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Linguistic Society of America

The So-Called Passive of Acehnese


Author(s): Mark Durie
Source: Language, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 104-113
Published by: Linguistic Society of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/414788
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THE SO-CALLED PASSIVE OF ACEHNESE
MARK DURIE

University of Melbourne
The Mon Tasiek dialect of Acehnese (Indonesia) was analysed by Lawler 1977 as
having a passive in which the verb agrees with the initial, or underlying, subject. His
argument was that the preverbal NP in Acehnese has the expected properties of a surface
subject, but that verb agreement was controlled by the underlying subject-which, in
'passive' clauses, is not the preverbal NP. This analysis was based on limited and un-
representative data. In the light of more extensive data, Lawler's claim that the preverbal
NP in Acehnese acts as a final subject does not hold. The most obvious-and, for syn-
tactic theory, the least problematic conclusion-is that the so-called 'underlying' subject
is in fact a surface grammatical relation; Acehnese has no passive, and its verbal agree-
ment is a surface phenomenon.*

Acehnese is known to general linguists through the work of Lawler 1975a,


1977.' The theoretical importance of the language is that it is the first one
claimed to exhibit an agreement rule which is sensitive to deep rather than
superficial grammatical relations. Here I describe a number of problems with
L's analysis of the Acehnese passive-the crucial construction, as far as the
theoretical issue is concerned. At every relevant point, data suggest that what
L analysed as a passive is simply a word-order variant of the active.
Exx. la-b illustrate what gave rise to L's claim that, in Acehnese, the subject
agreement rule must precede the passive rule-i.e., that a passive verb agrees
with its underlying subject. Ex. la represents the 'active', lb the alleged 'pas-
sive'.2 Note that the only distinguishing characteristics of the 'passive' are the
word order and the use of le to case-mark the 'underlying subject.'3 The 'pas-
sive' verb has no distinctive morphology; and it cross-references the same
thematic argument-the 'underlying subject'-as does the 'active':
(1) a. Gopnyan ka geu-com lon. (L's ex. 6a)
shep IN 3p-kiss Ip
'She kissed me.'

* My thanks go to the Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia, the Lembaga Bahasa of Universitas
Syiah Kuala, and the Australian National University, for support-moral and administrative-
during two field trips to Aceh over the course of 14 months in 1980-83. The principal purpose of
that research was to produce a grammar of Acehnese, published as Durie 1985. My thanks to Judith
Aissen, Sandra Chung, Geoffrey Pullum, and Sandra Thompson for their helpful criticisms.
The writing of this paper was supported in part by NSF grant BNS-85 19708 (University of
California, Santa Cruz).
' Acehnese is an Austronesian language of Indonesia. L's idiosyncratic spelling as 'Achenese'
is the only one known to many linguists, but it has no antecedents in the published literature on
Aceh, which dates back over two hundred years. The spelling I use is the modern one, which is
used by Acehnese people when they write English, and is the modern bibliographic standard. Earlier
spellings are 'Achinese', from the English-speaking tradition; 'Atjehnese', from the Dutch and now
outdated Indonesian tradition; and 'Achehnese', from Snouck Hurgronje 1906 (translated from the
Dutch original). Acehnese is known in Indonesian as Bahasa Aceh, and in Acehnese itself as Basa
Aceh.
104

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THE SO-CALLED PASSIVE OF ACEHNESE 105

b. Lon ka geu-com le-gopnyan. (L's 6b)


Ip IN 3p-kiss shep
'I was kissed by her.'
These facts were initially presented 'as a problem for relational grammar'
(cf. the title of Lawler 1977); later, however, they were used as an argument
FOR a revised Rlelational] G[rammar], and against monostratal theoretical
frameworks (Perlmutter 1981, 1982, Perlmutter & Postal 1983; see also Johnson
& Postal 1980:235, fn. 32, and Postal 1986:66, 88, 139). The 'problem' was not
for RG as a descriptive framework, but for a specific claim presented in (un-
published) early RG work as the 'Agreement Law', which stipulated that agree-
ment rules had to reference final-stratum grammatical relations. In the face of
L's evidence from Acehnese, the Agreement Law was dropped. Perlmutter's
1982 claim that Acehnese offers support for RG stems from the ability of RG
to allow for reference to non-initial grammatical relations in rules. Many other
works have offered observations on, or analyses of, the Acehnese agreement
facts; cf. Dik (1978:116-17), Bossuyt 1981, Pullum 1984, Keenan 1986, Sie-
wierska 1984, Baker 1985, and Dryer 1986.
The claim that Acehnese agreement is with the initial subject is widely known
and cited, and likely to be of continuing interest.4 The rarity of the language
type implied by this claim and the controversial status of non-final agreements
in syntactic theory, as well as the limited nature of L's data, make it important
that L's claims be subjected to close scrutiny.
In what follows, I shall systematically consider and reject all L's evidence
for the passive analysis: fixed SVO word order, the le-phrase, subject clitici-
zation, and the transformational cycle.
L's research was conducted with a speaker of the Mon Tasiek dialect, from

