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 Grammatical Voice
The grammatical category of voice covers a wide range of phenomena,
including causatives, applicatives, passives, antipassives, middles, and
others. Drawing on data from over 200 languages, Fernando Zúñiga and
Seppo Kittilä illustrate the semantic, morphological, and syntactic vari-
ation of voice across languages from a range of families and regions. They
approach the topic from a broad and explicit perspective, and discuss a
variety of topics that are not always regarded as voice, in order to make a
clear and useful conceptual delimitation. Clearly organized and accessibly
written, the book will be welcomed by students and scholars of linguistics,
especially those interested in how grammatical categories work.

f e r n a n d o z ú ñ i g a is professor of linguistics at the University of

Bern. His research focuses on the qualitative typology of voice and
alignment, as well as on benefaction and wordhood issues. He has co-
edited numerous books including Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony
and Diachrony (2018) with Sonia Cristofaro.
s e p p o k i t t i l ä works as a senior lecturer in linguistics at the Univer-
sity of Helsinki. He has published extensively on transitivity and
argument marking, and also causatives. He has co-edited numerous books
on these topics including Benefactives and Malefactives (2010) with
Fernando Zúñiga.

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Grammatical Voice

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 Grammatical Voice

FERNANDO ZÚÑIGA
University of Bern

SEPPO KITTILÄ
University of Helsinki

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 University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

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www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107159242
DOI: 10.1017/9781316671399

© Fernando Zúñiga and Seppo Kittilä 2019

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First published 2019

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Zúñiga, Fernando, author. | Kittilä, Seppo, author.
Title: Grammatical voice / Fernando Zúñiga, Seppo Kittilä.
Description: First edition. | Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press,
2019. | Series: Cambridge textbooks in linguistics | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018042532 | ISBN 9781107159242 (hardback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781316612125 (paperback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Grammar, Comparative and general–Grammatical categories. |
Grammar, Comparative and general–Voice.
Classification: LCC P240.5 .Z86 2019 | DDC 415–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018042532

ISBN 978-1-107-15924-2 Hardback

ISBN 978-1-316-61212-5 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy

of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.

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 Contents

List of Figures x
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgments xii
List of Abbreviations xiii

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Preliminaries 1
1.2 Terminological and Analytical Prerequisites 3
1.3 The Study of Grammatical Voice 7
1.3.1 Previous Studies 7
1.3.2 Voice as Understood and Presented in This Book 10

2 Changing Semantic Valency: Causatives, Applicatives, and

Related Constructions 12
2.1 Causatives 15
2.1.1 Prototypical Causatives 15
2.1.2 Non-Prototypical Causatives and Lookalikes 20
2.1.3 Formal Variation of Causatives 25
2.1.4 Semantic Variation of Causatives 31
2.1.5 Distribution of Causatives 40
2.2 Anticausatives 41
2.2.1 Prototypical Anticausatives 41
2.2.2 Non-Prototypical Anticausatives and Lookalikes 43
2.2.3 Variation of Anticausatives 48
2.2.4 Distribution of Anticausatives 52
2.3 Applicatives 53
2.3.1 Prototypical Applicatives 53
2.3.2 Applicative Types and Lookalikes 55
2.3.3 Variation of Applicatives 62
2.3.4 Distribution of Applicatives 68
2.4 Antiapplicatives 70
2.4.1 P-Demotion or P-Suppression: Antipassives 70
2.4.2 P-Removal: Antiapplicatives Proper 73
2.4.3 Envoi: An Unproductive Northern Sami Construction 73
2.5 Subjective Undergoer Nucleatives 74
2.5.1 Philippine Undergoer Nucleatives Introduced 74
2.5.2 Malefactive and Possessive Subjective Nucleatives 76
2.5.3 Subjective Undergoer Nucleatives in a Nutshell 81

vii

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 viii contents

3 Changing Syntactic Valency: Passives, Antipassives, and

Related Constructions 82
3.1 The Passive Domain 83
3.1.1 The Prototypical Passive 83
3.1.2 Non-Prototypical Passives and Lookalikes 84
3.1.3 Functions of Passives 89
3.1.4 Variation of Passives 91
3.1.5 Distribution of Passives 101
3.2 The Antipassive Domain 102
3.2.1 The Prototypical Antipassive 102
3.2.2 Non-Prototypical Antipassives and Lookalikes 104
3.2.3 Functions of Antipassives 111
3.2.4 Variation of Antipassives 113
3.2.5 Distribution of Antipassives 117
3.3 Epilogue: Changing the Morphosyntactic Realization of Arguments 118

4 In Search of Balance: Agent and Patient Voices 120

4.1 Symmetrical Voice in Western Austronesian 121
4.1.1 Tagalog 122
4.1.2 Other Western Austronesian Languages 127
4.1.3 Western Austronesian Variation 133
4.2 Symmetrical Voice in Non-Austronesian Languages 134
4.2.1 Selected South American Languages 135
4.2.2 Selected North American Languages and “Inverse Voice” 143
4.2.3 Symmetrical Voices in the Americas and Beyond 149
4.3 Symmetrical Voice in a Nutshell 149

5 The Affected Subject: Reflexives, Reciprocals, and Middles 151

5.1 Introduction 151
5.2 Reflexives and Voice 154
5.2.1 Two Prototypical Reflexives 154
5.2.2 Variation of Reflexives 155
5.3 Reciprocals and Voice 161
5.3.1 Two Prototypical Reciprocals 161
5.3.2 Variation of Reciprocals 162
5.4 Middles 168
5.4.1 Middle Voice as a Value of a Grammatical Category 168
5.4.2 The Middle as a Network of Meanings 171
5.4.3 Middle Inflection, Voice, and Cluster 175

6 Covert Diatheses: Uncoded Alternations 178

6.1 Introduction 178
6.2 Changing Semantic Valency via Uncoded Alternations 181
6.2.1 Uncoded (Anti-)Causatives: The Causative Alternation 181
6.2.2 Uncoded (Anti-)Applicatives 183
6.2.3 Uncoded Subject Undergoer (De-)Nucleatives 187
6.3 Changing Syntactic Valency via Uncoded Alternations 188
6.3.1 Passive Alternations 188

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 Contents ix

6.3.2 The Antipassive or Conative Alternation 189

6.3.3 The Dative Alternation 191
6.4 Valency-Neutral Uncoded Alternations 193
6.4.1 The Locative Alternation 193
6.4.2 Agent-Patient-Diathesis Alternations 194
6.5 Covert Affected Subjects: Uncoded Reflexives and Reciprocals 195
6.5.1 Uncoded Reflexives 196
6.5.2 Uncoded Reciprocals 197
6.6 Discussion 198

7 The Fringes of Voice 200

7.1 Uncoded Syntax-Neutral Alternations 200
7.2 Uncoded Unclear-Syntax Alternations 202
7.3 Nominal Incorporation Constructions (NICs) 205
7.4 Transitivity Discord Constructions (TDCs) 208
7.4.1 Transitivity Modulation with Voice Alternation: Algonquian 208
7.4.2 Transitivity Modulation without Diathetical Alternation 211
7.4.3 Lexically Restricted Transitivity Modulation: Oceanic
and Beyond 213
7.4.4 Variation and Unity of TDCs 218

8 Diachronic Aspects of Voice 220

8.1 Source Morphology 220
8.1.1 Sources of Causatives 220
8.1.2 Sources of Applicatives 222
8.1.3 Sources of Passives 223
8.1.4 Sources of Antipassives 226
8.1.5 Sources of Reflexives 230
8.1.6 Sources of Reciprocals 232
8.1.7 Sources of Anticausatives 233
8.2 Voice Syncretisms 233
8.2.1 The Transitivizing Cluster (= caus-appl Isomorphism) 234
8.2.2 The Detransitivizing Cluster (= mid Cluster) 237
8.2.3 Other Syncretisms 243
8.2.4 Summary 245

9 Revisiting Voice Theory 246

References 254
Author Index 285
Language Index 287
Subject Index 290

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 Figures

2.1 Causative diathesis I page 16

2.2 Causative diathesis II 17
2.3 Causative diathesis III 17
2.4 Anticausative diathesis 42
2.5 Applicative diathesis I 54
2.6 Applicative diathesis II 55
2.7 Applicative diathesis III 55
3.1 Active/agent and passive diatheses 83
3.2 Agentless passive diathesis 85
3.3 Non-promotional passive diathesis 85
3.4 Agent, patient, and antipassive diatheses 103
4.1 Agent and patient diatheses 121
5.1 Active and duplex diatheses 153
5.2 Selected reflexive and reciprocal meanings 154
5.3 Selected reflexive and reciprocal diatheses 154
5.4 Indirect reflexive diathesis 159
5.5 Different reflexive and reciprocal meanings (du) 160
5.6 Main reciprocal configuration types 167
5.7 Selected duplex reflexive diatheses 170
8.1 The transitivizing cluster 237
8.2 The middle cluster I (path from refl) 240
8.3 The middle cluster II (path from caus) 242

