Voice and Raising
Linguistics 322
Intermediate Syntax
Voice is a grammatical category,
an operator, that has no directly link to conceptual structure.
Voice is a complex issue, but it appears to mark a prominent object
that the speaker chooses to make prominent. In English there are
two voices: active and passive. The passive voice is the marked
voice: [+Passive], and the active voice is the unmarked or default
voice: [-Passive]. Virtually every verb may occur in the active
voice--indeed some of them must:
(1). John ate the potato.
(2). Some birds are flying.
(3). Henry resembles Hank's father.
The passive voice is restricted to transitive verbs. There is a small class of transitive verbs that cannot be marked in the passive voice.
(4). The potato was eaten by John.
(5). *Be flying some birds.
(6). *Hank's father is resembled by Henry.
Intransitive verbs cannot passive in English, though they can in German. Apparently, if the subject in the active voice is a theme, the passive voice is not possible.
Let
us start with (4); it corresponds to (1), its active voice counterpart.
Both appear to be derived from the same lexical A-structure:
(7). EAT <theme: POTATO> <agent: JOHN>
Voice is an operator. The evidence of English sytax shows that this operator is closest to the main verb. No other auxiliary verb or overt operator may occur between the auxiliary {BE} associated with the passive voice and the main verb. If this is correct, then we may claim that voice subcategorizes a main verb, a predicate adjective, or a preposition, all of which are linked to eventualities. :
(8)
Voice
Category
VP [main], AP, PP
Subcategorization
The structure containing voice and its argument is a phrase, which may call a voice phrase (VceP), or we may consider it to be an extension of the verb phrase (VP), prepositional phrase, or adjective phrase. If features such as Eventuality and its subparts, Thing and its subparts are considered lexical features as well as propositional features, then we can modify (8) to the following simpler form:
(9)
|
Voice |
Category |
|
[Eventuality] |
Subcategorization |
The structure of (4) starting with voice would now be:
(10)
In the active voice JOHN, which has no Case, is raised to the subject position, where it is marked for Case. POTATO receives is Case marking by agreement from the verb. In the passive voice, it is POTATO that is raised to the subject position. How does this come about?
First, recall our proposal for the subject as a basic node of syntax, whose argument is tense. Although it is far from certain, it has been proposed that the function of the subject is to bring one of the arguments of the main predicate into prominence. This seems to be a reasonable proposal and we shall adopt it here.
Adopting this, the subject in the active voice is copied (raised) from the external argument (the ungoverned argument) of the verb. This is the default. Furthermore, in English one argument must be raised to the subject position--i.e. one argument must be prominent. There are some exceptions to this, but only in certain predictable case. We will work with the case where one argumentmust be raised here.
We take the view
that voice is concerned with prominence. In many if not most languages,
one of the arguments of the verb must be marked as prominent.
The features of the prominent argument, usually a NP, are copied
to the subject position. (See 322.subject.htm.)
There are three voices in English; we will be concerned here with
the first two: the active and the passive: [±Pass]. The
passive is the marked, or restricted, voice, in that in English
only transitive verbs can be marked for the active voice.
In the active voice the most external argument is targeted; this is the default for English and aparently all languages. Case plays a role in targeting. Only a NP that is unmarked for Case can be raised to the subject position. In the subject position, the nominative Case is assigned to the subject. If a NP is assigned Case, it cannot be targeted.
To ensure this, a target feature is assigned to a NP. This feature blocks the copying of the Case feature from the governor if the NP is governed. In the active voice, the external argument is not governed by the verb. In structure (10) above the agent, the external argument, is targeted. We mark the feature of targeting here as P-Target:
(11)
Two things must happen now. The targeted NP remains unmarked for Case. The NP is also marked as a P-Target, which means that is must raise to the subject position (the features of the NP must be copied to the subject positon). This single operation satisfies both conditions (the intermediate operators are omitted here for the sake of brevity). First let us say that :the subject position is marked with the feature [+P-Target] (or [+TP]). A link is established between the phrasal nodes containing the features [+PT], because all the features dominated by NP are copied, not just N. It is through this link that the features are copied:
(12)
To add a bit more detail. [TRACE] is the term used for the tail end of a link, if the tail is phonetically null, which it is here. Recall the Case filter. If a NP has phonetic content, it must be marked for Case. If it has no Case, then it cannot be pronounced; hence [NULL].
Let us say that the subject position is marked [+Nom]. We will discuss the source of [+Nom] later. The features of the NP marked [+PT] are copied to SP. Since they are now marked wiht [+Nom] (assigned the nominative Case), they can be spelled out.
The link holding between the trace NP (the tail) and SP (the head). This is not a typical government link, and we indicate this in blue. The re;atiopn between the head of this link and the tail of it as been called an antecedent government by Rizzi. Antecedent government holds between the maximal projection of the head and the maximal project of the tail:
(13) Antecedent Government
X antecedent-governs Y iff
a. X c-commands Y
b. The features of X are the same as the features of Y.
c. There is no intervening governor.
The different types of government do not interfere with each other. One cannot act as an intervening governor for the other.
