[Lingtyp] Double-marked passive

Mon Mar 22 21:28:07 UTC 2021

Martin,

Just following up on two points:

1. "I'm not sure about the notion of an "isolating" language" -- I didn't
mean to imply this as a clear-cut category, but certainly there are
languages with more or less inflection, and it seems odd to me to attach
the idea of passivization to that amount of morphology. There are many
languages (loosely called "isolating") that do not have passive morphology
but that do have functional equivalents with multi-verb constructions.
Further, if you insist on these being "ergative" constructions, then why
not just call the "passive" affix an "ergative" [or should that be
"absolutivizing"?] affix? Why is passivization needed as a comparative
concept, if it turns out to be such a niche category?

2. I don't think it is any easier to define "affix" vs. "word" than it is
to define "verb phrase" in a relevant sense. Wordhood is notoriously
difficult, whereas scope-based (and other) tests for phrases associated
with the verb seem to be a more principled way to determine what is
"associated with the verb" than whether linguists have written hyphens
instead of spaces in glosses. David's response makes this very clear. It
seems completely the wrong direction to say that the resolution of the
debate about wordhood/affixhood of those forms in Indonesian should then
determine whether or not the constructions as "passives" are not. They are
passives (or not) based on functional grounds, and independently we can ask
whether those passives are coded morphologically.

On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 2:18 PM David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:

> Martin,
>
> Your suggestion that Papuan Malay *dapa* and Riau Indonesian *kena* are
> prefixes surprises me for two independent reasons, principled and
> language-specific: (a) on principled grounds because I know you don't
> attach much weight to the distinction between affixes and other "larger"
> elements, and (b) on language-specific grounds because *dapa* and *kena*
> behave like complete and separate words rather than affixes with respect to
> just about any language-specific criterion you can think of: they are
> disyllabic, they exhibit an array of phonological properties associated
> with a complete phonological foot, they can occur in isolation as complete
> non-elliptical sentences, they are content words associated with particular
> meanings, roughly 'get' and 'undergo' respectively, and so forth.  Calling
> them affixes makes no sense either emically, in terms of language-specific
> analyses, or etically, in terms of comparative concepts.
>
> David
>
>
> On 22/03/2021 15:16, Martin Haspelmath 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
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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
> 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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>
> --
> 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
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing listLingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.orghttp://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6
> D-04103 Leipzighttps://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing listLingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.orghttp://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
> --
> 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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