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Exploring The Behavioral Properties of Objects: Passive Voice and Applicative Constructions

This document delves into the complexities of passive voice, object creation, and dative shift in linguistics. It examines how passivization can be viewed as a transformation and explores the commonalities among passive constructions across different languages. The study covers grammatical relations, semantic roles, and morphological rules for word formation, focusing on English and applicative structures in Chichewa. It aims to enhance understanding of sentence structures and the significance of passive constructions in discourse.

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Exploring The Behavioral Properties of Objects: Passive Voice and Applicative Constructions

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  1. September 26, 2007 11-721: Grammars and Lexicons Lori Levin

  2. Behavioral Properties of Objects • Passive voice • Object creating rules • Dative shift • Applicatives

  3. Passive Voice • See handout on passives in several languages. • Assume for a moment that Passivization is a transformation • A meaning-preserving tree-to-tree mapping • Describe the Passive transformation for each language on the handout. • If the transformations are so different, why do we call them all passives? • What do they have in common?

  4. Passive as a lexical rule • Morphology (word formation) • Rules for making new words out of old words by adding affixes and making other changes. • English Passive: make a past participle out of a verb • Lexical Mapping • Find the role that links to OBJ for the active verb. Link that role to SUBJ. • Find the role that links to SUBJ for the active verb. Link that role to OBL.

  5. VP VP V NP V PP OBJ OBL How to understand an English Sentence [s [np Sue] [vp was interviewed [np by Sam ]]] constituent str. SUBJ PRED OBL grammatical rlns. patient interview agent semantic roles interview< agent patient > lexical mapping OBL SUBJ Encoding of Gml. Rlns. For English!!! S NP SUBJ

  6. VP VP V NP V PP OBJ OBL How to understand an English Sentence [s [np Sam] [vp interviewed [np Sue ]]] constituent structure SUBJ PRED OBJ grammatical rlns. agent interview patient semantic roles interview< agent patient > lexical mapping SUBJ OBJ Encoding of Gml. Rlns. For English!!! S NP SUBJ

  7. What about all the other stuff? • Why does the patient come before the verb in an English passive?

  8. What about the other stuff? • Why is an auxiliary verb inserted? • English sentences must contain a tensed verb. Participles are not tensed. • Tensed verbs are present or past in English • He walks. • He walked. • She is smart. • She was smart. • You can use a passive in a context that does not require a tensed verb: • Admired by her friends, Sue had no reason to be worry. • Passive verb phrases can occur as complements to other verbs: • The car needs washed. • He got arrested by the police. • We had them arrested by the police.

  9. Functions of Passives • Discourse focus on a participant other than the subject. • Make the sentence impersonal • unidentified agent • Syntactic need for something other than the agent to be the subject. • See discussion of Malagasy, coming in a week or two. • Other • Express adversity in Japanese.

  10. Object Creating Rules • Dative shift • Applicatives

  11. Behavioral Test for Object • The semantic role that is encoded as object in the active sentence takes the encoding of subject in the passive sentence.

  12. English Dative Shift • Which noun phrase passes the test for objecthood? • The teacher gave some books to the students. • Some books were given to the students (by the teacher). • The teacher gave the students some books. • The students were given some books (by the teacher).

  13. Dative Shift and Passive Give< agent theme goal > SUBJ OBJ OBL Give< agent theme goal > SUBJ OBJ2 OBJ Give< agent theme goal > OBL SUBJ OBL Give< agent theme goal > OBL OBJ2 SUBJ

  14. Other alternations in English • The committee awarded the prize to Sue. • The committee awarded her the prize. • Sam sprayed the wall with paint. • Sam sprayed paint on the wall. • Sam loaded the truck with hay. • Sam loaded hay onto the truck.

  15. Applicative Constructions • Morphology: • An affix is added to the verb. • Lexical mapping • A recipient, benefactive, locative, or instrumental is linked to OBJ • The role that was linked to OBJ for the non applicative verb is linked to OBJ2 (usually).

  16. Applicative Constructions in Chichewa • See handout from Kroeger’s book.

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