Speaker: Keely New (MIT)
Title: There’s no deletion in meN-deletion
Time: Tuesday, March 19th, 1pm – 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: In Indonesian/Malay, there is an optional verbal prefix meN- which is widely taken to be the subject voice marker since it correlates with subject voice SVO word order, and when it is present, only the subject may be A’-extracted. In object voice OSV word order, meN- is obligatorily absent, and only the object may be A’-extracted. The well-known “meN-deletion” generalisation is, therefore, that movement of the object over the verb in Indonesian/Malay results in deletion of meN (Saddy 1991, Fortin 2006, Aldridge 2008, Cole et al. 2008, Sato 2012, Georgi 2014 among others). Under such a perspective, the optional absence of meN- in subject voice is derived from a separate process from the obligatory absence of meN in object voice. Most analyses remain silent on the optionality of meN in subject voice. In this talk, I argue against a view where “meN-deletion” is triggered by movement of a DP across the verb. Drawing from data in Jakartan Indonesian, I propose that the choice between flavours of functional Voice/v head is one-to-one with the overt presence/absence of meN- prefix on the verb. In doing so, I argue that word order in Indonesian/Malay is but an epiphenomenal correlate of voice in the language.