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 Tables

2.1 Argument structure types page 13

2.2 Typical operations on argument and clause structure 14
2.3 Polinsky’s (2013b) two parameters of variation of applicatives 69
3.1 Selected semantically bivalent diatheses 82
3.2 Selected non-promotional passives 86
3.3 Selected passives of event and result 99
4.1 Selected forms of Tagalog bili ‘buy’ 124
4.2 Selected clause types in standard Indonesian 132
4.3 Agent and patient voices in Arawan languages 138
4.4 Agent and patient voices in selected South American languages 142
4.5 Voice alternations in selected Coast Salishan languages 145
5.1 Reflexives in two Romance languages (‘wash’, ind.prs) 157
5.2 Selected indicative verb forms in Ancient Greek (lou- ‘wash’) 169
5.3 Main functions of the middle in Ancient Greek 171
6.1 Selected labile verbs in Chintang 187
7.1 Selected TDCs in Algonquian languages 211
7.2 Selected TDCs in Oceanic languages 218
7.3 Selected TDCs (summary) 219
9.1 Diathetical operations involving A and P (simplified) 250
9.2 Diathetical operations involving G (simplified) 251

xi

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 Acknowledgments

First, Seppo Kittilä would like to thank the Academy of Finland (grant number
265951) and the University of Helsinki for funding several parts of this study.
Second, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Peter Austin, who was
the clearance reader assigned by Cambridge University Press, for his insightful
comments on the first version of the manuscript. Third, we are grateful to
Nikolaus Himmelmann and Katharina Haude for their valuable feedback on
some sections of Chapter 4. Fourth, Fernando Zúñiga is grateful to Spike Gildea,
Doris Payne, and Tom Payne for very stimulating conversations on voice-related
topics during his stay in Oregon in 2017. Last, but definitely not least, we would
like to thank Florian Matter and Jean Rohleder for their help with hard-to-find
references and sources; Kirsi Kauppinen and Lucy Zuberbühler for their help
with practical things related to finalizing the book for submission and publica-
tion; and Gordon Lee, as well as Grace Morris and everybody else at Cambridge
University Press, for their careful and diligent work during production.

xii

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 Abbreviations

A agent-like argument of bivalent predicate

AFC agent focus construction
DOC double object construction
DOM differential object marking
EPC external possession construction
G goal-like argument of trivalent predicate
IAC involuntary agent construction
ICC inanimate causer construction
IOC indefinite object construction
ISC indefinite subject construction
NIC nominal incorporation construction
NP noun phrase
P patient-like argument of bivalent predicate
R referent
S single argument of monovalent predicate
T theme-like argument of trivalent predicate
TDC transitivity discord construction
w/ with
X0 extra-thematic argument

Abbreviations Used in the Glosses

abl ablative
abs absolutive
absnt absential
acc accusative
act active
add additional
adel adelative
adess adessive
adj adjunct
af agent focus
aff affectedness, affirmative
agt agentive
ai animate intransitive
all allative

xiii

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 xiv l i s t o f a bb r e v i a ti o n s

anim animate
ant anterior
antic anticausative
antip antipassive
aobj applied object
aor aorist
appl applicative
art article
asp aspect
ass assertive
attr attributive
aug augmented
aux auxiliary
av agent voice
bare bare
ben benefactive
caus causative
cnj conjunct
cnstr construct state
com comitative
compl completive
conj conjunction
cont continuous, continuative
conv conveyance
core core
csee causee
ctrl control
cv conveyance voice
cvb converb
cvrs conversive
dat dative
decl declarative
def definite
deic deictic
dem demonstrative
det determiner
detr detransitive
dir direct
disj disjunctive
dist distal
dobj direct object
drct directional
ds different-subject

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 List of Abbreviations xv

du dual
dyn dynamic
emph emphatic
enunc enunciative
epe epenthetical segment(s)
erg ergative
evid evidential
excl exclusive
f feminine
fin finite
foc focus
fut future
gen genitive
ger gerund
hab habitual
hon honorific
hum human
ii inanimate intransitive
ill illative
imper imperative
imprs impersonal
inan inanimate
incep inceptive
incl inclusive
incompl incompletive
ind indicative
indf indefinite
inf infinitive
iness inessive
ins instrumental
inst instigation
intr intransitive
inv inverse
iobj indirect object
ipfv imperfective
irr irrealis
iter iterative
iv instrument(al) voice
lat lative
ld locative-directional
lnk linker
loc locative
locut locutor

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 xvi l i s t o f a bb r e v i a ti o n s

lt low-tone form
lv locative voice
m masculine
mal malefactive
mid middle
n neuter
nd nondirect
neg negative
nfin nonfinite
nfut nonfuture
nhum nonhuman
nmlz nominalizer
nom nominative
npst nonpast
nsbj nonsubject
nsg nonsingular
nth nontheme
ntop nontopic
nvis nonvisual
obj object
obl oblique
obv obviative
parag paragoge
pass passive
pat patient
part particle
perf perfect
pfv perfective
pl plural
pobj primary object
pos positive
poss possessive
postp postposition
pot potential
pred predicative
pref prefix
prep preposition
prepobj prepositional object
prior prioritive
prog progressive
prox proximate
prop proprietive
prs present

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 List of Abbreviations xvii

prsnt presential
ps pseudo-
psr possessor
pst past
ptcl particle
ptcp participle
ptv partitive
purp purposive
pv patient voice
pvb preverb
real realis
rec recipient
recp reciprocal
refl reflexive
rel relative
relinq relinquitive
rpst recent past
saf stem affix
sap speech-act participant
sbj subject
sg singular
sobj secondary object
sociat sociative
spont spontaneous
stat stative
sub subordinate
sunucl subjective undergoer nucleative
superess superessive
ta transitive animate
tam tense-aspect-mood
ti transitive inanimate
th thematic
tns tense
top topic
tr transitive
transl translative
uv undergoer voice
vis visual
vn verbal noun
voc vocative
vol volitionality
wit witnessed

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 xviii l i s t o f a bb r e v i a ti o n s

Other Symbols Used in the Glosses

I, II, . . . nominal classes; inflectional sets
x!y x acting on y
- default morpheme boundary
= (internal) clitic morpheme boundary
! external clitic morpheme boundary
~ reduplicative morpheme boundary
<> infix
# phonological word boundary

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 1 Introduction

1.1 Preliminaries

The term voice can refer to several different things in the study of
human language. In literary-linguistic studies, it is used to describe an author’s
style – the formal qualities that make his/her writing unique. In phonetics, the
term refers to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate. In
morphosyntax, where it is sometimes specified as grammatical voice, it
denotes a particular relationship between the meaning and the form of clauses.
For instance, the following English sentences are usually thought of as
conveying propositions with the same truth values, but they are used in different
conditions or contexts of use on the one hand and have a different formal make-
up on the other:
(1) English (Germanic, world language)1
a. The paparazzi saw Zelda at the party.
b. Zelda was seen by the paparazzi at the party.

The first sentence – an example of the active voice – is more naturally used
when talking about paparazzi and what they did, whereas the second, passive-
voice, sentence appears to be more commonly used when talking or writing
about Zelda (especially in formal registers of the language). Several formal
features distinguish both sentences, namely constituent order, verb morphology,
and the syntactic status of the main participants (the paparazzi and Zelda), in
addition to intonational patterns. The study of grammatical voice deals precisely
with such conditions or contexts of use and with such formal differences, not
only in English active–passive pairs but also in similar or related oppositions
found in virtually every natural language.
Grammatical voice is one of the oldest topics in descriptive linguistics. In his
Astādhyāyī ‘Eight Chapters’, Pān ̣ini (c. sixth–fourth century bce) describes the
__
inflectional paradigms of Sanskrit verbs, which show what we nowadays call a
voice opposition between parasmaipada ‘word for another’ and ātmanepada
‘word for oneself’ (e.g., bharati ‘s/he bears’ vs. bharate ‘s/he is borne’).

