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passive construction. If there is no number agreement with the 3pl sentence initial
subject, the sentence is ungrammatical:
(568) *Jaki ko e-aikuj lemlem.
mat the.pl.nh 3s.agr-need fold.intrans
'The mats need to be folded.'
(569) *Kweet eo re-kar jino kōmat.
octopus the.s 3pl.agr-T(past) start.trans cook.intrans
'The octopus was started to be cooked.
When the subject is non-initial, however, singular agreement is possible with a plural
subject.
(570) E-ar jino ekkal imoko iia eo lok.
3s-T(past) start build.intrans the.houses year the.s last
'The houses were started to be built last year.'
Therefore, these sentences pattern like other monoclausal declaratives when it comes to
agreement.
The use of the intransitive form of the embedded verb clearly shows that this verb
is passive. In many languages that allow restructuring, such as German and Chamorro,
the matrix verb is passivized as well. The only Marshallese verb of the class under
discussion that has both a transitive and intransitive form is ijjino/jino 'start'. So we would
expect that this verb should allow us to determine if the matrix verb is also passivized in
Marshallese. First let us compare the form of this verb used in a long passive (567b) with
its transitive form jino (571) and in its passive form ijjino (572). This comparison shows
that this verb appears in its transitive form when it is in a long passive.
(571) Watak e-ar jino kweilok eo.
Watak 3s.agr-T(past) start.trans meeting the.s
'Watak started the meeting.'
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