[Lingtyp] UNCHECKED Re: Double-marked passive

Mon Mar 22 19:57:02 UTC 2021

Martin, are you suggesting that isolating languages cannot have passives?
Surely function shouldn't be necessarily tied to form?

Serial verb constructions are well known to develop into passive
constructions in some languages. Are you suggesting that cannot happen
until the construction morphologizes?

There are certainly some details to work out in the definition, but as a
rough approximation, I'm not sure why there cannot be a passive auxiliary
in these cases. English also has a passive auxiliary (BE), which happens to
select for a verb in the participle form (-EN). But if English allowed for
a bare verb complement of BE in that construction, would that not be a
passive either?

One important point I'm trying to emphasize with my own research is that
definitions should, as much as possible, avoid conflating form and
function. Passivization is a function, not a form. It has to do with
argument structure, not how it is marked morphosyntactically. As a draft of
a simple comparative concept, a passive is a construction (that is, any
form) that demotes the subject (i.e. A, etc.) argument (typically making it
optional), while promoting the object (i.e. P, etc.) to that role. That
could be via morphology, or an auxiliary verb, or perhaps something else
(maybe just case marking?).

On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 12:03 PM Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>
wrote:

> From my perspective, the problem with a definition including "primarily
> associated with the expression of" is that it would exclude non-dedicated
> passives, i.e. polyfunctional morphemes one of whose function is passive,
> but also used with other functions.
>
> Guillaume
>
> Le lun. 22 mars 2021 à 19:53, Chao Li <chao.li at aya.yale.edu> a écrit :
>
>> Dear Martin,
>>
>>
>>
>> I agree that any definition of a comparative concept will likely result
>> in the exclusion of some “legacy cases”. Given that you are using “passive”
>> as a comparative concept in a very ambitious sense and given that you have
>> all human languages in mind and would like to have a definition as clear
>> and inclusive as possible, there is the question of the extent of the cases
>> that will be excluded by the definition you referred to. To what extent are
>> passives described in specific language grammars coded with an affix on the
>> verb and to what extent are they not?  Does anyone on this list server have
>> a more or less clear answer on this? Then as for the possibility of a
>> definition of passive that might also cover cases like Mandarin, how about
>> the replacement of a passive affix on the verb with a grammatical morpheme
>> primarily associated with the expression of a passive meaning? Would that
>> work?
>>
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Chao
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 1:03 PM Martin Haspelmath <
>> martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, comparative concepts cannot be right or wrong, but traditional
>>> terms can be defined in a better or less good way. Note that the original
>>> question by Ian Joo used the traditional term "passive", assuming that we
>>> know what it means (not necessarily assuming that "passive" is a concept
>>> that is useful for typological generalizations).
>>>
>>> Good definitions of traditional terms are (i) clear (i.e. based on clear
>>> concepts) and (ii) largely coextensive with legacy usage.
>>>
>>> Traditional terms can rarely be defined clearly in such a way that the
>>> definition covers ALL legacy cases. So while the Chinese *bèi *
>>> construction is similar to the Swahili Passive, I don’t see that we can
>>> have a definition of *passive* that covers both. Maybe even the English
>>> Passive is not included.
>>>
>>> By contrast, I don’t see why Papuan Malay *dapa-pukul* shouldn’t be
>>> included. Isn’t *dapa-* a passive prefix? (And similarly Riau
>>> Indonesian *kena-pukul*.)
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Martin
>>>
>>> Am 22.03.21 um 12:25 schrieb David Gil:
>>>
>>> Martin,
>>>
>>> As you've pointed out on numerous occasions, comparative concepts can't
>>> be right or wrong, they can only be more or less useful as tools for
>>> typological generalizations.  Still, with that in mind, I suspect that a
>>> comparative concept of "passive" that subsumes, say, the rather
>>> garden-variety constructions in (1) and (2), rather than excluding them on
>>> the grounds that the verb lacks an affix, as you would have things, will
>>> turn out to be more useful for typologists (not to mention conforming more
>>> closely with common every-day usage).
>>>
>>> (1) Riau Indonesian
>>>     *Yusuf kena pukul sama Musa*
>>>     Yusuf PASS hit together Musa
>>>     'Yusuf got hit by Musa'
>>>     [cf. "active" *Musa pukul Yusuf*]
>>>
>>> (1) Papuan Malay
>>>     *Yusuf dapa pukul dari Musa*
>>>     Yusuf PASS hit from Musa
>>>     'Yusuf got hit by Musa'
>>>     [cf. "active" *Musa pukul Yusuf*]
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>>
>>> On 22/03/2021 08:24, Martin Haspelmath wrote:
>>>
>>> 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: image.png]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> Chao
>>>
>>> On Sun, Mar 21, 2021 at 10:07 AM Martin Haspelmath <
>>> 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> <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
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>>>
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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 Leipzighttps://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
>>> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>> --
>>> Martin Haspelmath
>>> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>>> Deutscher Platz 6
>>> D-04103 Leipzighttps://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522
>>>
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>
>
> --
> Guillaume Jacques
>
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[Lingtyp] ***UNCHECKED*** Re: Double-marked passive

[Lingtyp] UNCHECKED Re: Double-marked passive