[Lingtyp] Double-marked passive
Martin Haspelmath
martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de
Mon Mar 22 06:24:50 UTC 2021
Yes, the definition that I use presupposes an understanding of
"verb-coded" and "adposition", but this is typical of definitions: They
work only if their component parts are defined or understood clearly.
So is /bèi/ a verb-coding element in (1) and (4)? It could be said to be
"verb-phrase coding" (as David notes), but the notion of "verb phrase"
is not cross-linguistically applicable in an obvious way. So I would
restrict "passive" (as a comparative concept) to forms where the verb
has an affix (because this is the only situation in which the two sister
constructions are clearly asymmetric). Now is /bèi/ a prefix in (1)?
This would be possible only if /bèi/ in (1) and /bèi/ in (4) are two
different elements – and it seems that we do not want to say this.
Chao rightly asks: "In what sense is the English passive construction
verb-coded?" The English Passive includes an Auxiliary, but there is no
good cross-linguistic definition of "auxiliary", so we don't want to say
that auxiliaries can be criterial for passives. Some English verbs have
what looks like a passive affix (e.g. /-en/ in /tak-en/), but the
English Passive construction does not clearly fall under the definition
that I gave. (A good illustration of "passive" is Siewierska's first
example in her WALS chapter, from Swahili: /chakula kilipik-*wa* (na
Hamisi)/ 'The food was cooked by Hamisi').
There is a tradition of appealing to "tests for subject properties"
(going back to Keenan 1976), but this seems appropriate only at the
language-particular level. Since these tests are different in different
languages, this approach does not work well in a comparative context.
Best,
Martin
Am 21.03.21 um 20:28 schrieb David Gil:
>
> Chao, Martin,
>
> I agree with Chao's characterization of Mandarin (1) as being a
> passive under most or all reasonable definitions thereof; however, I
> fail to see why (4) cannot also be considered to be a passive. In
> (4), /bèi/ is not flagging /jĭngchá/ 'police' but rather is marking
> the entire phrase /jĭngchá tuō-zŏu-le/ — it may thus be analyzed as an
> instance of "verb(-phrase) coding".
>
> Many Southeast Asian languages have paradigms which correspond to that
> in (1) - (4) except that, in the counterpart of (4), the agent phrase
> follows rather than precedes the verb. Such constructions are
> commonly referred to as "passives", or, more specifically, as
> "periphrastic" or sometimes "adversative passives". Moreover, in such
> languages, the counterpart of Mandarin /bèi/ is presumably also
> applying to the verb-plus-agent phrase as a whole. So the only
> obvious difference between such constructions and Mandarin (4) is that
> of word order. (I say "*obvious* difference" because it may be the
> case that syntactic tests will show that /jĭngchá/ in (4) has more
> subject properties than do the usual Southeast Asian postverbal agent
> phrases, in which case the prototypicality of (4) as a passive would
> decrease accordingly. But has anybody shown this to be the case?)
>
> David
>
>
> On 21/03/2021 19:31, Chao Li wrote:
>>
>> Dear Martin,
>>
>> It perhaps depends on what you mean by “verb-coded”. For example, in
>> what sense is the English passive construction verb-coded? In a
>> Mandarin sentence like (1), the meaning is passive and crucially it
>> is coded with the passive morpheme /bèi/, which historically could be
>> used as a verb that means “to suffer”. The single argument in (1) can
>> also correspond to the Patient argument of an active sentence like
>> (2) or (3). Moreover, it can be said that the Agent argument gets
>> suppressed in (1). Therefore, it appears reasonable to analyze (1) as
>> a passive construction both Chinese-internally and
>> crosslinguistically. As for whether a /bèi/-construction like (4) can
>> be analyzed as a passive construction that fits the definition, such
>> an analysis is possible if one accepts the (controversial and
>> debatable) assumption that /bèi/ in (4) assumes not only its primary
>> role of being a passive marker but also an additional role of being a
>> preposition.
