The Passive Family in Baltic
Abstract
Predicative constructions with passive participles in Latvian and Lithuanian exhibit great variation in form, meaning and function, ranging from pure passive to various temporal, aspectual and modal meanings. This paper uses a set of formal and functional parameters to distinguish and profile several types and subtypes of such constructions. These types are mutually related by family resemblance and constitute a ‘Passive Family’. They include dynamic and stative passives, three types of resultatives, several types of subjectless (impersonal) passives, modal constructions expressing possibility or necessity, and evidential constructions. Based on a thorough study of corpus data, the paper not only adds new insights about constructions that were already known, but also presents construction types that have not been discussed in the literature on the Baltic passive before: the Lithuanian cumulative-retrospective construction and the
Latvian cumulative-experiential subtype.
Keywords
passive, impersonal constructions, cumulative constructions, experiential perfect, evidential, Latvian, Lithuanian, Baltic
References
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Anderson, Cori. 2015. Passivization and argument structure in Lithuanian. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds., Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 289–322.
Blevins, James P. 2003. Passives and impersonals. Journal of Linguistics 39, 473–520.
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago-London: University of Chicago Press.
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford, New York: Blackwell.
Dahl, Östen & Eva Hedin. 2000. Current relevance and event reference. In: Östen Dahl, ed., Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 385–401.
Daugavet, Anna & Axel Holvoet. 2019. An elusive experiential tense construction in Latvian. Baltic Linguistics 10: Minor Grams in Baltic, Slavonic and Fennic (thematic issue), 109–153.
Endzelin, J[ānis]. 1923. Lettische Grammatik. Heidelberg: Winter.
Frajzyngier, Zygmunt. 1982. Indefinite agent, impersonal, and passive: A functional approach. Lingua 58, 267–290.
Geniušienė, Emma Š. 2006. Passives in Lithuanian (in comparison with Russian). In: Werner Abraham & Larisa Leisiö, eds., Passivization and Typology: Form and Function. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 29–61.
Geniušienė, Emma Š. 2016. Passive Constructions in Lithuanian. Selected Works of Emma Geniušienė edited by Anna Kibort & Nijolė Maskaliūnienė. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Geniušienė, Emma Š., Vladimir P. Nedjalkov. 1988. Resultative, passive, and perfect in Lithuanian. In: Vladimir P. Nedjalkov, ed., Typology of Resultative Constructions. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 369–386.
Holvoet, Axel. 2001a. Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic. In: Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, eds., Circum-Baltic Languages. Vol. 2: Grammar and Typology. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 363–389.
Holvoet, Axel. 2001b. Studies in the Latvian Verb. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Holvoet, Axel. 2004. Eine modale Konstruktion ostseefinnischer Herkunft im Lettischen. In: Irma Hyvarinen, Petri Kallio & Jarmo Korhonen, eds., Etymologie, Entlehnungen und Entwicklungen. Festschrift für Jorma Koivulehto zum 70. Geburtstag. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique, 117–127.
Holvoet, Axel. 2007. Mood and modality in Baltic. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Holvoet, Axel. 2015. Latvian passives―personal, impersonal and evidential. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds., Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 367–394.
Holvoet, Axel. 2020. The Middle Voice in Baltic. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Holvoet, Axel & Loreta Semėnienė. 2004. Linksnio teorijos pagrindai [The foundations of the theory of Case]. In: Axel Holvoet & Loreta Semėnienė, eds., Gramatinių kategorijų tyrimai. Lietuvių kalbos gramatikos darbai 2 [Studies in Grammatical Categories. Studies in Lithuanian Grammar 2]. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 11–33.
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Iatridou, Sabine, Elena Anagnostopoulou & Roumyana Izvorski. 2003. Observations about the form and meaning of the Perfect. In: Alexiadou, Artemis, Monika Rathert & Arnim von Stechow, eds., Perfect Explorations. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 153–204.
Keenan, Edward L. & Matthew S. Dryer. 2007. Passive in the world’s languages. In: Timothy Shopen, ed., Language Typology and Syntactic Description, second edition, Vol. i: Clause Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 325–361.
