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5.1 Introduction
Chapter 5. Passives
Not all languages have a passive construction of the type shown in the (b) examples of
(432)-(434), which correspond to the active (a) examples. (432) is from English, while
(433) and (434) are from Kosraean (Austronesian, Micronesian) and Kiribatese
(Austronesian, Micronesian) respectively.
(432) a. The chicken killed the snake.
b. The snake was killed.
(433) a. Sepe el puok tuhlihk sac.
Sepe 3s hit child the
'Sepe is hitting the child.'
b. Tuhlihk sac puok-yuhk-lac.
child the hit-pass-Aspcomp
'The child was hit.'
(434) a. Ei kamate-aj te naetaj te moai.
it kill-it the snake the chicken
'The chicken killed the snake.'
b. Ej kamate-aki te naeta (iroun te moa).
it kill-pass the snake (by the chicken)
'The snake was killed (by the chicken).'
(Keenan and Dryer 2006:327)
There are two similarities in the syntactic properties of these three passive constructions.
First, the objects of the active (a) sentences appear as the subjects of the passive (b)
sentences. Second, each language has a morpheme that marks the verb as passive. In
English, the suffix –ed appears on the verb, while the Kosraean and Kiribatese verbs
include the passive suffixes –yuhk and –ak respectively.
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