Startseite Linguistik & Semiotik 6. Voice and voice alternations
Kapitel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

6. Voice and voice alternations

  • Patricia Cabredo Hofherr
Veröffentlichen auch Sie bei De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

In the transition from Latin to Early Romance the synthetic passive forms were lost, followed by a restructuring of the voice system. The reinterpretation of originally perfective passive forms as imperfective passive resulted in a periphrastic be-passive that was ambiguous between an imperfective and a perfective reading. This ambiguity favoured the rise of innovated passive auxiliaries that grammaticalised from verbs such as venire ‘come’, fieri ‘become’, facere ‘do’, or stare ‘stand’. In parallel, Romance languages generalised argument reduction processes using the weakened reflexive se/si (from Latin sibi) and developed pronominal agent-backgrounding strategies, based on third person plural and second person singular personal pronouns, the numeral one and the noun homo ‘man’.

Abstract

In the transition from Latin to Early Romance the synthetic passive forms were lost, followed by a restructuring of the voice system. The reinterpretation of originally perfective passive forms as imperfective passive resulted in a periphrastic be-passive that was ambiguous between an imperfective and a perfective reading. This ambiguity favoured the rise of innovated passive auxiliaries that grammaticalised from verbs such as venire ‘come’, fieri ‘become’, facere ‘do’, or stare ‘stand’. In parallel, Romance languages generalised argument reduction processes using the weakened reflexive se/si (from Latin sibi) and developed pronominal agent-backgrounding strategies, based on third person plural and second person singular personal pronouns, the numeral one and the noun homo ‘man’.

Heruntergeladen am 20.12.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110377088-006/html
Button zum nach oben scrollen