Javanese Applicative Construction

Abstract

Javanese has an applicative suffix –ake, which serves to license a benefactive, instrumental or theme suffix as a core object. Each of them has a thematic paraphrase in which the applicative argument is contained in a PP. The multiplicity of –ake poses problems for Marantz (1993) with his single applicative head. First, the uses of the applicative morpheme –ake must be lumped together in a single applicative head. Second, there is no attempt at all to account for the relation between the applicative constructions and their thematic paraphrases. I argue that Bowers’s (2010) framework can solve the problems with multiple argument heads merged in accordance with a fixed Universal Order of Merge (UOM). There are three primary argument-types, Ag(ent), Th(eme) and Aff(ectee) and secondary argument-types of various kinds, including Instr(ument), Ben(eficiary), Source, Goal, and others. Any head can potentially host an applicative morpheme. In Javanese, the morpheme -ake can be associated with an Aff-head, an Inst-head or a Th-head. Furthermore, in each case, applicative construction and its thematic paraphrase are derived from virtually identical structures because the argument head may have more than one selectional possibility for a DP with unvalued case feature or a PP.