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3.2.1.1.General properties of passives

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Before we discuss the three subtypes of passive constructions in Table 1 in detail, the following subsections will discuss a number of general properties of passivization.

I. Demotion of the external argument
II. The implicit agent argument
III. Additional restrictions on the demoted subject?
IV. The derived subject: externalization of the internal argument?
V. The participle form of the main verb
VI. A note on adjectival passives

[+] I. Demotion of the external argument

The core property of the passive construction is the demotion of the external argument of the active verb to adjunct status. Since unaccusative verbs do not have an external argument, this immediately accounts for the fact that these verbs cannot be passivized. This is illustrated in (19) for the monadic unaccusative verbs sterven'to die' and drijven'to float', which select, respectively, the auxiliary zijn and the auxiliary hebben in the perfect tense; cf. Section 2.1.2, sub III.

a.		De man stierf	onder verschrikkelijke omstandigheden.
		the man died	in terrible circumstances

a'.	*	Er werd	(door de man)	onder verschrikkelijke omstandigheden	gestorven.
		there was	by the man	in terrible circumstances	died

b.		De jongen	drijft	op het water.
		the boy	floats	on the water

b'.	*	Er wordt	(door de jongen)	op het water	gedreven.
		there is	by the boy	on the water	floated

Example (20) shows the same thing for the nom-dat (dyadic unaccusative) verbs opvallen'to stand out/catch the eye' and tegenstaan'to pall on', which respectively select zijn and hebben in the perfect tense; cf. Section 2.1.3, sub E. The singly-primed examples show that impersonal passivization is excluded, and the doubly-primed examples show that krijgen-passivization is also excluded.

a.	De jongen	viel	me	op.	active
	that boy	stood.out	me	prt.
	'That boy caught my eye.'

a'.	*	Er	werd	mij	(door de jongen)	opgevallen.	worden-passive
		there	was	me	by the boy	stood.out

a''.	*	Ik	kreeg	(door de jongen)	opgevallen.	krijgen-passive
		I	got	by the boy	stood.out

b.	De jongen	stond	me	erg	tegen.	active
	the boy	palled	me	much	on
	'The boy disgusts me.'

b'.	*	Er	werd	mij	(door de jongen)	tegengestaan.	worden-passive
		there	was	me	by the boy	on-palled

b''.	*	Ik	kreeg	(door	de jongen)	tegengestaan.	krijgen-passive
		I	got	by	the boy	on-palled

The examples in (21), finally, show the same thing for the undative verbs krijgen and hebben, which are likewise characterized by the lack of an external argument; cf. Section 2.1.4.

a.		Jan kreeg/heeft	het boek.
		Jan got/has	the book

b.	*	Het boek	werd	(door Jan)	gehad/gekregen.
		the book	was	by Jan	had/gotten

The fact that the (in)transitive/unaccusative status of the verb determines whether or not passivization is allowed makes it impossible to give an exhaustive list of verbs that do or do not allow passivization. This can be readily illustrated by means of the verb breken'to break', which can be used both as a transitive and as an unaccusative verb. The primed examples in (22) show that it does not make sense to say that breken does or does not allow passivization; all that can be said is that breken does allow passivization if it is used transitively, but not if it is used unaccusatively.

a.		Jan breekt	het raam.	transitive
		Jan breaks	the window

a'.		Het raam	wordt	(door Jan)	gebroken.
		the window	is	by Jan	broken

b.		Het raam	breekt.	unaccusative
		the window	breaks

b'.	*	Er	wordt	(door het raam)	gebroken.
		there	is	by the window	broken

It is generally assumed that the pragmatic function of passivization is that of backgrounding the subject of the active clause; see, e.g., Kirsner (1976). This is, of course, especially clear if the agent is left unexpressed, but the same effect is obtained if the agent is overtly realized as an agentive door-phrase. That passivization has this effect is related to the fact that the subject position of a clause is a typical topic position; by removing the agentive argument from this position, it is less likely that its referent will be construed as the entity that the discourse is about. This can be illustrated by the examples in (23); the question introduces Jan as a new discourse topic, which is presented as such in the primeless but not the primed (b)-example.

a.	Wat	is er	met Jan?	Hij	kijkt	zo blij.
	what	is there	with Jan	he	looks	so happy
	'What is going on with Jan? Heʼs looking so happy.'

b.	Hij	heeft	een nieuwe auto	gekocht.
	he	has	a new car	bought
	'He has bought a new car.'

b'.	#	Er	is door hem	een nieuwe auto	gekocht.
		there	is by him	a new car	bought
		'A new car has been bought by him.'

