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On passives without morphology| title | On passives without morphology |
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| start_date | 2026/06/15 |
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| schedule | 14h-16h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | salle 124 & sur zoom |
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| summary | Passive constructions in creole languages come in different guises (cf. Haspelmath et al. 2013). In this paper we focus on passives without verbal coding or bare passives in the terminology of Kouwenberg (2023). Cabredo Hofherr (2023) notes that prototypical properties subject demotion and object promotion are logically independent of morphological voice marking. As noted in APiCS, a surprisingly high number of creole languages show this type of construction -- of the 76 languages surveyed there, 29 languages use a bare passive (either as the sole passive construction, or alongside a construction using verbal coding), even though they do not seem to be common in the world’s languages (but see Arka & Kosmas 2005).
We will argue that promotion or displacement of the object in these bare passive constructions can target different positions, either the subject position in the extended projection or a topic position in the left periphery. Winford (1988), Lacharité & Wellington (1999) and Veenstra (2003) have argued for an Object_to_Subject-analysis (O_S), whereas Syea (2024) has argued for an Object_to_Topic-analysis (O_T). We show that both analyses, supported by semantic restrictions in terms of specificity and animacy as well as syntactic restrictions such as word order and coordination, are valid for the respective languages (Patwa/Saamaka vs Morisien). The distribution between the two different types of languages (O_S vs O_T), however, is substrate-based.
Cobbinah & Lüpke (2012) observed that bare passives are the norm for West-African Mande languages, and they also occur in the neighbouring Gur languages (Sulamana 2024), both of the Niger-Congo phylum. They further point to the existence of similar constructions in several African languages of the Adamawa, Chadic, and Bantu subgroupings (cf. also Bostoen & Mundeke 2011). We show that West-African languages that are the relevant substrate languages for the Atlantic area display the O_S-system, exemplified by the analysis of Sulamana (2024) for Bùlì, whereas some of the Bantu languages from areas that count as the substrate for the Indian Ocean creole languages display the O_T-system (Bostoen & Mundeke (2011) on Mbuun (B87, DRC); Van der Wal 2015 on Matengo (N13, Tanzania); Hamlaoui (2014) on Dholuo (Nilotic, Uganda), Bemba (M42, Zambia) and Bàsàá (A43, Cameroon)). This in turn shows the importance of the local ecologies in accounting for the different patterning found in the semantic field of passivization. |
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| responsibles | Cabredo Hofherr |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2026/06/08 07:24 UTC |
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