TRANSITIVITY AND ERGATIVITY IN FORMOSAN AND PHILIPPINE LANGUAGES A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LINGUISTICS MAY 2004 By Hsiu-chuan Liao Dissertation Committee: Lawrence A. Reid, Chairperson Byron W. Bender Robert A. Blust Alexander Vovin P. Bion Griffin 11l © Copyright 2004 by Hsiu-chuan Liao IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to acknowledge various funding agencies and/or institutions that have made my graduate study and the completion ofthis dissertation possible. I wish to thank the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (USA) for providing me with a doctoral dissertation fellowship to conduct this study. I would also like to thank the Department ofLinguistics, University ofHawai'i at Manoa for providing me with a Graduate Assistantship and a Pacific Asian Scholarship (PAS) Tuition Waiver at various times during my graduate study. Thanks also go to the International Student Services, University ofHawai'i at Manoa for granting me Tuition Differential Waivers during the same period. I am also thankful to the Arts and Sciences Advisory Council for partially supporting my study at the 1997 LSA (Linguistic Society ofAmerica) Summer Institute at Cornell University. I also wish to thank the Linguistic Society ofAmerica for providing me with a student fellowship to study at the 2001 LSA Summer Institute at the University ofCalifornia at Santa Barbara. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the Endowment Fund, Department ofLinguistics, University ofHawai'i at Manoa for partially supporting my trip to the 9th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Australian National University, Canberra. I would also like to acknowledge a number ofindividuals who have enriched my intellectual life. My deepest and endless gratitude goes to my advisor, Professor Laurie Reid. I wish to thank him for all the help and support that he has given to me in the past seven and half years. I would like to thank him for generously sharing with me his knowledge about v Philippine languages and for inviting me to join his research project on "Syntactic Typology ofPhilippine languages". Through this joint research project, my knowledge about Philippine languages has been greatly expanded. It has also indirectly helped me with my dissertation research. I would also like to thank him for carefully going through all the data presented in the dissertation and suggesting better translations and/or better analyses for them. I am also grateful to him for spending generous amount oftime teaching me how to use the Word program to format my papers and how to use the Power Point program to make conference presentations. I would like to thank Professor Robert Blust, the leading scholar in Austronesian linguistics, for being always helpful and supportive to my research on Austronesian languages. I am thankful to him for sharing with me his knowledge about Austronesian languages, particularly those spoken in Taiwan and Borneo. I always enjoyed taking and/or sitting in the courses (Proto-Austronesian, Languages ofBorneo, and Comparative Linguistics I and II) that he offered. I am particularly grateful to him for the encouragement and help that he has given to me during the time that I was writing my dissertation. I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Byron W. Bender for sharing with me his knowledge about morphology, particularly that ofthe various approaches to morphological analyses. I am grateful to him for teaching me how to use certain computer programs and for answering my questions regarding English writing style. I am also thankful for the comments and editorial suggestions that he made on the draft of the dissertation. VI I would also like to acknowledge Professor William O'Grady for all the help and encouragement that he has given to me in the past seven and halfyears. I would like to thank him for introducing me to the wonderful world ofsyntactic typology and for training me to be a syntactician. I always enjoyed learning various theoretical frameworks (Government and Binding Theory, Minimalist Program, Categorial Grammar, and Relational Grammar) from him. I am thankful to him for spending generous amount oftime with me discussing issues concerning transitivity and ergativity. Through insightful discussions with him, my knowledge about ergativity has been greatly expanded. I would also like to thank him for recognizing me as a young syntactician in the department and for offering me opportunities to teach one advanced-level syntax course (Ling 640X(2): The Syntax ofErgative Languages) and one introductory-level syntax course (Ling 422: Introduction to Grammatical Analysis) while he served as the Department Chair. Through teaching these courses, I had a chance to reconsider some issues concerning the syntax ofPhilippine-type languages and have developed some new ideas about ergativity, which has indirectly helped me with my dissertation research. Finally, I am particularly grateful to him for serving as my personal consultant for years to help me through some ofthe