2
Examples from Lawler 1977 are indicated by their numbering there, placed to the right of the
Acehnese. L's inconsistencies of transcription are corrected here, using an orthography close to
the standard (Ibrahim Hasan et al. 1980), but are modified for the needs of the dialect studied by
L. I have also corrected the glosses where appropriate: e.g., Acehnese pronouns contrast primarily
in level of politeness, not in relative age of people referred to (Lawler 1977:222). Of course, older
people will be assigned more respect most of the time; but age is only one factor in determining
politeness. The glosses of more polite and formal pronouns are subscripted by 'p', the more familiar
ones by 'f'. Pronouns do not code gender or number. Ka, glossed IN, marks inchoative aspect,
often translatable as 'already'. English translations are assigned appropriate tenses, although
Acehnese does not code verbal tense distinctions.
3 Since the status of le is at issue, I leave it unglossed.
4 This claim was not endorsed by L himself (a fact not noted in the secondary literature), since
it arose from a mode of analysis which he had already come to reject. The 1977 paper was formulated
as part of a reductio program directed against syntactic derivations (cf. Lawler 1975b), and against
the adequacy of the category 'subject' in universal grammar. Its argumentation is formulated in
terms of derivations; but by the time it was published, L had ceased to believe in the adequacy
of any derivational theory-or, by implication, of derivational argumentation (see his remarks,
1977:219, fn. 1). However, it is not these theoretical or metatheoretical issues which are at stake
here, but rather the empirical adequacy of L's analysis to account for the data at hand.

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106 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 64, NUMBER 1 (1988)

the Tunong(upland)regionof Greater Aceh.. This dialectdivergesconsiderably


from the standard.I was fortunateto have the opportunityto work in Aceh
with a speaker of the Mon Tasiek dialect, Drs. Nizamy Ahmad (a relative of
L's consultant, Drs. Idries Ibrahim).The remarksmade below are based on
that research.6

1. WORDORDERAND
le. We have seen that word order and the
Ie case marker
are the only distinguishingcharacteristicsof L's 'passive'. I argue that these
phenomenado not in themselves supporta passive analysis, and that L's anal-
ysis wrongly excludes several possible word orders.
L's discussion and examples suggest that Acehnese has fixed SVO word
order, and his analysis depends crucially on this assumption. He seemingly
elicited mainly SVO sentences; other orders are discussed only in syntactic
contexts which are claimedto resultfrom the applicationsof transformations.7
Thus he claims that, in 2a, the lack of a bare NP before the verb results from
a 'subject inversion'rule which has moved bukunyan 'thatbook' afterits verb,
andwhich is stipulatedonly to applyafter'passive' and 'Dativefronting'.These
two rules would apply to 2b to give 2c, which would only then be eligible for
'subject inversion', giving 2a:
(2) a. Keu-kamo ka geu-bre buku nyanle-gopnyan. (23f)
to-we(excl) IN3p-give book that hep
'To us was given that book by him.'
b. Gopnyan ka geu-bre buku nyan keu-kamo. (23a)
hep IN3p-give book that to-we(excl)
'He gave that book to us.'
c. Keu-kamo buku nyan ka geu-brele-gopnyan. (23d)
to-we(excl) book that IN 3p-give hep
'To us that book was given by him.'
L also considers inversion in an intransitiveclause, to test the hypothesis
that 'subject inversion' requiresthe passive first. The ungrammaticalresult is

