Non-core case marking in Batanic languages

Chun-Jan Young

doi:10.1515/stuf-2024-2013

Article

Non-core case marking in Batanic languages

Published/Copyright: November 28, 2024

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From the journal STUF - Language Typology and Universals Volume 77 Issue 4

Abstract

Many Philippine languages of the Austronesian family exhibit a three-case system: two reserved for marking core arguments and the third for marking non-core participants. This paper examines the Batanic subgroup, which differs from the typical Philippine configuration by distinguishing two separate non-core cases (oblique and locative), thus raising the question of how the single non-core category of other Philippine languages is more finely split in Batanic languages. Previous analyses of the Batanic non-core cases often reduce the oblique to merely marking indefiniteness but ascribe a wider range of functions to the locative in marking various peripheral arguments and adverbials. Using textual and usage-based data, this paper proposes a reevaluation of the non-core cases in Batanic and argues that: (1) the Batanic oblique should be conceptualized more like the typical Philippine oblique, as it marks both indefinite and definite participants excluded from the core for various syntactic reasons, and that (2) the functions of the locative are more specific, compact, and stem from its basic spatial meaning with an additional association with animacy. This analysis offers a typological perspective on possible ways that languages organize their non-core categories and provides further insight on what exactly the ‘non-core’ might consist of.

Keywords: Austronesian; Philippine; Batanic; non-core case; oblique; locative

Corresponding author: Chun-Jan Young, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA, E-mail: chun-jan@ucsb.edu

Acknowledgments

I would first like to thank Marianne Mithun for going through endless versions of this paper with me, Eric W. Campbell and Lina Hou for their feedback at different stages from the conception of this paper to the final product, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful suggestions. I would also like to thank the members of the UCSB Department of Linguistics, especially Guillem Belmar Viernes, for comments throughout the writing process and at departmental presentations, and Thomas Van Hoey for additional proofreading. Parts of what eventually became Sections 4.1 and 4.2 of this paper were presented online at the 12th International Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference in 2020, and I would like to thank the audience for the questions that I received there. Finally, I am continuously grateful to Si Vagyatan (Ma Yueh-Chin), Sira Apen Mapanop (Lü Chin-Mei and Chang Hai-Yu), and Sinan Voyaen (Lai Su-Ying) for sharing their language and knowledge with us through recording the Tao/Yami narratives and working with us to transcribe the texts.

Research funding: The Tao/Yami data were collected and transcribed by myself and Gregory Vondiziano with financial support from the ROC (Taiwan) Ministry of Science and Technology, through the projects MOST 106-2420-H-002-014-MY2 and MOST 107-2420-H-002-034 granted to Li-May Sung.

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Published Online: 2024-11-28

Published in Print: 2024-11-26

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/stuf-2024-2013

Keywords for this article

Austronesian; Philippine; Batanic; non-core case; oblique; locative