Antipassive in Austronesian alignment change

Abstract

This chapter proposes that an ergative language becomes split-ergative by a reanalysis of its antipassive construction as syntactically transitive. A split-ergative language then can evolve into an accusative language through the further reanalysis of transitive ergative clauses as passive. It illustrates this continuum with the ergative language Tagalog, the split-ergative languages Malagasy and Seediq, and the predominantly accusative standard Indonesian.

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