The middle voice: A typological and diachronic study

The present approach to the middle voice is typological, semantic, and integrally diachronic. The principal aim is to provide a universal characterization of middle voice that can be incorporated in a cognitively-based theory of grammar.;The central thesis presented is that there is a coherent, although complex, linguistic category of middle voice which receives grammatical instantiation in many languages. This category has a clearly discernible semantic core fitting the traditional characterization of the middle as indicating that "the 'action' or 'state' affects the subject of the verb or his interests" (Lyons 1969:373).;Cross-linguistic data is presented from languages in which a particular grammatical form, termed a "middle marker", is used in the expression of a number of "middle situation types" fitting the above description. In Chapter 2, several types of "middle systems" are identified and cross-linguistic generalizations are presented. In Chapters 3 and 4, the semantic properties of middle situation types are analyzed and related to one another and to other semantic categories such as the active, reflexive, and reciprocal. Two properties are found to be fundamental in the characterization of the middle: (1) the Initiator participant in a middle event is also an Endpoint, or affected entity, and (2) the event has a low degree of elaboration, i.e. is viewed by the speaker as an undifferentiated whole, without regard to component subevents or less important semantic participants. The middle is shown to be intermediate in semantic transitivity between two-participant events ('hit') and one-participant events ('go'); this property motivates certain morphosyntactic transitivity effects that have been accounted for structurally in the generative tradition. In Chapter 5, three diachronic studies are presented showing how middle systems develop and change; a number of recurrent diachronic processes are identified in connection with the development of reflexive markers to middle markers. In Chapter 6, synchronic and diachronic constraints on possible middle voice systems are proposed. Various factors are shown to be relevant to middle marking patterns in human languages, including iconic motivation, expressive motivation, and economic motivation. A checklist of middle situation types is provided to aid future empirical work on the middle.