[+] II. The implicit agent argument

The demoted subject of the active construction can remain implicit but can normally also be made explicit by means of an optional agentive door-phrase. One exception to this rule is the generic pronoun men in (24a); the reason is that men can only be used as the subject of a finite clause; cf. Section N5.2.1.1, sub I.

a.	Men	speelt	daar	graag.
	one	plays	there	gladly
	'One likes to play there.'

b.		Er	wordt	daar	graag	(*door men)	gespeeld.
		there	is	there	gladly	by one	played

It is not entirely clear whether the same holds for the generic pronoun je'one'. An example such as (25a) can be passivized but it is not clear whether the implied agent can be interpreted in such a way that the agent is identical to the inalienable possessor of the teeth; adding a door-phrase with the generic pronoun je seems marked.

a.	Je	moet	je tanden	elke dag	poetsen.
	one	has.to	oneʼs teeth	every day	brush
	'One has to brush oneʼs teeth every day.'

b.	Je tanden	moeten	elke dag	(??door je)	gepoetst	worden.
	oneʼs teeth	has.to	every day	by one	brushed	be
	'Oneʼs teeth have to be brushed every day.'

That the agent is implicitly present, even if the door-phrase is not realized, is clear from the distribution of agent-oriented adverbs like expres/opzettelijk'deliberately'. First consider the primeless examples in (26). These examples show that these adverbs require the subject of the clause to be an agent, as in (26a) ; if the subject of the clause is a theme, as in (26b), the use of these adverbs gives rise to an unacceptable result. The fact that expres/opzettelijk can be used in passive constructions such as (26a') therefore suggests that the agent of the active sentence is still implicitly present.

a.	Jan	sloeg	het bord	expres/opzettelijk	in stukken.
	Jan	hit	the plate	deliberately	to pieces
	'Jan hit the plate deliberately to pieces.'

a'.		Het bord	werd	expres/opzettelijk	in stukken	geslagen.
		the plate	was	deliberately	to pieces	hit

b.	*	Het bord	viel	expres/opzettelijk	in stukken.
		the plate	fell	deliberately	to pieces

Something similar can be illustrated on the basis of the interpretation of the phonetically empty subject PRO in infinitival clauses. The primeless examples in (27) show that PRO must be controlled by some appropriate constituent in the main clause; the infinitival verb pesten'to pester' requires an agentive subject and this condition is satisfied in (27a), in which PRO is controlled by the +human argument Jan, but not in (27b), in which PRO is controlled by the -animate argument het bord'the plate'. The fact that the passive construction in (27a') is fully acceptable again strongly suggests that PRO is controlled by some implicit agent argument.

a.	Jan	sloeg	het bord	in stukken	[om PRO	Marie	te pesten].
	Jan	hit	the plate	to pieces	comp	Marie	to pester
	'Jan hit the plate to pieces in order to pester Marie.'

a'.		Het bord	werd	in stukken	geslagen	[om PRO	Marie	te pesten].
		the plate	was	to pieces	hit	comp	Marie	to pester

b.	*	Het bord	viel	in stukken	[om PRO	Marie	te pesten].
		the plate	fell	to pieces	comp	Marie	to pester

Somewhat more controversial data are given in (28), in which the reciprocal elkaar seems to be bound by and the supplementivenaakt'nude' seems to be predicated of the implicit agent. The percentage signs indicate that not all speakers accept examples like these.

a.	%	Er	wordt	in deze buurt	op elkaar	gelet.
		there	is	in this neighborhood	for each.other	watched
		'People are looking after each other in this neighborhood.'

b.	%	Er	wordt	op dit strand	naakt	gezwommen.
		there	is	on this beach	nude	swum
		'People swim in the nude at this beach.'

