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Personal and Impersonal Passives: Definite vs. Indefinite Diatheses
Author(s) -
Abraham Werner,
Leiss Elisabeth
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-968x.2006.00167.x
Subject(s) - misnomer , linguistics , german , psychology , computer science , philosophy , theology
This paper discusses what is called the ‘impersonal passive’ (ImpPass) with the aim of isolating the criteria under which ImpPass is distinguished from the ‘personal passive’ (PersPass). It will be argued, first, that ImpPass is a misnomer given that it can be formed only from active subjects identified by personal agents. Secondly, we shall investigate why certain languages, such as German and Latin, can form an ImpPass, whereas others such as English cannot. The main insight to be gained is that the overt formal aspectual distinguishability of perfectivity vs. imperfectivity is the main typological criterion allowing ImpPass to occur in a given language. 1