The elephant in the room
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Anna Kibort
Abstract
This chapter offers an overview of the little studied Polish impersonal construction which is made up of an auxiliary or copular verb in 3sg.n and a passive or resultative -n-/-t- participle bearing the singular neuter inflection -e. I describe the morphological form and syntactic behaviour of this construction, demonstrate that it is not only functionally impersonal but also syntactically subjectless, and discuss its relation to the impersonal passive of the intransitive as well as to the impersonal predicative adverbial construction. I conclude that the form of the impersonal -ne/-te construction is underspecified with regard to which of the two syntactic constructions (passive verbal or non-passive adverbial) it instantiates. Hence, syntactic frameworks need to provide an appropriate model for this type of underspecification. Keywords: Polish; impersonal; resultative participle; passive of intransitive; predicative adverbial construction
Abstract
This chapter offers an overview of the little studied Polish impersonal construction which is made up of an auxiliary or copular verb in 3sg.n and a passive or resultative -n-/-t- participle bearing the singular neuter inflection -e. I describe the morphological form and syntactic behaviour of this construction, demonstrate that it is not only functionally impersonal but also syntactically subjectless, and discuss its relation to the impersonal passive of the intransitive as well as to the impersonal predicative adverbial construction. I conclude that the form of the impersonal -ne/-te construction is underspecified with regard to which of the two syntactic constructions (passive verbal or non-passive adverbial) it instantiates. Hence, syntactic frameworks need to provide an appropriate model for this type of underspecification. Keywords: Polish; impersonal; resultative participle; passive of intransitive; predicative adverbial construction
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Impersonal constructions
- Towards a typology of impersonal constructions 19
- Overlap and complementarity in reference impersonals 57
- Verbs of motion 91
- On the distribution of subject properties in formulaic presentationals of Germanic and Romance 127
-
Part II. Impersonal constructions
- Impersonal constructions and accusative subjects in Late Latin 169
- From passive to impersonal 189
- Passive to anticausative through impersonalization 229
-
Part III. Cross-linguistic variation in Impersonal constructions
- The Maa (Eastern Nilotic) Impersonal construction 257
- Impersonal constructions in Jóola-Banjal 285
- Impersonal configurations and theticity 307
- Revisiting impersonal constructions in Modern Hebrew 323
- The elephant in the room 357
- Meteorological verbs in Uralic languages – are there any impersonal structures to be found 395
- Impersonal constructions in Ket 439
- Impersonal verbs in Central Alaskan Yupik (Eskimoan) 459
- Impersonals in Innu 489
- A diachronic study of the impersonal passive in Ainu 517
- Referential impersonal constructions in Mandarin 547
- Impersonal constructions in some Oceanic languages 581
- Impersonal constructions in Umpithamu and the Lamalamic languages 607
- Author index 627
- Language index 633
- Language index 637
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Impersonal constructions
- Towards a typology of impersonal constructions 19
- Overlap and complementarity in reference impersonals 57
- Verbs of motion 91
- On the distribution of subject properties in formulaic presentationals of Germanic and Romance 127
-
Part II. Impersonal constructions
- Impersonal constructions and accusative subjects in Late Latin 169
- From passive to impersonal 189
- Passive to anticausative through impersonalization 229
-
Part III. Cross-linguistic variation in Impersonal constructions
- The Maa (Eastern Nilotic) Impersonal construction 257
- Impersonal constructions in Jóola-Banjal 285
- Impersonal configurations and theticity 307
- Revisiting impersonal constructions in Modern Hebrew 323
- The elephant in the room 357
- Meteorological verbs in Uralic languages – are there any impersonal structures to be found 395
- Impersonal constructions in Ket 439
- Impersonal verbs in Central Alaskan Yupik (Eskimoan) 459
- Impersonals in Innu 489
- A diachronic study of the impersonal passive in Ainu 517
- Referential impersonal constructions in Mandarin 547
- Impersonal constructions in some Oceanic languages 581
- Impersonal constructions in Umpithamu and the Lamalamic languages 607
- Author index 627
- Language index 633
- Language index 637
