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1、The subjects of impersonal passives in German and Spanish* Patricia Cabredo Hofherr CNRS UMR 7023 / Universit Paris 8 1. Introduction The subject of this paper is the analysis of impersonal passive constructions in German and Spanish. Both languages have two passive constructions which admit transit
2、ive verbs: a copular passive (formed with werden, become, in German and ser, be in Spanish) and a reflexive passive. In both languages, the two passive constructions contrast with respect to the possibility of impersonal passive formation, i.e. the passivisation of intransitive verbs. In Spanish, on
3、ly the reflexive passive may combine with intransitive verbs, while the ser-passive may not. In German, both the werden-passive and the reflexive passive (the middle) admit an impersonal variant; the two impersonal passives differ with respect to their surface subject, however. While the impersonal
4、werden-passive contains no surface subject, the impersonal middle appears with an overt es, it (see section 2). In section 3, I defend a uniform analysis of personal and impersonal passivisation that takes object promotion to be the unifying feature of both variants (Perlmutter and Postal 1983, Dobr
5、ovie-Sorin 1986). Following Dobrovie-Sorins implementation of this analysis within the GB-framework, I will argue that the subject of impersonal passives is a referentially deficient abstract cognate object that has to be licensed in the syntax. Departing from Dobrovie-Sorins analysis, I show on the
6、 basis of German data that this abstract cognate object is not always null. In section 4, I argue that the difference of surface subject between the impersonal werden-passive and the impersonal middle can be explained in terms of a syntactic difference between the two constructions: the subject of t
7、he werden-passive patterns with direct objects while the subject of the middle behaves as an underlying subject. More specifically, I argue that the werden-passive is an intransitive construction with the nominative subject originating in object position while the middle is a transitive construction
8、. In section 4.1 I will give arguments that the nominative subject of the German middle construction behaves on a par with the subject of transitive verbs (complementing the arguments in Steinbach 2002). The difference between the subjects of the impersonal werden-passive and the impersonal middle i
9、s then linked to this syntactic difference (section 4.2). According to the analysis proposed here the subject of the impersonal werden-passive is not a case of pro-drop comparable to Italian null subjects which are licensed by rich agreement; in the case of the impersonal werden-passive. I propose t
10、hat the possibility of the null subject in this construction is due to the combination of two independent properties: (i) the syntactic projection of a cognate object and (ii) nominative assignment to an NP remaining in direct object position. According to this analysis, German allows for null nomin
11、ative subjects only if they are derived from an underlying cognate object and stay in situ. Since the nominative subject of the middle is syntactically an external subject, a lexical subject es, it, has to be inserted given that German does not allow subject pro-drop. In section 5, I propose to deri
12、ve the possibility of impersonal passivisation from the possibility of licensing the deficient semantics of the abstract cognate object taking Spanish as an example. I propose to reduce the difference between German and Spanish with respect to impersonal passivisation to an independent difference be
13、tween German and Spanish concerning participle agreement. Finally, I will argue that more generally the patterns of participle agreement and the type of subject inversion construction available in a language correlate with the possibility of licensing impersonal passives in a language (section 6). 2
14、. Two passivising constructions in German and Spanish In what follows I will examine two passivising constructions that coexist in German and Spanish respectively. The constructions examined are passive constructions in the sense that: (i) they reduce the external argument of the underlying verb (su
15、bject demotion), and (ii) in the personal variants, the nominative subject of both passive constructions is the logical object of the underlying verb (object promotion). Both German and Spanish have a copular passive and a reflexive passive. The copular passive relies on a passive copula constructed
16、 with the passive participle while the reflexive passive combines the active verb form with a reflexive marker. The German copular passive (called werden-passive in what follows) is formed with the auxiliary werden, become, and the past participle of the lexical verb (1b); the reflexive passive, traditionally called middle, is formed with a reflexive and the active form of the lexical verb (1c). (1b) and (1c) illustrate the personal variants of the two constructions: the logical obj
