Festschrifts

The language Jarawara (Arauan, spoken in Brazil) exhibits a puzzling set of passive-like properties in its “O-Construction” (Dixon 2000, 2004). We argue that O-Constructions have a type of passive voice in some person combinations but not in others, and that they are unified in that they always have topic agreement on C with the internal argument. We relate this approach to recent research on Algonquian inverse systems (especially Oxford 2023a,b, 2024) which have also been argued to involve a passive-like voice-based alternation for specific person combinations. Our analysis captures facts about case, word order, divergences between C and T agreement, and the distribution of the passive-like prefix hi- (among other properties). Our findings provide support for the approach to person restrictions embodied in Oxford’s work and also demonstrate how topic agreement and the A system can interact. More generally, this work shows how a nuanced approach to passive constructions, and a willingness to separate agreement from voice, can lead to a cross-linguistically grounded analysis of what seems prima facie like an “unusual” construction.