Voice and grammatical relations in Lamaholot of eastern Indonesia

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of voice and grammatical relations in the Lewotobi dialect of the Lamaholot language, framing this language and its voice systems in the context of Indonesian-type voice systems. According to Ross (2002), Arka and Ross (2005b), and Himmelmann (2005), among others, Indonesian-type voice systems are characterized by the combination of (i) a voice system with two or three symmetrical voice alternations and (ii) applicative morphology. Geographically, languages with Indonesian-type voice systems are found mainly in Malaysia and western Indonesia. In contrast, Austronesian languages in eastern Indonesia are believed not to display voice phenomena of this kind (Arka and Ross 2005b, Himmelmann 2005). It is said that languages in this region “either do not show any grammaticized voice alternations at all or the voice alternations are clearly asymmetrical” (Himmelmann 2005:114). However, in this paper, I argue that this characterization is not true of Lamaholot, an Austronesian language of eastern Indonesia; rather this eastern Indonesian language represents voice systems of the Indonesian-type. By closely examining formal variations of voice alternations and factors for voice selection in Lamaholot, I demonstrate that Lamaholot uses periphrastic means, such as agreement markers, verb serialization, and word order, in order to express various voice and transitivity-related oppositions. I also show that two different kinds of grammatical relations are to be posited for the purpose of describing these phenomena: the semantico-syntactic grammatical relations (subject, primary object, secondary object, and oblique) and the pragmatico-syntactic grammatical relation (topic). This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, I provide a preliminary sketch of the Lamaholot language and its typological characteristics. This language is almost an isolating language and a typical example of “preposed possessor languages.” In Section 3, however, I demonstrate that this isolating language has various periphrastic means for expressing voice and transitivity-related functional domains. These voice phenomena without voice morphology define and interact with grammatical relations, which are explored in Section 4. In Section 5, then, the topic, another type of grammatical relation, is introduced to describe the Actor-Topic and Undergoer-Topic constructions. Finally, Section 6 concludes this paper with some remarks upon the symmetry of Lamaholot voice systems.