Prof. dr hab.

Michał Post

English–Polish Contrastive Grammar

Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 - Passivization in English and Polish

Przydatne informacje:

wykładowca: Prof. dr hab. Michał Post

w: WSB we Wrocławiu
rok akad.: 2020/2021
kurs: English–Polish Contrastive Grammar & History of the English Language
rok studiów, grupy: L_III_Ak_Ap_Am
ćwiczenia: środa 13.15–14.15
e-mail: [email protected]
pokój 104C, wtorek: 09.30- 15.00
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 - Passivization in English and Polish

Polish Subjectless Sentences as a Surface Structure phenomenon

Structure building rules Lexical insertion rules

Deep Structure (DS)

Structure changing rules

Surface Structure (SS)

S -> NP VP

Subjectless Sentences: S -> VP

 At the level of Deep Structure English and Polish structure building rules for Sentence are the
same: E&P S -> NP VP

 Subjectless Sentences are Surface Structure phenomenon

 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 - Passivization in English and Polish

Subjectless Sentences and Passive Sentences in English and Polish

 The correlations between Polish Subjectless sentence and their English equivalents

Polish English

Subjectless sentences sentences with Indefinite Personal/ Impersonal Subject

sentences in Passive Voice
sentences in Passive Voice

Podaje się tu zupę cebulową They serve onion soup here

Onion soup is served here
Dochodzenie jest prowadzone przez policję The investigation is conduct by the police
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Passive Voice - a morphological category of English and Polish verbs

 In traditional English and Polish grammars Passive is one of the verb categories:
English Polish
Tense - Present-Past Present-Past- Future
Aspect - Perfective-Progressive Perfective-Imperfective
Voice - Active-Passive Active-Passive
 This approach, which is essentially morphological, as it focuses on the marking of the verb to the
neglect of the rest of the passive sentence, is justified for Tense and Aspect:
The student writes essays - The student wrote essays
The student writes essays - The student is writing essays
The student writes essays - The student has written essays
The student writes essays - Essays are written by the student

Traditional Polish grammars advocated the same morphological approach to passive voice
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 –Passivization in English and Polish

Passivization - a functionally motivated syntactic process in English

 In English passive sentences differ from their active counterpart sentences in other parts of their
syntactic structures,
The peasant planted the field - The field was planted by the peasant
NP1 NP2 NP2 NP1

TOPIC COMMENT TOPIC COMMENT

 From a functional viewpoint, passivization is a TOPICALIZATION process of promoting the
COMMENT/Object of the active sentence to the TOPIC/Subject position of the passive sentence.
 The TOPICALIZATION functional process is carried out by the structure changing syntactic rule of
Passivization.
 Other TOPICALIZATIONs within English passive sentences
It was the field that was planted by the peasant
The field, it was planted by the peasant
It was by the peasant that the field was planted
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Passivization - a functionally motivated syntactic process in Polish

 From a functional viewpoint, Passivization in Polish is also a topicalization process of promoting the
COMMENT/Object of the active sentence to the TOPIC/Subject position of the passive sentence.
policja prowadzi dochodzenie dochodzenie jest prowadzone przez policję
NP1 NP2 NP2 NP1

TOPIC COMMENT TOPIC COMMENT

 Other TOPICALIZATIONs within the surface structure of Polish passive sentences are possible -
because of the inflectional endings of the subject (Nom) and object (Dat, Gen, Acc, Instr) also other
word order arrangements are possible,
Prowadzone jest przez policję dochodzenie
Jest przez policję prowadzone dochodzenie
Przez policję jest prowadzone dochodzenie
 The functional TOPICALIZATION process is carried out by the structure changing syntactic rule of
Word-order rearrangement
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Derivation of Passive sentences in English

S
NP1 VP
N Vgr NP2
AUX V Art N
Tns
DS: the peasant Past plant the field
Passive Rule
the field Past be-en plant by the peasant
Affix Placement
the field be-Past plant-en by the peasant
Agreement
SS: the field be-Past+3rd, sg plant-en by the peasnat
Morphophonemic Rules
the field was planted by the peasant
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Derivation of Passive sentences in Polish

S
NP1 VP
N (Nom) Vgr NP2
AUX V N (Acc)
Tns
DS: policja Pres prowadzić dochodzenie
Passive Rule
dochodzenie Pres być-ne prowadzić przez policja
Affix Placement
dochodzenie być-Pres prowadzić-ne przez policja
Agreement
SS: dochodzenie być-Pres+3rd, sg prowadzić-ne przez policję
Morphophonemic Rules
dochodzenie jest prowadzone przez policję
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Differences in the input structures to Passive Rules in English and Polish

 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Major differences between English and Polish Passivizations