Examples such as (28) are generally considered best in generic contexts, and furthermore require there to be no other nominal argument present that could be the antecedent of elkaar or be attributed the property denoted by the supplementive, as is clear from the fact that whereas the primeless examples in (29) are ambiguous, the primed examples are not; we indicated both the binding and the predication relation by means of indices.

a.	De jongensi	stelden	de meisjesj	aan elkaari/j	voor.
	the boys	introduced	the girls	to each.other	prt.
	'The boys introduced the girls to each other.'

a'.	De meisjesj	werden	(door de jongensi)	aan elkaarj/*i	voorgesteld.
	the girls	were	by the boys	to each.other	prt.-introduced
	'The girls were introduced to each other (by the boys).'

b.	Jani	bracht	Mariej	dronkeni/j	naar huis.
	Jan	brought	Marie	drunk	to home
	'Jan brought Marie home drunk (=while he/she was drunk).'

b'.	Mariej	werd	(door Jani)	dronkenj/*i	naar huis	gebracht.
	Marie	was	by Jan	drunk	to home	brought
	'Marie was brought home drunk (while she was drunk) by Jan.'

The controversial status of the examples in (28) as well as the fact that it is impossible to establish a binding/predication relation with the (implicit) agent in the primed examples in (29) suggest that we are actually dealing with ungrammatical structures, which are nevertheless accepted by some speakers because they can readily be assigned a feasible interpretation thanks to the presence of the implicit agent. This shows that, regardless of their precise grammaticality status, the examples in (28) provide evidence in favor of an implicit agent in passive constructions.
The implicit agent in impersonal passive constructions is preferably interpreted as +human. This is clear from the fact that (30b) cannot readily be construed as the passive counterpart of (30a); (30b) instead implies that the agent is +human. The only way of overruling this reading is by overtly expressing the -human agent by means of an agentive door-phrase, as in (30b'). We added the % sign to this example because examples like these are given as unacceptable in Pollman (1970/1975) and Kirsner (1976), but all our informants accept this example.

a.		De nachtegalen	floten	lustig.
		the nightingales	whistled	lustily

b.	#	Er	werd	lustig	gefloten.
		there	was	lustily	whistled

b'.	%	Er	werd	lustig	gefloten	door de nachtegalen.
		there	was	lustily	whistled	by the nightingales

The claim that the implicit agent is preferably construed as +human also accounts for the fact reported in Haeseryn et al. (1997:1417) that speakers tend to object to the primed examples in (31): since the activities denoted by the verbs grazen'to graze' and kwaken'to quack' are normally not performed by people, a +human interpretation of the implicit agent gives rise to a semantically incoherent result. If the -human agent is overtly expressed by means of a door-phrase, these passive constructions again become fully acceptable for our informants.

a.		De koeien	grazen	in de wei.
		the cows	graze	in the meadow

a'.	$	Er	wordt	in de wei	gegraasd.
		there	is	in the meadow	grazed

b.		De eenden	kwaken	in de sloot.
		the ducks	quack	in the ditch

b'.	$	Er	wordt	in de sloot	gekwaakt.
		there	is	in the ditch	quacked

Note that the preference for a +human implicit agent does not hold in constructions such as (32), in which the passive verb is transitive; these examples are fully acceptable for all speakers despite the fact that the default interpretation is that the agent is non-human.

a.	Onze eieren	worden	elke ochtend	vers	gelegd.
	our eggs	are	each morning	freshly	laid
	'Our eggs (e.g. the ones we sell) are laid freshly every morning.'

b.	De sla in onze tuin	wordt	(door slakken)	aangevreten.
	the lettuce in our garden	is	by snails	prt.-eaten
	'The lettuce in our garden is eaten away (by snails).'

