Voice and Applicatives in Duri

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Authors: Kari Valkama
Cited by: 0

Abstract

This paper studies the voice in Duri based on topicality. Duri is an Austronesian language spoken in the northern parts of the South Sulawesi province in Indonesia. There are about 150,000 speakers of Duri. Its closest neighbors are Toraja, Enrekang, and Maiwa languages. In my analysis, Duri has four voices: active, inverse, passive, and antipassive. In analysing voice, it is important to define what is an argument and what is an oblique NP. Voice marker for active voice is zero marking. Voice marker for inverse and antipassive voices is the N- prefix. The difference between them is that in inverse voice, the person marking enclitic on the verb refers to the P argument while in antipassive voice the enclitic refers to the Actor (S). There are also constituent order differences. With full NPs, the constituent order in inverse voice clauses is A V P and in antipassive clauses, it is V obliqueUndergoer S. Voice marker for passive is di- prefix. The applicatives -an and -i are not analysed as voice markers, since they do not change topicality.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Syntax Semantics Linguistic Variation Categorization perception and language Linguistics and Cultural Studies

Publication details

Journal / source
Langkit Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities
Volume
14
Issue
2
Pages
1–33
Publication date
30 January 2026