The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics Part 89 pot

subject of the embedded transitive clause, as in (37a), which can be deleted under
coreference with the main-clause subject. The ungrammaticality of (37b) comes
from deleting the absolute instead of the ergative subject:
(37)a.E alu le fili e fa'aleaga(-ina) le nu'u.
imperf go the enemy inf destroy(-ina) the village
‘The enemy is going (literally moving through space) to destroy
the village.’
b. *E alu le tiene e opo(-ina) e le tama.
imperf go the girl inf liug-itia erg the boy
‘The girl is going [literally moving through space] to be hugged
by the boy.’
Likewise, only the ergative subject, as in (38a)—not the absolutive object, as in
(38b)—of an embedded clause can raise to be the main clause subject:
(38)a.E mafia e le tama ona fululu(-ina) le ta'avale.
imperf able erg the boy comp wash-ina the car
‘The boy can wash the car’
b. *E mafia le ta'avale ona fulufu(-ina) e le tlama.
imperf able the car comp wash(-ina) erg the boy
‘The car can be washed by the boy.’
In support of the claim that the inverse marks events involving reversal of a
norm in different domains, Cook shows that the inverse also selects as trajector
socially remote roles, such as doctors, the government, an enemy, or an institution,
as in (39) and (40), and, above all, the Christian God, as in (41):
(39) Sa
´
've''ese-ina e leoleo le pa
ˆ
gota
ˆ
.
pst take.away-inv erg police the prisoner

‘The police took the prisoner away.’ (Milner 1966: 38)
(40)'Ua ta
ˆ
ofi-a lona 'alauni e le Ma
ˆ
lo.
perf stop-inv his allowance erg the Government
‘The Government has stopped his allowance.’ (Milner 1966: 241)
(41)'Ua sa
ˆ
uni-a e Iesu
ˆ
le fa'olataga.
pst prepare-inv erg Jesus the salvation
‘Jesus has prepared the salvation.’ (Milner 1966: 220)
Further extensions of this pattern of reversal apply to cases of negativity. Since
affirmative events are expected to take place, negative ones are deviations from the
norm. While the negative meaning takes -ina, the affirmative does not:
(42)a.Fufulu le ta'avale.
wash the car
‘Wash the car.’
b. 'Aua le fufulu-ina le ta'avale.
don’t the wash-inv the car
‘Don’t wash the car.’
850 ricardo maldonado
As well, the pattern applies to the contrast between actions and states. Since
verbs predominantly designate actions, states are conceived as deviations from the
norm. They are thus marked by -ina, signaling an inverse construction. Example
(43a) constitutes the norm, while the inverse in (43b) reverses the expected norm:
(43)a.'Ole'a

ˆ
fa'aitiiti lana tologi.
fut reduce his salary
‘His salary will be reduced.’ (Milner 1966: 88)
b. 'Ua fa'aitiiti-a le a
ˆ
iga.
perf reduce-inv the family
‘The family has been reduced in numbers.’ (Milner 1966: 88)
Finally, word-order changes in Samoan also take the inverse -ina marker. This
is the case of Agent-fronting in a relative clause (44b), question formation about
the Agent (44c), and a cleft sentence (44d). All these cases contrast with the un-
marked direct sentence where the Agent takes ergative marking, as in (44a):
(44)a.Na fufulu e le tama le ta'avale.
pst wash erg the boy the car
‘The boy washed the car.’
b. 'O fea le tama na fufulu-ina le ta'avale?
pred where the boy pst wash-inv the car
‘Where is the boy who washed the car?’
c. 'O ai na fufulu-ina le fa'avale?
pred who pst wash-inv the car
‘Who washed the car? (Who is it that washed the car)’
d. 'O le tama na fululu-ina le ta'avale.
pred the boy pst wash-inv the car
‘It is the boy who washed the car.’
While there are important parallels between the passive and the inverse in that
they give special prominence to the default secondary figure, these voice patterns
also show a clear contrast: the inverse does not downgrade the original primary
figure of the event, while the passive does. Diagrams 32.3' and 32.9 represent this
contrast.