According to the more or less standard account of passivization in generative grammar (Jaeggli 1986 and Roberts 1987), the agent (external argument of the verb) is never left implicit but syntactically realized as the passive morphology on the passive participle; see Subsection V for more discussion. If this is correct, the semantic effects in (30) and (31) can be accounted for by assuming that the default interpretation of the passive morphology is +human. This would raise the question, however, of why we do not find a similar effect in (32). This may be related to the fact that providing the right contextual information is often sufficient to override the default +human interpretation of the implicit argument, as is clear from the following example taken from a story about sparrows from a bird journal by Adri de Groot, in which the impersonal passives are in italics (vogeldagboek.nl/html/Vogeldagboek/2002/Jun02_Lot2.html); the translation is given in the active form.

werd

gevreeën,

gevochten,

nieuwe nesten

werden

gebouwd,

jonge vogels

werden

gevoederd,

er werd gezongen,

uitgerust.

there

was

made.love

fought

new nests

were

build

young birds

were

fed

there was sung

prt.-rested

'The sparrows mated, fought; they built new nests and fed their young; they sang and rested.'

Note in passing that the claim that the agent is syntactically expressed by the passive morphology implies that the optional door-phrase cannot be seen as an alternative realization of the agent but simply functions as an adjunct that provides additional descriptive information about the external argument expressed by the passive morphology on the participle. There is thus no syntactic rule of subject demotion that places the subject of the active clause in an agentive door-phrase in the passive construction (as was assumed in early generative grammar).

[+] III. Additional restrictions on the demoted subject?

Although the hypothesis that the presence of an external argument is a necessary condition for passivization seems firmly grounded, it is not clear whether the presence of an external argument is a sufficient condition for passivization. It might be that passivization requires the external argument to meet a number of additional constraints. The following subsections discuss three of such constraints that have been proposed in the literature, but conclude that there is little evidence supporting them.

[+] A. Animateness of the demoted subject

It is often claimed that there is an animateness constraint on passivization. According to this constraint, passivization is only possible if the subject of the active clause is +animate. Evidence in favor of such a constraint comes from examples such as (34), adapted from Pollman (1975), which show that in a passive construction such as Er werd gefloten the nominal part of the optional door-phrase must refer to a +animate entity.

a.	Jan/De ketel	floot	in de keuken.
	Jan/the kettle	whistled	in the kitchen
	'Jan/The kettle was whistling in the kitchen.'

b.	Er	werd	in de keuken	gefloten	(door Jan/*de ketel).
	there	was	in the kitchen	whistled	by Jan/the kettle
	'Someone was whistling in the kitchen.'

A first reason for doubting that there is an animacy restriction on passivization is that passivization is possible if the -animate subject is construed as agentive. Some clear examples are given in (35).

a.		Deze dijken	houden	de zee	tegen.
		these dikes	stop	the sea	prt.

a'.		De zee	wordt	door deze dijken	tegengehouden.
		the sea	is	by these dikes	prt.-stopped

b.		Mijn computer	verwerkt	de gegevens	erg snel.
		my computer	processes	the data	very quickly

b'.		De gegevens	worden	erg snel	verwerkt	door mijn computer.
		the data	are	very quickly	processed	by my computer

A more technical problem is that it is hard to demonstrate that the inanimate subject de ketel is an external argument of the verb in (34a). The only remaining sufficient conditions for assuming intransitive status for the verb fluiten in (34b) is not met: agentive er-nominalizations normally do not denote inanimate entities—the noun fluiter'whistler' cannot be used to refer to boiling kettles; observe that this test must be handled with care given that the affix -er can also be used to derive instrumental nouns like opener'(bottle/can) opener'. Furthermore, there is some evidence that the status of the verb fluiten depends on the type of subject it takes. Section 2.2.3 has shown that the addition of a complementive to an intransitive verb also requires the addition of a second participant, which functions as the logical subject of the complementive. With unaccusative verbs, on the other hand, the number of participants remains the same since the subject of the clause itself must function as the subject of the complementive, although the subject of the complementive may replace the subject of the unaccusative verb, as is indicated by means of subscripts in (36c); something similar holds for transitive constructions, in which the subject of the complementive may replace the object of the verb, as indicated by means of subscripts in (36b). We will not discuss this here but refer the reader to Section 2.2.3, sub I and Section 2.2.3, sub II, for a detailed discussion of the generalizations in (36).

