Morpholexical rules in Polish
 
The aim of the paper is to suggest a unified account of all passive
and passive-like constructions in Polish which have traditionally
been described as passive, mediopassive, or impersonal passive, and
which have presented problems of analysis.
 
I would like to propose a tripartite classification of all the relevant
constructions into passive, impersonal, and reflexive (the last category
including the traditional 'mediopassive/impersonal reflexive'), to show
that each category involves a different operation and to demonstrate how
the type of the operation accounts for the distinctive properties of the
construction.
 
The analysis assumes a single derivational level of representation for a
predicate which (a) states its subcategorization requirements,
(b) singles out the ('deep', or 'logical') subject argument (if there is
any), and (c) is associated with, though not dependent on, a semantic
level from which thematic roles are projected onto the argument structure.
 
I would like to propose that both passivization and impersonalization are
subject-sensitive.  Passivization, which delinks the highest argument
from its pre-assigned subject function, is subject-sensitive on its input
(therefore it does not apply to unaccusatives).  It results in a passive
participle stem and feeds adjectival formation.  Impersonalization, which
is a dedicated subjectless construction, is subject-sensitive on its
output (therefore it can apply to unaccusatives), and results in
a non-adjectival form.
 
Reflexivization is an operation which reflects dissociations between the
argument structure and the thematic structure of the predicate.  It is
passive only when passivization occurs independently, and impersonal only
when impersonalization occurs independently, i.e. it overlaps with, but is
distinct from both passivization and impersonalization.  When arguments
become dissociated from their thematic roles, they are filled by
'dummies' - reflexive particles of three different types, depending on the
nature of the dissociation.  In the light of this analysis, constructions
which have traditionally been called 'mediopassive' result from the
dissociation of the highest argument from its thematic role of Agent,
without the delinking of the subject function (i.e. without
passivization).  In contrast to passivization and impersonalization,
reflexivization can be object-oriented, and the analysis provides a
systematic account of all possible reflexive constructions in Polish
which involve a valency alternation.
 
The analysis assumes the notion of lexical mapping that has been prominent
in LFG, but it makes use of the insights of various accounts: the
typological accounts based on traditional views (such as Siewierska 1988),
as well as the various generative approaches, including the insights
expressed in the framework of Relational Grammar (such as Perlmutter 1978;
and Rosen 1984), LFG (Bresnan & Kanerva 1992; Bresnan & Zaenen 1990), HPSG
(Manning & Sag 1999; Avgustinova, Skut & Uszkoreit 1999), and in the P&P
literature (Babby 1989; Rivero 1999).
 
 
 
REFERENCES
 
Avgustinova, T., W. Skut & H. Uszkoreit (1999) 'Typological similarities
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Babby, L.H. (1989) 'Subjectlessness, external subcategorization, and the
  Projection Principle', ZMSFL 32(2): 7-40
Bresnan, J. & J.M. Kanerva (1992) 'Locative inversion in Chichewa: A case
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Bresnan, J. & A. Zaenen (1990) 'Deep unaccusativity in LFG', in:
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  CSLI
Perlmutter, D.M. (1978) 'Impersonal passives and the unaccusative
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Rivero, M.-L. (1999) 'Impersonal "sie" in Polish: a pronominal anaphor'
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Rosen, C.G. (1984) 'The interface between semantic roles and initial
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Siewierska, A. (1988) 'The passive in Slavic', in: Shibatani, M. (ed.)
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