Teotitlán Zapotec: An ‘activizing’ language

Abstract Some languages tend to derive intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, while others tend to derive transitive verbs from intransitive verbs. In this paper, we will argue that Teotitlán Zapotec, an Otomanguean language spoken in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, represents an extreme case of a transitivizing language: the transitive counterpart is almost always morphologically more complex, not only in the anticausative/causative alternations, but also in passive/active alternations, thus, an ‘activizing’ language.