Passive types and the theory of object asymmetries

Abstract

This paper addresses the question whether the type of passive that a language has is or is not related to apparently independent properties of the language, such as object marking, found in Bantu languages. The theory of object asymmetries (Baker, 1988a; Bresnan and Moshi, 1990) makes the fundamental claim that passive types are just one of the possible manifestations of an underlying asymmetry among objects. I argue that facts that might be taken as evidence against this claim turn out to have an analysis that is consistent with it and thus preserves important predictions made by the theory of object asymmetries. The analysis of these and other facts that reveal asymmetries among objects supports the assumption that the theory of object asymmetries relies heavily on a level of representation in which arguments are ranked by prominence, as determined by their thematic roles. The conclusion that an adequate theory must view the type of passive not as a property of the passive morpheme (contra Woolford, 1993), but as a manifestation of an underlying feature of the language, argues against the view that requires parameters to be morpheme-based: at least in some cases, parameters must be language-based.