Antipassive and ergativity in Tagalog

This paper argues for and develops an ergative analysis of Tagalog. Determining whether a language is ergative or accusative is the result of examining the case marking alignment in transitive and intransitive clause types. However, identifying transitive and intransitive clauses has traditionally not been a straightforward task in work on Tagalog, which has been argued to possess two basic transitive clause types. Specifically, there is a long-standing controversy in Austronesian linguistics over whether the so-called ‘actor focus’ clause type is transitive or an antipassive. In this paper, I show that ‘actor focus’ clauses do in fact pattern with antipassives in uncontroversially ergative languages. This allows for the conclusion that Tagalog is an ergative language. In the analysis I propose, transitive v in ergative clauses values structural absolutive case with the object DP and assigns inherent ergative case to the external argument in its specifier. In intransitive (including antipassive) clauses, v is intransitive and accordingly has no case features to assign or value. The highest DP in vP values absolutive case with T, and the object in an antipassive is dependent on the lexical verb for inherent case.

► This paper argues that Tagalog is an ergative language.
► Tagalog patterns empirically with other ergative languages in having an antipassive construction.
► I propose that transitive v has a structural case feature to value with the absolutive object.
► Antipassive v does not structurally case license an object.