Malagasy transitive clause types and their functions

The present study provides morphosyntactic and functional analyses of transitive construction types in Malagasy, a Western Austronesian language.; Structurally the study offers a description of Malagasy verb forms and simple clause types. In the past, the language has been described as having a single transitive construction where the word order is "verb-object-subject" (VOS). Based on structural and discourse-pragmatic studies, this analysis argues that, instead of "S" and "O", a better characterization of the language is in terms of internal argument (IA) and external argument (EA) grammatical relations. The EA can express the semantic role of either agent or non-agent. Similarly, the IA can express either an agent or a non-agent. Such characterization allows a classification of the constructions into verb-agent-non agent (VAP) and verb-non agent-agent (VPA) types.; Both the morphology and the syntax of simple clauses show that the language has two different transitive clause types. Regardless of the order of agent and non-agent arguments, they are always core arguments of the construction, never obliques. Furthermore, modification in word order must be accompanied by change in verb forms, personal pronouns, verb position classes, pre-nominal markers, external argument markers, and constituency. Distinctions in transitive constructions also surface in the domain of tense and aspect. Although references to modality depend mainly on lexical marking and discourse context, different clause construction types belong to different tense and aspectual systems. Finally, depending on the type of transitive construction, Malagasy can be said to manifest both nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive alignment patterns.; Occurrences of VAP and VPA constructions were studied within narrative discourse and according to speakers' cognitive attention. The results of the discourse study confirm that both constructions are transitive constructions (i.e. not one transitive and the other an intransitive construction). Also, speakers' attentional focus on one referent over another is a factor in the choice of one transitive construction instead of another.