ALS 2010 Annual Conference Programme - Australian Linguistic ...

De Busser
Rik De Busser (La Trobe University)
r.debusser@latrobe.edu.au
Causative and associative morphology in Takivatan Bunun
Bunun dialects have two sets of prefixes that express different forms of multiple
agency. Both have been attested in other Austronesian languages in Taiwan, for
instance in Thao (see Blust (2003a)). A first group has an initial consonant p- and
its reflexes in other Austronesian languages have been widely and unambiguously
associated with causative morphology (Adelaar & Himmelmann (2004:170)). A
second set has initial k- and, in Takivatan Bunun, expresses a variety of meanings
that all centre around the notion of joint action. The interpretation of equivalent
affixal sets in other Austrosian languages has been fraught with controversy (see
e.g. Zeitoun & Huang (2000) and Blust (2003b)).
In this talk, I will investigate the functional-semantic delineation of these morphemes
and argue that they can all be subsumed under the functional category joint
action or joint participation. I will try to relate these meanings to differences in
syntactic behaviour. In other languages, similar morphemes have typically been
associated with valency-changing operations. I will argue that this is not the case
for the Takivatan dialect of Bunun, and that causative and associative morphology
is functionally but not syntactically analogous to similar morphology in other
languages.
Bibliography
Adelaar, K. Alexander & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 2004. The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar. New York:
Routledge.
Blust, Robert A. 2003a. Thao Dictionary (Language and Linguistics Monograph Series A5). Taipei: Academia Sinica.
Blust, Robert A. 2003b. Three notes on early Austronesian morphology, Oceanic Linguistics 42 (2), 438-478.
Zeitoun, Elizabeth & Lillian M. Huang. 2000. Concerning ka-, an overlooked marker of verbal derivation in Formosan
languages, Oceanic Linguistics 39 (2), 391-414.