SMG

Chukchi (Chukotko-Kamchatkan)

Mismatch: morphosyntax: antipassive

(The following is a brief account; for more detail, see here.) Chukchi has two antipassive paradigms, one formed with affix -ine- ,which is suffixed to the root, and one formed with -tku- (which is prefixed to the root in some forms and suffixed in others). These affixes are added to the regular intransitive paradigm for each TAM.

Chukchi has a number of different TAM paradigms, which inflect for person-number according to two patterns. One pattern, represented below by the present 2 (present imperfective) involves nominal suffixes, i.e. the same suffixes which mark possession on nouns, and serve as copulas in nominal predication. The other pattern is exclusively verbal. Both take antipassive affixes in the same way, though.

		regular intransitve	-ine- antipassive	-tku- antipassive
1SG	PST 1 PRS 2	t‑...‑ɣʔek n‑...‑iɣəm	t‑ine‑...‑ɣʔek n‑ine‑...‑iɣəm	t‑tku‑...‑ɣʔek n‑...‑tku‑jɣəm
1PL	PST 1 PRS 2	mət‑...‑mək n‑...‑muri	mət‑ine‑ ... ‑mək n‑ine‑...‑muri	mət‑tku‑...‑mək n‑...‑tku‑muri
2SG	PST 1 PRS 2	‑ɣʔi n‑...‑iɣət	ine‑...‑ɣʔi n‑ine‑...‑iɣət	‑tku‑ɣʔi n‑...‑tku‑jɣət
2PL	PST 1 PRS 2	‑tək n‑...‑turi	ine‑ ... ‑tək n‑ine‑...‑turi	‑tku‑tək n‑...‑tku‑turi
3SG	PST 1 PRS 2	‑ɣʔi n‑...‑qin	ine‑...‑ɣʔi n‑ine‑...‑qin	‑tku‑ɣʔi n‑...‑tku‑qin
3PL	PST 1 PRS 2	‑ɣʔet n‑...‑qinet	ine‑...‑ɣʔet n‑ine‑...‑qinet	‑tku‑ɣʔet n‑...‑tku‑qinet

(Spencer 2000: 210, Skorik 1977: 31, 39, 115, 118-119)

The antipassive reduces the syntactic valency of transitive verbs. In a transitive construction, the subject is the ergative case and an object in the absolutive (note that the morphology of transitive verbs is discussed in the following section):

Morɣ-ɣənan	mət-wiriŋ-ərkən-et	tumɣ-ət
we-ERG	1PL.SUBJ-defend-PRS 1-3PL	comrade-ABS.PL
'We defend the comrades.'

(Skorik 1977: 124)

Antipassives, like all intransitives in Chukchi, take a subject in the absolutive; the original object is treated as an oblique argument.¹ The two antipassive formations differ semantically, with the -tku- antipassive signalling a greater decrease in focus on the object:

-ine- antipassive			-tku- antipassive
Muri	mət-ine-wiriŋ-ərkən	tumɣ-etə	Muri	mət-wiriŋ-ətku-rkən	(tumɣ-etə)
we.ABS	1PL.SUBJ-ANTIP-defend-PRS 1	comrade-ALL	we.ABS	1PL.SUBJ-defend-ANTIP-PRS 1	comrade-ALL
'We defend the comrades.'			'We provide defense (for the comrades).'

Note that -tku- also serves as a denominal suffix, e.g. rəpe-tku- 'hammer (verb)' from rəpe- 'hammer (noun)' (Skorik 1977: 219).

The affixes of the transitive paradigm are listed below. The surprising fact is that a number of them are drawn from the antipassive paradigm; these are highlighted in red. Two patterns are found, one represented here by the past 1, the other by the present 2:

subject		object
subject		1SG	1PL	2SG	2PL	3SG	3PL
1SG	PST 1 PRS 2			t‑...‑ɣət n‑ine‑...‑iɣəm	t‑...‑tək n‑ine‑...‑iɣəm	t‑...‑ɣʔen nine‑...‑iɣəm	t‑...‑net n‑ine‑...‑iɣəm
1PL	PST 1 PRS 2			mət‑ ... ‑ɣət n‑ine‑...‑muri	mət‑ ... ‑tək n‑ine‑...‑muri	mət‑ ... ‑ɣʔen n‑ine‑...‑muri	mət‑ ... ‑net n‑ine‑...‑muri
2SG	PST 1 PRS 2	ine‑...‑ɣʔi n‑ine‑...‑iɣət	‑tku‑ɣʔi n‑...‑tku‑jɣət			‑ɣʔen n‑ine‑...‑iɣət	‑net n‑ine‑...‑iɣət
2PL	PST 1 PRS 2	ine‑...‑tək n‑ine‑...‑turi	‑tku‑tək n‑...‑tku‑turi			‑tkə n‑ine‑...‑turi	‑tkə n‑ine‑...‑turi
3SG	PST 1 PRS 2	ine‑...‑ɣʔi n‑ine‑...‑qin	ne‑...‑mək n‑...‑muri	ne‑...‑ɣət n‑...‑iɣət	ne‑...‑tək n‑...‑turi	‑nin n‑ine‑...‑qin	‑nine‑t n‑ine‑...‑qinet
3PL	PST 1 PRS 2	ne‑...‑ɣəm n‑...‑iɣəm	ne‑...‑mək ɣe‑...‑muri	ne‑...‑ɣət n‑...‑iɣət	ne‑...‑tək n‑...‑turi	ne‑...‑ɣʔen n‑...‑qin	ne‑...‑net n‑...‑qinet
(Spencer 2000: 206-207, Skorik 1977: 61-62, 73)

The distribution of antipassive forms in the transitive paradigm is as follows:

For all TAM values, 2SG>1SG, 2PL>1SG and 3SG>1SG forms are those of the corresponding -ine- antipassive, agreeing with the subject.
For all TAM values, 2SG>1PL and 2PL>1PL forms are those of the corresponding -tku- antipassive, agreeing with the subject.
In the present 2, all transitive forms with a 1st or 2nd person subject are those of the corresponding -ine- antipassive, agreeing with the subject. 3rd singular forms with a 3rd person object are likewise -ine- antipassives, and show number agreement with the object. The morphological particulars of this paradigm are examined

However, even those these forms are morphologically antipassive, syntactically they remain transitive, taking an ergative subject and absolutive object:

-ine- transitive form			-tku- transitive form
Gə-nan	ɣən	ɣ-ena-pela-jɣət	Gə-nan	muri	ɣa-pela-tko-jɣət
you.SG-ERG	I.ABS	PST 2-ANTIP-leave-2SG	you.SG-ERG	we.ABS	PST 2-leave-ANTIP-2SG
'You left me.'			'You left us.'

(Skorik 1977: 284); note that the allomorphs -ena- and -tko- are the automatic result of vowel-harmony conditioned by the root.-induced variants of -ine- and -tku-.

References

Skorik, Piotr Ja. 1977. Grammatika čukotskogo jazyka (Part 2: Glagol, narečie, služebnie slova) . Leningrad: Nauka.

Spencer, Andrew. 2000. Agreement morphology in Chukotkan. In: Wolfgang Dressler, Oskar Pfeiffer, Markus Pöchtrager and John Rennison (eds) Morphological analysis in comparison. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 191-222.