Abstract

This paper investigates the morphosyntactic status of preverbal subject marking in West-Ambrym language Daakaka (Central Vanuatu, Oceanic, Austronesian). Cross-linguistically, argument marking has been treated as either agreement or pronominal clitics (e.g. Yuan, 2021, Bresnan & Mchombo, 1987). Based on natural corpus data (von Prince, 2013) and additional data from elicitation, I provide evidence for an agreement analysis. In particular, I show that subject NPs do not have the semantic and pragmatic properties of topics, contrary to the predictions of a clitic analysis (cf. Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou, 1998). Instead, I reveal two designated structural positions for subjects and topics relative to modal adverbs. Since both subject NPs and subject agreement are optional in certain contexts, Daakaka is classified as a null subject language with differential subject marking sensitive to animacy, with further implications for the analysis of similar phenomena across Vanuatu languages (Ridge, 2022, on Vatlongos, Schnell, 2018, on Vera’a, Meyerhoff, 2000a, on Bislama).

Te Reo-Volume 68-Issue 4-pp. 178–196