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Liina Lindström, Ilona Tragel. Estonian Impersonal and Stative Passive, and the Use of the Adessive Argument |
2007, nr. 7 |
The use of the Estonian stative passive and
impersonal is analysed considering the semantic role and topicalization
of the adessive argument referring to a person. In Estonian the
categories of stative passive and impersonal are hard to distinguish
formally, as their paradigms partly coincide. The simple tenses
of the impersonal are, however, clearly different both formally
and semantically, as here the adessive argument is used in non-agentive
roles, such as Location, Addressee, etc. In stative passive the
absolutely predominant role of the adessive argument is Agent.
In compound tenses of the impersonal, which can be distinguished
from the stative passive also formally, the adessive argument
appears both in agentive and non-agentive roles.
Analysis of topicalization and semantic roles makes a special
case of the construction [NPADE olema (P) VPPP], e.g. Mul on auto pestud 'My car is washed'
/ 'I have washed my car' / 'I have washed the car', which is related
to a possessive construction, e.g. Mul on auto 'I have
a car'. This clause type bears marks of grammaticalization, which
resembles the development of the possessive perfect widely spread
in European languages. Although the construction has similar elements
as the impersonal and passive (the verb olema 'be' and
the tud-participle) it has a different information structure
and usage motivation – notably, in Estonian the construction
is used to express the perfectivity of the agentive action.
Keywords: Estonian, syntax, semantic
roles, passive, impersonal, grammaticalization.
Liina Lindström (b. 1973), PhD, researcher,
Department of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics, University
of Tartu
liina.lindstrom@ut.ee
Ilona Tragel (b. 1968), PhD, head of the Language
Centre, University of Tartu
ilona.tragel@ut.ee
| 2007 |
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