1
Most examples in this study come from published sources, which are acknowledged in the text or
the indented examples. Where no source is given, the examples are based on the authors’ personal
knowledge.

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 2 introduction

The treatise on Greek grammar called Téchnē Grammatikḗ ‘Art of Grammar’ –

customarily attributed to Dionysius Thrax (170–90 bce) – uses the term
diáthesis ‘state, condition, disposition’ to describe the three-way opposition
found with Greek verbs between enérgeia ‘activity, vigor’, páthos ‘suffering’,
and mesótēs ‘intermediate, middle’ (e.g., etúptēsa ‘I struck’ vs. etúphthēn ‘I was
struck’ vs. etuptēsámēn ‘I struck for myself’).2 Later grammarians use the Latin
terms verborum genus / genus verbi ‘genus/gender of verb(s)’ and vox ‘voice’ for
the analogous grammatical category of Latin. The latter language has a two-way
opposition between vox activa ‘active voice’ and vox passiva ‘passive voice’
(e.g., ferō ‘I bear’ vs. feror ‘I am borne’), which are the origins of the present-day
English terms used to refer to the verb forms in (1) above, as well as of similar
terms used in other European languages.
The present study of grammatical voice, written in the functional-typological
tradition, has two objectives. First, it is intended to provide an overview of the
manifestations of the category grammatical voice in the grammars of the world’s
languages. Second, it seeks to lend clarity to the current understanding of the
category by proposing a model of voice that is not only broad enough to cover
numerous grammatical facts but also strict enough to draw meaningful lines
between voice phenomena, voice-like phenomena, and categories that are related
to voice but best seen as different from it. In particular, we include in our
treatment selected phenomena that some earlier approaches choose to exclude
from their voice models (e.g., applicatives), and we exclude some phenomena
that at least one recent approach subsumes under the term voice (e.g., formally
unmarked diathetical alternations). Another hallmark of the present study is that
we present voice phenomena according to semantic criteria first – alteration vs.
maintenance of semantic argument structure and increase vs. decrease of number
of arguments – followed by a presentation of morphological and syntactic
features of the constructions under scrutiny.
We hope that these choices contribute to balancing the literature on
grammatical voice, which for many years tended to focus on interesting
syntactic aspects of passive(-like) constructions but comparatively neglected
other aspects of many different constructions in the world’s languages that
were equally important. After three decades of descriptive work of unpreced-
ented depth, detail, and breadth in Western linguistics, as well as four decades
of stimulating theoretical and typological studies addressing issues related to
voice, we have found a daunting but exhilarating amount of material at our
disposal. We have tried to present the readers of this book with a study intended

2
The earliest use of the term diáthesis to mean ‘grammatical voice’ seems to be found in Aristotle’s
Categories, which predates the Art of Grammar by approximately two centuries. Apollonius
Dyscolus (second century ce) employs the term more broadly in Perì Syntáxeōs ‘On Syntax’: he
distinguishes between three kinds of diatheses, namely sōmatikḗ ‘relative to the body’ (i.e.,
voice), psychikḗ ‘relative to the soul’ (i.e., mood), and chronikḗ ‘relative to time’ (i.e., tense
and aspect).

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 1.2 Terminological and Analytical Prerequisites 3

to deepen their understanding and broaden their horizons, rather than merely
classify grammatical facts.

1.2 Terminological and Analytical Prerequisites

Several related concepts are important for the study of grammatical

voice, namely valency, transitivity, and diathesis. valency is the number
of arguments a predicate takes: semantically, syntactically, or morphologically.
The first refers to the number of arguments in semantic structure; predicates can
be semantically avalent (e.g., English rain), monovalent (e.g., weep), bivalent
(e.g., kill), or trivalent (e.g., give) (Tesnière 1959). The other two kinds of
valency refer to the number of arguments instantiated in the syntactic structure
of the clause and the morphological structure of a predicate, respectively. For
instance, in English she gives the beggar her coat, the semantically trivalent verb
give appears in a clause with three arguments, and the verb marks one argument,
its subject.
transitivity is a multi-parameter notion that comprises different facets
of clauses, including semantic and syntactic valency, but also agentivity,
affectedness, and referentiality of different arguments (see, e.g., Hopper &
Thompson 1980 and Næss 2007). Clauses can thus occupy an intermediate zone
between intransitive and transitive poles. For example, inanimate, indefinite, or
nonspecific patients may appear as unmarked objects vis-à-vis more “transitive”
constructions with animate and highly individuated patients that are expressed
as case- or adposition-marked objects – a well-known and much-studied
phenomenon called differential object marking (see the literature from Bossong
1985 to Iemmolo 2011). Similarly, events instigated by non-prototypical agents
(which may, e.g., act involuntarily or be inanimate) can be expressed by con-
structions encoding lower transitivity (Fauconnier 2012). Descriptive studies
occasionally deal with some specific phenomena that belong to this intermedi-
ate zone using the label “detransitive constructions.” These may comprise
different instances of voice, but also different instances of differential argument
marking.
Many studies do not distinguish between valency and transitivity as strictly. It
is common to find the following labels referring to predicate valency values of 0,
1, 2, and 3, respectively: atransitive, intransitive, (mono-)transitive, and ditransi-
tive. In recent years, the term “ambitransitive” has also been used in typological
studies to refer to labile predicates like English eat, which have a syntactic
valency value of 1 (e.g., he ate too late last night) or 2 (e.g., she ate her supper).
In this book, transitivity is understood as in the studies mentioned in the preced-
ing paragraph. Instead of using the potentially ambiguous terms “intransitive
verb” and “transitive verb,” however, we will specify whether predicates are
semantically or syntactically (or morphologically) monovalent or bivalent, and
we will characterize clauses that have subjects only as one-argument, those that

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 4 introduction

have a subject and an object as two-argument, and those with a subject and two
objects as three-argument clauses. (The two objects of three-argument clauses
are seldom identical: they are usually either direct and indirect or primary and
secondary objects. See Dryer 1986.)
Diathesis refers to any specific mapping of semantic roles (SRs) onto
grammatical roles (GRs). The former include notions like agent, patient, theme,
recipient, experiencer, stimulus, source, goal, etc., which are usually conceived
of as low-level abstractions over predicate classes (Bickel 2011). We work with
the following generalized roles here: A and P for the agent-like and patient-like
argument of bivalent predicates, respectively; A, T, and G for the agent-like, the
theme-like, and the goal-like argument of trivalent predicates, respectively;3 and
S for the single argument of monovalent predicates.4 (We specify the S further as
SA and SP when necessary. The distinctions made in functional studies on the
one hand between agentive ‘dance’ and patientive ‘break’ predicates and on
the other between active ‘come’ and stative ‘be cold’ predicates basically
corresponds to what the literature in the Chomskyan tradition labels the
unergative-unaccusative distinction; see, e.g., Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1994:
59f.) Grammatical roles include notions like subject, object, other complements,
and adjunct. At the center of attention in this book are diathetical
operations, that is, strategies used by natural languages to alter diathetical
structure. The mechanisms employed in such operations relate to semantic
argument structure, such as argument installment or removal; syntactic
structure, such as argument promotion or demotion (and the latter’s extreme
case, viz., suppression); or both.
Grammatical voice is defined here as a grammatical category whose
values correspond to particular diatheses marked on the form of predicates.
Diathesis refers to the number of semantic arguments involved in a state of
affairs, to how they are involved in it, and to how they are assigned to GRs of
varying salience and flexibility. Voice refers to the way a specific diathesis is
formally marked on functional or lexical verbs in the predicate complex.
For instance, the English examples in (1) above show a difference in verb
morphology: while the active verb appears in a simple, unmarked, form (saw),
the passive verb form is especially marked as an auxiliary-cum-participle
construction (was seen). Thus, the English passive diathesis is expressed by
a passive voice. By contrast, the examples in (2) from Palu’e show that the
only formal difference between the active and passive diatheses may concern

3
We follow common practice in not distinguishing between the agent-like argument of bivalent
predicates and the agent-like argument of trivalent predicates. Unlike split intransitivity, which is
hardly a marginal phenomenon, languages that distinguish between agent-like arguments of
higher-valency predicates in their grammar appear to be extremely rare (Bickel 2011).
4
The symbols S, A, P, etc. are widely used in functional-typological studies, but different authors
understand them differently (Haspelmath 2011). Unlike Dixon (1994) and Comrie (1981), who
employ them as syntactic notions orbiting semantic cores, we use them as generalized semantic
roles (like in Bickel 2011).

