Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume I: Clause Structure, Second edition
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Lgg Typology, Synt Description v. I - Clause structure
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William A. Foley
retains some of the properties of [ −a] arguments of transitive verbs, but also takes on some of those of [ −oblique] arguments of intransitive verbs. These are the impersonal passives illustrated from Dutch (Kirsner (1976); John Verhaar (personal communication)): (152) er woorden daar huizen gebouwd there became(pl) there houses built ‘There were houses built there’ Sentence (152) is formally a passive with the lexically derived passive form of the verb and the passive auxiliary woorden ‘became’. The [ +a] is completely suppressed in this example, but the [ −a] argument does not take on the full properties of the pivot. Note that it remains in the post-auxiliary position of a [ −a] argument of a transitive verb, rather than the pre-auxiliary position of the pivot. It does, however, trigger verb agreement (plural) in the manner of the pivot. The otherwise vacant pivot position is occupied by the ‘dummy’ pronoun er ‘there’. This backgrounding passive construction is permissible whenever one wishes to background the [ +a] argument, either presenting it as [+oblique] or suppressing it entirely; interestingly, it is not restricted to transitive verbs, but is available whenever the verb could occur with a [ +a] argument, for example with unergative intransitive verbs: (153) (a) er wordt door de jongen gefloten there become(sg) by the boys whistled ‘There is whistling by the boys’ (b) er wordt door de studenten gestaakt there become(sg) by the students struck ‘There is a strike by the students’ These sentences are completely pivotless; neither the [ +oblique] [+a] np nor the dummy pivot holder can be the target for control: (154) ↓ ↓ *er werd door de vrouwen gelachen en huilden there became(sg) by the women laughed and cried ‘There was laughing by the women and cried’ Probably the most common usage of backgrounding passives is to present a resulting state which has affected the [ −a] as a consequence of the action of a [ +oblique] or, more usually, suppressed [+a] participant. English presents many examples of this type of backgrounding passive or mediopassive: A typology of information packaging 427 (155) (a) The house was robbed yesterday (b) The roast was overcooked Some languages have distinct passive constructions for the foregrounding and mediopassive backgrounding function. This is particularly common among the Bantu languages, for example, KiSwahili: (156) ↓ ↓ (a) chakula ki-na-pik-w-a na mama food.vii.sg vii.sg-pres-cook-pass-mood by mother ‘The food is being cooked by mother’ ↓ ↓ (b) chakula ki-na-pik-ik-a (*na mama) food.vii.sg vii.sg-pres-cook-pass-mood by mother ‘The food is cooked’ The passive with -w is a foregrounding one. The [ +a] np can be overt, although [ +oblique], and the [−a] appears as the sole [−oblique] np; further, the verb remains dynamic aspectually. The form with -ik is a backgrounding passive: again the [ −a] argument assumes the status of the sole [−oblique] np, but the [ +a] is necessarily suppressed and the verb is aspectually stative. 4.1.3 Summary Table 7.1 summarizes our typology of passive construc- tions. Foregrounding passives seem to be restricted to languages with pivots. This makes sense in view of their function – to get the [ −a] in a prominent position for syntactic purposes, as pivot, a binder of anaphors or target for ellipsis or control. But there is no a-priori reason why a language could not have foregrounding passives for reasons other than access of [ −a] arguments to pivot status. It is certainly conceivable that a pivotless language could have foregrounding passives, for example, to link the [ −a] to topic function in a main clause, but with none of the other diagnostic properties of pivots. We would be justified in analysing this as a foregrounding passive in a pivotless language. Backgrounding passives, as the unmarked type, show no such restric- tions. They are found in languages of all types: pivotless (Ulcha), symmetrical (Sama), asymmetrical nominative–accusative (English, KiSwahili) and asym- metrical ergative–absolutive (Mam). The major parametric difference among languages for backgrounding passives is the degree to which the [ −a] assumes the properties vacated by the now [ +oblique] [+a]. At one extreme is Marathi in which the [ +oblique] [+a] argument seems to retain all or most of its promi- nence in argument structure and grammatical properties tied to this. At the other are languages in which the [ +a] is completely suppressed and all grammatical |
