Causative disguised as stative: the affix -ik/-ek in ciCewa1

Discussions of the suffix-ik/-ek, which attaches to the ciCewa verb stem, have generally focused on its valence-reducing properties (Mchombo, 1993, 2004; Dubinsky & Simango, 1996; Seidl & Dimitriadis, 2003). The affix, known as the stative, typically attaches to transitive verbs and has the effect of eliminating the underlying subject from the verb’s argument structure and promoting the underlying object of the verb to the subject grammatical function. This article describes a less common variant of the suffix -ik/-ek in ciCewa which (i) typically attaches to intransitive verbs, and (ii) has the effect of increasing the verb’s valence by one argument. This affix introduces an agentive argument into the verb’s argument structure. It is argued that this transitive affix is a variant of the causative morpheme. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2009, 27(2): 121–13