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 1.2 Terminological and Analytical Prerequisites 5

constituent order. In such a language, the diathetical opposition is not expressed

by a voice opposition: there is simply no voice, due to the lack of any kind of
(argument-related) verbal morphology.
(2) Palu’e (Austronesian, Indonesia; Donohue 2005: 60)
a. Ia cube vavi va’a.
3sg shoot pig dem
‘He shot the pig.’ (active diathesis)
b. Vavi va’a ia cube.
pig dem 3sg shoot
‘That pig was shot by him.’ (passive diathesis)

Among the several hallmarks of the definition of voice employed in this book,
the one regarding morphological marking deserves special attention, for two
reasons. First, natural languages frequently have several alternative grammatical
structures that can be used to portray the same, or nearly the same, state of affairs.
More often than not, however, only some of these structures have an overt
marking that identifies them as particular voices. There is usually one construc-
tion that is formally unmarked vis-à-vis the others, and linguistic studies have
traditionally not only chosen such unmarked structures as the vantage point from
which the other structures are characterized, but have also labeled them as voice
despite their lack of formal marking, like the English active voice in (1) above.
Second, many languages do not have a formally unmarked construction; all
related structures are equally marked – although they may differ as to the exact
means of marking. Some languages have contrasting sets of argument markers,
like active ‑mus vs. mediopassive ‑mur for the 1pl in Latin monē-mus ‘we
admonish’ vs. monē-mur ‘we are admonished’. Others show active and passive
morphemes, like men- and di- in Standard Indonesian:
(3) Standard Indonesian (Austronesian, Indonesia; Sneddon 1996: 247–248)
a. Dia men-jemput saya.
3sg act-meet 1sg
‘He met me.’ (active voice)
b. Saya di-jemput oleh dia.
1sg pass-meet by 3sg
‘I was met by him.’ (passive voice)
Even though the requirement that only coded diatheses be labeled voices
may strike some readers as unnecessarily Eurocentric, such predicate-marking
patterns are not only found outside Europe but are also quite widespread, both
areally and genealogically. The obvious alternative would consist in calling both
coded and uncoded diatheses “voices” (thereby dispensing with the distinction
between diathesis and voice), but we have followed current mainstream studies
here in taking a conservative tack.
Another hallmark of the present study is that we deliberately keep the model-
ing of both semantic and syntactic structure rather abstract and vague in order to
facilitate its cross-linguistic and (almost) frame-neutral application. On the

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 6 introduction

semantic side, even though there are a number of proposals as to how to best
handle the semantic relations between predicates and their arguments, there is
still no universally accepted General Theory of them (Kittilä & Zúñiga 2014).
Some authors regard SRs as impressionistic labels and model the causal chain
in formal terms resorting to other notions (e.g., Van Valin & LaPolla 1997,
Croft 2012). Others regard SRs as definable based on semantic features (e.g.,
Rozwadowska 1989, Næss 2007). Most authors nowadays simply work with SRs
acknowledging the relevance of both causal-chain considerations and specific
features, but this has not yet resulted in a principled and comprehensive theory
encompassing all that we know about SRs. In the present book, we assume
that semantic arguments are identified by the authors of descriptive studies
(i) on a language-specific basis and (ii) based on formal (i.e., morphosyntactic,
albeit perhaps indirect) diagnostics. The former means, for instance, that rough
translational equivalents of English shout, beat, or give in other languages do not
necessarily have the same argument structures (Kittilä 2006, 2007). The latter
means that a reasonable effort has been undertaken to make claims regarding the
semantic characterization of the relevant predicates falsifiable.
On the syntactic side, different theories work with slightly different inventor-
ies of GRs, and even theories that have superficially equivalent inventories define
the notions differently (e.g., via structural configuration, as primitives of different
kinds, or as sets of arguments selected by specific constructions for particular
syntactic purposes). In addition, GRs may be seen as universal (i.e., the same for
all human languages) or not. We work here with an array of non-primitive and
language-specific GRs that makes use of the received terminology (subject,
direct and indirect objects, primary and secondary objects, complements,
adjuncts). We agree that GRs are best seen as construction-specific but have
chosen to assume at least some uniformity or clustering in how the diagnostic
properties of GRs pattern language-internally, solely in order to use the received
terms in an uncomplicated way. Consequently, even though our approach to
syntactic issues is not theory-neutral, it is easily translatable into the approaches
employed in formal frameworks. We do not claim here that GRs defined based
on clustering of diagnostic morphosyntactic properties are the best or only
option, or that the resulting constructs are universal. We merely claim that
cross-linguistic comparison of voice phenomena based on such unsophisticated
SRs and GRs is still a feasible and a worthwhile endeavor.
It is important to mention that we do not regard voice, or any other
structural category of grammar, as the expression of a pre-established category
(Haspelmath 2007b). This has three important analytical consequences. First, we
arrive at the voice prototypes mentioned above by distilling shared traits from
disparate language-specific constructions. These particular constructions may
instantiate the prototypes to varying degrees, deviating from them, as they often
do, in ways that are complex, subtle, or both. Second, we do not believe
that a specific grammatical phenomenon must express either voice or another
grammatical category; a particular pattern or marker might well express both

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 1.3 The Study of Grammatical Voice 7

voice and another category (e.g., aspect) in any given language. Pure and
hybrid voices are interesting phenomena in their own right, but our definition
is independent of this dimension. Lastly, voice may develop in a given language
from either another, already existing, grammatical category or a lexical element.
Nevertheless, we do not regard only some final point in the development path
as voice, thereby relegating all previous stages to pre-voice, incomplete voice,
or the like. As they grammaticalize further, particular constructions typically
become more general and more productive, and we simply see the prototype as
involving the highest possible level of applicability to all suitable clauses for
the specific value at hand. This means, for instance, that we see both causatives
and anticausatives as voices, even though the latter are consistently less widely
applicable than the former (which is partly due to how they alter diathetical
structure, as we discuss in Chapter 2).
Finally, we use some other expressions in this book that are not exclusively
related to the study of voice. Flagging is an umbrella term that covers case
morphology and adpositional marking, and indexing denotes the marking of
features related to arguments or adjuncts by means of bound elements. We
say that a particular phenomenon is typical if it occurs frequently, either
language-specifically or cross-linguistically. By contrast, we say that a particular
phenomenon is prototypical if it conforms to a prototype, which we have defined
striking a balance between capturing cross-linguistic regularities and departing
from mainstream terminology as little as possible – at least in the many cases
where there is reasonable consensus on how the term in question is used. We
have chosen not to employ the word canonical here, in order to avoid confusion
with the term as employed either in general, to refer to (orthodox) rules, or in
particular, in the Canonical Typology literature (e.g., in Brown et al. 2013).
Lastly, we follow a practice that gained a foothold in functional-typological
studies written in English in the late twentieth century in using grammatical
labels with an initial capital to refer to language-particular descriptive categories
(e.g., “the Tagalog Patient Voice”) and ordinary lower-case spelling to refer to
comparative concepts (e.g., “the patient voice”), especially when the relation
between the two categories is at the center of attention.

1.3 The Study of Grammatical Voice

1.3.1 Previous Studies

Studies of grammatical voice can be classified into two groups
according to whether the notion of voice is defined structurally or functionally.
Both the functional-typological mainstream and the generative literature belong
to the former group. Neither the terminology nor the theoretical apparatus of
studies belonging to the latter group have been widely adopted – with one
notable exception we mention below.

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Other documents randomly have
different content
these birds is well-nigh impossible, and to capture them one must
have recourse to the same snares one uses for catching larks.”

“A fowl smaller than a partridge, and that they catch in the woods
with snares for larks,” remarked Jules, “ought to be a very pretty bird,
but not of much use if raised in poultry-yards. Does our poultry come
from such a small kind as that?”

“It certainly comes either from the Bankiva fowl or from other kinds
just as small that live in a wild state in the forests of Asia; but when
and how the hen and the cock became domesticated is wholly
unknown. From the dawn of history man has been in possession of
the barnyard fowl, at least in Asia, whence later the species came to
us already domesticated. During long centuries, improved by our
care, which assures it abundant food and comfortable shelter, the
original small species has produced numerous varieties differing
much in size and plumage. They are classed in three groups: the
small, the medium, and the large.

“To the first group belongs the bantam or little English fowl, about
the size of a partridge. It is a beautiful bird with short legs that let
the tips of the wings drag on the ground, quick movements, gentle
and tame habits. Its eggs, proportioned to the small size of the hen,
weigh scarcely thirty grams apiece, while those of other hens weigh
from sixty to ninety [26]grams each. These pretty little pullets are
raised rather as ornaments to the poultry-yard than for the sake of
their diminutive eggs.”