Figure 32.9 shows that in the inverse construction, as in the active-direct
construction, both the grammatical relations subject/object and the asymmetry
between trajector and landmark are preserved. Yet, the import of the inverse
construction is to focus on the landmark letting the trajector remain the primary
Figure 32.3’. Passive
grammatical voice in cognitive grammar 851
figure. Inverse constructions iconically represent the default cultural values of a
social group being linguistically coded and being reversed for specific communi-
cative purposes. The inverse construction simultaneously shows the default inter-
pretation and the way the norm has been reversed.
In all the languages considered so far, there exists some type of asymmetry
between participants—most notably between Agent and Patient—for which dif-
ferent profiling adjustments can take place. The case of Philippine languages poses
a different set of voice alternations; they are briefly discussed in the following
section.
6. Philippine Languages

Philippine languages constitute a knotty problem for voice systems. Unlike in most
languages, in the Philippine family the verb does not impose a clear asymmetry
between trajector and landmark. Thus, a verb of action does not designate the
Agent as the obvious default trajector. In fact, the most common pattern is one
where the Patient/Theme is the trajector—which, for Givo
´
n(1990) and Payne
(1982), suggests that these languages are ergative. Against that view, Shibatani
(1988) has offered an approach in terms of prototypicality and prominence, ac-
cording to which the Agent-actor is preferred over the Theme in ‘‘long distance’’
phenomena such as gapping in coordinate structures. While the most general
pattern is that the topic nominal, be it the goal or the actor, controls the subor-
dinate gap, in coordinate constructions the actor can be the controller, regardless

of whether it is a topic or not (Shibatani 1988: 121)
At present, the data are far from conclusive. In the Philippine languages, any
participant (locative, instrumental, benefactive, etc.) may be selected as the most
prominent participant in the event (Bell 1983); furthermore, voice alternations are
determined by the element chosen as event trajector. By way of illustration, con-
sider the Tagalog examples in (45a)–(45d), which have been extracted from
Schachter (1976): (i) the marker ang denotes the selected trajector; this role is
variously filled by the Agent in (45a), the Theme (goal) in (45b), the Locative in
(45c), and the Beneficiary in (45d); (ii) the verb receives an affix indicating the
voice type of the clause, which, in turn, is determined by the element chosen as
event trajector, or clause focus).
Figure 32.9. Inverse
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(45)a.agent in focus(af)
Mag-salis ang babae ng bigas sa sako para sa bata.
af-will.take.out tr woman det rice loc sack ben child
‘The woman will take some rice out of a/the sack for {a/the} child.’
b. theme in focus(tf)
Aalis-in ng babae ang bigas sa sako para sa bata.
will.take.out-tf det woman tr rice loc sack ben child
‘{A/the} woman will take the rice out of {a/the} sack for the child.’
c. location in focus(lf)
Aalis-an ng babae ng bigas ang sako para sa bata.
will.take.out-lf det woman det rice tr sack ben child
‘{A/the} woman will take the rice out of the sack for {a/the} child.’
d. beneficiary in focus(bf)
Ipag-salis ng babae ng bigas sa sako ang bata.
bf-will.take.out det woman det rice loc sack tr child
‘{A/the} woman will take the rice out of {a/the}sack for the child.’
Notice that choosing one participant as the trajector does not imply defocusing or

demoting any other element in the clause. In light of these facts, Langacker (2003)
suggests that the verb in these languages is unspecified for trajector. Thus, ang is best
analyzed as a marker imposing an element in focus and determining a particular
voice structure. (See Reid 2002 for a compatible analysis of the problem).
While the voice phenomena discussed in sections 2–5 represent profile ad-
justments in which the event default object can be either profiled or downplayed in
contrast with the default event trajector, in the Philippine languages, one element is
selected as the main figure without downplaying any other participant in the event.
The fact that Agent and Patient are most commonly chosen as event trajectors is
attributable to the basic configuration of the languages of the world, where par-
ticipants are by default more prominent than the setting.
The last profiling strategy to be considered is precisely opposite to the Philippine
system. Middle voice, as introduced in the next section, is a construal which involves
focusing on, and selecting, the subject in detriment of all other event participants.
7. Middle Voice

7.1. Middle Voice as a Signal of Change-of-State
Affecting the Subject Only
Middle voice depicts actions, events, or states pertaining to the subject’s own
sphere. It contrasts with active-direct voice in that the action or change-of-state
remains focused on the subject instead of being directed to another participant. In
grammatical voice in cognitive grammar 853
other words, ‘‘the ‘action’ or ‘state’ affects the subject of the verb or his interests’’
(Lyons 1968: 373). Further, in light of Kemmer’s (1993b, 1994) claim that voice
patterns reflect situation types, the transitive active corresponds to situations
where two participants (most commonly Agent/Patient) interact; middle voice
marking, in contrast, signals situation types implying only the subject, or as I
previously stated it (Maldonado 1992, 1999), the middle construction focuses on
the subject’s dominion. As such, middles easily overlap with intransitive con-
structions since both construction types involve one participant: what in some

