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Agent prominence in symmetrical voice languages

  • Sonja Riesberg EMAIL logo and Beatrice Primus
Published/Copyright: October 22, 2015

Abstract

It has been argued in the literature that morpho-syntactically agents are universally more prominent than patients. At first sight, this claim seems to be challenged by so called symmetrical voice languages because these languages show no preference for agents to be the privileged syntactic argument (PSA). They do thus not display an obvious syntactic prominence of agents. However, this paper will argue that even symmetrical voice languages show instances of agent prominence. These instances are not reflected in a default linking of agents to PSA function, but rather in a slightly more subtle manner: First, agents always function as binders to reflexive pronouns, regardless of position or grammatical function. Second, agent properties like volitionality, ability and control are reflected in verbal morphology, even in undergoer voice construction in which the agent is not the PSA. This is the case in potentive, stative, and causative construction.

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Nikolaus P. Himmelmann for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and to Else Gellinek for improving style and grammar.

Abbreviations

1

first person

3

third person

av

actor voice

caus

causative

dat

dative

def

definite

det

determiner

dist

distal

gen

genitive

ger

gerund

hon

honorific article

incpl

incompletive

loc

locative

med

mediative

neg

negation

nom

nominative

p

plural

pass

passive

pn

personal name

pot

potentive

rls

realis

s

singular

st

stative

uv

undergoer voice

ven

venitive

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Published Online: 2015-10-22
Published in Print: 2015-11-1

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