Austronesian alignment

[Pogostick Man]

My main reference for this is Wikipedia, for the record (I don't know if this means I have to license it the same or not). If anybody who knows more about this than I do notices an error or if I posted this in the wrong forum, please don't hesitate to correct me.

I think the main thing about Austronesian alignment is that you can think about it as basically the verb sharing the work of case-marking. In other sorts of languages, case-marking or word order tends to tell you the jobs that nouns fulfill in the sentence. In Austronesian alignment, though, the job of the word in focus is marked on the verb (the convention that the article uses is to call these "triggers"). The appropriate noun is marked in the direct case; how other nouns are handled depends on the language. From Wikipedia there seem to be two possibilities.

Abbreviations used:
3 – third-person
A – agent
ACC – accusative
BEN – benefactive
DEF – definite
DIR – direct
ERG – ergative
IND – indirect
LOC – locative
M – masculine
P – patient
PREP – prepositional case
PST – past
SG – singular

The first is that other nouns typically end up in the indirect case. Context seems to be the thing that determines which indirect noun is which in cases of ambiguity. Tagalog seems to use this; examples from the article over at Wikipedia:

Binasa ng tao ang aklat.
b<in>asa ng tao ang aklat
<PST.P>read IND person DIR book
The book was read by a person.

Bumasa ng aklat ang tao.
b<um>asa ng aklat ang tao
<PST.A>read IND book DIR person
A person read the book.

Binilhán ng tao ng aklat ang tindahan.
b<in>il-hán ng tao ng aklat ang tindahan.
<PST.P>buy-LOC IND person IND book DIR store
The store is where the person bought the book.

Bumilí ang tao ng aklat sa tindahan.
b<um>ilí ang tao ng aklat sa tindahan
<PST.A>buy DIR person IND book at store
The person bought the book at the store.

The other is that either the corresponding triggers or (at least) the agent and patient triggers have separate case-marking that is only used when they are not in focus (i.e., when the trigger does not apply to them). The former variation is the one I've used in Çuvvaccoçim, with all four triggers having a corresponding case that is used when the referent is not in focus:

Çičeu_⅁ avec hogëǧ hae_⅁ ǧëǵïm.
çi-čeu_⅁ avec ho-gëǧ hae_⅁ Ø-ǧëǵ=ïm
PST.A-apply 3SG.M.DIR ACC.SG-paint to PREP.SG-surface=DEF
'he applied paint to the surface'

Mičeu_⅁ çogëǧ aveh hae_⅁ ǧëǵïm.
mi-čeu_⅁ ço-gëǧ aveh hae_⅁ Ø-ǧëǵ=ïm
PST.P-apply DIR.SG-paint 3SG.M.ERG to PREP.SG-surface=DEF
'he applied paint to the surface'

Ģičeu_⅁ ɂuǧëǵ aveh hogëǧïm.
ģi-čeu_⅁ ɂu-ǧëǵ aveh ho-gëǧ=ïm
PST.LOC-apply DIR.SG-surface 3SG.M.ERG ACC-paint=DEF
'he applied paint to the surface'

Ćiččeu_⅁ ɂuǧëǵ aveh hogëǧïm.
ći:-čeu_⅁ ɂu-ǧëǵ aveh ho-gëǧ=ïm
PST.BEN-apply DIR.SG-surface 3SG.M.ERG ACC-paint=DEF
'he applied paint to the surface'

Going by the article, the typical triggers present seem to be agent, patient, and possibly locative and benefactive. You probably could have other triggers if you wanted to, for example a dative.

It may be useful to think of it like a game of paintball: The verb selects a color of paint (trigger) and fires at a noun (direct); other nouns in the sentence get splattered as a result (indirect).

[Nortaneous]

Insular Kett works like that: the topic is marked with =on, and the verb marks what role it is, with other nouns mostly unmarked. But the marking is more extensive.

Kaibann letak harakünnera.
kaibat=n letak ha-rakünne-ra
book=TOP person PST-read-P
The book was read by a person.

Letaññ kaibat harakünnet.
letak=on kaibat ha-rakünne-t
person=TOP book PST-read-A
A person read the book.

Leradaññ letak kaibat haleurriam.
leradañ=on letak kaibat ha-leur-ra-am
store=TOP person book PST-buy-P-LOC
It was at the store that the person bought the book.

Letaññ leradañ am kaibat haleurt.
letak=on leradañ am kaibat ha-leur-t
person=TOP store LOC book PST-buy-A
The person bought the book at the store.

Cf. Arve:

Kes tegnarger luje räch skeil rakjun.
ç-iə̯ʀɐ lyə̯ rɐx çʌi̯ɐ raə̯cʊn
3S-PST.P.INAN read AGT person book
Or:
Luje dan skeil kes tegnarger rakjun.
lyə̯ dɐn çʌi̯ɐ ç-iə̯ʀɐ raə̯cʊn
read GEN person 3S-PST.P.INAN book
The book was read by a person.

Kes tegnan luje rakjun skeil.
ç-ɛŋɐ-n lyə̯ raə̯cʊn çʌi̯ɐ
3S-PST.A-3S.ANIM read book person
The person read the book.

Zed sach de jäntam kes tegnarger rakjun skeil. (this is the form in most dialects, but it's artificial in Raston proper, which would would say dan jäntam)
tsɛx sɔɣɐ jeə̯r̥ɐm ç-iə̯ʀɐ raə̯cʊn çʌi̯ɐ
buy inside market 3S-PST.P.INAN book person
It was at the store that the person bought the book.

