On the conceptual framework for voice phenomena *.

Abstract

This article attempts to lay the conceptual foundations of voice phenomena, ranging from the familiar active/passive contrast to the ergative/antipassive opposition, as well as voice functions of split case-marking in both transitive and intransitive constructions. We advance the claim that major voice phenomena have conceptual bases rooted in the human cognition of actions, which have evolutionary properties pertaining to their origin, development, and termination. The notion of transitivity is integral to the study of voice as evident from the fact that the so-called transitivity parameters identified by Hopper and Thompson (1980) and others are in the main concerned with these evolutionary properties of an action, and also from the fact that the phenomena dealt with in these studies are mostly voice phenomena. A number of claims made in past studies of voice and in some widely-received definitions of voice are shown to be false. In particular, voice oppositions are typically based on conceptual--as opposed to pragmatic--meanings, may not alter argument alignment patterns, may not change verbal valency, and may not even trigger verbal marking. There are also voice oppositions more basic and wide-spread than the active/passive system, upon which popular definitions of voice are typically based

1. Introduction

Current studies on voice phenomena suffer from a number of inadequacies at several levels of description and explanation. At the most fundamental level, there is no coherent conceptual framework that adequately addresses the matter, such that we are often left to wonder whether or not a given phenomenon falls in the domain of voice. For one thing, people differ in the treatment of causative and reflexive constructions; some consider them to represent voice categories, while others do not. Still others avoid raising the issue at all. Various definitions currently offered are of little use, as they are typically based on an Indo-European active/passive opposition, and arbitrarily include or exclude a particular phenomenon from the domain of voice. (1)

Properly identifying construction types representing a voice sub-domain is also a serious problem. In Crystal's (2003) definition (cf. Note 1) reflexives are not recognized as proper voice constructions and their relationship to the middle voice is not entirely clear. A similar problem is seen in Kemmer's (1993) extensive study of middle voice constructions.

There are also severe limitations at the level of explanation. Closer to the main theme of this volume is the problem of understanding the increases and decreases in valency and accompanying changes in argument structure observed in voice phenomena. Why do certain phenomena (e.g. the causative and applicative) show an increase in valency, while others (e.g. the passive and antipassive) typically have a valency-reducing effect? What motivates these valency changes in opposite directions?

Functional explanations regarding the distribution of certain voice constructions go a long way toward an explanatory functional study of grammatical phenomena (cf. Haiman 1985). Being largely based on formal properties such as "linguistic distance" and "full" vs. "reduced form," these explanations are not functional enough to be able to make more general predictions. (2)