The Passive Construction in Zaza

 

Contents

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Morphological and Syntactical Preliminaries

2. In Search of an Agent

3. Embedded Sentences

4. Manner Adverbials

5. Quantifiers

6. Stress

7. Locative Phrase and Time Phrase

8. Statal Passive

9. Nominalisations

10. Questions

11. Non-Human Agents and Inanimate Agents

12. The Adverbs Again

Conclusion

Bibliography

Abbreviations

 

Abs.	absolutive		Obl.	oblique
Comp.	comparative		pl.	plural
Det.	determinative		Phr	phrase
DO	direct object		Po.	postposition
fem.	feminine		Rel.	relative
Iz.	izafet		sg.	singular
Loc Phr	locative phrase		SU	subject
masc.	masculine		V	verb

 

Introduction

 

Zaza is an Iranian language closely related to Kurdish and is now spoken in Turkey where it has been brought by migration. Its grammar has not received a thorough investigation yet (as of 1978). The present paper, after a short morphological and syntactical sketch, will describe different aspects of passive formations in Zaza in view of a general constraint which will have to be formulated right from the beginning. In the conclusion we will be concerned with some general theoretical considerations brought about by the Zaza data.

 

 

1. Morphological and Syntactical Preliminaries

Since most of the examples used in this paper will be in the past, it is necessary to outline a brief sketch of Zaza syntax in the past, because past tenses present certain peculiarities. Zaza is ergative in the past; in other words, whilst in the present the verb agrees with its subject (in the absolutive case), in the past verb agreement is with direct object when there is one, the subject is in the oblique case and the direct object in the absolutive:

 

Present : SU (Absolutive) DO (Oblique) V (agrees with SU)

 

Past: SU (Oblique) DO (Absolutive) V (agrees with DO)

 

 

Examples of verb agreement:

(1) Rεmzɑn	mεrdɨmi	kɨʃεnno
Abs.	man-Obl.	kills
‘Remzan kills the man’

 

(2) Rεmzɑni	mεrdɨm	kɨʃt
Obl.	Abs.	killed
‘Remzan killed the man’

 

(3) Rεmzɑni	mεrdɨmi	kɨʃti
Obl.	Abs.pl.	killed
‘Remzan killed the men’

As a consequence, the verb is invariable (in the past) when there is no direct object (objectless transitive verbs); in the case of intransitive verbs, the subject is in the absolutive case and there is verb agreement. Subjects of passive verbs behave like subjects of intransitive verbs and take the absolutive case.

The morpheme characteristic of passive is ‑j‑, compare the following examples: εz vinεnnɑ ‘I see’, εz vinejεnnɑ ‘I am seen’, εz vinejjɑjɑ ‘I was seen’ (mɨ di ‘I saw’ is irregular).

 

2. In Search of an Agent

The starting point of this study will be the following active sentence:

(4) dʒɨnεk-ɨ	dɑ	mεrdɨmi-ro
woman-Obl.	woman-Obl.	man-Obl.
‘The woman hit the man’

(n.b.: the verb ‘to hit’ is always accompanied by the postposition ‑ro; as a rule, postpositions are preceded by the oblique case of the noun).

A problem arises when this sentence is put into passive: apparently then, there is no way to express the agent:

(5) mεrdɨm	dejjɑ  bɨ	pɨ-ro
man-Abs.	hit      was
‘The man was hit’

(n.b.: pɨ replaces the object in the oblique case in the citation form of the verb).

A further investigation is necessary in order to see if this represents a general constraint in Zaza or if there is any case where an agent can be expressed. It should also be noted that the rare examples of passive given by Hadank 1932: 93, 94, 192, 194 are always agentless.

 

3. Embedded Sentences

Our first move will be to check if a passive with a by-phrase is possible in an embedded sentence; given the following sentence:

(6) Rεmzɑn	sɨlɑsneno	mεrdɨm-o	kɨ		dʒɨnekεr	dɑ pɨ-ro
Abs.	knows	man-Dem.	Rel.	woman		hit
‘Remzan knows the man whom the woman hit’

 

passivisation applies as in simplex sentences, with deletion of the by-phrase:

(7) Rεmzɑn	sɨlɑsneno	mεrdɨm-o	kɨ	dejjɑ pɨ-ro
Abs.	knows	man-Dem.	Rel.	was hit
‘Remzan knows the man who was hit’

 