languages is expressed with an intransitive verb takes a middle marker in others.
Consider, for instance, the well-known contrast between such intransitive verbs in
English as exemplified in (46) and their middle-marked equivalents in other lan-
guages (middle marking is in bold):
(46) English wash
Latin lavo-r
Spanish lavar-se
In languages having an intransitive/middle contrast, the middle designates an extra
feature, a semantic specification not present in the plain intransitive. One obvious
example is the aspectual contrast in Spanish verbs of motion:
(47)a.Valeria subi-

oo el Popocatepetl in dos d

ııas.
Valeria went.up-3sg the Popocatepetl in two days
‘Valeria went/climbed up the Popocatepetl Mountain in two days.’
b. Al ver al rat

oon Valeria se subi-

oo a la mesa de un salto.
As see the mouse Valeria mid go.up-pst to the table of one jump
‘As Valeria saw the mouse, she got on the table in one jump.’
In contrast with the (long) imperfective path depicted by the plain intransitive
in (47a), the middle in (47b) involves an abrupt change of location. Languages, of
course, need not have an intransitive/middle contrast. Tarascan, a Mesoamerican
language from Mexico, employs several middle markers to designate a wide variety
of situations remaining in the subject’s dominion (Nava and Maldonado 2004). In
(48a), the middle marker -pi refers to a subject’s physical feature, while in (48b) the

middle marker -ku ‘angle’ designates the subject’s change of position:
(48)a.S€ıranta ch'era-pi-s-Ø-ti.
paper wrinkle-pred.mid-perf-prs-ind.3
‘The paper got/is wrinkled.’
b. Dora ke-nti-ku-s-Ø-ti.
Dora move-angle-mid-perf-prs-ind.3
‘Dora hid in the corner [of the room].’
Kemmer (1994) identifies a relatively small number of situations expected to
be middle-marked translinguistically and illustrates them with examples from
854 ricardo maldonado
assorted languages of the world. The following is a small sample from Kemmer
(1994):
a. Grooming or body care
Latin lavo-r ‘wash’
Indonesian ber-dandan ‘get dressed’
b. Non translational motion
Kanuri ta
`
n-t-ı
ˆ
n ‘stretch one’s body’
Latin reverto-r ‘turn’
c. Change in body posture
Indonesian ber- lutut ‘kneel-down’
Guugu Yimidhir daga-adhi ‘sit down’
d. Translational motion
Pangwa i-nu-xa ‘climb up’
Indonesian ber-djalan ‘go away’
e. Naturally reciprocal events
Latin amplecto-r ‘embrace’

Sanskrit amvadat-e ‘speak together’
f. Indirect middle
Turkish ed-in ‘acquire’
Classical Greek kta-sthai ‘acquire for oneself’
g. Emotion middle
Mohave mat iya:v ‘be angry’
Hungarian ba
´
n-kod- ‘grieve, mourn’
h. Emotive speech actions
Latin quero-r ‘complain’
Cl. Greek olophyre-sthai ‘lament’
Turkish do
¨
v-u
¨
n ‘lament’
i. Cognition middle
Indonesian ber-pikir ‘be cogitating’
pangwa -i-sala ‘think over, consider’
j. Spontaneous events
French s’evatiouir ‘vanish’
Hungarian kelet-kez- ‘originate, occur’
Spanish is particularly interesting in that it has middle verbs for all categories
suggested by Kemmer. For space restrictions, I will simply provide the most rep-
resentative ones from Spanish:
a. Interaction limited to body part or inalienable possession ~ grooming
or body care: lavarse ‘wash’, peinarse ‘comb’
b. Self benefit actions ~ benefactive middle: conseguirse ‘get’, allegarse ‘obtain’
c. Nontranslational motion ~ change in body posture: pararse ‘stand up’,

