benjamin (2009: 298) notes (crediting Hendon (1966: 46–47) for the idea), the analysis

of such reduplication is simplified if such forms are actually an active prefix me- on areduplicated stem nulis-nulis, “prenasalized” in the context of active voice.6
We formalize this by proposing that reduplication targets the material in v, not Voice.
The analysis above is complicated by the fact that, for stems where coalescence does not occur,
both N and the stem-initial consonant remain, with reduplication applying only to the stem:(8) baca ‘read’ > active membaca> membaca-baca ‘read repeatedly’(SI/SM)(cf *membaca-mbaca)

 We can account for this by tweaking our contextual allomorphy rules, so that the nasal isrealized as part of Voice when coalescence does not occur; see Appendix.

Support for this approach comes from colloquial Johor Malay (Onn, 1976: 178). Where coalescence does not occur, the N part is optionally included in the reduplication:(9) gali ‘dig’ > active menggali(Johor)> menggali-(ng)gali ‘dig continuously’
This reflects the SI/SM analysis above, but with optionality in N- as part of Voice or v wherecoalescence does not occur.

3

Evidence from co-occurring di- and N-

Association of me- and N- with distinct functions is evident in various regional and colloquialvarieties of Malay/Indonesian and other Malayic languages, as discussed in Gil 2002, Benjamin2009, and others. This even leads to the possibility in some varieties of di-N-V forms:(10)

a. potong ‘cut’ > di-motong-nya(Riau Indonesian; Gil 2002: 265)b. pinjam ‘borrow’ > di-minjam(11)

a. bunuh ‘kill’ > di-munuh(Salako Kendayan (Malayic; W. Borneo))b. rumput ‘weed’ > di-nga-rumput(Adelaar, 2005: 218–219)

 Such forms directly motivate the segmentation of meN- into me- and N-, with me- occupying the same position as di-.

6 In the phonological literature on reduplication, such examples (among others) have been presented in McCarthyand Prince 1995 to motivate the idea of Base-Reduplicant identity.

4 Whereas active/passive Voice and active/passive v are one-to-one in the standard languages, these languages allow passive Voice and active v to appear together:(12) The structure of di-N-V clauses:
VoiceP

NP
theme/subj VoicePASSvPdi- (NP)vACTagent

N-VP
Vt

The opposite mismatch — active Voice with passive v — is not logically possible, as passive v
does not project an agent which could then move to Spec,VoiceP.

4Evidence from the position of agents

Additional evidence comes from the position of agents in these non-standard Malayic languages. The structure in (12) predicts that active v should be able to introduce an agent.
 Recall that Voice lowers onto v+V under linear adjacency. The presence of an overt agent
would disrupt this relation between Voice and v+V.

The behaviors of two Malayic languages show different responses to this situation, which
support this overall proposal:• Salako Kendayan (Malayic, West Borneo; Adelaar 2005) allow for “di agent N-V” patterns:(13) Salako Kendayan “di agent N-V-red”:(Adelaar, 2005: 218)Aŋkoà-lah tuàkŋ kaleŋ di=kau matàh-matàh aŋkoà.
dist-emph bone catfish di=2sg N-break-red dist‘That’s the catfish-bone you’ve broken into many pieces.’
This reflects a grammar where di- can be a proclitic, not necessarily a verbal prefix.7

7 The same pattern is observed in Matéq (Connell, 2013) and various other Land Dayak/Bidayuh languages, also ofBorneo.

5• Suak Mansi Desa (Malayic, West Kalimantan; Sommerlot 2020) active verbs may appear
with meN- or N- in free variation; i.e. Voice has a null allomorph. However:(14) Only N- is possible in object extraction constructions:
Buku toyang opa’-ku/ *memoli}{moli.

meN-buybook dem C
father-1sg N-buy‘This book is the one that my father bought.’ (object pseudocleft)(15) Agents are immediately preverbal in object extractions:
Opai yang {*inya} nda’ {inya} milau?

what Cneg 3sg N-look.for‘What is s/he not looking for?’ (object wh-question)
We propose that the agent in these clauses is in Spec,vP. Because of the presence of theagent, Voice must be null, as it would otherwise fail to lower onto the verb.

Summary• Most prior work has described meN- as a single prefix, as it appears to be in paradigmatic
opposition to other (arguably not decomposable) voice prefixes such as passive di-.
• A range of evidence both in the standard languages (SI/SM) and in colloquial/regional
Malayic varieties lead us to the conclusion that meN- reflects two prefixes: me- + N- (asper Gil, 2002; Benjamin, 2009). Syntactically, we can better account for a wider range offacts by assuming two functional heads that correspond to the two.
• Our case study highlights the importance of looking at affixes in interaction with othergrammatical processes, both language-internally and in closely related languages.

For comments and discussion that informed this work, we thank Hiroki Nomoto, Alex Smith,and audiences at the Linguistic Society of Japan and the National University of Singapore.
This work is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education and the National University ofSingapore under grants A-8000132-00-00 and A-8001136-00-00.

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AppendixContextual allomorphy and the structural position of reflexes of N-:• the verb stem is pronounced in v (via head movement)• Voice lowers/prefixes to v+V via Local Dislocation (Embick and Noyer, 2001)• v ↔ N- if coalescence possible with stem-initial consonant (or if no N); then Voice ↔ me• otherwise: v ↔ ∅ and Voice ↔ meN(And optionally in colloquial Johor Malay: v ↔ N- and Voice ↔ me-, even though there isno coalescence. See (9).)
Reduplication targets v+V, not including Voice.

8