312 Chapter 10 Modifications to argument structure
actor voice morphology, indicating a syntactically transitive structure. (108) and
(109) have the same properties. In (109a), though, there is both a theme and a
goal. In this case, the theme still becomes the postverbal bare NP and the goal,
here red-mored ‘students’, remains object of the preposition dha' ‘to’. There is
speaker variation in acceptance of some causatives with -agi. For example,
(109b) is widely accepted, whereas (107b) and (108b) are rejected by some
speakers who consider them unacceptable. These issues are explored in the dis-
cussion of causatives in section 3.
As some of the bare verbs can take clausal arguments, some -agi causa-
tives have clausal objects, as in (110) and (111).
(110) Guru-na nerrang-ngagi dha' red-mored ja' kapala sakola
teacher-DEF AV.clear-AGI to RED-student COMP head school
meyos-a are Rebbu.
come-IRR day Wednesday
‘The teacher explained to the students that the principal would visit on
Wednesday.’
(111) Ebu' ng-yaken-nagi Bapa' ja' aba'eng kodu melle motor anyar.
mother AV-sure-AGI father COMP he must AV.buy car new
‘Mother convinced Father that he should by a new car.’
Again, while (110) is widely accepted, some speakers reject (111), favoring the
use of the causative affix pa-, as in (112).
(112) Ebu ma-yaken Bapa' ja' aba'eng kodu melle motor anyar.
mother AV.CS-sure father COMP he must AV.buy car new
‘Mother convinced Father that he should by a new car.’
As with the previous instances of -agi, it is the object causee which is the
subject of the object voice variants. (113-115) are the object voice variants of
(107-109).
(113) Bambang e-senneng-ngagi Ita.
Bambang OV-happy-AGI Ita
‘Ita makes Bambang happy.’
(114) Na'-kana' rowa e-mole-yagi Ebu'.
RED-child that OV-go.home-AGI mother
‘Mother made that child go home.’