Three impersonal constructions in Muscogee

Abstract

The term “impersonal” typically refers to sentence types with null or dummy subjects (Siewierska 2008, Creissels 2008). Muscogee has three different impersonal constructions in which an affix on a verb leads to an impersonal sentence type. This paper describes the impersonal passive in Muscogee as well as two distinct agentive and nonagentive impersonal affixes with arbitrary human reference. The description is based on narrative texts, elicitation, and 14 hours of conversation.