“These little fowl,” observed Louis, “look from their size like the
primitive kind.”

“Yes, it was about like that they looked when man took it into his
head to tame the wild fowl. In the poultry-yards of those times lived,
not the large species of our day, but birds as small in body and as
quick on the wing as the partridge. I leave you to imagine what care
and vigilance were necessary in order not to frighten these timid little
fowl and cause them to go back to the woods that they still
remembered.”

“It must have been as much trouble,” said Louis, “as it would be for
us to tame a covey of partridges. Such an undertaking would not be
easy. We are a long way from those first attempts at domestication
with our hens of to-day, so tame, so importunate even, that they
come boldly and pick up crumbs under the very table.”

“The common poultry, that which stocks the greater number of

farms, belongs to the medium-sized breeds. Its plumage is of all
colors, from white to red and black. Its head is small and ornamented
with a red comb, sometimes single, sometimes double, coquettishly
thrown to one side. The cock, for its proud bearing and magnificent
plumage, has no equal among the other species. The common fowl is
the easiest to keep, for its activity permits it to seek and find for
itself, by scratching in the [27]ground, a great part of its food in the
form of seeds and worms. It may be found fault with for its
wandering proclivities, favored by a strong wing which it avails itself
of to fly over hedges and fences, to go and devastate the neighboring
gardens.

“Among the other medium-sized species which, associated with the

common fowl, are found in poultry-yards as ornaments rather than as
sources of profit, I will name the following:

“First, the Paduan fowl, recognizable by its rich plumage and

particularly by the thick tuft of feathers that adorns its head. This
beautiful headdress of fine plumage, so proudly spread out in fine
weather, is, when once wet by rain, nothing but an ungraceful rag,
heavy and tangled, which tires the bird and makes the rustic life of
the poultry-yard impossible as far as it is concerned.
“The Houdan fowl wears a thickly tufted top-knot which is thrown
back over the nape of the neck. Sometimes this headdress covers the
eyes so completely that the bird cannot see in front nor sidewise, but
only on the ground, which makes it uneasy at the slightest noise. The
plumage is speckled black and white, with glints of purple and green.
The cheeks and the base of the beak are draped with little upturned
feathers. Each foot has five toes instead of four, the usual number—
not counting the cock’s spur, which is simply a horn, a fighting
weapon, and not a toe. Three of the toes point forward and two
backward.

“The fowl of la Flèche, so renowned for the delicacy [28]of its flesh
and its aptness for fattening, has no crest and is long-legged, with
black plumage of green and purple luster. The legs are blue and the
comb rises in two little red horns.

“Similar but better developed horns, accompanied by a thick

headdress of feathers, adorn the Crève-cœur species. The hen is a
beautiful black; the cock wears, against body plumage of the same
dark color, a rich gold or silver tippet.

“Finally, to the large species belongs the Cochin-China, an ungraceful

bird, with very strong body and shapeless and disordered plumage,
generally reddish white. Its eggs are brownish in color.” [29]
[Contents]
CHAPTER IV
 THE EGG
“When moistening your slices of bread with egg, has it ever occurred
to you to examine a little the structure of what furnishes your
repast? I think not. To-day I am going to tell you something about
this: I will show you in detail this wonder called an egg.

“First, let us examine the shell. In hens’ eggs it is all white, as also in
those of ducks and geese. Turkeys’ eggs are speckled with a
multitude of little pale red spots. But it is particularly the eggs of
undomesticated birds that are remarkable for their coloring. There
are sky-blue ones, such as those of certain blackbirds; rose color for
certain warblers; and somber green with a tinge of bronze is found,
for example, in the eggs of the nightingale. The coloring is
sometimes uniform, sometimes enhanced by darker spots, or by a
haphazard sprinkling of pigment, or by odd markings resembling
some sort of illegible handwriting. Many rapacious birds, chiefly
those of the sea, lay eggs with large fawn-colored spots that make
them look like the pelt of a leopard. I will not dwell longer on this
subject, interesting though it may be, as in telling you the [30]story
of the auxiliary birds I have already described the eggs of the
principal kinds.”

“I have taken care,” interposed Jules, “to remember the curious

variety of coloring that eggs have. I recall very distinctly the
nightingale’s, green like an olive; the goldfinch’s, spotted with
reddish brown, especially at the larger end; the crow’s, bluish green
with brown spots; and so many others that I hesitate to say which
are my favorites, so nearly equal are they in beauty.”
“Let us learn now about the nature of the shell,” his uncle continued.
“The substance of the shell is, in the hen’s egg, as white as marble;
its own color not being disguised by any foreign pigment. This pure
white and its other characteristics, hardness and clean fracture, do
they not tell you of what substance the shell is composed?”

“Either appearances deceive me greatly,” answered Louis, “or the

shell is simply made of stone.”

“Yes, my friend, it is indeed of stone, but stone selected with

exquisite care and refined as it were, in the bird’s body.

“In its nature the eggshell does not differ from common building-
stone; or rather, on account of its extreme purity, it does not differ
from the chalk that you use on the blackboard, or from the
magnificent white marble that the sculptor seeks for the
masterpieces of his chisel. Building-stone, marble, and chalk are at
bottom the same substance, which is called lime, limestone, or
carbonate of lime. The differences, [31]great as they may be, have to
do with the state of purity and degree of consistency. That which
building-stone contains in a state of impurity from other ingredients
is contained also in white marble and chalk, but free from any
admixture. Thus in its nature the eggshell is identical with chalk and
marble, harder than the first, less hard than the second, being
between the two in an intermediate state of pure lime. To clothe the
egg, therefore, with a solid envelope, the hen and all birds without
exception use the same material as the sculptor works with in his
studio and the scholar uses on the blackboard.

“Now, no animal creates matter; none makes its body, with all that
comes from it, out of nothing. The bird does not find within itself the
material for the eggshell; it gets it from outside with its food. Amid
the grain that is thrown to her the hen finds little bits of stone left
there through imperfect cleaning; she swallows them without
hesitation, knowing full well, however, that they are little stones and
not kernels of wheat. That is not enough; you will see her all day
long scratching and pecking here and there in the poultry-yard. Now
and then she digs up some worm, her great delicacy, and from time
to time some fragment of limestone, which she turns to account with
as much satisfaction as if she had found a plump insect.”

“I have often seen hens swallowing little stones like that,” remarked
Emile. “I thought it was all their own carelessness or gluttonous
haste, but now [32]I begin to suspect the truth. Would not those little
stones be useful in making the eggshell?”

“You are right, my little friend. The particles of lime swallowed with
the food are converted into a fine pap, dissolved by the digestive
action of the stomach. By a rigorous sorting the pure lime is
separated from the rest, and it is made into a sort of chalk soup
which at the right moment oozes around the egg and hardens into a
shell. By swallowing little particles of lime, the hen, as you see, lays
by materials for her eggshell. If these materials were wanting, if the
food given her did not include lime, if, imprisoned in a cage, she
could not procure carbonate of lime for herself by pecking in the
ground, she would lay eggs without any shell and simply covered
with a flabby skin.”

“Those soft eggs that hens sometimes lay come then from lack of
lime?” asked Louis.

“They either come from the bird’s not having had the necessary
carbonate of lime in her food or in the earth she pecked, or else her
bad state of health did not permit the transformation of the little
stones into that chalky pap which molds itself around the egg and
becomes the shell. In countries where carbonate of lime is scarce in
the soil, or even totally lacking, it is the custom to break up the
eggshells and mix the coarse powder in the fowl’s food. It is a very
judicious way of giving the hen in the most convenient form, the
stony matter necessary for the perfect formation of the egg.”

“Sometimes,” observed Louis, “we find on the [33]dunghill eggs of a

queer shape and as soft as hens’ eggs without the shell. Instead of a
chicken, a snake comes out of them. They say they are laid by
young cocks.”

“You are repeating now one of the false notions prevalent in the
country—a foolish notion springing from a basis of actual fact. It is
perfectly true that eggs soft, rather long, almost cylindrical, and of
the same size at both ends, may be turned up by the fork as it stirs
the warm manure of a dunghill. It is also perfectly true that from
these eggs snakes are hatched, to the great surprise of the innocent
person who thinks he sees there the product of some witchcraft.
What is false is the supposed origin of the egg. Never, never has the
cock, be he young or old, the faculty reserved exclusively for the
hen, the faculty of laying. Those eggs found in dunghills, and
remarkable for their strange shape, do not come from fowl; they are
simply the eggs of a serpent, of an inoffensive snake which, when
opportunity offers, buries its laying in the warm mass of a dunghill to
aid the hatching. It is quite natural, then, that from serpents’ eggs
serpents should hatch.”