5The scarcity of materials on Acehnese dialects (the only other widely available source is Snouck
Hurgronje 1892) makes L's papers of interest to students of Acehnese, as a source of information
on this dialect area. A cursory comparison of his data with the authoritative and monumental
dictionary of Djajadiningrat 1934 quickly reveals the considerable phonological differences. There
are other differences: this dialect has lost the pronominal enclitics described in Durie 1985. Thus
droe-neuh 'self-you' has become dron 'you'.
6 Perlmutter's Acehnese data
(1981, 1982) were elicited in the Netherlands from a speaker of a
very different dialect. They do not bear on the status of the passive rule.
7 The SVO bias in L's data base is understandable as an artifact of the elicitation technique.
Indeed, I have found that Acehnese speakers will translate English sentences with SVO orders
whenever the grammar of their language allows-which is most of the time. The problem is that,
although one can translate a large number of English sentences word-for-word into Acehnese, the
resulting set of Acehnese sentences reflects only a small proportion of the configurational possi-
bilities of Acehnese, which has much freer word order. Needless to say, such limited data will,
deceptively, display many grammatical properties more representative of English than Acehnese.

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THE SO-CALLEDPASSIVEOF ACEHNESE 107

3a, which he derives from 3b by PP fronting (of which 'Dative fronting' would
be a special case), followed by 'subject inversion'. Since the clause is intran-
sitive, 'passive' is supposed not to apply, and the hypothesis (apparently cor-
rectly) predicts that 'subject inversion' is impossible:
(3) a. *Ngon-moto ji-jak ureung agam nyan sikula. (24e)
with-car 3fgo person male that school
'By car that man goes to school.'
b. Ureung agam nyan ji-jak sikula ngon-moto. (24a)
person male that 3fgo school with car
'That man goes to school by car.'
In fact such 'inverted' orders in Acehnese require no special preconditions
such as 'passive' or Dative fronting. Verb-initial orders occur in about 85% of
clauses in actual Acehnese discourse, and almost any clause can be rearranged
to place all the argument NP's after the verb. Take a very simple sentence 'He
goes.' This can appear with either of the two possible orders, SV or VS, with
equal acceptability:
(4) a. Gopnyan geu-jak.
hep 3p-go
b. Geu-jak gopnyan.
3p-go hep
As for 3a, it is indeed unacceptable, but for an unrelated reason: jak sikula 'go
to school' is an indivisible unit, pronounced as one word. Nothing can be
inserted into it, so it is the position of the subject NP inside jak sikula which
renders 3a ungrammatical; this has nothing to do with inversion, 'passive', or
PP fronting. Simple examples like 4b, however, occur with great frequency in
actual Acehnese discourse.
In fact, transitive and intransitive subjects share the same word-order free-
dom, either following or preceding the verb. All that is required for transitive
clauses is that the 'underlying subject' argument must be case-marked by le
when it follows the verb-as in 5, a re-ordered version of ex. 1. Like 4b, ex.
5 would be ungrammatical in L's account, since there is 'inversion' but no
Dative fronting; but it is in fact perfectly acceptable. Exx. lb, 5, and 6 together
show that OVS, VOS, and VSO are all possible orders, with le case-marking
the subject in each case:
(5) Ka geu-com lon le-gopnyan.
IN 3p-kiss Ip she,
'She kissed me.'
(6) Ka lon-pateh le lon aneuk miet nyan.
IN lp-believe Ip child small that
'I believe that child.'
Thus L's fixed SVO analysis wrongly predicts several simple sentence types
(VS, VOS, VSO) to be ungrammatical. But if we assume free word order, we
can account for these sentence types; under this assumption, the supposed

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108 LANGUAGE,VOLUME64, NUMBER 1 (1988)

