Finding the Middle in the maka-: Tagalog Morphology Offers New Insight on Middle Syntax

The semantic interpretation of English middles suggests a far richer syntax than English morphology can capture. In the past tense, the middle construction is ambiguous between two readings. One interpretation entails actualization & describes a specific event & subject. The second describes a property of the subject that held in the past, allows a specific or generic subject, & does not carry any actualization entailment. Since the middle literature has defined middles as generic statements only, non-generic examples have been largely overlooked in existing analyses. In this paper, I examine the morphology of Tagalog maka-prefixed predicates to argue that these must share a common syntax with middles, based on their parallel interpretation. I then apply Bhatt's (1999) analysis of 'was able to' to middles & maka-predicates, to arrive at a hypothesis for their underlying structures. I argue that middles are formed by embedding a non-volitional eventive predicate under a stative one which attributes a property to a Theme as its external argument. References. Adapted from the source document