difficult times that I had during my graduate study. Without his help and encouragement, the completion ofthis dissertation would not have been possible. I am also grateful to the late Professor Stan Starosta for introducing me to the world ofAustronesian syntax. Despite the difference in theoretical orientation, I enjoyed learning the syntax ofAustronesian languages and ergative languages from him. The VB analysis that I proposed in this dissertation has been greatly influenced by his work on Formosan syntax. Thanks also go to my teachers at the two LSA Summer Institutes that I attended: Professor Paul Jen-kuei Li (Structure ofFormosan languages), Professors Malcolm Ross and John U. Wolff(Issues in Historical Austronesian Linguistics), Professor Frantisek Lichtenberk (Grammatical Patterns in Oceanic Languages), Professor Terry Crowley (Serial and Echo Verbs in Oceanic Languages), Professor Michael Dukes (The Interaction ofGrammar and Discourse in Tongan), Professors Matthew Dryer and Carol Rosen (Language Typology), Professor Scott DeLancey (Functional Syntax), Professor Marianne Mithun (Case, Grammatical Relations, Argument Structure, and Voice in North American Indian Languages), Professor Masayoshi Shibatani (Voice), Professor R. M. W. Dixon (Basic Linguistic Theory). Through attending their courses, my knowledge about Austronesian languages, syntax, and typology has greatly expanded, which has indirectly helped my dissertation research. I would also like to acknowledge several other individuals who have supported me in one way or another throughout my graduate life. I would like to thank Professor Sasha Vovin for his comments on the draft ofthe dissertation and for his encouragement during the time that I was writing my dissertation. Thanks also go to the former outside member ofmy dissertation committee, Professor Miriam Stark, for her constant encouragement in the past four years. Special thanks go to the current outside member ofmy dissertation committee, Professor P. Bion Griffin, for kindly taking over the outside member duty from Professor Miriam Stark, who was V1l1 conducting her field research during the time that I had my oral defense. Thanks also go to Professor Albert J. Schlitz, with whom I worked closely as an editor for the Working Papers in Linguistics series, and for his encouragement in the past four years. I would like to acknowledge Professor One-Soon Her, with whom I worked closely for a dictionary project when I was an editor in San-Min Book Company in Taipei, for kindly offering to write a letter ofrecommendation for me when I applied for the graduate program at UH. I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Elizabeth Zeitoun for her friendship and her constant encouragement in the past three years. I would also like to thank Dr. Carl Rubino for his encouragement and for kindly sharing with me his Philippine languages data. I am also thankful to Dr. Laura Chang-Blust for her encouragement in the past few years. Thanks also go to Dr. David Johnson, the leading exponent ofRelational Grammar, for his encouragement for my research on ergativity. I am grateful to Jason Lobel for commenting on the Central Philippine languages material that I presented in the dissertation. I wish to thank Sheila Zamar, my friend, fellow student, and teacher, for her friendship and for sharing with me the beauty ofher languages Sorsoganon and Tagalog. I am particularly grateful to her for helping me go through some ofthe difficult times that I experienced during my graduate study. I would like to thank Kazumi Yoshihara for her friendship and for her help in the past few years. I would also like to thank her family for their hospitality and for always treating me like one oftheir family members. Thanks also go to my fellow students and IX friends, Aaron Tsang, Sun Young Lee, Tanja Hic, Shan-Shan Wang, Jung-hsing (Derek) Chang, Hui-hua (Jessie) Hwang, I-Ru Su, and Cathy Kawahata, for their friendship and for sharing the joys and sorrows oflife with me during my stay in Hawai'i. I would also like to thank my friends and officemates, Jason Jackson and Jae Yeon Kim, for the wonderful times that we had while sharing an office. I would also like to thank my students and friends, Maria Faehndrich, Mai-Han Nguyen, Heejeong Jeong, Manami Sato, Aiyu Tracy Tan, Sachie Maruyama, Avis Ting­ Ting Chan, Loyda Zamalloa, Yohei Sakata, and So Young Kim, for their support ofmy teaching. I am also grateful to other friends in Linguistics for sharing their time with me through happy gatherings: Lan-hsin Chang, Preena Kangkun, Sumittra Suraratdecha, Laura Sacia and her husband Klaus Dragull, Diana Stojanovic, Mijung Lee, Sang-yee Cheon, Barry Cowan, Kimberly Pope, Judiana Feng, Jim Ellis, Terry Dean Klafehn, Shawn M. Clankie, Mark Alves, Farooq Babrakzai, Blaine Erickson, Sukenari Hino, Ela Thurgood, Jeewon Hahn, Aya Inoue, Mie Hiramoto, Zoe Ban, Marie-Therese Lawen, Jung-yao Lu, Trixie Tangit, In-kyu Park, Katsura Aoyama, Kaori Ueki, Keira Gebbie Ballantyne, Michiko Nakamura, Atiqa Hachimi, Woody Mott, and Paul Lassettre.