“The ridiculous marvel of the supposed cock’s eggs,” returned Louis,

“thus becomes a very simple thing; but one must first know that
serpents lay eggs.”

“Henceforth you will know that not only serpents but all reptiles lay
eggs just as birds do. Snakes’ eggs are flabby, and for covering have
only a sort of skin resembling wet parchment. Moreover, they are
[34]long in shape, which is far from being the usual form. But the
eggs of some reptiles, notably of lizards, have the shell firm and of
the fine oval shape peculiar to birds’ eggs. If you ever encounter in
holes in the wall, or in dry sand well exposed to the sun, little eggs,
all white, with shell as fine as a little canary bird’s, do not cry out at
the strangeness of your discovery; you will simply have come across
the eggs of a gray lizard, the usual inhabitant of old walls.” [35]
[Contents]
CHAPTER V
THE EGG
 (Continued)
“Let us return to the hen. We know the calcareous nature of the
shell; now let us look at the structure. Open your eyes wide and look
attentively; you will see on the shell, chiefly at the large end, a
multitude of tiny dents such as might be made by the point of a fine
needle. Each of these dents corresponds to an invisible hole that
pierces the shell through and through and establishes
communication between the interior and the exterior. These holes,
much too small to let out the liquid contents of the egg, nevertheless
suffice both for the emission of humid vapors, which are dissipated
outside the shell, and for the admission of air, which penetrates
within and replaces the evaporated humidity.

“The presence of these innumerable openings is absolutely

necessary for the awakening and keeping up of life in the future
chicken. Every living thing breathes, and all life springs into being
and continues through the action of air. The seed that germinates
under ground must have air. Planted too deep, it perishes sooner or
later without being able to rise, because the thick bed of earth
prevents [36]the air from reaching it. The egg must have air so that
its substance, gently warmed by the brooding mother hen, may
spring into life and become a little chicken; it must have it
continually, shut up as it is in its shell. Thanks to the openings with
which the shell is riddled, the air penetrates sufficiently to meet the
needs of respiration; it quickens the substance of the egg and the
little being slowly forming within.”

“One might say,” Emile here put in, “that these holes are so many
little windows through which air reaches the bird in its narrow cell of
the egg.”
“These windows, as Emile calls them,” his uncle went on, “deserve
our attention from another point of view. Eggs are a precious
alimentary provision; the difficulty is to keep them for any length of
time. If they get too old they spoil and give out then an infectious,
bad smell. Well, then, what causes the eggs to spoil and changes
them to repulsive-smelling filth is again air—the same air so
indispensable to the formation of the chicken. That which gives life
to the egg under the heat of the brooding hen brings destruction
just as quickly when the warmth is wanting. If, then, it is proposed
to preserve in a state of freshness as long as possible eggs destined
for food, it is necessary to prevent the access of air into their
interior, which is done by closing the openings in the shell. Several
means may be employed. Sometimes eggs are plunged for a
moment into melted grease, from which they are drawn out covered
with a coating that obstructs all the orifices; sometimes they are
varnished. The simplest [37]method is to keep them in water in which
a little lime has been dissolved. This dissolved lime deposits itself on
the shell and closes the openings. These precautions taken, the air
can no longer find a passage to penetrate into the interior and the
eggs are preserved in good condition much longer than they would
be without this preparation. Nevertheless they always spoil in the
long run.”

“If I have properly understood what you have just told us about the
need of air for the awakening of life,” remarked Jules, “eggs thus
coated with varnish or lime will not hatch when under the brooding
hen?”

“Evidently not. Rendered impervious to air by the varnish, lime,

grease, or what not, the eggs might remain indefinitely under the
brooding hen without ever coming to life; for want of the quickening
action of the air, life would no more awaken in them than in simple
stones. You understand, then, that the method of preservation by
means of a coating that closes the orifices of the shell must only be
employed for eggs destined for food, and that care must be taken
not to make use of it in those destined for hatching.

“But this is enough about the outside of the egg. Now let us break
the shell. What do we find within? We find a delicate membrane, a
supple skin which lines the whole of the shell and forms a kind of
bag, without any opening, filled with the white and yolk. When by
some accident the limy coating is lacking, this membrane constitutes
the sole covering of the [38]egg—a covering as soft as thin
parchment soaked in water.”

“Then soft eggs without any shell have this membrane all exposed?”
queried Jules.

“Exactly. A new-laid egg has its shell completely filled; but it soon
loses some of its humidity, which evaporates through the orifices in
the shell. A void is then created in the interior, near the large end,
where the evaporation is most rapid. At this end, therefore, the
membrane detaches itself from the shell that it lined and draws
further in with the contents of the egg shrunk by the evaporation.
Thus is produced at the large end a cavity which the air from outside
enters and which for this reason is called the air-chamber. This
chamber, wanting at first, grows little by little according to the space
left by the moisture’s evaporation; consequently, the older the egg,
the larger the space. If the egg is placed under the hen, the heat of
the mother aids evaporation and causes the quick formation of the
air-chamber. There gathers, as in a reservoir, the supply of air
needed for the vitality of the egg and the respiration of the coming
bird. So the empty space at the large end is a respiratory
storehouse.

“When you eat an egg boiled in the shell, break it carefully at the
large end. If the egg is very fresh the white will be seen immediately
under the shell without any empty space; but if it is old you will find
an unoccupied hollow of varying size. That is the air-chamber.
According to its size you can judge of the egg’s freshness. But it
would be more desirable [39]to be able to recognize, before using
and breaking it, whether an egg is fresh or stale. I have seen the
following means used, which would seem very strange if what I have
just told you about the air-chamber did not furnish the explanation.
The tip of the tongue is applied to the large end. If the egg is fresh
a slight impression of coolness can be felt; if stale, the tongue
remains warm. This little mystery is based on the different manner
of behavior of liquids and gases when brought into contact with
heat. Water and liquids in general take away rather quickly the heat
of the bodies with which they come in contact; air and other gases,
on the contrary, take it away very slowly. That is why water seems
cold when we plunge our hand into it, while the air, lower in
temperature, seems warm by comparison. In reality, if both be of
the same temperature, air and water give us different sensations:
water is cool to us because it draws our heat away; air warm
because it does not take away that same heat. So if the egg is fresh,
and consequently the shell completely filled, the tip of the tongue
applied to the large end feels the same sensation as comes from
contact with liquids; that is to say, a feeling of coolness. But if the
egg is stale, an air-chamber has formed and the resulting sensation
is that produced by contact with a gas; that is to say, a sensation of
warmth, since the tongue loses none of its natural heat.”

“That is certainly a curious test,” said Jules, “and I shall make it a

point to carry it out at the next opportunity.” [40]

“Let us go on with the egg. Now comes the glair or white, so called
because heat hardens it to a pure white matter. For the same
reason, science calls it albumen, from a Latin word, albus, meaning
white. The glair is arranged in a number of layers, which at both
ends of the egg twist round one another and form two large knotty
cords called chalazæ. To see these cords you must break a raw egg
carefully in a plate. Then you can distinguish, on each side of the
yolk, a mass where the glair is thicker and rather knotty. There,
somewhat injured by the breaking of the egg, are found the two
cords in question. To give you a clear idea, take an orange, put it in
your handkerchief, and twist the latter in opposite directions at both
ends. The orange in its handkerchief covering will represent the
spherical yolk surrounded by the glair; the two twisted ends of the
handkerchief will be the two strings of white, the two chalazæ. By
means of these two tethers the yolk, the most important and most
delicate part of the egg, is suspended as in a hammock, in the
center of the glair, without being exposed to disturbances that would
be dangerous for the germ of life situated at a point on its surface.
This glairy hammock, with its two suspending cords, has another
rôle—a very delicate one. The first outlines of the coming chick will
appear at a certain point of the yolk. As the little being forms and
grows, it needs more space while still remaining tightly enveloped
and held in position so as to avoid the slightest disturbance in the
half fluid flesh just beginning to assume its [41]proper shape. How
are these conditions realized in the egg? To understand the matter
thoroughly let us go back to the orange wrapped in a handkerchief
twisted at both ends. Is it not true that if both ends untwist a little,
the orange, supposing it to need by degrees more room, will always
find the necessary space without for a moment ceasing to be
enveloped and motionless? In the same manner the suspending
cords of the white slacken and gradually untwist as the little bird
grows, at the expense of the yolk, in its soft hammock of glair; the
needed space is made, and at the same time the feeble little bird
remains just as finely swaddled and suspended in the center of the
egg, protected from contact with the hard shell.”
“At the beginning,” interposed Jules, “you called an egg a marvel. I
see that there are, in fact, in the egg things very worthy of our
admiration: the shell, with its numerous air-holes; the cavity at the
large end; the air-chamber where provision is made for breathing;
the soft little bed of glair with its suspending cords that untwist to
make more room, and perhaps that is not all?”