4. Manner Adverbials

In Aspects Chomsky observes that the verbs which do not take manner adverbials freely are those verbs with following NP’s which do not undergo the passive transformation (Chomsky 1965:103). He adds: “a Verb will […] undergo the passive transformation only if it is positively specified, in the lexicon, for the strict subcategorization feature [-NP⁀Manner], in which case it will also take manner adverbials freely” (Chomsky 1965:104). But one can question if this statement gives a true image of the phenomena involved in deep structure or is not merely an observation of phenomena occurring only in surface structure. In any case, such a cooccurrence is absent from Zaza, since a manner adverbial can appear whereas a by-phrase is not permitted:

Active (8) Meriεm	tʃɨnɑ	kefɑ	ʃɨt
Mary	cloth	with joy	washed
‘Mary washed the clothes with joy’

 

Passive (9) tʃɨnɑ	kefɑ	ʃojɑ
cloth	with joy	was washed
‘The clothes were washed with joy’

 

The evidence collected seems to point to Zaza taking manner adverbials freely in the passive even if there is no by-phrase.

 

5. Quantifiers

As was pointed out by Chomsky in Syntactic Structures, quantifiers present certain peculiarities as far as a semantic relation between active and passive is concerned : "we can describe circumstances in which a 'quantificational' sentence such as "everyone in the room knows at least two languages" may be true, while the corresponding passive "at least two languages are known by everyone in the room" is false, under the normal interpretation of these sentences — e.g., if one person in the room knows only French and German, and another only Spanish and Italian" (Chomsky 1957:100-101).

Given the fact that passive sentences with quantifiers seem to have special properties in English, one is led to ask if there will be, in such a case, expression of an agent in Zaza; but this is not the case, as can be seen from the following two examples:

Active (10)

hyrgy	mɛrdɨmi	dɨ	kɛrgi	kɨʃti
every	man-Obl.	two	chickens-Abs.pl.	killed
'Every man killed two chickens'

Passive (11)

dɨ	kɛrgi	kɨʃjɑj
two	chickens-Abs.	were killed
'Two chickens were killed'

 

The following sentences have also been tried but the result is always that there is no possibility for a by-phrase to appear:

Active (12)

qɑtʃkɑne	bolɨn	kɨtɑbi	wɛndi
children	many	books	read-Past
'Many children read books'

Passive (13)

kɨtɑbi	wɑnejɑj
books-Abs.	were read
'The books were read' (*by many children)

Active (14)

ʒɛw	mɛrdɨmi	kɨtɑb	wɛnd
one	man-Obl.	book	read
'One man read the book'

Passive (15)

kɨtɑb	wɑnejɑ
book-Abs.	was read
'The book was read' (*by one man)

 

6. Stress

It has already been observed that certain passive sentences in English are considered odd by native speakers when they are uttered with normal intonation. Singh 1976:10 notes that a sentence like 'a muscle was pulled by Max' (corresponding to the active 'Max pulled a muscle') is doubtful whereas if special structural or intonation features are added, such a sentence as the following is readily accepted by native speakers: 'Yesterday, a muscle was pulled by Max, today a tendon, what will it be tomorrow?'

The question to be asked here is whether contrastive stress can trigger the appearance of a by-phrase. The sentence to be translated was: 'The book was given to him by me (not by you)' and the result was:

(16)

kɨtɑb	dejjɑ	e.	mɨ	dɑ	e
book-Abs	was given	to him	I	gave	to him
'The book was given to him. I gave him [=dative]'

 

Once more, the conclusion is that no by-phrase is admissible.

 

7. Locative Phrase and Time Phrase

The next move was to consider if passivised verbs can take a locative phrase and a time phrase and, if so, if the agent would be expressed. As for the agent, the answer is once more negative. But, clearly, locative phrases and time phrases can occur in passive sentences:

Loc Phr (17)

nɑn	mɨtbɑxdɨ	verjɑ
food-Abs.	in the kitchen	was eaten
'The food was eaten in the kitchen'

(18)

tʃɨnɑ	rodɨ	ʃojɑ.	Meriɛmɨ	ʃɨt
cloth-Abs.	in the river	was washed	Mary-Obl.	washed
'The clothes were washed in the river. Mary washed (them) = The clothes were washed by Mary in the river'

Time Phr (19)

tʃɨnɑ	vɨzer	ʃojɑ.	Meriɛmɨ	ʃɨt
cloth-Abs.	yesterday	was washed	Mary-Obl.	washed
'The clothes were washed yesterday. Mary washed = The clothes were washed by Mary yesterday'

Loc Phr and Time Phr (20)

tʃɨnɑ	vɨzer	rodɨ	ʃojɑ
cloth-Abs.	yesterday	in the river	was washed
'The clothes were washed in the river yesterday'

