The passive construction: Chinese and English
汉英语言的被动结构
Chauncey C. Chu 屈承熹

Abstract 摘要
The passive construction in Mandarin Chinese is viewed as consisting of (a) a higher sentence with the verb bèi ‘to receive’, (b) a still higher sentence with a stative verb to be realized as an adverb/auxiliary, or with the verb yǒu, to be realized as le in a positive context, (c) a resultative complement, if the higher verb is yǒu, and (d) a complement sentence embedded in the bèi- sentence. Furthermore, a feature [Passive NP-Deletion] is proposed to account for the numerous ungrammatical passive sentences which would otherwise agree with the structural analysis. Along the same lines of investigation, the English passive is examined. The analysis suggests possible directions in such areas as a systematic way of selecting the surface subject, a logical interpretation of ‘colorless’ negative passives, and a syntactic distinction between the be-passive and the get-passive.