>>
>> image.png
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Chao
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 21, 2021 at 10:07 AM Martin Haspelmath
>> <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de <mailto:martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> According to my favourite definition of "passive construction",
>> these Mandarin examples are (apparently) not passive constructions:
>>
>> "A passive voice construction is a verb-coded valency
>> construction (i) whose sister valency construction is transitive
>> and not verb-coded, and (ii) which has an S-argument
>> corresponding to the transitive P, and (iii) which has a
>> suppressed or oblique-flagged argument corresponding to the
>> transitive A".
>>
>> According to this definition, a passive construction "marks both
>> the agent and the verb" (unless the agent is suppressed or
>> otherwise absent). But Ian Joo's question was probably about
>> languages where the SAME marker can occur on the verb and on the
>> oblique agent. This would be very unusual, because passive voice
>> markers are not expected to be similar to an oblique agent flag.
>>
>> Now my question is: Are these Mandarin (and Shanghainese)
>> BEI/GEI-constructions passives? They have traditionally been
>> called passives, but since the BEI element is obligatory, while
>> the agent can be omitted (/Zhangsan bei (Lisi) da le/ 'Zhangsan
>> was hit (by Lisi)'), it cannot be a preposition or case prefix.
>> At least that would seem to follow from the definition of
>> "affix/adposition". So I think this construction doesn't fall
>> under a rigorous definition of "passive construction". (Rather,
>> it is a sui generis construction.)
>>
>> Some authors might say that it is a "noncanonical passive" (cf.
>> Legate, Julie Anne. 2021. Noncanonical passives: A typology of
>> voices in an impoverished Universal Grammar. /Annual Review of
>> Linguistics/ 7(1). doi:10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031920-114459
>> <https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031920-114459>), but
>> there does not seem to be a clear limit to this vague notion (is
>> every topicalization construction a noncanonical passive?). I do
>> not know of a fully explicit definition of "passive construction"
>> that clearly includes the Mandarin BEI constructions.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Martin
>>
>> Am 28.02.21 um 19:46 schrieb bingfu Lu:
>>> A better example in Mandarin may be:
>>> Zhangsan bei-Lisi gei-da-le.
>>> Zhangsan PASS-Lisi PASS-hit-PRF
>>> `Zhangsan was hit by Lisi.'
>>>
>>> 'bei' is etymologically related to 'suffer' while‘给’ to 'give'.
>>>
>>> In fact,
>>> Zhangsan bei-(Lisi) da-le.
>>> can also change to
>>> Zhangsan gei-(Lisi） da-le.
>>>
>>> Furthermore, in Shanghainese, the PASS is a morpheme homophonic
>>> to the morpheme for 'give'.
>>>
>>> regards,
>>> Bingfu Lu
>>> Beijing Language University
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sunday, February 28, 2021, 10:26:36 PM GMT+8, JOO, Ian
>>> [Student] <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>
>>> <mailto:ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Dear typologists,
>>>
>>> I wonder if you are aware of any language whose passive
>>> construction marks both the agent and the verb.
>>> For example, in Mandarin, the agent receives the passive marker
>>> /bei./
>>>
>>> (1) Zhangsan bei-Lisi da-le.
>>> Zhangsan PASS-Lisi hit-PRF
>>> `Zhangsan was hit by Lisi.'
>>>
>>> When the agent is omitted, the verb receives /bei/.
>>>
>>> (2) Zhangsan bei-da-le.
>>> Zhangsan PASS-hit-PRF
>>> `Zhangsan was hit.'
>>>
>>> But, in some occasions, both the agent and the verb receive /bei/:
>>>
>>> (3) Zhangsan bei-Lisi bei-da-le.
>>> Zhangsan PASS-Lisi PASS-hit-PRF
>>> `Zhangsan was hit by Lisi.'
>>>
>>> Are you aware of any other language where a construction like
>>> (3) is possible?
>>> The only one I am aware of at the moment is Vietnamese.
>>> I would greatly appreciate any help.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Ian
>>>
>>>
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>>
>> --
>> Martin Haspelmath
>> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>> Deutscher Platz 6
>> D-04103 Leipzig
>> https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522 <https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522>
>>
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> --
> David Gil
>
> Senior Scientist (Associate)
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>
> Email:gil at shh.mpg.de
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--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522
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