Use of the Passive Clause in Spanish

The logico-semantic structures that underly the various manifestations of the passive voice in Spanish & the communicative factors that condition the use of particular passive types are examined within the general framework of case grammar. It is argued that agentive case subsumes three types of agent: actor, experiencer, & instigator; & that these three agents determine the possible classes of passive clauses. The following observations are noted: (1) transitive action-process Vs that take an agent-actor (eg, comprar 'buy', escribir 'write'), form either reflexive passives or passives with ser 'be' or estar 'be' + past participle; (2) psychological Vs, ie, Vs that take an agent-experiencer, strongly favor constructions in which the logical object is the grammatical subject & the experiencer appears as a dative of interest (eg, no te gusta el teatro 'you don't like the theater'); & (3) Vs that take an agent-instigator may occur either in passive constructions (los arboles se crecen con la lluvia 'trees are grown with the rain') or constructions in which the logical object is thematized & the agent appears as an instrument or causative (los arboles crecen con la lluvia 'the trees grow with the rain'). The relative predominance of the different types of passive clauses is investigated in three contexts: (A) the spontaneous dialogues of Coll students, (B) the lang of newspaper reports, & (C) the lang used in public & private announcements. Whereas in cases (A) & (B) passives with ser or estar were found to outnumber reflexive passives, the relative incidence of the different passive types did not vary in case (C). It is concluded that variation in the use of passive forms is conditioned by context & the communicative intention of the speaker. 1 Figure, 15 References. P. Farrell