Passives, middles, and other voice phenomena are issues at the core of modern linguistic research. This volume brings together different perspectives on voice – different theoretical viewpoints, different languages, and different kinds of voice phenomena. The eleven articles each make a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion, offering new data, new analyses, and bringing new light to long-standing issues. In combination, they present a multi-faceted and yet coherent picture of the topics at hand.

Table of contents

List of contributors vii–viii Preface ix–x Perspectives on demotion: Introduction to the volume Torgrim Solstad and Benjamin Lyngfelt 1–20 Semantic and syntactic patterns in Swedish passives Elisabet Engdahl 21–45 The Eastern Khanty locative-agent constructions: A functional discourse-pragmatic perspective Andrey Filtchenko 47–82 Agent back-grounding as a functional domain: Reflexivization and passivization in Czech and Russian Mirjam Fried 83–109 Invisible arguments: Effects of demotion in Estonian and Finnish Elsi Kaiser and Virve-Anneli Vihman 111–141 Argument demotion as feature suppression Dalina Kallulli 143–166 A comparative view of the requirement for adverbial modification in middles Marika Lekakou 167–196 From passive to active: Syntactic change in progress in Icelandic Joan Maling 197–223 The relation between information structure, syntactic structure and passive Anneliese Pitz 225–248 Syntax and semantics of the deontic WANT-passive in Italo-Romance Eva-Maria Remberger 249–274 Agentivity and the virtual reflexive construction Nola M. Stephens 275–300 Arguments in middles Thomas Stroik 301–326 Language index 327 Name index 329–330 Subject index 331–333