Transitivity in Sahaptin

Abstract

Constituent order plays no role in the disambiguation of grammatical relations in Sahaptin, a language native to the southern plateau of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Grammatical relations nevertheless are as relevant as in any “configurational” language, being distinguished instead by pronominal affixes and nominal case marking. Alignment is mostly nominative-accusative but with limited ergative case. The verb is inherently intransitive, transitive, or ditransitive, and valence changing mechanisms mediate via inverse voice, external possession, dative shift, applicatives, causatives, and subject raising.