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When Synthetic Meets Analytic: A Note on Structural Borrowing in Kaxabu Pazeh
- Oceanic Linguistics
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 55, Number 2, December 2016
- pp. 669-677
- 10.1353/ol.2016.0029
- Article
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Abstract:
There has been a consensus in the literature that pa- and pa-ka- can be traced back to Proto-Austronesian as the causative prefix of dynamic and stative verbs, respectively. This paper investigates an apparently aberrant use of pa-ka-found in Kaxabu Pazeh, where the causative affix freely alternates between its canonical usage as a prefix and an applicative-like free morpheme with a word order parallel to the ka-construction in Taiwanese Southern Min. With consistent evidence from Kaxabu causatives and ditransitives, I demonstrate that the unexpected restructuring of the affix can be straightforwardly accounted for as a contact-induced change driven by both phonological and structural triggers from the dominant language.