On the “transitive” use of ma- in Siraya

Abstract Chen et al. (2022) argue that the presence of “transitive” (patient voice) uses of the prefix ma- in East Formosan and Malayo-Polynesian languages suggests that these languages form a single subgroup within the Austronesian family. However, this paper shows that the Siraya example cited by Chen et al. does not support their analysis. Consequently, the inclusion of Siraya in their argument is problematic. The Siraya examples in question represent a special syntactic construction in which the argument that would normally bear nominative case instead takes genitive or oblique marking. Such “nominativeless” sentences occur across voices in Siraya and are attested in other languages as well. Therefore, the so-called “transitive” use of ma- in Siraya cited by Chen et al. (2022) is actually not transitive, and the Siraya evidence does not support their proposal.