Seediq – antisymmetry and final particles in a Formosan VOS language

This paper presents data from the Austronesian language Seediq, spoken in taiwan, which has both VOS order and final particles. It will be argued that the coccurrence of these two features is unexpected under a pre-antisymmetric analysis, whereas it is easily captured under an analysis couched in Kayne's Antisymmetry model, under the assumption that VOS order is derived by raising the predicate to a position preceding the subject. An interesting contrast between Seediq final particles and Tagalog second position particles is illustrated, and argued to be the result of different mechanisms deriving verb-initial order in the two languages. An apparent problem concerning the non-interaction of Seediq final particles with what is arguably head raising in Seediq (V->C) is resolved by the proposal that syntactic heads come in two different types, labeled here simply X and Y, which do not interact with each other (in analogy with the A/A' distinction for phrasal positions).