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Passivization and Typology
Form and function
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
Published online on 1 July 2008
Published online on 1 July 2008
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
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 quoWerner 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 paradigmLeonid Kulikov | pp. 62–81
- Triggers — aspectual, semantic, and discourse-pragmatic: case studies
- Pragmatic nature of Mandarin passive-like constructionsMarja Peltomaa | pp. 83–114
- Development of thùuk passive marker in ThaiAmara Prasithrathsint | pp. 115–131
- The passives of Modern IrishBrian Nolan | pp. 132–164
- The passive in Erzya-Mordvin folkloreMerja Salo | pp. 165–190
- Grammatical voice and tense-aspect in SlavicJun-ichi Toyota and Melisa Mustafović | pp. 191–212
- Passive in NganasanLarisa Leisiö | pp. 213–230
- Actor demotion
- 'Agent defocusing' revisited: Passive and impersonal constructions in some European languagesAndrea Sansó | pp. 232–273
- Relations between Actor-demoting devices in Lithuanian: Dedicated to Emma GeniusieneBjörn Wiemer | pp. 274–309
- Grammaticalization in long-term diachrony
- The rise and grammaticalization paths of Latin fieri and facere as passive auxiliariesMichela Cennamo | pp. 311–336
- Grammatical relations in passive clauses: A diachronic perspectiveT. Givón | pp. 337–350
- Argument structure and case
- Two types of detransitive constructions in the dialects of JapaneseKan Sasaki and Akie Yamazaki | pp. 352–372
- Passive and argument structureTor A. Åfarli | pp. 373–382
- Case-driven agree, EPP, and passive in TurkishBalkız Öztürk | pp. 383–402
- A unique feature of the direct passive in JapaneseKenichi Ariji | pp. 403–440
- Actor demotion
- Passive as a feature-suppression operationDalina 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 conditionsWerner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss | pp. 502–517
- Simple preterit and composite perfect tense: The role of the adjectival passiveMonika 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 (10)
Cited by ten other publications
Ben-Zvi, Galit, Hadass Landau & Dorit Ravid
Luraghi, Silvia, Guglielmo Inglese & Daniel Kölligan
Kuteva, Tania, Bernd Heine, Bo Hong, Haiping Long, Heiko Narrog & Seongha Rhee
RAVID, DORIT & LIZZY VERED
Chandra, Pritha & Richa Srishti
2014. The lexicon-syntax interface. In The Lexicon–Syntax Interface [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 209], ► pp. 1 ff.
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