Abstract
Abstract Drawing on Hopper and Thompson's model of transitivity, Munro argues that ‘say’ verbs are of intermediate transitivity. Evidence from Bunuba generally supports this claim, but Bunuba ‘say’ clauses themselves vary in transitivity: some have ergative‐marked subjects and some absolutive. The difference is correlated with the extent to which the reported locution is being represented as a discrete speech event. Also relevant is the presence or absence on the verb of oblique cross‐reference to an addressee, which may independently condition ergative marking on the subject even in the absence of a reported locution. What most complicates the question of transitivity for these Bunuba constructions is that there are two competing candidates for object status (locution and addressee): their overall transitivity is not simply intermediate, but potentially ambiguous. Similar considerations may explain the anomalous behaviour of ‘say’ clauses in other languages.
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