CASE MARKING OF PATIENT IN THE PARTICIPIAL PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION IN HILL MARI

В статье рассматриваются две пассивные конструкции в горномарийском языке. В обеих из них используется причастная форма на -mə̑; основное различие между конструкциями состоит в падежном оформлении пациентивного участника. В одной из конструкций сохраняется исходное аккузативное маркирование пациенса, тогда как в другой конструкции пациентивный участник получает номинативное оформление. Цель исследования — сравнительный анализ двух разновидностей пассива и выявление закономерностей, лежащих в основе выбора падежного оформления пациенса. В литературе по пассивным конструкциям во многих языках отмечается наличие двух пассивных конструкций: адъективного пассива со стативной семантикой и глагольного пассива с динамической семантикой. Это же различие ожидалось увидеть и применительно к горномарийскому причастному пассиву. Для проверки этого предположения были изучены: а) синтаксические особенности конструкций, соотношение в них именных и глагольных свойств, б) аспектуальная семантика конструкций, а именно противопоставление стативной и динамической семантики, в) особенности кодирования участников и контексты с различным референциальным статусом пациенса. Было установлено, что пассив с номинативным кодированием пациенса в целом характеризуется именным синтаксисом, стативной семантикой и обязательной определенностью пациенса, тогда как пассив с аккузативным кодированием имеет глагольный синтаксис, динамическую семантику и не ограничен с точки зрения референциальных свойств пациенса. Единственным наблюдаемым отклонением от данных закономерностей является одинаковая допустимость обеих разновидностей пассива в хабитуальных контекстах, что подлежит дальнейшему выяснению. На основе выявленных закономерностей было сделано обобщение, что пассив с номинативным кодированием пациенса описывает состояние, возникшее в результате некоторого события, тогда как пассив с аккузативным кодированием описывает само событие. В качестве итога исследования предложена интерпретация семантического различия между конструкциями в теоретической парадигме синтаксиса первой фазы Дж. Рэмчанд: аккузативную конструкцию можно рассматривать как конструкцию с озвучиванием каузирующего и процессуального подсобытия, а номинативную — как конструкцию с озвучиванием результирующего подсобытия. The article provides an account of two participial passive constructions employing the -mə̑- participle in Hill Mari. The data was collected in 2017 and 2019 in the villages of Kuznetsovo and Mikryakovo of the Gornomarijskij district, Republic of Mari El. The two constructions with the -mə̑- participle differ in the first place in how the patient is marked: in one of them the patient is marked for nominative, whereas in the other construction the accusative marking is inherited from the transitive verb. The aim of this study is to compare the two constructions in terms of their syntax and semantics and explore the rules that govern the choice between them. In the existing literature two kinds of passive constructions are described: adjectival passive constructions with stative interpretation and verbal passive constructions with dynamic interpretation. The two Hill Mari -mə̑- constructions were expected to demonstrate the same distinction. In order to test this hypothesis, we considered a) the syntactic properties of the constructions, and the nominal or verbal behavior of the -mə̑- form in both cases; b) the aspectual semantics of the two constructions, i.e. the possibility of stative and dynamic interpretation in both constructions; c) the marking of the arguments in the constrictions, i.e. the possibility of overt expression of the agent and the referential properties of the patient. Syntactically, the passive construction with the nominative marking of the patient turned out to be an adjectival predication. This construction is stative, and the nominative patient NP is always definite. The construction with accusative patient marking is a verbal clause with a dynamic interpretation. The accusative patient NP may have any referential properties. However, both constructions can refer to habitual events, which needs further investigation. The observed properties of the two constructions lead to the following generalization: the construction with nominative patient marking denotes a resultant state of an event, whereas the construction with accusative patient marking denotes the event itself. This difference may be interpreted in the first phase syntax framework developed by G. Ramchand: in the nominative construction the patient is the Resultee, whereas in the accusative construction the patient is the Undergoer.

The past participle and the periphrastic passive construction in French

Our hypothesis is that the past participle is a singular form in the TAM (tense-aspect-mood) linguistic system in French, in that it represents the internal time of the process on its terminal point ([R = Et]). Due to this representation of internal time, the p.p. can be related to the second argument – the patientive argument – of a direct transitive process: it is the essential element of the passive construction. Contrary to what is often written, the copula être ‘be’, is an optional element: it may serve to develop the construction in its periphrastic dimension, but it is not necessary to the passive construction itself, as the cases of the passive in the participial clause demonstrate. Moreover, the p.p. is not intrinsically resultative or processive, no more than it is active or passive: from its aspect [R = Et], it can, in interaction with different contexts, participate in the production of these different effects of meaning in discourse.

Between Causative and Passive: Agentivity in the Affactive Construction

This brief discussion paper is concerned with the sequence [have NP Vpp] and its distinction into a causative and a passive construction, which hinges on the (non-)agentivity of the subject participant, so that the sequence can be seen as ambiguous in that respect. Instead of analyzing these uses as two different constructions, I propose a unified analysis as instances of the affactive construction. This construction has the functional potential of putting primary focus on secondary participants, so-called afficiary participants. The potential ambiguity with regard to the agentivity of these participants is not an issue in usage, as it is only evoked as part of the conceptual content in the background.

The Passive Construction in Chinese

Central to the passive construction in Chinese is the categorial status of the passive marker bei and the syntactic nature of passivization. In this respect, different analyses have been proposed in the literature. The passive marker bei is argued to be a preposition, a verb, or a passivization morpheme. Accordingly, some scholars propose analysis of Chinese bei-passives as non-canonical passives, which are different from the be-passive in English. By contrast, others argue differently and think English be-passivization in terms of unaccusativization also applies to Chinese bei-passives, and the only difference between Chinese and English is that the passivization domain for Chinese is the whole verb phrase while that for English is the verb only. In the article, we will review different proposals on the bei-passive in Chinese by examining their crucial arguments and identifying their potential problems.