Laanemets, Anu. 2012. Passiv i moderne dansk, norsk og svensk. Et korpusbaseret studie af tale- og skriftsprog [The Passive in modern Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. A Corpus-Based Study of Spoken and Written Language]. Doctoral dissertation. University of Tartu Press.
Lavine, James E. 2006. Is there a passive evidential strategy in Lithuanian? In: Jacqueline Bunting et al., eds., Papers from the 42nd Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 41–55.
Lindstedt, Jouku. 2000. The perfect―aspectual, temporal and evidential. In: Östen Dahl, ed., Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 366–383.
Lindström, Liina & Ilona Tragel. 2010. The possessive perfect construction in Estonian. Folia Linguistica 44.2, 371–400.
Lindström, Liina, Nicole Nau, Birutė Spraunienė & Asta Laugalienė 2020. Impersonal constructions with personal reference. Referents of deleted actors in Baltic and Estonian. Baltic Linguistics 11, 129–213.
Malchukov, Andrej & Anna Siewierska. 2011. Introduction. In: Andrej Malchukov & Anna Siewierska, eds., Impersonal Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1–15.
MLLVG i, 1959 = Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas grammatika. I. Fonētika un morfoloģija [Grammar of Modern Literary Latvian I. Phonetics and Morphology], ed. E. Sokols. Rīga: LPSR Zinātņu akadēmijas izdevniecība.
Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. & Sergej Je. Jaxontov 1988. The typology of resultative constructions. In: Vladimir P. Nedjalkov, ed., Typology of Resultative Constructions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 3–62.
Nau, Nicole. 2005. Perfekts un saliktā tagadne latviešu valodā [Perfect and compound present in Latvian]. Baltu filoloģija xiv.2, 137–154.
Nau, Nicole & Axel Holvoet. 2015. Voice in Baltic: An overview. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds., Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1–36.
Shibatani, Masayoshi. 2006. On the conceptual framework for voice phenomena. Linguistics 44.2, 217–69.
Siewierska, Anna. 2013. Passive Constructions. In: Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath, eds., The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://wals.info/chapter/107, Accessed on 2020-02-16.)
Siewierska, Anna & Dik Bakker. 2012. Passive agents: prototypical vs. canonical passives. In: Dunstan Brown, Marina Chumakina & Greville G. Corbett, eds., Canonical Morphology and Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 151–189. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199604326.003.0007.
Siewierska, Anna & Maria Papastathi. 2011. Towards a typology of third person plural impersonals. Linguistics 49.3, 575–610.
Spraunienė, Birutė, Auksė Razanovaitė & Erika Jasionytė. 2015. Solving the Puzzle of the Lithuanian passive. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds., Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 323−366.
Taylor, John. 2007. Latin beyond GCSE. London: Bloomsbury. 75
Veidemane, Rūta. 2002. Darbības vārds [The verb]. In: Kornēlija Pokrotniece, ed., Latviešu literārās valodas morfoloģiskās sistēmas attīstība: Lokāmās vārdšķiras [The Evolution of the Morphological System of Standard Latvian: Declinable Parts of Speech]. Rīga: LU Latviešu valodas institūts, 409–509.
Van Valin, Robert D. 2001. An Introduction to Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vladarskienė, Rasuolė. 2004. Sintaksinių priemonių ypatybės valstybės dokumentų kalboje [Syntactic features in the language of state documents]. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla.
Wiemer, Björn. 2004. The evolution of passives as grammatical constructions in Northern Slavic and Baltic languages. In: Walter Bisang, Nikolaus Himmelmann & Bjorn Wiemer, eds., What Makes Grammaticalization? A Look from its Fringes and its Components. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 271–331.
Wiemer, Björn. 2006a. Grammatical evidentiality in Lithuanian (a typological assessment). Baltistica 41.1, 33–49.
Wiemer, Björn. 2006b. Relations between actor-demoting devices in Lithuanian. In: Werner Abraham & Larisa Leisio, eds., Passivization and Typology (Form and Function). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 274–309.
Wiemer, Björn. In the press. On the rise, establishment and continued development of subject impersonals in Polish, East Slavic and Baltic. In: Seppo Kittila & Leonid Kulikov, eds., Diachronic Typology of Voice and Valency-Changing Categories. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Willett, Thomas L. 1988. A cross-linguistic survey of the grammaticalization of evidentiality. Studies in Language 12, 51–97.
