The Ts’ë- Passive in Dëne Sułıne

Transitivity changes have long been a focus of research in Dene (Athabaskan) languages. Although the basic agentless passive construction is well documented in Dëne Sųłıné (DS)— a northern Dene language spoken in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories— a second type of passive construction has been evidenced in the language data gathered through the Talking Dene (TD) study, conducted in the La Loche and Clearwater River Dene Nation (CRDN) communities between 2020 and 2025. This second passive construction differs from the more prevalent basic passive by its morphological inclusion of the impersonal subject prefix ts’ë-, hence it is termed the ts’ë- passive in this thesis. Uniquely, the ts’ë- passive denotes a detransitivized verb form which maintains overt reference to a generic actor, whose interpretation is inclusive of the first and second persons. Pragmatically, the ts’ë- passive allows the speaker to validate descriptions of habitual events or statements from a first-person orientation, and in some cases, to make neutral inquiries or suggestions to an addressee. For some verb themes, however, the ts’ë- passive instead appears to function as a surrogate form to either the basic passive construction or the impersonal active construction. Presently, the ts’ë- passive appears to be an innovative actor-defocusing construction used primarily by a subset of younger DS speakers; however, its current functional set may become more conventionalized in time. The emergence of the ts’ë- passive is particularly salient because of ongoing changes being made to the function of voice-valence markers in DS, which are responsible for morphologically displaying transitivity changes in a wide variety of constructions, including passives, causatives, reflexives, and reciprocals.