1. Copula verbs
 The main differences between Polish and English passives concern
(a.) copula verb + participle complex, and
(b.) the restrictions on the type of Object NP that may be moved to the Subject
position.
 In Polish, passives use two copula verbs: być (be) and zostać (become) in combination with the
Passive Participle of lexical verbs:
Chłopiec przepisuje listy  Listy są przepisywane przez chłopca (imperfective v.)
Chłopiec przepisał listy  Listy zostały przepisane przez chłopca (perfective v.)
2. Passive Participle
 Imiesłów przymiotnikowy bierny (Passive Participle) has the following morphological markers:
-ny, -na, -ne e.g. napisać
-ty, -ta, -te e.g. otwierać
-ony, -ona, -one e.g. przeprowadzić
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

 In Polish the copula verb and also Passive Participles agree with the subject NPs in Number and
Gender :

Ja byłem widziany My byliśmy widziani

Ty byłeś widziany Wy byliście widziani
On był widziany Oni byli widziani
Ona była widziana One były widziane
Ono było widziane

 The copulas have different forms for Persons,

 The participles, unlike the copulas, do not have different forms for Persons except for Ona, Ono,
One.
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Object NPs and Passivization in English and Polish

 English allows Direct and Indirect Objects NPs to be Passivized

Direct Object:
Tom gave John a book A book was given to John by Tom
Indirect Object:
Tom gave John a book John was given a book by Tom

 In Polish Passive Rule is restricted to Direct Object NPs,

Direct Object:
Tomek dał Jankowi książkę Książka została dana Jankowi przez Tomka
Rodzice kupili synowi tablet Tablet został kupiony synowi przez rodziców
Indirect Object:
Tomek dał Jankowi książkę *Janek był dany książkę przez Tomka
Rodzice kupili synowi tablet * Syn został kupiony tablet przez rodziców
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Verbs and Passivization in English and Polish

Prepositional verbs
 English Prepositional-verbs like look (at), think (of), apply (for) allow Passivization, while their
Polish lexical equivalents do not.
Mary looked at Jack Jack was looked at by Mary
Maria patrzyła na Jacka * Jacek był patrzony na przez Marię

Jack thought about Mary Mary was thought of by Jack

Jacek myślał o Marii * Maria była myślana o przez Jacka

Students apply for EC scholarships EC scholarships are applied for by students

Studenci aplikują o unijne stypendia *Unijne stypendia są aplikowane o przez studentów
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Verbs and Passivization in English and Polish

Polish Reflexive verbs

1. verbs which always occur with the reflexive pronoun się (true Reflexive verbs),
e.g. błyskać się, chmurzyć się, wahać się, spodziewać się,
2. verbs which can occur with or without the reflexive pronoun się,
e.g. zachwycać się, cieszyć się, niepokoić się, gniewać się, denerwować się,
irytować się
 Polish Reflexive verbs block Passivization
Spodziewam się awansu * Awans jest spodziewany się przeze mnie
Córka opiekuje się ojcem * Ojciec jest opiekowany się przez córkę
Ona często kłóci się z bratem * Brat jest często kłócony się z przez nią

 In Polish, Reflexive verbs constitute a separate and big class of predicates.

 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 - Passivization in English and Polish

Reflexive verbs in English

 A similar distinction between true Reflexive verbs and reflexive constructions must be made:
a.) true reflexive verbs which are always followed by a reflexive pronoun -
e.g. to absent oneself (from), to avail oneself (of), to pride oneself (on)
e.g. IOS students absent themselves from classes

b.) and verbs which can occur with reflexive pronouns – Reflexive constructions
e.g. shave – John shaved himself vs.
John shaved his sick grandfather
 English has very few true Reflexive verbs,
 Polish Reflexive verbs obstruct Passivization, do English reflexive verbs do this too?
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Verbs and Passivization in English and Polish

Raising verbs
 In Polish verbs can obstruct the process of Passivization where English allows it - the case of
Raising-to-Object verbs
They expect (it) that Jane wins the contest  Passive rule
It is expected by them that Jane wins the contest
 English Raising-to-Object verbs allow Passivization
[They expect it] that Jane wins the contest
Raising-to-Object
[They expect Jane ]to win the contest
Passive rule
[Jane is expected by them] to win the contest

 In Polish equivalents of Raising- verbs can obstruct the process of Passivization, where English
allows it
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Verbs and Passivization in English and Polish

 Polish equivalents of Raising verbs such as

say - mówić,
expect - oczekiwać,
believe - wierzyć,
report - donosić
 do not take Subject + Infinitive complements, as a result they block Passivization

Oni oczekują (tego ), że Janka wygra konkurs

Raising-to-Object
**Oni oczekują Jankę, (że) wygrać konkurs (Janki wygrania konkursu ?)
Passive rule
***Janka jest oczekiwana przez nich wygrać konkurs
 English – Polish Contrastive Grammar
Lecture 5 – Passivization in English and Polish

Recommended readings

 Fisiak, J., Lipińska-Grzegorek, M. Zabrocki, T. 1978. An Introductory English-Polish

Contrastive Grammar. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo PWN.
Chapter Three: The Verb,
Chapter Eight: Passive and Related Constructions.