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 descr ...

to the core object 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 r ...

s, such as the Bantu languages 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''. Transiti ...

s, the resulting verb can be ditransitive, 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,

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 inst ...

, 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 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, 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, 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 causatives, 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 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 o ...

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

German

The German 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 ditransitive 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 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