Grammatical Voice

Description

The grammatical category of voice covers a wide range of phenomena, including causatives, applicatives, passives, antipassives, middles, and others. Drawing on data from over 200 languages, Fernando Zuniga and Seppo Kittila illustrate the semantic, morphological, and syntactic variation of voice across languages from a range of families and regions. They approach the topic from a broad and explicit perspective, and discuss a variety of topics that are not always regarded as voice, in order to make a clear and useful conceptual delimitation. Clearly organized and accessibly written, the book will be welcomed by students and scholars of linguistics, especially those interested in how grammatical categories work.

Fernando Zuniga is Professor of Linguistics at the Universitat Bern, Switzerland. His research focusses on the qualitative typology of voice and alignment, as well as on benefaction and wordhood issues. He has co-edited numerous books including Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony and Diachrony (2018) with Sonia Cristofaro. Seppo Kittila works as a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Helsinki. He has published extensively on transitivity and argument marking, and also causatives. He has (co-)edited numerous books on these topics including Benefactives and Malefactives (2010) with Fernando Zuniga.