intransitive verbs: NP V ⇒ NP V NP Predicate

transitive verbs: NP V NPi ⇒ NP V NPi/j Predicate

unaccusative verbs: NPi V ⇒ NPi/j V Predicate

The examples in (37) show that the question as to whether fluiten requires an additional participant depends on whether the subject of the verb is +animate or -animate. In the former case, addition of a second participant in the form of an accusative object is required, which shows that the subject is the external argument of the verb, whereas in the latter case addition of a second participant is excluded, which suggests that the inanimate subject de ketel is not the external argument of the verb.

a.		De jongen	floot	zijn hond	naar binnen.
		the boy	whistled	his dog	inside

b.	*	De ketel	floot	de kok	naar de keuken.
		the kettle	whistled	the cook	into the kitchen

Example (38a), in which the subject of the clause functions as the subject of the complementive, is not very felicitous either, but this seems related to our world knowledge rather than to grammaticality: it is simply hard to imagine that the kettle gets broken by whistling. It seems useful to note in this connection that verbs of sound emission can be used as motion verbs with a complementive PP; in the (b)-examples in (38) the subject of the clause clearly functions as the subject of the locational/directional PP, and fluiten must therefore be analyzed as an unaccusative verb; see Section 2.2.3, sub II, for more discussion.

a.	$	De ketel	floot	kapot.
		the kettle	whistled	broken

b.	De kogel	floot	vlak over mijn hoofd.
	the bullet	whistled	just over my head
	'The bullet went just over my head with a whistling sound.'

b'.	De vuurpijl	floot	de lucht	in.
	the skyrocket	whistled	the air	into
	'The skyrocket went into the air with a whistling sound.'

The discussion in this subsection has shown that the animacy restriction on passivization, although appealing at first sight, is certainly not beyond doubt. It might be the case that, generally speaking, inanimate noun phrases cannot be used as external arguments unless they are clearly causative or agentive in nature. The discussion is, however, not sufficient to show that this is indeed true (see Section 3.2.1.3, sub IC, for potential counterevidence), but we would still like to suggest this as a working hypothesis for future research.

[+] B. Agentivity of the subject

Verbs of cognition like kennen/weten'to know' also resist passivization, despite the fact that these verbs are normally assumed to take an external argument; cf. Van Voorst (1988). In order to account for the impossibility of (39b), it is often claimed that the subject of the clause must be an agent or a cause in order to license passivization. Since the subject of (39a) clearly does not have one of these roles, the impossibility of passivization follows.

a.	Jan weet/kent	het antwoord.
	Jan knows	the answer
	'Jan knows the answer.'

b.	*	Het antwoord	wordt	(door Jan)	geweten/gekend.
		the answer	is	by Jan	known

Assuming an agentivity restriction on passivization meets the same objections as the animateness restriction, namely that there is little evidence that the subject in (39a) is an external argument; Section 2.1.4 has shown that the standard tests for diagnosing the external argument fail with these verbs and that it might be the case that the subject of verbs like these is actually not an external, but an internal (experiencer) argument of the verb.

[+] C. Controllability by the subject

A slightly weaker version of the agentivity restriction claims that passivization requires that the verb has a subject that controls the denoted activity. Examples such as (40) suggest that such a restriction does not apply either. The fact that agent-oriented adverbs like expres/opzettelijk'deliberately' yield unacceptable results in the active, primeless examples strongly suggests that subjects of verbs like luisteren'to listen' and lijden'to suffer' do not control the activities, but passivization of these verbs is possible nevertheless.

a.	Het publiek	luisterde	(*opzettelijk)	ademloos.
	the audience	listened	on purpose	breathlessly
	'The audience listened breathlessly.'

a'.		Er	werd	(door het publiek)	ademloos	geluisterd.
		there	was	by the audience	breathlessly	listened

b.	Arme studenten	lijden	(*opzettelijk)	heel wat.
	poor students	suffer	on purpose	very much
	'Poor students suffer a lot.'

b'.		Er	wordt	(door arme studenten)	heel wat	geleden.
		there	is	by poor students	very much	suffered

[+] D. Conclusion

This subsection has discussed a number of constraints on passivization that have been proposed in the literature: the subject of the active construction must be animate, agentive, or at least able to control the event denoted by the verb. We have seen that there is in fact little evidence to support such constraints, although it still remains to be seen whether it is possible to give a syntactic account of the unacceptability of the passive constructions that motivated these constraints.

