The applicative voice (;

abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

or ) is a

grammatical voice In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to form ...

that promotes an oblique argument of a

verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...

to the core

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...

argument. It is generally considered a valency-increasing morpheme. The Applicative is often found in

agglutinative language An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to remain ...

s, such as the

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...

and Austronesian languages. Other examples include

Nuxalk The Nuxalk people ( Nuxalk: ''Nuxalkmc''; pronounced )'','' also referred to as the Bella Coola, Bellacoola or Bilchula, are an Indigenous First Nation of the Pacific Northwest Coast, centred in the area in and around Bella Coola, British Co ...

, Ubykh, and Ainu.

Behavior

Prototypically, applicatives apply to

intransitive verbs In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...

. Dixon, R.M.W. & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds) (1999). ''The Amazonian Languages''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. They can also be called "advancements" or "object promotion" because they bring a peripheral object to the centre as a direct object. This object is sometimes called the applied object. For

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transitiv ...

s, the resulting verb can be

ditransitive In grammar, a ditransitive (or bitransitive) verb is a transitive verb whose contextual use corresponds to a subject and two objects which refer to a theme and a recipient. According to certain linguistics considerations, these objects may be ca ...

, or the original object is no longer expressed. If the original object is no longer expressed, it is not a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997).
Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists
'. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 186–91.

Multiple applicatives

A language may have multiple applicatives, each corresponding to such different roles as

comitative In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...

locative In grammar, the locative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the ...

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

, and

benefactive The benefactive case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used where English would use "for", "for the benefit of", or "intended for", e.g. "She opened the door ''for Tom''" or "This book is ''for Bob''". ...

. Sometimes various applicatives will be expressed by the same morphological exponence, such as in the

Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for National ...

language

Chewa Chewa may refer to: *the Chewa people *the Chewa language Chewa (also known as Nyanja, ) is a Bantu language spoken in much of Southern, Southeast and East Africa, namely the countries of Malawi , where it is an official language, and Mozambiq ...

, where the suffix ''-ir-'' forms both instrumental and locative applicatives. Some languages, such as

Luganda The Ganda language or Luganda (, , ) is a Bantu language spoken in the African Great Lakes region. It is one of the major languages in Uganda and is spoken by more than 10 million Baganda and other people principally in central Uganda including ...

, permit a 'second applicative' (known in Luganda as the "augmentative applied"), formed by a double application of the suffix. In this case, the second applicative is used to give an alternative meaning. Applicatives may also be the only way of expressing such roles, as in the Bantu

Chaga languages Chaga, also ''Kichaga'' or ''Kichagga'', is a Bantu dialect continuum spoken by the Chaga people of northern Tanzania, south of Mount Kilimanjaro. They also speak 9 dialects: Kivunjo, Kimarangu, Kirombo, Kimachame, Kisiha, Kikibosho, Kiuru, Kioldi ...

, where instrumental, benefactive, malefactive, and locative are formed solely by applicatives. In other languages, applicatives coexist with other methods of expressing said roles. They are often used to bring a normally oblique argument into special focus, or as in Nez Percé, to keep humans as core arguments.

Similar processes

Applicatives have a degree of overlap with

causative In linguistics, a causative (abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173–186. that indicates that a subject either ...

s, and in some languages, the two are realized identically. A similar construction known as

dative shift In linguistics, dative shift refers to a pattern in which the subcategorization of a verb can take on two alternating forms, the oblique dative form or the double object construction form. In the oblique dative (OD) form, the verb takes a noun ph ...

, though different from true applicatives, occurs in other languages. Also, the

case is commonly expressed by means of an applicative.

Examples

English

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

does not have a dedicated applicative prefix or suffix. However, prepositions can be compounded with verbs for an applicative effect. For example, from *''Jack ran faster than the giant'', the

intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...

''ran'' can be made transitive, and the oblique noun ''giant'' the object: *''Jack outran the giant.'' The applicative verb can be made

passive Passive may refer to: * Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive * Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works * Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of on ...

, something which is not possible with ''ran'': *''The giant was outrun by Jack.''

German

The

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

prefix ''be-'' is considered an applicative by some, but other analyses reject this view.

Swedish

The

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

prefix ''be-'' has been analyzed as an applicative by Claire Gronemeyer.Gronemeyer, Claire. (1995). Swedish applied verbs derived by the prefix ''be''-
''Working Papers in Linguistics (Lund University), 44'', 21-40.
/ref>

Swahili

Swahili has an applicative suffix ''-i'' or ''-e'' which appears before the last vowel of the verb. From ''andika'' 'to write', we get transitive and

Similarly, from ''soma'' 'to read', *''Alinisomea barua'' 'he read me a letter', 'he read a letter to me'. These are sometimes called 'prepositional' forms of the verb because they are translated into English using prepositions: ''cry for, pray for, eat with, enjoy (be happy about), arrive at, sing to, sell to, send to, open (the door) for, reckon with, see for (himself), die at.'' However, this name is inaccurate for Swahili, which doesn't use prepositions for such purposes.

Yagua

Yagua Yagua are an indigenous people in Colombia and northeastern Peru, numbering approximately 6,000. Currently, they live near the Amazon, Napo, Putumayo and Yavari rivers and their tributaries. As of 2005, some Yagua have migrated northward to ...

is one language that has dedicated

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

for applicative uses. Here, the applicative suffix ''-ta'' shows that the locative or instrumental oblique is now a direct object: This same ''-ta'' suffix can be used with transitive verbs to create ditransitives: These behave identically as other lexical ditransitives, such as ''give'' and ''send'' in this language.

Notes

References

* *Campbell, Lyle & Verónica Grondona (Eds.). (2012). ''The Indigenous Languages of South America: A Comprehensive Guide''. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter. *Jacques, Guillaume (2013). Applicative and Tropative Derivations in Japhug Rgyalrong. ''Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 36''(2). * *Michaelis, Laura A.; Josef Ruppenhofer. (2000). Valence creation and the German applicative: The inherent semantics of linking patterns. ''Journal of Semantics, 17''(4), 335-395. * *Pacchiarotti, Sara. (2017). ''Bantu Applicative Construction Types involving *-id: Form, Functions and Diachrony'' (Doctoral dissertation). University of Oregon. *{{cite book , first = David A. , last = Peterson , year = 2007 , title = Applicative constructions , publisher = Oxford University Press , isbn = *Polinsky, Maria. 2005. Applicative constructions. In Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S Dryer, David Gil & Bernard Comrie (eds.), The world atlas of language structures, 442–445. Oxford University Press. (http://wals.info/chapter/109). *Valenzuela, Pilar M. (2010). Applicative constructions in Shipibo-Konibo (Panoan). ''International Journal of American Linguistics, 76''(1), 101-144. Grammatical voices Transitivity and valency Grammatical construction types