Zúñiga, Fernando & Seppo Kittilä. 2019. Grammatical Voice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316671399.
Ambrazas, Vytautas et al. 2006. Lithuanian Grammar. Second revised edition. Vilnius: Baltos lankos.
Anderson, Cori. 2015. Passivization and argument structure in Lithuanian. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds., Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 289–322.
Blevins, James P. 2003. Passives and impersonals. Journal of Linguistics 39, 473–520.
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago-London: University of Chicago Press.
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford, New York: Blackwell.
Dahl, Östen & Eva Hedin. 2000. Current relevance and event reference. In: Östen Dahl, ed., Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 385–401.
Daugavet, Anna & Axel Holvoet. 2019. An elusive experiential tense construction in Latvian. Baltic Linguistics 10: Minor Grams in Baltic, Slavonic and Fennic (thematic issue), 109–153.
Endzelin, J[ānis]. 1923. Lettische Grammatik. Heidelberg: Winter.
Frajzyngier, Zygmunt. 1982. Indefinite agent, impersonal, and passive: A functional approach. Lingua 58, 267–290.
Geniušienė, Emma Š. 2006. Passives in Lithuanian (in comparison with Russian). In: Werner Abraham & Larisa Leisiö, eds., Passivization and Typology: Form and Function. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 29–61.
Geniušienė, Emma Š. 2016. Passive Constructions in Lithuanian. Selected Works of Emma Geniušienė edited by Anna Kibort & Nijolė Maskaliūnienė. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Geniušienė, Emma Š., Vladimir P. Nedjalkov. 1988. Resultative, passive, and perfect in Lithuanian. In: Vladimir P. Nedjalkov, ed., Typology of Resultative Constructions. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 369–386.
Holvoet, Axel. 2001a. Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic. In: Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, eds., Circum-Baltic Languages. Vol. 2: Grammar and Typology. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 363–389.
Holvoet, Axel. 2001b. Studies in the Latvian Verb. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Holvoet, Axel. 2004. Eine modale Konstruktion ostseefinnischer Herkunft im Lettischen. In: Irma Hyvarinen, Petri Kallio & Jarmo Korhonen, eds., Etymologie, Entlehnungen und Entwicklungen. Festschrift für Jorma Koivulehto zum 70. Geburtstag. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique, 117–127.
Holvoet, Axel. 2007. Mood and modality in Baltic. Krakow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Holvoet, Axel. 2015. Latvian passives―personal, impersonal and evidential. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds., Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 367–394.
Holvoet, Axel. 2020. The Middle Voice in Baltic. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Holvoet, Axel & Loreta Semėnienė. 2004. Linksnio teorijos pagrindai [The foundations of the theory of Case]. In: Axel Holvoet & Loreta Semėnienė, eds., Gramatinių kategorijų tyrimai. Lietuvių kalbos gramatikos darbai 2 [Studies in Grammatical Categories. Studies in Lithuanian Grammar 2]. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 11–33.
Holvoet, Axel, Birutė Spraunienė, Anna Daugavet, & Asta Laugalienė. 2019. The agentive construction in Baltic and Fennic. Baltic Linguistics 10: Minor Grams in Baltic, Slavonic and Fennic (thematic issue), 195–236.
Iatridou, Sabine, Elena Anagnostopoulou & Roumyana Izvorski. 2003. Observations about the form and meaning of the Perfect. In: Alexiadou, Artemis, Monika Rathert & Arnim von Stechow, eds., Perfect Explorations. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 153–204.
Keenan, Edward L. & Matthew S. Dryer. 2007. Passive in the world’s languages. In: Timothy Shopen, ed., Language Typology and Syntactic Description, second edition, Vol. i: Clause Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 325–361.
Laanemets, Anu. 2012. Passiv i moderne dansk, norsk og svensk. Et korpusbaseret studie af tale- og skriftsprog [The Passive in modern Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. A Corpus-Based Study of Spoken and Written Language]. Doctoral dissertation. University of Tartu Press.
