a challenging passive in Persian

Fri Aug 27 07:22:54 UTC 2010

In certain languages, like German and Zulu, intransitive verbs can be
passivized, producing forms which literally mean 'it was danced'; 'it is
worked', where the 'it' is a dummy subject. (Idiomatically translated:
'there was dancing;' 'people are working'). Could this not be a similar
phenomenon? If so, then the direct translation of (4) would be more like
'to them it was attacked', with a non-argument 'pro' subject. (In the
German construction, the dummy subject is an overt pronoun 'es', but in
Zulu it is an empty pronoun, agreeing with the impersonal form of the
verb, marked by the verbal prefix 'ku-'.)

Regards

Andrew

From: Lexical-Functional Grammar List
[mailto:lfg at listserv.linguistlist.org] On Behalf Of Fatemeh Nemati
Sent: 26 August 2010 08:42 PM
To: LFG at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: a challenging passive in Persian

Dear all, 

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. 
Now my second inquiry on passives in Persian: 
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)). 
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). 

1.ACTIVE
SUBJ   OBJ      V
sina     xane-i    saxt.
Sina     house-a built
Sina built a house. 

2. PASSIVE
SUBJ     V
xane-i    saxte Sod
house-a  built  become
A house was built. 

3. ACTIVE:
SUBJ                IO           V
doSman         be anha      hamle kard
enemy           to they       attack did

The enemy attacked them. 

4. PASSIVE
IO          V
be anha hamle Sod
to they  attack become
They were attacked. 

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.

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. 

All the best, 
Fatemeh

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