Transitivity construction of verbal clause in Ciacia language

Abstract

Typology study of Ciacia language (CL) in various linguistic aspects has not been conducted yet. It is the first study that focuses on syntactic typology. Ciacia language is one of the local languages in Buton Regency, Southeast Sulawesi Province. The study focuses on verbal clause construction of CL. This construction covers several subject and aspect markers, intransitive and transitive verb, and argument as consequence of verb valencies in the clause construction. The study used written and oral data. The oral data of this study is obtained through recording and elicitation techniques. Written data is obtained from the previous studies. The study also used synthetic data which is verified by the informants. It was analyzed by using distributional and match methods with change and loss techniques. Based on the result of this study, it found that verbal clause construction of Ciacia language is always filled by subject and aspect markers (S/AM) that are affixed to PRED verb. The base structure of verbal clause in CL consists of the verbal predicated clause and non-verbal predicated clause. The non-verbal predicated clause can be constructed through base nominal and adjective categories. Verbal clause predicate can be filled by an intransitive base verb, monotransitive base verb, ditransitive base verb, and ambitransitive base verb. Those verbal clause construction of Ciacia language always uses S/AM, either with affix or without affix. The roles of argument semantic in verbal clause construction in CL are (i) the main argument acts as A/ACT, O/UND, benefactive (BEN), and thema and (ii) peripheral argument acts as benefactive (BEN), temporal (TEMP), and locative (LOC). Based on the semantic features, the verb in the intransitive clause is classified based on verbal clause with argument SUBJ as A/ACT and verbal clause with argument SUBJ as O/UND. Semi-transitive verbal clause construction in CL can be formed from (i) semi-transitive base verb with S/AM, (ii) intransitive integral verb which is formed from transitive base verbs and base nominal by using affix {pi-} with S/AM. Construction of ditransitive verbal clause in CL is filled by PRED verb in the form of monotransitive with affix BEN {-aso} and IO with features [+human/soul].