Passivization and Typology

Form and function

Editors

Werner Abraham | University of Vienna

Larisa Leisiö | University of Helsinki

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027229809 | EUR 145.00 | USD 218.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027293251 | EUR 145.00 | USD 218.00

Is the passive a unified universal phenomenon? The claim derived from this volume is that the passive, if not universal, has become unified according to function. Language as a means of communication needs the passive, or passive-like constructions, and sooner or later develops them based on other voices (impersonal active, middle, reflexive), specific semantic meanings such as adversativity, or tense-aspect categories (stative,perfect, preterit). Certain contributors review the passives in various languages and language groups, including languages rarely discussed. Another group of contributors takes a novel theoretical approach toward passivization within a broad typological perspective. Among the languages discussed are Vedic, Irish, Mandarin Chinese, Thai, Lithuanian, Mordvin, and Nganasan, next to almost all European languages. Various theoretical frameworks such as Optimality Theory, Modern Structuralist Approaches, Role and Reference Grammar, Cognitive Semantics, Distributed Morphology, and Case Grammar have been applied by the different authors.

[Typological Studies in Language, 68] 2006. x, 553 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.68

Table of Contents

Contributor's addresses | pp. vii–viii

Abbreviations | pp. ix–x

Introduction: Passivization and typology: Form vs. function - a confined survey into the research status quo

Werner Abraham | pp. 1–27

Active–passive and reflexives

Passives in Lithuanian (in comparison with Russian)

Emma Š. Geniušienė | pp. 29–61

Passive and middle in Indo-European: Reconstructing the early Vedic passive paradigm

Leonid Kulikov | pp. 62–81

Triggers — aspectual, semantic, and discourse-pragmatic: case studies

Pragmatic nature of Mandarin passive-like constructions

Marja Peltomaa | pp. 83–114

Development of thùuk passive marker in Thai

Amara Prasithrathsint | pp. 115–131

The passives of Modern Irish

Brian Nolan | pp. 132–164

The passive in Erzya-Mordvin folklore

Merja Salo | pp. 165–190

Grammatical voice and tense-aspect in Slavic

Jun-ichi Toyota and Melisa Mustafović | pp. 191–212

Passive in Nganasan

Larisa Leisiö | pp. 213–230

Actor demotion

'Agent defocusing' revisited: Passive and impersonal constructions in some European languages

Andrea Sansó | pp. 232–273

Relations between Actor-demoting devices in Lithuanian: Dedicated to Emma Geniusiene

Björn Wiemer | pp. 274–309

Grammaticalization in long-term diachrony

The rise and grammaticalization paths of Latin fieri and facere as passive auxiliaries

Michela Cennamo | pp. 311–336

Grammatical relations in passive clauses: A diachronic perspective

T. Givón | pp. 337–350

Argument structure and case

Two types of detransitive constructions in the dialects of Japanese

Kan Sasaki and Akie Yamazaki | pp. 352–372

Passive and argument structure

Tor A. Åfarli | pp. 373–382

Case-driven agree, EPP, and passive in Turkish

Balkız Öztürk | pp. 383–402

A unique feature of the direct passive in Japanese

Kenichi Ariji | pp. 403–440

Actor demotion

Passive as a feature-suppression operation

Dalina Kallulli | pp. 442–460

Event semantics — Aspectual and semantic triggers

The compositional nature of the passive: Syntactic vs. event semantic triggers. "Argument Hypothesis" vs. "Aspect Hypothesis"

Werner Abraham | pp. 462–501

The impersonal passive: voice suspended under aspectual conditions

Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss | pp. 502–517

Simple preterit and composite perfect tense: The role of the adjectival passive

Monika Rathert | pp. 518–543

Author index | pp. 544–547

Subject index | pp. 548–553

“Der Band wird linguistisch gut Eingearbeitete und vor allem Typologen ansprechen. Die vertretenen Sprachen ergeben, soweit wie überseebar ist, ein viel vollständigeres Bild zur Passivkonstruktion als in bisher erschienenen Werken zum Thema. Bemerkenswert is auch, dass die Einleitung (aus der hand Abrahams) sich nicht mit der Aufzählung der einzelne Beiträge und ihrer Kurzwiedergabe begnügt, sondern ein sehr weites Spektrum an Beobachtungen und theoretisch dimensionierten Lösungen zum Thema bestreicht – gewiss originell und zu Nachahmung emfehlbar.”

Konstantin Krasukhin, Moskau, in Linguistische Berichte 213, 2008

Cited by

Cited by 8 other publications

Order by:

Abraham, Werner

2020. Modality in Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics,

Chandra, Pritha & Richa Srishti

2014. The lexicon-syntax interface: Some issues. In The Lexicon–Syntax Interface [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 209], ► pp. 1 ff.

Heaton, Raina

2018. Intransitivizing morphology. Language and Linguistics Compass 12:12

Houser, Michael J., Line Mikkelsen & Maziar Toosarvandani

2011. A Defective Auxiliary in Danish. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 23:3 ► pp. 245 ff.

Kuteva, Tania, Bernd Heine, Bo Hong, Haiping Long, Heiko Narrog & Seongha Rhee

2019. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization,

Luraghi, Silvia, Guglielmo Inglese & Daniel Kölligan

2021. The passive voice in ancient Indo-European languages: inflection, derivation, periphrastic verb forms. Folia Linguistica 55:s42-s2 ► pp. 339 ff.

RAVID, DORIT & LIZZY VERED

2017. Hebrew verbal passives in Later Language Development: the interface of register and verb morphology. Journal of Child Language 44:6 ► pp. 1309 ff.

Zúñiga, Fernando & Seppo Kittilä

2019. Grammatical Voice,

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 september 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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