sentarse ‘sit’, voletarse ‘turn’, estirarse ‘strech out’
grammatical voice in cognitive grammar 855
d. Change in location ~ translational motion: irse ‘leave’, subirse ‘get on top
of something’, meterse ‘go in’
e. Interaction among two or more participants ~ naturally reciprocal events:
3
abrazarse ‘hug, embrace’, pelearse ‘fight’
f. Internal change (emotional) ~ emotion middle: alegrarse ‘gladden’, en-
tristecerse ‘sadden’, enojarse ‘become angry’
g. Verbal actions manifesting emotions ~ emotive speech actions: quejarse
‘complain’, lamentarse ‘lament’
h. Internal change (mental) ~ cognition middle: acordarse ‘remember’,
imaginarse ‘imagine’
i. Changes of state whose energetic source is not identified ~ spontaneous
events: romperse ‘break’, quebrarse ‘crack’
All these situations naturally motivate the use of a middle marker. Most of
them refer to actions involving internal energy transmission resulting in the
subject’s change in body posture (sit, turn) or change in location (‘‘translational
motion’’; e.g., leave). Some situations involve an internal change, be it mental
(‘‘cognition middles’’; e.g., ponder) or emotional (‘‘emotion middles’’; e.g., be
angry). Some other situations imply external input; however, they are restricted to
elements conceived within the subject’s dominion, such as body parts and in-
alienable possessions (‘‘grooming or body care’’; e.g., wash) or elements brought
into the subject’s dominion (‘‘self-benefactive’’; e.g., get, obtain). Finally, some
situations may involve two participants, yet each participant keeps the other within
his or her dominion such that they are conceptualized as making up one unit
(‘‘reciprocal middles’’; e.g., embrace).
Kemmer has rightly suggested that the fact that the event remains centered on
one participant results in a low degree of event elaboration. Since the subject’s
action does not need to be distinguished from the object’s affectedness, as it is, for

instance, in the direct-active voice pattern, the event can be simplified. The lack of
differentiation between the two participants in a middle construction provides an
obvious, general characterization of that construction. However, the middle can be
captured in terms of a more basic schema: its core function is to focus on the
change-of-state undergone by the subject (Maldonado 1992, 1999). In other words,
since the middle marker imposes a conceptualization centered on the subject, it
crucially profiles the observable change-of-state. Its focus may be, even more
specifically, on the crucial moment of change. Spontaneous events, as in (47b), are
thus expected middles: instead of scanning the development of an event step by
step, what the middle depicts is the pivotal moment of change.
The middle’s focusing function also crucially involves designating inchoative
events, as in (49b) and (50b), which contrast with the events designated by tran-
sitive and intransitive verbs, as in (49a) and (50a):
(49)a.Victor/ la tormenta rompi-

oo la ventana.
Victor/ the storm break-pst.3sg det window
‘Victor broke the window.’
856 ricardo maldonado
b. La ventana se rompi-

oo.
det window mid break-pst.3sg
‘The window broke.’
(50)a.Adria
´
n fue al cine.
Adrian go.pst.3sg to.det movies
‘Adrian went to the movies.’
b. Adria

´
n se fue.
Adrian mid go.pst.3sg
‘Adrian left.’
From the focusing function of the middle, as exemplified in (49b), actually two
types of information can be inferred: (i) aspectual information regarding the in-
choative nature of the event and (ii) pragmatic information to the effect that no
agentive subject—as it occurs in the transitive correlate in (49a)—is necessary.
It follows that the clitic se and the agentive subject are mutually exclusive, thus
*Adria
´
n se rompi

oo la copa ‘Adrian broke-mid the cup’ is ungrammatical with the
spontaneous-inchoative reading.
4
In other words, the use of the middle obviates
the need for an Agent responsible for the event.
We have seen that by focusing on the core of the event, the middle marker either
eliminates the participant driving the force of the event (47b) or the force itself that
brings it about (49b). This type of construal has two obvious consequences. First,
inchoative middles may further develop to mark events designating abrupt or sudden
changes, as is the case in the examples (51b) and (52b) from Spanish:
(51)a.El presidente volte-

oo para saludar a la gente.
The president turn-pst.3sg for greet to the people
‘The president turned to greet the audience.’
b. El presidente se volte-


oo para que las piedra-s
The president mid turn-pst.3sg for that the.pl stone-pl
no le dieran en la cara.
not dat give-pst.3pl in the face
‘The president turned (away) to avoid the stones being thrown at his face.’
(52)a.El humo desapareci-

oo poco a poco.
The smoke disappear-pst.3sg bit by bit
‘The smoke disappeared bit by bit.’
b. El fantasma se desapareci-

