Seediq has a Philippine type voice system, often called focus system. There are three voices in Seediq: Agent Voice, Goal Voice, and Conveyance Voice. While all Seediq verb forms except Hortative forms are used as both the head of a predicate phrase and as the head of a referential phrase without any morphological change, a verb phrase with Conveyance Voice Future form as its head can function as an adverbial phrase as well, in addition to the two functions noted above. When a CV Future phrase is used adverbially, it expresses purpose or irrealis.
In this paper CV Future phrases that function adverbially are labeled “Irrealis phrases”. This paper reports the behavior of Irrealis phrases. The internal structure of Irrealis phrases is just the same as any other verb phrases that function as a referential phrase. Although it expresses an event, it is a phrase, since it contains no subject. It functions as the predicate, the subject, or the oblique element of a main clause. A comparison of Irrealis phrases and similar constructions allows understanding the meaning of the Irrealis phrase: it expresses a future event that is unrealized, and will happen at an unknown time. That only the CV future phrase has such an adverbial usage is explained, at least partially, from its high clause-ness. Though it lacks an important property of a clause, i.e., it contains no subject inside, both Agent and Patient can appear simultaneously in a CV clause.