The syntactic construction of two non-active Voices: Passive and middle

Abstract

In this paper, we offer a theoretical characterization of the middle voice as distinct from the passive voice, and address the cross-linguistic morphological variation in realizing these two non-active voices. We identify the following derivations: (1) anticausative, (2) reflexive (and reciprocal), (3) dispositional middle, (4) medio-passive, and (5) passive. We propose that the voice head in derivations 1-4 is µ (middle), and that it is π (passive) in 5. We argue that a syntactic construction of the various derivations allows for the flexibility in the distribution of the various PP adjuncts found with different roots, without postulating the ambiguity assumed in lexicalist theories.

Reflexive verbs in Hebrew: Deep unaccusativity meets lexical semantics

“…There, we noted that this head underlies argument structure alternations in a number of languages, including across four different templates in Hebrew (XaYaZ ∼ niXYaZ and XiY̯ eZ ∼ hitXaY̯ eZ). The second piece of the reflexive puzzle is the agentive modifier inally proposed as the functional head introducing external arguments The typology of Voice heads follows recent proposals by Schäfer (2008) uening (2014) for English, Alexiadou & Doron (2012) and Spathas et al k, Alexiadou & Doron (2012) for Hebrew, Wood (2015) for Icelandic, Zu (2015) for Latin. What this kind of framework does is to separate the emantic behavior of Voice heads, leading to new analyses of argument ations Schäfer 2017).…”

“…Combined with the two additional passive templates-which are derived by use of an additional Pass head (Alexiadou & Doron 2012 [-D] does not assign accusative case itself (Chomsky 1995) or through the calculation of dependent case (Marantz 1991 Adding an agentive modifier, √ action, derives the two additional templates which have already seen in (4)- (6) and which lie at the heart of the current study, XiY̯ eZ and XaY̯ eZ. 4 This element is discussed in more detail in Section 3.2, where I explain how rings about an external argument without requiring one in the syntax (which is what feature [+D] does, but Voice [+D] will not be discussed further.…”

“…The phrase me-aʦmo 'by itself' diagnoses the lack of an external argument (Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1995;Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 2004;Alexiadou & Doron 2012), be it explicit (as with transitive verbs) or implicit (as with passives). The test is appropriate with anticausatives in the niXYaZ template shown above, (11a), but not with direct objects of transitive verbs, (11b), or with passive verbs, (11c-d).…”

“…As far as the semantics is concerned, the difference in possible interpretations between (30a) and (30b) reduces to whether or not overt (2015) for Greek, Alexiadou & Doron (2012) Schäfer 2017).…”

Statives and nominalization1

“…The counterpart of (54) One could argue here that non-active morphology in (54) surfaces on the basis of a more general mechanism that is also involved in inherent and naturally relexives. From this perspective, such predicates are thus comparable to middles, see especially Kemmer (1993), Kaufmann (2001), Alexiadou & Doron (2010). These also bear non-active morphology:…”