On the syntactic transitivity of Tagalog Actor-Focus constructions

In the literature of Philippine linguistics, Goal-Focus (GF) constructions in Tagalog have been generally considered as transitive, both syntactically and semantically; however, whether Actor-Focus (AF) constructions should be analyzed as syntactically transitive or intransitive is controversial. This paper addresses the question of the syntactic transitivity of Tagalog AF constructions from a new perspective. We argue two points in this paper. First, AF constructions do not form a homogenous construction type but rather consist of both syntactically and semantically varying construction types: ambient, agentive, patientive, reflexive, and antipassive types. Moreover, AF construction types other than antipassive are clearly intransitive. This means that only antipassive AF constructions should be examined in a discussion of the syntactic transitivity of AF constructions. Second, it is argued that antipassive AF constructions are syntactically intransitive; specifically, in this construction type, nominative agent NPs behave like grammatical arguments of GF constructions, but genitive patient NPs do not. It is concluded that Tagalog AF constructions are best analyzed as syntactically intransitive.