| Voice marking | Proper marker | yes | The suffixes -si, -(ss)i, and -nnig mark imperfective aspects of some sort. For instance, with an ACCOMPLISHMENT verb like tuqut- ‘kill’, the transitive form entails that the patient is dead, whereas the -si, -(ss)i, and -nnig antipassives are compatible with the victim being almost but not quite dead yet (Bittner 1987: 11).
The antipassive verb is often (but not always) complex compared to the transitive verb (Schmidt 2003: 285).
The slot filled by the ‘null’ antipassive morpheme can very often be filled by any of the overt antipassive-marking morphemes with no other structural change, which suggests that the structures in (uncoded ex.) and (coded ex.) are indeed equivalent. The difference cannot be attributed to a lexical property (Heaton 2017: 186).
The antipassive of transitive verbs is formed with several different suffixes or none (Sadock 2003: 18).
Five commonly occurring antipassives (…). Most WGE verbs accept only one or two antipassive suffixes (Bittner 1987: 10). |
| Voice marking | Lookalike marker | no | |
| Voice marking | Synthetic marker | yes | The most common antipassive suffixes are -si, -llir, -(ss)i, -nnig (including the null marker) (Bittner 1987: 4).
-ller-, -nnig-, -i-/-si- (Schmidt 2003: 389-390). |
| Voice marking | Analytical marker | no | |
| Flagging | S-argument flagging | no | In the antipassive, the verb is marked with one of several special suffixes (...). The underlying subject appears in the absolutive case, and triggers verb agreement (Sadock 1980: 305).
|
| Flagging | P-oblique flagging | yes | It is still possible to indicate external objects in the half-transitive clauseby using the instrumental case (Fortescue 1984: 86).
The antipassive of verbs takes an instrumental case complement in the same semantic role as the absolutive of the transitive stem from which the antipassive is derived (Sadock 2003: 57).
The antipassive suffix makes a transitive verb intransitive by forming a stem that takes what would be the absolutive term of the transitive as an optional instrumental complement (Sadock 2003: 52).
FYI: the P argument in P demotion is overly flagged by the instrumental case the form of which is -mik (Creissels 2021: 351). |
| Flagging | P-oblique unflagging | no | |
| Flagging | P-oblique flagging variation | no | The underlying object is optional, if present, it is in the instrumental case (Sadock 1980: 305-306). |
| Indexation | S-argument indexed | yes | The antipassivized verb takes verbal inflection: the obligatory mood inflection and subject agreement (Schmidt 2003: 388).
In the antipassive, the underlying subject appears in the absolutive case, and triggers verb agreement (Sadock 1980: 305).
|
| Indexation | S-argument indexation conditioned | no | |
| P-individuation properties | Incorporated P is generic (non-specific) | no | |
| P-individuation properties | Incorporated P is indefinite (non-specific) | yes | In object incorporation: ['He saw (a) caribou' (indefinite-non-referential)] it is a matter of the subject performing a particular class of action ('caribou-seeing'), the object being wholly de-emphasized/de-individualized by incorporation (Fortescue 1984: 86-87).
Verbs formed by incorporating an object are always intransitive with respect to that object, i.e., the verb will never agree with the incorporated object. Thus the object is always understood as indefinite (Sadock 1980: 307). |
| P-individuation properties | Incorporated P can be referential | yes | The incorporated noun may refer to a specific entity. Incorporated nouns are often (perhaps typically) used to introduce specific new entities into a discourse whose denotation may then be continued as a definite reference (Sadock 2003: 47).
See Fortescue (1980: 83): ""He drank hot coffee"", ""He lost a harpoon line for a beluga/in the beluga"", ""I am looking for a new car.""
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| P-individuation properties | Oblique is generic (non-specific) | no | |
| P-individuation properties | Oblique is indefinite (non-specific) | yes | ‘He killed people.’ (Fortescue 1984: 86). |
| P-individuation properties | Oblique can be referential | yes | The instrumental object of the antipassive often gets a defocussed, indefinite, or less definite interpretation (Schmidt 2003: 395).
Transitive verbs take the absolutive case for external objects. The object may be de-emphasized/made indefinite by placing it in the instrumental case and inflecting the verb intransitively (Fortescue 1984: 82).
'He saw a caribou"" (indefinite-referential) (Fortescue 1984: 86).
The absolutive patient with which the verb agrees is understood as definite, but the instrumental patient, which does not trigger verb agreement, is understood as indefinite (Sadock 1980: 305).
|
| P-individuation properties | Eliminated P is generic (non-specific) | yes | (Schmidt 2003: 390)
a.
Kaali-p nanoq toqup-paa
Kaali-erg bear kill-ind.3sg.3sg
‘Kaali killed the polar bear.’
b.
Kaali nannu-mik toqut-si-voq
K.nom bear-ins kill-antip-ind.3sg
‘Kaali killed a polar bear.’
c.
Kaali toqut-si-voq
Kaali kill-antip-ind.3sg
‘Kaali is a killer/murderer.’
|
| P-individuation properties | Eliminated P is indefinite (non-specific) | yes | (Schmidt 2003: 395)
a.
Toqup-paa
kill-ind.3sg.3sg
‘He killed it.’
b.
Toqut-si-voq
kill-antip-ind.3sg
‘He killed (something).'
|
| P-individuation properties | Eliminated P can be referential | no | |
| Oblique affectedness | Less affected oblique | yes/no | The construction sometimes has a nuance of repeated/habitual action (cf. 1.6.5.1) as opposed to the punctual meaning of the transitive equivalent (Fortescue 1984: 86).
FYI: Partitive interpretation in WG. See Creissels 2021: 351).
The suffixes -si, -(ss)i, and -nnig mark imperfective aspects of some sort. For instance, with an ACCOMPLISHMENT verb like tuqut- ‘kill’, the transitive form entails that the patient is dead, whereas the -si, -(ss)i, and -nnig antipassives are compatible with the victim being almost but not quite dead yet (Bittner 1987: 11). |
| P-constraining properties | Animacy constrains oblique demotion | no | |
| P-constraining properties | Person constrains oblique demotion | no | |
| P-constraining properties | Number constrains oblique demotion | no | |