 

8. Statal Passive

Traditionally, grammars distinguish between kinetic and statal passives, according to meaning:

(21) The door was shut (statal)

(22) The door was shut by John (kinetic)

For Hasegawa, statal passives are not passive at all and he tentatively assumes that they are a variety of be + Pred construction; the last two examples will be analysed thus (Hasegawa 1966:236):

(23) the door Past be En [Shut] _S (Passive)

(24) the door Past be [En shut] _Pred (Statal 'passive')

 

Since in English there is a similarity in surface structure between the two passives, Hasegawa assumes that this relationship must be captured in the underlying structures but this assumption is questionable for Zaza, as can be shown from the following examples:

(25)

kɑpɨ	gɨrote	bɨ
door	shut	was
'The door was shut' (statal)

(26)

kɑpɨ	gɨrjɑ	bɨ
door	shut	was
'The door was shut' (kinetic)

In Zaza, the surface structure of both constructions is clearly differentiated, as opposed to English. Moreover, this distinction implies, in the case of the kinetic passive, that an agent must be 'understood': one is then led to posit, in deep structure, the presence of a by-phrase or, better, a by+unspecified NP which is then deleted by a transformation of the following type:

 

(27)

SD	X	en⁀V	by⁀unspecified NP
	1	2 3	4 5	➱
	1	2 3	0 0

 

However, this poses a problem of recoverability, since the same surface structure sentence "the door was shut" can have as underlying structures both "the door was shut by Remzan" and "the door was shut by + unspecified NP".

 

9. Nominalisations

In Remarks on Nominalisations, Chomsky observes that passivisation can also occur within complex NP's. For example, in

(28) John's killing of the chicken

John is the agent and that can be paraphrased by:

(29) The chicken was killed by John.

But even within an NP, expression of the agent is impossible in Zaza; the sentence

(30) I don't know which chicken John's killing (it) surprised Mary

can only be translated into Zaza if the agent is omitted:

(31)

nezɑnɑ	kɨʃjɑjɨ-e	kɑnʤin	kɛrgɨ	Meriɛmɨ-re	eʤɑjɨb ɑme
not-(I)know	kill-Pass+Iz.	which	chicken-Obl.	Mary-Obl.-for	surprised
'I don't know the killing of which chicken surprised Mary'

 

That is probably the strongest evidence for the complete impossibility of expressing agents in Zaza. However, certain other remaining possibilities must also be checked.

 

10. Questions

Given a question of the following type:

(32)

kɑnʤin	mɛrdɨmi-ro	dɑ	ʤɨnekɛr?
which	man-Obl. Postpo.	hit	woman-Obl.
'Which man did the woman hit?'

 

we would like to know if a question on the agent is possible, that is:

(33) By which woman was the man hit?

The only alternative, if we want the question to be on the agent, is to have the sentence in the active. Otherwise, the only passive interrogative sentence is :

(34)

dejjɑ	kɑnʤin	mɛrdɨmi-ro?
hit-Pass	which	man-Obl.
'Which man was hit?'

 

Starting from the translation 'von wem?' given by Hadank 1932 of the Zaza phrase 'kɑmi-rɑ?' I asked my informant if the following would be a normal sentence of Zaza:

(35) kapɨ gerjɑbɨ; kɑmi-rɑ ?

'the door was shut; "von wem"?'

The answer came at once that it was not possible and that the translation of kɑmi-rɑ should be 'from whom?' and not 'by whom?'.

 

11. Non-Human Agents and Inanimate Agents

So far, we have only been concerned with trying to find a way for a human agent to be expressed in Zaza. Now we must explore the possibility of a non-human agent, say an animal, being expressed. The sentence chosen for that purpose was:

(36) The caravan was preceded by a dog

It should be noted that, strictly speaking, it is questionable whether 'by a dog' should be considered as an agent; in other words, since the agentivity of such a by-phrase seems rather thin, it should be easier for a by-phrase not to be deleted. However, even in that case, the agent must be deleted or the sentence turned into active:

(37)

kɛrvɑni-verrɑ	qutɨke	ʃijɛ
caravan-Obl.-in front of	dog	was going
'A dog preceded the caravan'

 

The next move was to investigate if the same constraints hold with inanimate agents, starting with the following English sentence:

(38) The door was shut by the wind

This time, a literal Zaza translation was possible:

(39)

kɑpɨ	vɑj-rɑ	gerjɑ	bɨ
door	'by' wind-Po	shut	was
'The door was shut by the wind'

(n.b.: -rɑ is described by Hadank 1932:58 as an 'ablative' postposition).

