Passive constructions

Passive constructions are obtained, when a divalent stem (i.e. with an Agent and a Patient role) has its valency reduced by removing the Agent role, such that the Patient role is promoted and bound to the Subject of the resulting verb. Consider the examples:

• Piitap qimmeq toquppaa, 'Piitaq kills the dog' (active).
• Qimmeq toqunneqarpoq, 'the dog was killed' (passive).

In a passive construction, the Agent is removed, thereby reducing the valency of the stem, and the Patient is promoted to subject of the resulting verb. In the active construction Piitap qimmeq toquppaa, qimmeq is the direct object, referring to the Patient role. In the passive construction qimmeq toqunneqarpoq, the dog is promoted to subject, but it is still the Patient of the verbal action (i.e., it still gets killed), whilst the former Agent, Piitaq has been removed.

Types of passives

Passive constructions can be obtained in various ways: Some stems will naturally drop their Agent role when used with a morpheme that only expects a single Actor role; especially intransitive endings, but occasionally also some affixes such as the participles V{ðuq}N and V{nəq}N and other nominalising affixes. However, the most common way to create a passive verb is with one of the passive affixes: V{nəqaq}V and V{-ðau}V. Both remove the Agent role, but with a slight difference in meaning; the first creates a dymanic passive, whilst the latter creates a static passive.

The dynamic passive focuses on the Patient being Vb'ed, whereas the static passive focuses on the state of having been Vb'ed. This difference is very clear in Greenlandic, and also in a language like Danish, but unfortunately not in English. It can be illustrated thus:

• 'the dog is/gets killed (by someone)', dynamic passive
• 'the dog is/was killed (so we need a new one)', static passive

In dynamic passive, the meaning is 'is/gets', so it denotes a transition to a new state, whilst in static passive the meaning is 'is/was', which instead denotes a state of being. See the AITWG, chapter 9, for a detailed description of the difference between these two kinds of passive constructions.

Reintroducing the Agent

The omitted agent, which is not marked in the ending of a passive verb, can optionally be reintroduced and referenced by a noun in the ablative case. Consider this example:

• Piitap qimmeq toquppaa, 'Peter kills the dog' (active).
• Qimmeq toqunneqarpoq, 'the dog was killed' (passive).
• Qimmeq Piitamit toquneqarpoq, 'the dog was killed by Peter' (passive).

In the last sentence, we thus have the same information as in the first, active sentence, but the difference lies in the focus. In the active sentence, both the Subject and Object are marked in the ending, and both receive equal focus. The dynamic passive omits the Agent (Piitaq) and brings the Patient (the dog) in focus as the Subject. In the third sentence, the Subject (the dog) is still in focus, whilst the reintroduced Agent is defocused.