Kes tegnan zed rakjun sach de jäntam skeil.
ç-ɛŋɐ-n tsɛx lyə̯ raə̯cʊn sɔɣɐ jeə̯r̥ɐm çʌi̯ɐ
3S-PST.A-3S.ANIM buy book inside market person
The person bought the book at the store.

The southern dialects have developed agent markers from a reduced version of (formerly repeated) satte -- think "the man <long verb phrase>, he did" -- so in Gjerdou Arve, the fourth sentence (using all the same words, which may not be idiomatic) would be zed sach de jäntam kes tegnarger rakjun skeil satter [tseʔ sɒ ceːsem ʃiːʀe rɒːjin ʃæː zɑ]. But this is in addition to word order: Arve is generally VOS.

edit: I should clarify that the Kett constructions are both unmarked for transitivity (you can say kaibann rakünnera "the book was read" or letaññ harakünnet "the person read something"), the Arve construction *is* passive vs. active (so you can't say *kes tegnarger luje skeil rakjun or *kes tegnan luje skeil), but arguments can be incorporated into the verb complex and that's not marked at all (although the -ger V räch construction *is* marked, except in the northern dialects).

[Rui]

This post is specifically about Tagalog:

Binasa nang tao ang aklat.
b<in>asa nang tao ang aklat
<PST.P>read IND person DIR book
The book was read by a person.

Bumasa nang aklat ang tao.
b<um>asa nang aklat ang tao
<PST.A>read IND book DIR person
A person read the book.

Binilhán nang tao nang aklat ang tindahan.
b<in>il-hán nang tao nang aklat ang tindahan.
<PST.P>buy-LOC IND person IND book DIR store
The store is where the person bought the book.

Bumilí ang tao nang aklat sa tindahan.
b<um>ilí ang tao nang aklat sa tindahan
<PST.A>buy DIR person IND book at store
The person bought the book at the store.

Nitpick: it's spelled ng, not nang (which is a different word entirely), but still pronounced something like [nəŋ~naŋ].

Also, to clarify because the glosses might make it seem as such, but it's not a case of active vs. passive, as the transitivity of the verb doesn't change (as in English, where the active is transitive while passive is intransitive), both forms of the verb are transitive. The linked article mentions this but just in case anyone doesn't click the link but reads my post. In fact, the two different infixes can be used to mark definiteness as well:

Kumain ako ng cake.
k<um>ain ako ng cake.
<PST.A>eat 1sing.DIR IND cake
I ate some cake. (any cake)

Kinain ko ang cake.
k<in>ain ko ang cake.
<PST.P>eat 1sing.IND DIR cake
I ate the cake. (this particular cake)

[Imralu]

Not sure if this really counts, but as kind of an originally unintended effect of other things, which I intended to be most useful in arguments, Ngolu can kind of do something like this, promoting other cases to nominative (meaning nominative could kind of be thought of as a direct case). It's basically like a passive voice equivalent to every case. It's kind of convoluted to keep the original nominative argument in the sentence though, so I'll just drop it. Also, I think it's more for the topic than for the focus but I'm not 100% sure on that yet.

Cases, when not marked otherwise, refer back to the predicate (and thus the nominative) in all instances, even cases like the genitive. This means, for example, that the locative case in (1) means that I was in the restaurant, and in (3) means that you were in the restaurant.


(1) Active

ziiu

buy

nu

NOM.1s.ICS

eui

DAT.2s.ICS

xi

ACC.3s.INAN.DEF

zebe

liver

xua

LOC.3s.INAN.DEF

mala

house

kau

eat

I bought you the liver in the restaurant.

(2) Passive (brings accusative to nominative argument)

[g=undergo]he[/g]

ziiu

buy

eui

DAT.2s.ICS

[g=NOM.3s.INAN.DEF]xu[/g] [g=liver]zebe[/g]

xua

LOC.3s.INAN.DEF

mala

house

kau

eat

The liver was bought for you in the restaurant.

(3) Dative-Passive (brings dative to nominative argument)

[g=receive]no[/g]

ziiu

buy

[g=NOM.2s.ICS]vu[/g]

xi

ACC.3s.INAN.DEF

zebe

liver

xua

LOC.3s.INAN.DEF

mala

house

kau

eat

You were bought liver in the restaurant.

(4) Locative-Passive (brings locative to nominative argument)

[g=location]lu[/g]

ziiu

buy

eui

DAT.2s.ICS

[g=NOM.3s.INAN.DEF]xu[/g] [g=house]mala[/g] [g=eat]kau[/g]

xi

ACC.3s.INAN.DEF

zebe

liver

The restaurant was bought you liver in. Um ... I wish that worked in English. Let's try again ... The restaurant was the location for the buying of liver for you.

___________________

The most common way is to simply use the first sentence and shuffle word order around. These trigger-like words are mostly useful in arguments to do things like this.

ju

NOM.3s.ICS.DEF

ziiu

buy

the buyer

xu

NOM.3s.INAN.DEF

he

undergo

ziiu

buy

the bought thing, the purchase

ju

NOM.3s.ICS.DEF

no

receive

ziiu

buy

the person who is bought for / receiver of something bought

xu

NOM.3s.INAN.DEF

lu

location

ziiu

buy

the place were something is bought, the shop, the store

[2+3 clusivity]

There was an article on here within the last 1-2 years, which compared various types/stages of Austronesian alignment. Does anyone have a link to it? I have been looking back through the forum and not been able to get a good query for it.