Dear Fatemah,<div><br></div><div>These examples look like what is sometimes called a 'non-promotional' passive. (I believe the term is originally due to T. Givon. ) These are passives where the Actor is suppressed, but the Undergoer still shows signs of being an object.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The correct analysis of the Spanish impersonal passive is controversial, but on one view, we have a situation similar to the Persian in examples like the following:</div><div><br></div><div>Active:</div>
<div>El curó a los niños. 'He cured the children.'</div><div>he cured to the children</div><div><br></div><div>Impersonal Passive:</div><div>Se curó a los niños. 'The children were cured.'</div>
<div>pass cured to the children</div><div><br></div><div>The "a" is a differential object marker which appears before a specific human object. So that seems to argue that "a los niños" is still the object of the sentence.</div>
<div><br></div><div>(Others more familiar with the right analysis of Spanish, please jump in!)</div><div><br></div><div>I believe that there is a similar impersonal passive in Irish, which might be worth investigating.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Aaron Broadwell<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Fatemeh Nemati <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fatemene@gmail.com">fatemene@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Dear all, <br><br>First of all, I want to thank George Aaron Broadwell and Andrew Koontz-Garboden for their kind feedback regarding my inquiry on passive vs. inchoative constructions. <br>Now my second inquiry on passives in Persian: <br>
I have come across a kind of passive construction in Persian that involves Indirect Objects and want to know if you have come across this
phenomenon (given that the existence of passive constructions in Persian is questioned by some researches (Moyne 1974, Vahedi-Langrudi)). <br>In canonical type of
passive, the agent with the grammatical function subject gets suppressed
and the patient functioning as the direct object is linked to the the
Subject function. This type is attested and described in Persian, as in
many other languages (1-2). What is interesting is that passivization
applies to structures lacking a direct object. These sentences in both
active and passive voice are of the configuration illustrated in (3-4). <br>
<br>1.ACTIVE<br>SUBJ OBJ V<br><u>sina </u> <u>xane-i</u> <u>saxt</u>.<br>Sina house-a built<br>Sina built a house. <br><br><br>2. PASSIVE<br>SUBJ V<br><u>xane-i</u> <u>saxte Sod</u><br>house-a built become<br>
A house was built. <br> <br><br>3. ACTIVE:<br>SUBJ IO V<br><u>doSman</u> <u>be anha</u> hamle kard<br>enemy to they attack did<br><br>The enemy attacked them. <br><br>
4. PASSIVE<br>IO V<br><u>be anha</u> <u>hamle Sod</u><br>to they attack become<br>They were attacked. <br><br>As
it can be observed, the agent is suppressed, but as for the Indirect
Object functioning as the subject, one can not claim such a thing,
because according to the grammar of Persian, a propositional phrase can
not function as a subject. A fact about Persian is that it is a pro-drop
language, but positing the existence of a small "pro" in the place of
the Subject would not be a solution because it ends up in violating the
coherence condition, as there will be an extra function which is not
designated by the passive verb. As for agreement on the verb, the verb takes an unmarked third
person agreement; it does not show agreement with the pronoun
contained in the IO, which is the affected entity from a semantic point
of view. I am curious to know
if there is any other language that shows these properties where a
sentence containing an Indirect Object is passivized, the subject is
suppressed, the indirect object remains intact and finally in ends up in
a subject-less sentence. <br>
The construction, however, is different from impersonal constructions
which are similar to passives. Persian impersonals have a pronoun as the
subject which is referentially non-specific. <br><br>All the best, <br><font color="#888888">Fatemeh<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>George Aaron Broadwell<br>Dept of Anthropology<br>UAlbany SUNY | Albany NY 12222<br>
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