Festschrifts

We compare the voice system of Malagasy with those discussed in recent typologies (Zúñiga & Kittilä 2019; Legate 2021). Malagasy is a special case of a Philippine-type language (Shibatani 1988; Foley 2008; Himmelmann 2008; Kaufman 2009; Chen & McDonnell 2019) and presents their typically rich voice morphology. Some typological features of note are:

1. Malagasy has several voices, both active and non-active, built with overt affixes, not auxiliary verbs. Active verbs are not less marked than non-actives.

2. Voice is selected by some lexical items.

3. Some voices compose, yielding verbs with multiple voice affixes. Favored and forbidden compositions support several typological generalizations.

4. Voiced Predicate Phrases feed structure building operations: relative clause formation, nominalizations, imperatives, subject deletion, incorporation, coordination… In sum: Malagasy syntax rides on its voice system.