 

Compare also :

(40)

bɑxʤɛ	vɛw-rɑ	gerjɑ	bɨ
garden	snow-with	'closed'	was
'The garden was covered with snow'

 

There is no restriction for the corresponding embedded sentences:

(41)

Rɛmzɑni	vɑ	(kɨ)	kɑpɨ	vɑj-rɑ	gerjɑ	bɨ
Obl.	said	that	door	wind-Po.	'closed'	was
'Remzan said that the door was closed by the wind'

(42)

Rɛmzɑni,	bɑxʤɛ-u	kɨ	vɛw-rɑ	gerjɑ	bɨ,	di
Obl.	garden-Dem.	Rel.	snow-Po.	'closed'	was	saw
'Remzan saw the garden which was covered with snow'

 

But when further questions are asked, one soon realises that it is not sure that an agent is expressed in the preceding sentences; instead, what looked like by-phrases was actually described by my informant as complements of cause. However, this intuition does hot correspond to other uses of the postposition -rɑ:

Ablative (43)

Rɛmzɑn	New York-rɑ	ʃɨ
Abs.	-from	went
'Remzan left New York'

Subject Matter (44)

Rɛmzɑni	jɑɣɛri-rɑ	qɨse-kɛrdi
	rain-Po.	talked
'Remzan talked about the rain'

Comparative (45)

Rɛmzɑn	Meriɛm-rɑ	gɨrd-er - i - o
		big-Comp.-Det.-is
'Remzan is bigger than Mary'

 

12. The Adverbs Again

The last trial was to apply a remark made by Singh 1976:26 that in a sentence like

(46) The decision was internationally approved

the agent is already expressed in the adverb, so that no other noun-phrase need be expressed. A Zaza equivalent seemed plausible since, as already noted, manner adverbials can occur with passives. However, an adverb functioning as a by-phrase cannot appear in surface structure. A sentence like the following :

(47) This fact is universally known

was translated:

(48)

ne	ɑlɛm	zɑno
this	everybody	knows
'Everybody knows this'

 

Conclusion

Clearly enough, there can be no full passive in Zaza (even what seemed to be an inanimate agent, pp. 13-14, was felt by my informant as not being equivalent to a corresponding English by-phrase). This raises the question of agentless passives in a transformational grammar. Chomsky seems to have taken for granted, in the early days, that the normal form of passives (at least in English) was with a specified by-phrase, deleted by a later transformation, as in Syntactic Structures (p. 81, note 7). In Aspects he modified somewhat his position and introduced the notion of unspecified agent to explain sentences of the type "this job is being worked at quite seriously" (Chomsky 1965:105). However, statistical evidence shows that, even in English, full passives are much less frequent than agentless passives (see Bates 1974:16 for references), a fact which has not been taken into account by Chomsky.

It is well known that passives allow the hearer's attention to be focused on the patient. In such a case, one can ask if the same goal can be obtained in Zaza merely by the word order. The unmarked word order is SOV:

(49) Rεmzɑni Mɑhmud kɨʃt

       Obl.         Abs.        killed

There is only one other possible word order :

(50) Mɑhmud Rεmzɑni kɨʃt

        Patient     Agent     Verb

but, in this case, it is the agent which is emphasized.

Passive in Zaza shows a strong affinity with intransitive; this is best illustrated by the fact that, in the past, both passive and intransitive verbs agree with their subjects in the absolutive case (whereas object1ess transitive verbs are invariable and transitive verbs with a direct object agree with the direct object in the absolutive case); in other words, past passive and intransitive verbs share three features: 1) their subjects are in the absolutive; 2) they agree with their subjects; 3) they have no direct object (on the relation of passive and intransitive see Keenan 1975:340-1).

 

Bibliography

Bates, J. 1974. An Appraisal of Some Aspects of the Passive Construction in Transformational Grammar. Cambridge, unpublished dissertation.

Chomsky, N. 1975 (=1957). Syntactic Structures. The Hague, Mouton.

------------, 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass., The M.l.T. Press.

Hadank, K. 1932. Mundarten der Zâzâ, hauptsächlich aus Siwerek und Kor. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter.

Hasegawa, K.1968. 'The Passive Construction in English' in Language 44, 230-243.

Keenan, E. 1975. 'Some Universals of Passive in Re1ational Grammar'. Papers from the Eleventh Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 340-52.

Singh, C.1976. The Limitations of Transformational Generative Treatments of the Passive as a Syntactic Operation on Underlying Structure. Cambridge, unpublished dissertation.