Degrees of event elaboration.
Passive construction in Italian and Spanish
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9788846449771
Edition: 1a edizione 2003
Publisher code: 1095.40
Availability: Discreta
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Research on Italian and Spanish passive constructions has been normally conducted along the lines of formal linguistic theories. As a result, the discourse patterns followed by these constructions have generally escaped attention. This book attempts to fill such a gap. It provides a systematic account of the usage and distribution of passive constructions in Italian and Spanish.
The four passive constructions examined in the present work (two periphrastic passives and two middle-marker constructions) differ from one another in both the prominence they assign to agent and patient and the degree of specificity to which they represent the event denoted by the verb. The detailed corpus analysis conducted in this book will make these differences clear.
A secondary aim of this book is to show that the integration of cognitive and typological insights pursued by the methodology of semantic maps constitutes the basis for important generalizations about the semantics of passive constructions across languages.
Andrea Sansò (1975) is a post-doc research fellow at the University of Pavia. His current research areas include linguistic typology, areal linguistics, and computational linguistics.
Preface
Introduction
(Aims of the present study; The Italian periphrastic passive; The Spanish periphrastic passive; The Italian MM passive; The Spanish MM passive; The framework; Data; Clarification of terms; Organization of the discussion)
Typological and functional approaches to the passive
(Introduction; Keenan, 1985; Haspelmath, 1990; Andersen, 1991; The dimensions of variation of passive constructions)
Patient topicalization and agent defocusing: beyond the common view
(Introduction; Passive and patient topicalization; The passive as an agent-defocusing strategy; The rhetorical patterns of passive clauses)
Italian and Spanish passive constructions: a parallel analysis
(Cross-linguistic analysis and semantic maps; Elaboration of event and middle situation types: Kemmer, 1993; Passive situation types; Italian and Spanish passive constructions and their situation types; A parallel analysis of Italian and Spanish passives; Summary of the main findings; The position of passive situation types within the domain of event coding; Word order in the Italian periphrastic passive)
Broadening the sample: Dutch, German, and Polish
(Introduction; Dutch; Passive and impersonal constructions in German; The -no/-to construction in Polish; Conclusion)
Problems and further research
(Introduction; A semantic map for the passive?; Problems; Some further issues)
References.
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