The passive
Summary
• phonological form/shape of the passive in
English (the data):
• be + V-ed
• The guest was murdered by the chef
• problem: subject is patient
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Voice analysis
(1) a. The chef murdered the guest.
b. The guest was murdered by the chef.
• the passive ‘derives from’ an ‘underlying’ ‘active’
• active and passive are synonymous (except for
theme/rheme)
• explains why subject is patient – started out as
object
• all and only transitive verbs form a passive
• but:
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Non-passivizable transitive verbs
Quirk et al. 1985:162:
(3) They have a nice house.
(4) He lacks confidence.
(5) The auditorium holds 5000 people.
• Sometimes called ‘middle’ verbs
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Aims of analysis
1. meaning of be + V-ed
2. syntax: combinable with which verbs or
sentences?
3. form: what grammatical construction does it
represent? (How is it to be parsed?)
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Voice analysis
• Form: passive derived from active
active and passive are ‘voices’ of the verb
• Meaning: passive is cognitively synonymous
with active
Halliday: motivation for passive is to make the
patient unmarked theme
• Syntax: all and only transitive verbs are
passivizable
(exceptions are listed individually)
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Criticism of voice analysis: contradictions,
anomalies,flaws
• meaning of be + V-ed?
• five formal differences – synonymous?!?
• agentive by-phrase
– 4/5 without agent – contradicts derivation from active,
where agent/subject is obligatory
• statal passive:
– The door was closed
actional passive (action, no state)
– The door was closed
statal passive (state, no action)
– how can this be?
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• adjectival properties – why?
• odd passives, and passivizability a property of
sentences, not verbs
• passive participle also in perfect
• non-passivizable transitive verbs
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Aspect analysis
be + V-ed
• (Grammatical) Form: aspect of type Auxiliary + Participle,
like the perfect and the progressive
• Meaning: new state (on subject) as result of
preceding action
change of state
(hence subject is patient)
• Syntax: determined by lexical aspect of verb and
compositional aspect of sentence (as with perfect and
progressive in English): atelic verbs and sentences are not
passivizable (because they are inherently unable to express
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a resultant state)
• The guest was murdered by the chef.
analysed as an aspect:
• the guest: subject taken from lexicon, as with perfect and
progressive in English
• was: aspectual auxiliary, like have in perfect and be in
progressive
• murdered: aspectual participle, like the homonymous
perfect participle and like the present participle
• by the chef: ordinary prepositional phrase (PP); by means
‘agent’; optional, like many PPs
• was murdered means ‘action + state’ (hence subject is
patient)
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Arguments in support of aspect
analysis
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Transitive non-passivizable verbs
• if passive is Auxiliary + Participle aspect we can expect restrictions
vis-à-vis lexical (and compositional) aspect
• the c sentences in 7-9 below cannot be interpreted as resultative
perfects:
(7) a. They have a nice house.
b. *A nice house is had by them.
c. They have had a nice house.
(8) a. He lacks confidence.
b. *Confidence is lacked by him.
c. He has lacked confidence.
(9) a. The auditorium holds 5000 people.
b. *5000 people are held by the auditorium.
c. The auditorium has held 5000 people.
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• why the correlation?
• because the passive and the perfect are very close
in meaning:
(actional) passive: action + state
resultative perfect: action + result
• passive is behaving syntactically like the perfect, i.e.
like an aspect
• atelic (as for resultative perfect)
– must be end-point potentially present to become the
end-state of ‘action + state’
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• 2/3 correlation
– counterexamples explained by individual lexical
semantics (see Beedham 1981, 1982)
• the perfect-passive correlation is formalsyntactic proof that the passive is an aspect
• any questions?
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