Lavine, James E. 2006. Is there a passive evidential strategy in Lithuanian? In: Jacqueline Bunting et al., eds., Papers from the 42nd Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 41–55.
Lindstedt, Jouku. 2000. The perfect―aspectual, temporal and evidential. In: Östen Dahl, ed., Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 366–383.
Lindström, Liina & Ilona Tragel. 2010. The possessive perfect construction in Estonian. Folia Linguistica 44.2, 371–400.
Lindström, Liina, Nicole Nau, Birutė Spraunienė & Asta Laugalienė 2020. Impersonal constructions with personal reference. Referents of deleted actors in Baltic and Estonian. Baltic Linguistics 11, 129–213.
Malchukov, Andrej & Anna Siewierska. 2011. Introduction. In: Andrej Malchukov & Anna Siewierska, eds., Impersonal Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1–15.
MLLVG i, 1959 = Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas grammatika. I. Fonētika un morfoloģija [Grammar of Modern Literary Latvian I. Phonetics and Morphology], ed. E. Sokols. Rīga: LPSR Zinātņu akadēmijas izdevniecība.
Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. & Sergej Je. Jaxontov 1988. The typology of resultative constructions. In: Vladimir P. Nedjalkov, ed., Typology of Resultative Constructions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 3–62.
Nau, Nicole. 2005. Perfekts un saliktā tagadne latviešu valodā [Perfect and compound present in Latvian]. Baltu filoloģija xiv.2, 137–154.
Nau, Nicole & Axel Holvoet. 2015. Voice in Baltic: An overview. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds., Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1–36.
Shibatani, Masayoshi. 2006. On the conceptual framework for voice phenomena. Linguistics 44.2, 217–69.
Siewierska, Anna. 2013. Passive Constructions. In: Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath, eds., The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://wals.info/chapter/107, Accessed on 2020-02-16.)
Siewierska, Anna & Dik Bakker. 2012. Passive agents: prototypical vs. canonical passives. In: Dunstan Brown, Marina Chumakina & Greville G. Corbett, eds., Canonical Morphology and Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 151–189. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199604326.003.0007.
Siewierska, Anna & Maria Papastathi. 2011. Towards a typology of third person plural impersonals. Linguistics 49.3, 575–610.
Spraunienė, Birutė, Auksė Razanovaitė & Erika Jasionytė. 2015. Solving the Puzzle of the Lithuanian passive. In: Axel Holvoet & Nicole Nau, eds., Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 323−366.
Taylor, John. 2007. Latin beyond GCSE. London: Bloomsbury. 75
Veidemane, Rūta. 2002. Darbības vārds [The verb]. In: Kornēlija Pokrotniece, ed., Latviešu literārās valodas morfoloģiskās sistēmas attīstība: Lokāmās vārdšķiras [The Evolution of the Morphological System of Standard Latvian: Declinable Parts of Speech]. Rīga: LU Latviešu valodas institūts, 409–509.
Van Valin, Robert D. 2001. An Introduction to Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vladarskienė, Rasuolė. 2004. Sintaksinių priemonių ypatybės valstybės dokumentų kalboje [Syntactic features in the language of state documents]. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla.
Wiemer, Björn. 2004. The evolution of passives as grammatical constructions in Northern Slavic and Baltic languages. In: Walter Bisang, Nikolaus Himmelmann & Bjorn Wiemer, eds., What Makes Grammaticalization? A Look from its Fringes and its Components. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 271–331.
Wiemer, Björn. 2006a. Grammatical evidentiality in Lithuanian (a typological assessment). Baltistica 41.1, 33–49.
Wiemer, Björn. 2006b. Relations between actor-demoting devices in Lithuanian. In: Werner Abraham & Larisa Leisio, eds., Passivization and Typology (Form and Function). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 274–309.
Wiemer, Björn. In the press. On the rise, establishment and continued development of subject impersonals in Polish, East Slavic and Baltic. In: Seppo Kittila & Leonid Kulikov, eds., Diachronic Typology of Voice and Valency-Changing Categories. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Willett, Thomas L. 1988. A cross-linguistic survey of the grammaticalization of evidentiality. Studies in Language 12, 51–97.
Zúñiga, Fernando & Seppo Kittilä. 2019. Grammatical Voice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316671399.