“No, my friend, that is very far from being all. I limit myself here to
the simplest things and those that are not beyond your grasp. How
would it be if you could follow me in the unfolding of higher ideas?
You would see how everything in the egg is arranged with infinite
delicacy, with a foresight that we may call maternal, and then you
would find my word marvel the right one. But, not to go beyond
[42]your small powers of comprehension, I abridge, much to my
regret.

“The yolk or yelk (which means the yellow part) is round and bright
yellow; hence its name. At a point on its surface, generally at the
top, no matter what the position of the egg, is seen a circular spot,
dull white, where the matter is a little more condensed than
elsewhere. It is called the cicatricle, or little scar. That is the sacred
spot where lies the spark of life which, animated by incubation, will
quicken the substance of the egg and mold it into a living being; it is
the point of departure, the origin, the germ of the bird. The yolk
itself is the nutritive reservoir whence are drawn the materials for
this work of creation. Quickened by the heat of the brooding hen
and by the action of the air, it becomes covered with a network of
fine veins. These swell with the substance of the yolk, which turns to
blood; and this blood, carried hither and thither, becomes the flesh
of the being in process of formation. The yolk, then, is the bird’s first
food, but food that no beak seizes and no stomach digests, none
being in existence yet. It changes to blood and afterward to flesh
without the preparatory work of ordinary digestion; it enters the
veins directly, and thus nourishes the whole body.

“Animals with udders—the mammifers—also have nutriment for the

very young in the form of milk, which is indispensable for the weak
stomach of the nursling. Well, the yolk is to the bird in its shell what
milk is to the lamb and kitten; it is its milk-food, [43]as it can have no
recourse to maternal udders. The popular saying has perfectly
caught the strict resemblance: they call a drink prepared with the
yolk of an egg, ‘hen’s milk.’ ”

“That is what Mother Ambroisine makes me take when I cough in

the winter,” said Emile.

“The delicious beverage that Mother Ambroisine gives you when you
have a cold is very properly called ‘hen’s milk,’ since it is made with
the equivalent of milk; that is to say, the yolk of an egg.” [44]
[Contents]
CHAPTER VI
 INCUBATION
“Incubation means lying upon. The brooding bird does in fact crouch or lie upon her eggs, warming
them with the heat of her body for a number of days with indefatigable patience. When a hen
wishes to set, 1 she makes it known by her repeated cluckings, little cries of maternal anxiety, by her
ruffled feathers, her restless movements, and particularly by the perseverance with which she stays
on the nest, even when it has no eggs, where she has been in the habit of laying.

“Some hens with wandering dispositions go back to the instincts of their wild race. They leave the
hen-house and seek a hedge or thicket, where they select a hiding-place to suit them, and there
make a little hollow in the earth which they line as well as they can with a mattress of dry grass,
leaves, and feathers. That is a nest in the rough, without art, a shapeless construction in comparison
with the clever masterpiece of the chaffinch and goldfinch. It is, furthermore, worthy of remark that
all the domestic birds, as if man’s intervention had destroyed their skill by freeing them from want,
fail to display in [45]the construction of their nests the admirable resourcefulness shown by most wild
birds. Here might be repeated the saying, as true for man as for beast, necessity is the mother of
invention. Sure of finding, when the time comes for laying, the basket stuffed with hay by the hand
of the housewife, the domestic fowl does not trouble herself to build a nest, an undertaking in which
the tiniest bird of the fields shows itself a consummate architect. At the most, when her adventurous
disposition makes her prefer the perilous shelter of the hedge to the safe retreat of the poultry-yard,
the hen, gleaning with her beak a few straws and leaves, and plucking, if need be, some of her own
feathers, succeeds in making, for her period of brooding, a disordered heap rather than a nest.
There, every day, unknown to all, she goes and lays her egg. Then for three whole weeks she is not
to be seen, or only at intervals. That is the time of incubation. At last, some fine day, she reappears,
very proud, at the head of a family of young chickens, peeping and pecking around her.”

“I should like,” said Emile, “to have some hens that set like that in the fields and then come home
again some day with their family of little chickens.”

“I must admit it is a sight worthy of interest, that of a hen that has stolen her nest returning to the
farmhouse at the head of her newly hatched young chickens. Her eyes shine with satisfaction; her
clucking has something joyful about it. ‘Look,’ she seems to say to those who welcome her, ‘see how
[46]fine, alert, and vigorous these young chickens are; they are all mine; I raised them there all alone
in a corner of the hedge, and now I bring them to you. Am I not a fine hen?’ Yes, my dear biddy,
you are a fine hen, but also an imprudent one. In the fields prowl the weasel and the marten which,
if you are absent a moment, will suck the blood of your little ones; in the fields the fox is watching to
wring your neck; in the fields there are cold, rain, bad weather, grave peril for your shivering family.
You would do better to remain at home.

“The greater number follow this prudent advice and do not leave the poultry-yard. In the semi-
obscurity of a sheltered quiet corner is placed the egg-basket, lined with a bed of hay or of crumpled
straw. In it are put from twelve to fifteen eggs, the largest and freshest being chosen, and preferably
those not more than a week old. If they were two or three weeks old they would not be sure to
hatch, as in many of them the germ would have become too old and would have lost the power to
develop. These arrangements made, the eggs are left to the setting hen without being touched
again.
“Whoever has not seen a setting hen has missed one of the most touching sights in this world: the
devotion of the mother-bird to her eggs, her self-forgetfulness even to the point of sacrificing her
own life. Her eyes shine with fever, her skin burns. Eating and drinking are forgotten, and in order
not to leave her eggs a moment a hen might even let herself die of hunger on the nest if some one
did not [47]come every day and gently take her off and make her eat. Others, less persevering, leave
the basket of their own accord, snatch up a little food, and immediately go back to the nest.”

“Do hens keep up that tiresome setting very long?” asked Emile.

“It takes twenty or twenty-one days for the young chickens to come out of the shell. During the
whole of that time, night and day, the mother remains squatting on the eggs, except for the rare
moments that she spares, as if grudgingly, for the necessities of nourishment. Her only distraction in
this complete retirement is to turn the eggs over every twenty-four hours and change their place,
moving those outside into the center, and vice versa, so that all may have an equal share of heat.
That is a delicate operation, and it must be left to the hen’s care to move the eggs with her beak.
Let us be careful not to interfere with our clumsy hands, for the bird knows better than we how to
manage it.”

“If the hen is so careful to move the eggs every day and give them all the same amount of heat,”
said Jules, “it must be heat alone that makes them hatch?”

“Yes, my friend, simply the heat of the mother makes the eggs hatch. That is why the hen can be
dispensed with and the eggs hatched by artificial heat, provided it be well regulated, gentle, and
continued for a long time without interruption. The Egyptians, an ancient people of great skill,
practised this method thousands of years ago. They put the [48]eggs by hundreds of dozens into a
sort of oven gently heated for three weeks, the period of natural incubation. At the end of that time
the peepings of the countless brood did not fail to announce the success of the operation.”

“What a big family that oven-hatched brood must have been!” exclaimed Emile. “It would have taken
a hundred hens to set on all the eggs, but in this way they were all hatched at once.”

“A setting hen ceases to lay, and it was doubtless in order not to interrupt the beneficent daily
production of eggs that the Egyptians invented artificial incubation in an oven. For the same reason
sometimes with us recourse is had to this means, especially where the raising of poultry is made a
business; only the incubation is no longer carried out in an oven but in ingeniously contrived
incubators. In a drawer, on a bed of hay, the eggs are placed in a single layer. Above, and separated
from the brooder by a sheet-iron partition, is a bed of water, which a lamp, kept always alight,
warms and maintains at the temperature that the hen’s body would give; that is to say, forty degrees
centigrade. In twenty-one days under this warm ceiling the eggs hatch just as they would under the
hen.”