oo de pronto.
The smoke mid disappear-pst.3sg of sudden
‘The ghost disappeared all of a sudden.’
Second, as is partially evidenced by (52b), middles may also encompass event con-
struals, whereby the event is not only abrupt but also unexpected (Maldonado
1988, 1993). As such, in the absence of further information, the event in (52b) can be
construed as running counter to normal expectations. This construal is best ex-
plained in terms of force-dynamics (Talmy 1985, 2000; this volume, chapter 11). In
grammatical voice in cognitive grammar 857
the physical realm, animate objects, from a force-dynamic perspective, normally
resist the influence of gravity. In a falling situation, then, nonresisting inanimate
objects simply fall in a nonenergetic manner, constituting an absolute construal
(Langacker 1990); energetic resisting objects, however, establish a force-dynamic
interaction, which is marked by a middle. At an abstract level, a corresponding re-
sisting force may be distinguished, which consist in the conceptualizer viewing the
event as running counter to normal expectations.
Examples such as (52b) are not isolated: they also account for a wide range of
Spanish examples, as in (53) and (54), that have so far not received a convincing

explanation. Examples (53) and (54), again, show a contrast between an absolute,
intransitive construal profiling no energy at all (53a, 54a) and an energetic construal
depicting a force-dynamic situation (53b, 54a, 54c). The examples in (53) belong to
the physical realm; those in (54) involve a more abstract conceptualization:
(53)a.La lluvia(*se) cae.
the rain(*mid) fall.3sg
‘Rain falls.’
b. La taza se cay-

oo de la mesa.
The cup mid fall-pst.3sg of the table
‘The cup fell down from the table.’
(54)a.Mi padre muri-

ooen1988.
my father die-pst.3sg in 1988
‘My father died in 1988.’
b. Mi padre se muri-

oo en un accidente.
my father mid die-pst.3sg in an accident
‘My father died in a car accident.’
c. Mi padre se (*Ø) me muri

oo en los brazos.
my father mid dat.1sg die-pst. 3sg in the.pl arms
‘My father died in my arms.’
In (53b) and (54b), the use of the middle marker se is obligatory with the unexpected
reading. Notice that in (54b) the event is subjectively construed from the concep-
tualizer’s viewpoint (Langacker 1985). Now the conceptualizer can be overtly ex-

pressed with a da t ive clitic, s u ch as the firs t person clitic me in (54c). The dative clitic
designates an abstract setting for the event—that is, the event happens in the con-
ceptualizer’s dominion (Maldonado 2002)—thus the dative participant is affected by
the result of the event. Since the use of the dative clitic puts conceptualizer’s expec-
tations in profile, the use of se is obligatory, as can be seen from (54c).
Without se, the examples in (54) depict an objective construal in which the
conceptualizer’s view is totally excluded from the event. This is the case for news-
paper headlines where the cold and objective report of an event rules out the use of
se. Although an accident is reported in (55), the event is reported with no speaker’s
involvement:
858 ricardo maldonado
(55) Choque de tren-es en Turk

ııa. Muere-n ma
´
sde250 pasajero-s.
crash of train-pl in Turkey die-3pl more of 250 passenger-pl
‘Trains crash in Turkey. More than 250 passengers die.’
Summing up, we have seen that the middle signals ‘change-of-state affecting
only the subject’; in other words, many of these changes-of-state are restricted to
the subject domain, be it the physical, the relational, or the emotional sphere. To
the extent that the middle focuses on the change undergone by the subject, the
event tends to be inchoative and tends to focus on the crucial moment of change.
The rapid, abrupt, and unexpected readings are predictable from this semantic
core of the middle. The following section attempts to motivate the cognitive paths
for the middle construction.
7.2. Middle Conceptual Paths
There has been a general tendency in linguistics to interpret the emergence of the
middle construction as evolving from the reflexive construction. A motivating
explanation comes from Kemmer’s ‘‘distinguishability hypothesis’’ (1994), ac-

cording to which there exists a cline from the transitive two-participant event to
the intransitive one-participant event; I offer figure 32.10 as a representation of a
gradual reduction of participant differentiation, with the transitive construction as
a first step.
While in the transitive construction there are two different participants in the
reflexive construction, there is a split representation of the self. Subject and object
are distinguishable as two coreferential participants, which interact with each other
much in the same way as they would with other participants. In contrast, the
middle involves an event (self-action or state) implying no participant division, as
the event only happens within the realm of the subject. Haiman’s (1983: 796) now
classic Russian example shows that the middle/reflexive contrast may also be re-
flected iconically:
(56)a.reflexive event
On utomil sebja.
he exhausted refl
‘He exhausted himself.’
b. middle event
On utomil-sja.
he exhausted-mid
‘He grew weary.’
The long form sebja codes the more complex reflexive event, while the short form
-sja signals the simpler middle construal (see Kemmer’s lower degree of elabora-
tion). More generally, an occurrence of the light/heavy contrast seems to consistently
signal a contrast whereby the longer, reflexive form designates events involving the
grammatical voice in cognitive grammar 859