Austronesian Alignment

Austronesian alignment, commonly known as the Philippine- or Austronesian-type voice system, is a typologically unusual morphosyntactic alignment that combines features of ergative and accusative languages. It is best known from the languages of the Philippines, but is also found in Taiwan, Borneo, Northern Sulawesi, Madagascar, and Guam, and has been reconstructed for the ancestral Proto-Austronesian language. (Only traces of this system remain in other Austronesian languages, such as Malay and Old Javanese.)