“Oh, Uncle,” cried Emile, “I should really like to have an incubator like that in a corner of my room
and watch the progress of the hatching every day by opening the drawer.”

“What you would like to do, others, more skilful, have already done, not only opening the drawer but
[49]breaking an egg each day so as to see how things are going. I told you that the germ of the bird
is a round spot of dull white, the cicatricle, which by its mobility is always on top at the surface of
the yolk, no matter what the position of the egg. After five or six hours of incubation you can already
distinguish in the center of the cicatricle a minute glairy swelling which will be the head, and a line
which will be the backbone. Pretty soon there begins to beat, at regular intervals, the organ most
necessary to life, the heart, which chases through a network of
fine veins the blood formed, little by little, out of the substance of
the yolk, and distributes it everywhere to furnish materials to the
other organs just coming into being. It is toward the second day
that these first heart-beats, destined to continue henceforth until
death, become apparent. Thus irrigated with running flesh—for
blood is nothing else—this organism thenceforward makes rapid
progress. The eyes show themselves and form a large black spot
on each side of the head; the quills of the large feathers form in
their sheaths; the scales of the feet are outlined in a bluish tint;
the bones, at first gelatinous, acquire firmness by becoming
incrusted with a small quantity of stony matter. [50]From the tenth
day all the parts of the young chicken are well formed. The little
being, softly suspended in its hammock by means of the two
suspending cords that untwist little by little to give more room as it
grows, is bent over on itself, the head folded against the breast
and hidden under its wing. Note, my friends, that it is precisely this
attitude of deep sleep inside the egg that the hen assumes when
she wants to sleep. Crouched on her perch, she again folds her
head on her breast and tucks it under her wing, just as she did
when she was a little chicken in its shell.
Incubator
“In the meantime the little bird keeps growing on the yellow and
white matter; matter which soaks and penetrates it and, vivified by the air, becomes its blood and its
flesh. One day it breaks the thin membrane under the shell, and there it is more at ease with the
increase of space given it by the air-chamber. Now an attentive ear can distinguish feeble peepings
inside the shell; it is the seventeenth or eighteenth day. A couple of days more, and the young
chicken, summoning all its strength, will apply itself to the arduous work of deliverance. A pointed
callosity, made expressly for the purpose, has formed on the upper part of the tip-end of the beak.
Here is the tool, the pick, for opening its prison; a tool for that particular purpose and of very short
duration, which will disappear as soon as the shell is pierced. With this provisional pick, the little
chicken begins to hammer the shell; perseveringly it pushes, strikes, scratches, until the stone
[51]wall yields. For the most vigorous it takes several hours. Oh, joy! the shell is broken; there is the
young chicken’s little head, and all yellow velvety down, and still wet with the moisture of the egg.
The mother comes to its aid and completes its deliverance; others, weaker or less skilful, take
twenty-four hours of painful effort to free themselves. Some even exhaust themselves in the
undertaking and perish miserably in the egg without succeeding in breaking the shell.”

“Those are the very ones the mother ought to help,” said Jules.

“She would be careful not to, for fear of a worse accident than a difficult birth. How could she direct
her blows accurately enough not to wound the tender little chicken just inside the shell? The
slightest false move would cause a wound, and at so tender an age any wound is death. We
ourselves, with all the dexterity and care possible, could not, without danger, help the bird in
distress; it can be tried as a last resort, but the chance of success is very small. The young chicken is
the only one capable of carrying through this delicate deliverance if strength does not fail it. The hen
knows this wonderfully well, and so does not interfere except to finish freeing the prisoner when half
out of its shell. Let us hope that things will turn out as we wish, and that on the twenty-first day the
whole family may be warmed under the mother’s wings without mortal accident at the moment of
hatching.

“From the instant of leaving the shell the young [52]chickens already know how to peck food and how
to run around the mother who, clucking, leads the way. They have besides a little fur of downy hair
that clothes them warmly. This development is not found in all birds; far from it. Pigeons, for
example, come naked from the egg and do not know how to eat; the father and mother have to feed
them by disgorging a mouthful of food into their beaks. The young of the warbler, chaffinch,
goldfinch, tomtit, lark, in fact of nearly all the field birds, are naked, very weak, at first blind, and
completely incapable of feeding themselves, even with the food just under their beaks. The parents,
with infinite tenderness, have for a number of days to bring it to them and put it into their beaks.”

“That is a difference that has always struck me,” commented Jules. “Little sparrows open their
mouths wide to receive the food offered them, but for a long time they do not know how to take it
even if it is put at the very end of their beak. On the contrary, little chickens easily pick up from the
ground for themselves the seeds and worms that the mother digs up for them.”

“I will tell you, if you do not already know,” continued Uncle Paul, “that the young of the duck,
turkey, goose, and, among wild birds, the partridge and quail, have the same precocity as those of
the hen. They are clothed with down on coming out of the egg, and know how to eat. One of the
causes of this difference in the way young birds act immediately after [53]hatching comes from the
size of the egg. The chick is formed wholly from the substances contained in the egg; the larger the
egg in proportion to the size of the animal, the stronger and more developed the young. Therefore
the kind with the largest eggs are clothed at the time of hatching; they can run and know how to
eat, unaided. Where the eggs are relatively small the young are hatched weak, naked, blind, and for
a long time, motionless in their nest, demand the mother’s beakful of food.

“The largest egg known is that of an enormous bird that formerly lived in the island of Madagascar,
and of which the species appears to-day to have been completely destroyed. This bird is called the
epyornis. It was three or four meters tall and thus rivaled in stature a very long-legged horse or,
better still, the animal called a giraffe. Such birds ought to lay monstrous eggs; such in fact they are;
their length is three decimeters and a half and their capacity nearly nine liters.”

“Nine liters!” exclaimed Emile. “Oh, what an egg! Our large vinegar jug only holds ten liters.
Certainly the young that come from that ought to know how to run and to eat.”

“To equal in bulk the egg of the epyornis it would take one hundred and forty-eight hen’s eggs.”

“I think they could make a famous omelet with only one of those eggs.”

“A fine large one could be made, too, with an ostrich-egg, which in size represents nearly two dozen
[54]hen’s eggs. It need not be added that young ostriches know how to run and to eat as soon as
they come out of the shell.

“Those are the largest eggs; now let us consider the smallest ones. They are those of the humming-
bird, a charming creature whose splendid plumage would outshine the most brilliant costly metals,
precious stones, and jewels. There are some as small as our large wasps and that certain spiders
catch in their webs just as the spiders of our country catch gnats. Their nest is a cup of cotton no
bigger than half an apricot. Judge then the size of the eggs. It would take three hundred and forty to
make one hen’s egg, and fifty thousand to make one laid by the epyornis.”
“I imagine the little humming-birds in their nest must be all naked at first and blind, taking their food
from their mother’s beak.”

“From the smallness of the egg it could not be otherwise.” [55]

Uncle Paul and his nephews are here allowed to defy the purist, as they probably would in real life.—Translator. ↑
1
[Contents]
CHAPTER VII
 THE YOUNG CHICKENS
“The hatching of the eggs does not take place all at once;
sometimes it is twenty-four hours before all the eggs are broken. A
danger thus arises. Divided between her desire to continue setting
and her wish to give her attention to the newly born, the mother
may make some sudden movement and unintentionally trample on
the tender creatures, or even leave the nest too soon, which would
cause the loss of the backward eggs. What, then, is to be done? The
first-born are taken as carefully as possible and placed in a basket
stuffed with wool or cotton and put in a warm place near the fire.
When the whole family is hatched it is restored to the mother.

“The first days are hard ones for the young chickens; they are so
delicate, poor little things, so chilly under their light yellow down.
Where will they be kept at first? Shall it be with the grown-up
poultry, a turbulent crowd, quarrelsome, rough, and without any
consideration for the weak? What would become of them, the little
innocents, not yet well balanced on their legs, in the midst of the
greedy hens which, in scratching for worms, might give them some
brutal kick? How dangerous for them to be with the quarrelsome
cocks that disdain to look out [56]for the frightened little giddy-heads
straying about under their very spurs! No, no, that is not the place
for them.

“What they require is a place set apart, isolated from the rough
grown-up poultry, heated to a mild temperature, and carpeted with
fine straw. If this place is wanting, recourse is had to a coop, a sort
of large cage, under which the mother is placed with some food.
Sometimes the bars of this refuge are far enough apart to permit the
young chickens to come in and go out at will, so as to enjoy their
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