Verb applicative

A verb applicative is a morpheme

Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a ' is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning.In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes .The concept morpheme differs from the concept word, as many morphemes...

 that increases the valency of a verb

Verb

kalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...

 by adding a new core argument

Verb argument

In linguistics, a verb argument is a phrase that appears in a syntactic relationship with the verb in a clause. In English, for example, the two most important arguments are the subject and the direct object....

 to it. The new argument is a former complement.

A verb applicative is a morpheme

Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a ' is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning.In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes .The concept morpheme differs from the concept word, as many morphemes...

 that increases the valency of a verb

Verb

kalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...

 by adding a new core argument

Verb argument

In linguistics, a verb argument is a phrase that appears in a syntactic relationship with the verb in a clause. In English, for example, the two most important arguments are the subject and the direct object....

 to it. The new argument is a former complement.

For example:

Original: "The cat sleeps on the mat."

Applicated: *"The cat onsleeps the mat."

Passive applicated: *"The mat is onslept (by the cat)."

Tagalog

Tagalog language

Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 22 million people.It is related to Austronesian languages such as Chamorro , Indonesian, Malay, Javanese and Paiwan , Cham , and Tetum...

, like other Filipino language

Filipino language

Filipino is the national language of the Philippines and, along with English, is an official language; designated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. Filipino is an Austronesian language that is based on various existing native languages in the Philippines, with a significant number of Spanish...

s, has a curious system (called a trigger system) that allows multiple kinds of applicatives on verbs to specify different roles for the main argument.