passive/active contrast is just a word-ordervariation, with Ie a case marker


restrictedto postverbal transitive subjects.8
2. THE 'SUBJECT CLITICIZATION' RULE. One part of L's analysis which could
be regardedas evidence for a 'passive' rule involves the supposed interaction
of such a rule with 'subject cliticization';accordingto this rule, an underlying
subject NP may appearcliticized before its verb, replacingthe agreementpre-
fix. Consistentlywith his analysis, L stipulatesa preconditionon this rule: 'the
underlyingsubject must not be present as subject; this may be accomplished
throughPassive, or throughEqui, or Raisingon the next cycle.'
Such a condition, like the conditions on 'subject inversion', is spurious.
Passive, Equi, or Raisingare not prerequisitesfor subjectcliticization;this can
occur whenever the 'underlyingsubject' argumentcould otherwise appear in
the clause in any position. It can occur in the simplest intransitiveclause:
(7) Na ureung-tamong.
REALISperson-enter
'Someone entered.'
In a transitiveclause, cliticizationcan occur whetheror not the object NP has
been 'promotedto subject'(i.e. placedbeforethe verb). L's accountincorrectly
predicts 8a to be ungrammatical,since the postverbal position of the object
NP indicates that 'passive' has not applied:
(8) a. Ka gopnyan-nging kamo.
IN hep-see we(excl)
'He has seen us.'
b. Kamo ka gopnyan-nging.
we(excl) IN hep-see
'He has seen us.'
Here again, L's elicited data seeminglydid not providean adequatepictureof
what is possible in Acehnese. Although pre-cliticizationis not very common
in discourse, the majorityof actual instances do not conform to L's precon-
ditions. Pre-cliticizationoccurs most often in non-subordinate,SV(O) clauses,
like 7 and 8a, with no free NP in the preverbalposition (i.e. no 'passive'), no
Equi, and no Raising.
3. THECYCLE.To show that Acehnese has verb agreement with an under-
lying subject, L claims that a preverbal argumentacts as the subject of its
clause, notwithstandingthe verb agreement.His principalline of reasoningis
that the preverbalargumentis the target of two cyclic rules, Equi and Raising
8
L makes a claim, concerning the le-phrase, which would make Acehnese highly remarkable,
independent of its alleged unusual agreement rule: he claims that the le-phrase is a passive agent
phrase which cannot be deleted (Lawler 1977:224, fn. 11). Mallinson & Blake (1981:74), Keenan
(1986:249), and Siewierska (1984) all mention Acehnese as the ONLY reported case where a passive
agent cannot be deleted. L's claim is that it is not grammatical to derive Lon ka geu-com 'I was
kissed' by deleting the le-phrase from Lon ka geu-com le-gopnyan 'I was kissed by her.' This claim
is false, and it is hard to understand L's basis for making it. Sentences with the le-phrase 'deleted'
are not only perfectly acceptable, but are much more numerous in actual discourse than sentences
with an overt le-phrase.

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THE SO-CALLED PASSIVE OF ACEHNESE 109

to object; the 'passive' interacts with these rules in the cycle. Therefore, the
preverbal argument NP is said to be a surface subject in the accepted sense of
the term; in 'passive' clauses, the agreement controller can only be an under-
lying subject, not the surface subject.
I will consider L's analysis of Equi and Raising separately: both have serious
faults. In neither case can the argument be sustained that 'passive' is a cyclic
rule.
3.1. EQUI. L's evidence for Equi is that, in certain elicited complex sen-
tences, the lower clauses apparently contain gaps in preverbal position:
(9) a. Dokto geu-usaha 10geu-peureksa ureung agam nyan]. (8a)
doctor(p) 3p-arrange 3p-examine person male that
'The doctor arranged to examine that man.'
b. Jih 6lon-peu'ingatle-ldn [0 geu-peureksa le-doktor]. (15b)
hep lp-remind Ip 3p-examine doctor(p)
'He was reminded by me to be examined by the doctor.'
L was apparently unaware that the zero anaphora in the lower clauses of 9
needs no special explanation, other than an appeal to discourse context: zero
anaphora is the preferred anaphoric strategy in discourse. The lower clauses
can just as well stand alone, as in 10, unlike their English equivalents in the
translations of 9:
(10) a. Geu-peureksa ureung agam nyan.
3p-examine person male that
'(He) examined that man.'
b. Geu-peureksa le-doktor.
3p-examine doctor(p)
'(He) was examined by the doctor.'
L intended 9b to show 'passive' on the lower cycle, followed by Equi and
then 'passive' on the higher cycle. But Equi is superfluous here: the lower
clause is well-formed, independently of its syntactic context. So the claim for
Equi, and for its cyclic ordering with 'passive', is not valid.
Acehnese does have an Equi rule, as in 1la. But it targets only L's 'underlying
subject'; the lower verb is non-finite, lacking subject agreement. By contrast,
llb is unacceptable because the Equi target is the 'underlying object':
(11) a. Dokto geu-ci (*geu-)peureksa ureung agam nyan. (9c)
doctor(p) 3p-try (3p-)examine person male that
'The doctor tried to examine that man.'
b. *Ureung agam nyan ji-ci geu-peureksa le-dokto. (9b)
person male that 3rtry 3p-examine doctor(p
'That man tried to be examined by the doctor.'