[+] IV. The derived subject: externalization of the internal argument?

Since passivization results in promotion to subject of one of the objects of the active verb (provided that there is one), it is sometimes claimed that one of the functions of passivization is the "externalization" of internal arguments of the active verb. This would correctly describe what is happening in the (a)-examples in (41), but seems entirely besides the point in describing the change in the (b)-examples; Section 2.2 has extensively argued that the accusative DP de kruimels'the crumbs' in (41b) is not an internal argument of the verb vegen but the subject (external argument) of the complementive PP van de tafel af'from the table'.

a.		De dokter	onderzoekt	Jan.
		the doctor	examines	Jan

a'.		Jan	wordt	onderzocht	(door de dokter).
		Jan	is	examined	by the doctor

b.		Jan veegde	de kruimels	*(van de tafel af).
		Jan wiped	the crumbs	from the table af

b'.		De kruimels	werden	(door Jan)	van de tafel af	geveegd.
		the crumbs	were	by Jan	from the table af	wiped

The only thing that the examples in (41) show is that, in contrast to the active verb, the passive participle is unable to assign accusative case to the noun phrases Jan and de kruimels, which must therefore be promoted to subject in order to receive nominative case.

[+] V. The participle form of the main verb

The examples in (42) show that in passive constructions, the main verb normally takes the form of a passive participle. This has given rise to the hypothesis that it is the participle's morphology that is responsible for the demotion of the external argument and the concomitant promotion of one of the objects in (42b&c).

a.		Er	wordt	(door de jongens)	gelachen.	impersonal passive
		there	is	by the boys	laughed

b.		Het boek	wordt	Peter	(door zijn collegaʼs)	aangeboden.	regular passive
		the book	is	Peter	by his colleagues	prt.-offered

c.		Peter	krijgt	het boek	(door zijn collegaʼs)	aangeboden.	krijgen passive
		Peter	gets	the book	by his colleagues	prt.-offered

Subsection II already mentioned that the standard approach to passivization in generative grammar (Jaeggli 1986 and Baker et al. 1989) is that the passive morphology on the participle actually is the external argument of the verb. The fact that the passive morphology reduces the case-assigning property of the main verb is then accounted for by assuming that the "missing" case is assigned to the external argument, that is, to the passive morphology itself. This is sometimes referred to as case absorption.
Although this hypothesis seems to account for the majority of cases, it has been challenged on the basis of AcI-constructions such as (43), in which the infinitival clauses are headed by a transitive verb like zingen'to sing'; see, e.g., De Geest (1972), Vanden Wyngaerd (1994) and Bennis (2000). The crucial thing is that example (43a), in which all arguments of the infinitival verb are expressed, alternates with example (43b), in which the subject of the infinitival clause is demoted: it can be left out or be expressed by means of an agentive door-phrase.

a.	Jan laat	[de kinderen	een liedje	zingen].
	Jan makes	the children	a song	sing
	'Jan makes the children sing a song.'

b.		Jan laat	[een liedje	zingen	(door de kinderen)].
		Jan makes	a song	sing	by the children

If demotion of the external argument is indeed the defining property of passivization, we should conclude that the infinitival clause in (43b) is the passive counterpart of the infinitival clause in (43a). This conclusion is also supported by the fact that the alternation is not possible with unaccusative verbs; the (a)-examples in (44) show that the alternation is possible with intransitive PO-verbs like kijken naar'to look (at)', but excluded with unaccusative verbs like verdwijnen'to disappear'.

a.	Jan	laat	[de dokter	naar zijn wonden	kijken].
	Jan	makes	the doctor	at his wounds	look
	'Jan makes the doctor look at his wounds.'

a'.		Jan laat	[naar zijn wonden	kijken	(?door de dokter)].
		Jan makes	at his wounds	look	by the doctor

b.	De goochelaar	laat	[zijn assistente	in het niets	verdwijnen].
	the magician	makes	his assistant	into the nothing	disappear
	'The magician makes his assistant vanish into thin air.'