Grammatical encoding of agency in Asturian middle constructions

Middle-passive constructions in Asturian –a Romance language spoken in the diglossic region of Asturias, in northern Spain– appear to optionally allow the occurrence of the reflexive pronoun se in them; this has been traditionally considered a pleonastic use of the reflexive due to the influence of Spanish, i.e. the dominant language in the territory (ALLA 2001). Here, I show that the presence of such pronoun is neither aspectual nor stylistic; instead, I argue that this clitic spells out a passivized Voice head encoding the participation of an implicit generic agent/experiencer in the event, i.e. a generic passive construction. The non-pronominal variant, on the contrary, is only possible with unaccusative verbs or those undergoing the causative alternation, i.e. in inchoative configurations, which can be generic. Evidence for this claim is that only the pronominal counterpart can control into a purpose clause but does not license the insertion of the PP por sí mesmu (‘by itself’), and vice versa. Additionally, these structures can host an additional dative argument which can only be interpreted as an unintentional causer of the event in absence of the reflexive, therefore supporting Suárez-Palma’s (2020) claim that there exists a mutual incompatibility between Voice and a high applicative head –both different realizations of i* (Wood & Marantz 2017)–, which compete for the position above the verbalizing head in generic passives. Finally, cases of linguistic transfer between Asturian and Asturian Spanish are discussed.

Agents in Balinese passive construction

This paper accounts for the agents in Balinese passive forms. It focuses on kinds of agent and their syntactic and semantic representation in Balinese passive constructions. This research used two novels, namely Dadi Ati written by Manda (2013) and Ki Baru Gajah by Sugianto (2015) as the data source. To support the data, this research also used informants. Aplying the RRG theory proposed by Van Valin and Randy (1999) and ideas from Balinese experts, it was found out that the agents of Balinese passive sentences varied in their forms and applied various constructions and semantic representation. Some constructions of passive sentences do not have an agent in their usage and some do have it. The ka- passive forms, for example, generally have no agents, but the ka- forms followed by suffix -ang or -in do need an agent. The first and second person agents directly follow the verb in the passive constructions. These two agents may be expressed by a noun. The pronoun in the third person as an agent can be expressed by suffix -a. Frequently the agents are expressed by a prepositional phrase.

Exploring Intricacies in English Passive Construction Translation in Research Articles’ Abstracts by Arab Author-Translators

Self-translation of academic texts has received little attention thus far in literature, particularly in terms of how cross-linguistic features are rendered into target language. This study undertakes to examine the various linguistic strategies of rendering English passive structures by Arab academics when they translate their research articles’ abstracts (RAAs) into Arabic. Fifty-one English abstracts with their Arabic translations were collected from Languages, Humanities and Social Sciences journals published in different Arab universities. To analyze the collected data, #LancsBox 4.5 Lancaster University corpus tool was used to identify the English passive structures (208 instances) and to analyze some of their Arabic translations. The most interesting finding is that the Arabic linguistic alternatives diverge from the English passive structures and they include the use of Arabic active verbs, Arabic periphrastic constructions, Arabic passive verbs, and Arabic verbal nouns. The results cast a new light on the use of periphrastic structures. While the literature usually refers to the occurrence of this structure in journalistic Arabic, this study provides evidence of its occurrence in academic texts in almost 22% of the corpus. The increasing use of this strategy is a feature of Modern Standard Arabic as discovered in some corpora. The study supported the argument that Arabic does not avoid passive verb forms in academic discourse but expresses them by using stylistically different strategies.

Factuality lens

Why do speakers choose the Mandarin Chinese unmarked passive construction (UP) in conversation when they have other grammatical alternatives with roughly the same semantics? From the perspective of subjectivity, this study identifies the Factuality lens, a lens through which a situation is presented as a “fact” or a “truth” regardless of reality. My analysis of a video corpus of spontaneous talk show conversations using the discourse adjacent alternation method reveals that speakers tend to choose UP over other constructions to present a transitive event through the Factuality lens by emphasizing the factuality of a fact or making a non-fact appear as a fact – either deceivingly or openly in a fictitious narrative or a joke. The findings reveal that grammatical constructions can linguistically recreate a situation different from reality. The conclusion that Factuality lens is a factor that could influence speakers’ grammatical choice casts light on pragmatic consequence of grammatical choice and subjectivity in language use.

A Study of Stylistic Features of Cricket Commentary: A Discourse Analysis

This study is based on the analysis of language practices and features that different cricket commentators use in international cricket matches. This study explores that cricket commentary forms a complete register on its own with its field, tenor, and mode components. Data for this research have been taken from the 1992 World Cup, the 2015 World Cup, and the Ashes Series 2005 matches available on YouTube. Textual analysis technique has been employed for data analysis. After analyzing the data in the light of Halliday’s notion of register comprising field, tenor, and mode, it is found that cricket commentary is characterized by special syntactic features such as ellipsis, extensive use of exclamatory sentences, the abundant use of the simple present tense and simple sentences, passive construction notably in elliptical form, first and third conditionals, and inversion. Use of idioms, certain action verbs, certain positive and negative adjectives, and certain adverbs are some of the salient features of cricket commentary. Cricket commentary also has a special jargon with words like ‘knock’, ‘mid-on’, ‘mid-off’, ‘innings’ and ‘bouncer’ etc. Cricket commentators also use certain aspects of connected speech such as weak forms of words, elision, and assimilation.