3.2. SUBJECT-TO-OBJECT RAISING. L argues that the verb dawa 'to accuse,
make a legal claim' (mistranslated as 'consider') allows Subject-to-object Rais-
ing, followed by optional 'passive' on the higher cycle. In L's analysis, ex. 12b
illustrates 'passive' in the lower clause; 12c shows Raising and then 'passive'

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110 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 64, NUMBER 1 (1988)

in the higher clause; and 12d shows 'passive' downstairs, Raising to object,
and then 'passive' upstairs. The clauses are provided with L's original
translations:
(12) a. Hakem geu-dawa [jih kaji-cu leumo nyan]. (18a)
judge(p) 3p-claim hef IN 3rsteal cow that
'The judge considers that he stole that cow.'
b. Hakem geu-dawa [leumo nyan kaji-cu le-jih]. (18b)
judge(p) 3p-claim cow that IN 3rsteal hef
'The judge considers that that cow was stolen by him.'
c. Jih geu-dawa le-hakem [kaji-cu leumo nyan]. (18c)
hef 3p-claim judge(p) IN 3rsteal cow that
'He is considered by the judge to have stolen that cow.'
d. Leumo nyan geu-dawa le-hakem [kaji-cu le-jih]. (18d)
cow that 3p-claim judge(p) IN 3rsteal hef
'That cow is considered by the judge to have been stolen by
him.'
From 12c-d, it is clear that dawa allows an argument NP of the lower clause
to show up in the preverbal slot of the higher clause; it is interesting to ask
how this comes about, and what is the superficial relation of the preverbal NP.9
However, the issue at hand is whether the Raising to object analysis provides
an adequate account. The evidence shows that it is not.
The issue here is obscured by L's translation. Dawa (from Arabic da'wd
'lawsuit, legal action, claim, allegation': cf. Djajadiningrat 1934) means 'to ac-
cuse someone (of)' or 'to make a legal claim that', not 'to consider'. In the
reading 'to accuse someone (of)', it takes an object, the accusee, with an op-
tional complement clause. In the reading 'to make a legal claim that', it takes
just a complement clause. All the above examples allow this second reading,
which is apparently that intended by L.10
The result of Subject-to-object raising, applied to 12a-b, should be 13a-b,
distinguished by positioning of the intonation break which marks a clause
boundary. But these sentences are unacceptable with the reading 'to make a
claim that'. They cannot be the result of Raising to object. The only reading
they allow is 'to accuse'-with an object which is the logical object of its clause,
not a raised object. In 13b, this produces a nonsensical sentence, which will
be rejected by a native speaker:
(13) a. Hakem geu-dawa jih [ka ji-cu leumo nyan].
judge(p) 3p-accuse(*claim) hef IN 3rsteal cow that
'The judge accuses him of stealing that cow.'
b. *Hakem geu-dawa leumo nyan [ka ji-cu le-jih].
judge(p) 3p-accuse(*claim) cow that IN 3rsteal hef
(This could only mean that the judge accuses the cow of being
stolen.)
9 In Dune 1985, 1987 this is treated as a topicalization.
10The reason for this mistranslation may be that, if one asks an Acehnese person how to say
'the judge considers', an obvious translation would use dawa, because the opinion of judges has
legal status.