b'.	*	De goochelaar	laat	[in het niets	verdwijnen	(door zijn assistent)].
		the magician	makes	into the nothing	disappear	by his assistant

If we are indeed justified in considering the infinitival clauses in the primed examples of (44) to be the passive counterparts of the infinitival clauses in the corresponding primeless examples, which still needs to be firmly established, we can conclude that passive morphology is not a defining property of passivization. The question of what determines the morphological shape of the verb must then be considered an unsolved problem; we refer the reader to Section 5.2.3.3 for more discussion of examples like (43) and (44).

[+] VI. A note on adjectival passives

Some sentences are ambiguous between a regular and an adjectival passive reading. The ambiguity is due to the fact that past/passive participles can be interpreted either as a verbal or as an adjectival element. The verbal/adjectival nature of the participle can be detected by its position relative to the verbs in clause-final position: if the participle is verbal in nature, it can either precede or follow these verbs; if the participle is adjectival, it must precede these verbs. We refer the reader to Section 6.2.2 for a more extensive discussion of the word order in the clause-final verb cluster of passive constructions.

a.	dat	de bibliotheek	is gesloten.	verbal passive
	that	the library	is closed
	'that the library has been closed.'

b.	dat	de bibliotheek	gesloten	is.	verbal or adjectival passive
	that	the library	closed	is
	'that the library has been closed' or 'that the library is closed (= not open)'

The two constructions also differ semantically in that the verbal passive has a dynamic reading (the verbal participle denotes an event), whereas the adjectival passive has a stative reading (the adjectival participle denotes a property of the subject of the clause). This can be made clear by adding adverbial phrases that favor one of the readings. Adverbial phrases like al jaren'for years', for instance, favor the stative reading and therefore cannot be added to (45a), which is necessarily construed as a verbal passive. This is shown in (46).

a.	*?	dat	de bibliotheek	al jaren	is gesloten.	verbal passive
		that	the library	for years	is closed

b.		dat	de bibliotheek	al jaren	gesloten	is.	adjectival passive
		that	the library	for years	closed	is

Adverbial phrases like gisteren'yesterday', on the other hand, favor the dynamic reading and therefore block the adjectival reading of (45b); example (47b) can only be interpreted as a verbal passive construction.

a.		dat	de bibliotheek	gisteren	is gesloten.	verbal passive
		that	the library	yesterday	is closed

b.		dat	de bibliotheek	gisteren	gesloten	is.	verbal passive
		that	the library	yesterday	closed	is

The examples in (48) show that the adjectival reading can also be blocked by the presence of an agentive door-phrase.

a.		dat	de bibliotheek	door de burgemeester	is gesloten.	verbal passive
		that	the library	by the mayor	is closed

b.		dat	de bibliotheek	door de burgemeester	gesloten	is.	verbal passive
		that	the library	by the mayor	closed	is

The fact that the adverbial phrase al jaren'for years' and the agentive door-phrase trigger different readings accounts for the fact that they cannot be simultaneously present, as shown by the unacceptability of example (49a). Since the adverbial phrase gisteren'yesterday' and the door-phrase both favor the verbal reading, these two can readily be combined, as is shown by (49b).

a.	*	dat	de bibliotheek	al jaren	door de burgemeester	gesloten/gesloten	is.
		that	the library	for years	by the mayor	closed/closed	is

b.		dat	de bibliotheek	gisteren	door de burgemeester	gesloten/gesloten	is.
		that	the library	yesterday	by the mayor	closed/closed	is

The adjectival passive construction is normally analyzed as a copular construction. For a more elaborate discussion of the adjectival reading of past/passive participles the reader is referred to Section A9.

References:

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Bennis, Hans2000Syntaxis van het NederlandsAmsterdamAmsterdam University Press
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About this article

Author(s): Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver, Riet Vos

Category: Dutch Syntax

Keywords: AgentiveConstraintControlExternalizationInternal ArgumentPassivePassivization

Version: 1.0, January 2016

Version history:

version	editor(s)	date	remarks
1.0	Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver, Riet Vos	January 2016

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