AF verbs: transitive, intransitive, or both

As far as the transitivity of AF verbs is concerned, there are two conflicting hypotheses in the Austronesian literature. In the ergative hypothesis (Starosta 1997), AF verbs are uniformly identified as antipassive/intransitive; in the symmetrical-voice hypothesis (Kroeger 1993), AF verbs are claimed to be able to occur as transitive on a par with NAF verbs. In this paper, we address the issue by looking into six Formosan languages, namely, Paiwan, Tsou, Seediq, Atayal, Saisiyat, and Kavalan. We find that Formosan languages are not homogeneous in this regard. In Paiwan, Seediq, Atayal, and Saisiyat, AF verbs can denote causativity and thus can be semantically transitive; this option is not open for Tsou and Kavalan. In Paiwan, Tsou, Atayal, and Kavalan, AF verbs are grammatically intransitive since patients occur as oblique noun phrases in AF clauses. However, in Seediq and Saisiyat, patients surface as core arguments in AF clause and thus AF verbs can be grammatically transitive. Given that antipassive is an indication of ergative language, we assume that Paiwan, Tsou, Atayal, and Kavalan are more ergative than Seediq and Saisiyat. We also conclude that the ergative hypothesis is too strong a claim and the symmetrical-voice hypothesis has very limited application in Formosan languages.