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THE SO-CALLED PASSIVE OF ACEHNESE 1Ill

One can force the reading 'to accuse' in the dawa clauses, regardless of
intonation, by using the order V NP le-NP, which is perfectly acceptable in
transitive clauses (see 5 above). Here the position of the le-phrase makes it
impossible to interpret jih 'him' in 14a, or leumo nyan 'that cow' in 14b, as a
constituent of the lower clause:
(14) a. Geu-dawa jih le-hakem [kaji-cu leumo nyan].
3p-accuse(*claim) hef judge(p) IN 3f-steal cow that
'The judge accuses him of stealing that cow.' (NOT:'He was
claimed by the judge to have stolen that cow.')
b. *Geu-dawa leumo nyan le-hakem [kaji-cu le-jih].
3p-accuse(*claim) cow that judge(p) IN 3f-Steal hef
(This could only mean that the judge accuses the cow of being
stolen.)
The evidence shows that 'Raising', in the reading 'consider' of 12c-d, is not
via Raising to object and 'passive'. The evidence that 'passive' is a cyclic rule
was illusory.
Finally, let us consider 15, intended by L to illustrate Raising to object on
the dawa cycle, and then 'passive' on the same cycle-followed by Equi on
the higher cycle of usaha 'to arrange'. The translation is L's, the glosses mine:1'
(15) Jih ji-usaha [bak geu-dawa le-hakem [li-cu leumo nyan]]. (20)
hef 3f-arrange 3p-claim judge 3f-steal cow that
'He attempted to be considered by the judge to have stolen that
cow.'
We have seen above that dawa does not raise to object, and there is no evidence
that usaha takes Equi. Ex. 15 would be more accurately translated as: 'He
arranged that the judge claimed that [he] stole the cow.' No Raising or Equi
is necessary to account for this sentence: the verb-initial orders of the two
embedded clauses are instances of a standard, indeed a preferred, order (cf. 5
above); and the absence of jih 'he, she (familiar)' in the lowest clause is an
instance of zero anaphora, constrained by a very recent previous mention in
the higher clause.
4. CONCLUSION. After the descriptive errors have been sifted out, the only
remaining evidence that Acehnese has a passive is the appearance of le, which
case-marks the 'underlying subject' NP when it follows the verb. Against this
is the fact that the verb has no passive morphology, and takes agreement as
if there were no passive. The correct interpretation, I submit, is that le is an
(ergative) case marker, which attaches to transitive subjects only when they
follow their verb.'2 This analysis is unremarkable, and is very similar to that
suggested for another Austronesian language, Samoan (Chung 1977, Ochs
1982). Consider, for example, the Samoan sentences of 19; here e is the ergative
" The particle bak, which usually immediately precedes the verb, codes the complement as
something intended.
12
I use 'transitive subject' here as a convenient descriptive term for this surface grammatical
relation. In Durie 1985, 1987, arguments are provided against the appropriateness of the term
'subject' for Acehnese: in this respect I agree with L's conclusions, but the issue goes beyond the
scope of this paper.

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112 LANGUAGE,VOLUME64, NUMBER 1 (1988)

case marker, which only appears on postverbal transitive subject NP's (19a).
On intransitive subject NP's (19d), it does not appear; and preverbal transitive
subject or object NP's (19b-c) likewise lack case-marking. Instead, they bear
the 'topic' marker 'o:
(19) a. Na fasi Sina e le tama.
PAST hit S. ERG ART boy
'The boy hit Sina.'
b. 'O Pesio na 'ai le mago.
TOPIC P. PAST eat ART mango
'Pesio ate the mango.'
c. 'O le mago na 'ai e Pesio.
TOPIC ART mango PAST eat ERG P.
'Pesio ate the mango.'
d. 'Olo'o moe le tama.
PRES.PROG sleep ARTboy
'The boy is sleeping.'
The parallel with Acehnese is obvious. Both Samoan and Acehnese are pre-
dominantly verb-initial languages, with a case marker restricted to postverbal
transitive subject NP's.13 Acehnese differs from Samoan in not requiring a topic
marker on preverbal argument NP's.14 A passive analysis for Acehnese would
be an oddity, a problem for theoretical analysis, and a challenge to our un-
derstanding of passives in general.
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CHUNG,SANDRA.1977. On the gradual nature of syntactic change. Mechanisms of syn-
tactic change, ed. by Charles N. Li, 3-55. Austin: University of Texas Press.
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Indeed, the absence of normal case marking on topics is a very widespread feature of Aus-
13

tronesian languages.
14 However, Acehnese has a topic marker i, as in I gopnyan ka geu-com lon 'She kissed me'
(cf. ex. la).

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THE SO-CALLEDPASSIVEOF ACEHNESE 113

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[Received 25 November 1985;
revision received 25 February 1987;
accepted 28 May 1987.]

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