Teaching english passive contrastively and in comparison with other categories

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TEACHING ENGLISH PASSIVE CONTRASTIVELY AND IN COMPARISON WITH OTHER CATEGORIES
Dr. Boryana Tomova Ruzhekova-Rogozherova
Abstract: English passive belongs to a group of categories hard to be mastered by numerous high and even higher school students. Due to existing relationships between levels of understanding of each category’s essence and learners’ performance, current paper suggests ideas not only as to illustrating structures by attractive diagrams, but also as to establishing contrasts with passives in other languages and to revealing connections with related forms, such as the perfect.

Key words: voice, diathesis, passive, active, transitivity, perfect, deverbal adjectives

Introduction

Voice, active, passive, diathetic relationships represent quite an intriguing issue not only in theoretical grammar, but also in applied linguistics and FLT methodology due to intermediate, transitional or we may say borderline essence of diathesis category, which shares numerous common features with forms such as the perfect and adjectives, and more specifically, deverbal ones. Transitions between mentioned forms lead to vivid linguistic interest related to context and usage, on the one hand, and, on the other, are prone to arouse and suscitate frequent learners’ errors in the process of category’s acquisition. Most learners do not easily become aware of passive “identity”, of diathetic relationships within the sentence and whether they permit passivization or not, of semantic requirements allowing or leading to active-passive transformations or vice-versa, of tense-aspect-voice combined characteristics appearing on the surface in grammar structures and their semantic parameters.

That is why, we consider treating from a more theoretical and applied linguistics perspective, methodology of English passive voice teaching really essential. Thus, current article sets the following objectives: suggesting ideas as to examined category presentation in compliance with its variety of meaning and structure and proposing contrastive teaching elements, which can be used if appropriate, on the basis of comparison with French and Bulgarian counterparts.

To achieve objectives, discussion will comprise the following issues (some of which will be only touched upon): voice and diathesis, English diathetic relationships types, transitivity and conditions for passivization, passive teaching methodology, French and Bulgarian passives’ formation and meaning, contrastive teaching notes.

Voice in English

Voice (or diathesis) is not only a typical syntactic structure or periphrasis, but it also represents a specific semantic relationship determining a specific type of diathesis. Most often mentioned connection concerns basic arguments of a clause, subject and object. Determining the passive is impossible without defining the active.

Quirk (1972: 801, 802) writes that “Voice is a grammatical category which makes it possible to view the action of a sentence in two ways, without change in the facts reported: (a) The butler murdered the detective (b) The detective was murdered by the butler”. “But although the structure of a sentence changes under voice transformation, its meaning remains the same.” Greenbaum (1991: 52) states that “Verbs have two voices: active and passive. (…) The active and passive have different verb phrases in that the passive has an additional auxiliary: a form of the auxiliary be followed by an –ed participle.” Partly true, in our view^¹, these definitions are predominantly formal and not exhaustive. Formal definition, we believe, must stem from semantic one. Active and passive are both (but not all) sides of an agent ↔ patient relationship; the stronger agent’s (subject’s) responsibility for the activity, its process management and patient’s (object’s) involvement in process, the stronger active meaning and passivization opportunities are. In active diathesis case semantic agent (doer, subject) coincides with grammatical one; on the contrary, passive diathesis is characterized by swapping grammar functions – a subject-patient is attributed activity results by means of an object-doer. We reckon Huddleston (1984: 438) more appropriately reveals voice essence by affirming that: ““Voice” as a general linguistic term, is applied to systems yielding … variation in the semantic role associated with the subject, normally where there is … concomitant variation in the form of the VP…”. Is thought about semantics really relevant when teaching the passive? We should confirm that it is. Lecturers are not supposed to include too much theory in explanation unless while working with students training to become language specialists. However, basic theoretically shown semantic characteristics are compelling while teaching the passive, notwithstanding learners’ profile, as most errors stem from lack of understanding of arguments’ role leading to passive specific formula and functioning mechanism.

Types of voices (diatheses) in English

We believe there exist: one characteristic type of active diathesis, several sub kinds of passive structures, a few active-passive forms, some of which are closer to the passive rather than to the active and, could be also treated as passives, an impersonal diathesis; basic diatheses will be briefly presented here below.
Entirely active (1) is a fully transitive form completely allowing standard passivization (2). Activeness stems from high degree of activity control (high transitivity) on the part of grammatical and semantic agent (subject).

Tolstoy wrote this really well-known book.
This really well-known book was written by Tolstoy.

However, passiveness cannot be only exhausted by above presented utterance (2), based on arguments’ altered positions, be use accompanied by past participle attribution. Celce and Larsen 1983^² mention and examine passive varieties, amongst which are the so-called:

Simple passives with GET…EN (“Barry got invited to the party.”)
Complex passives with BE…EN (“John is thought to be intelligent.”)
Complex passives with HAVE…NP…EN (“Alice had her purse snatched while shopping downtown.”)
Stative passives (“The wells are located near the edge of the reserve.”)
Change-of-state verbs (“The red balloon burst.”)

Kurtoğlu (2006: 8-12), apart from some already quoted voices, refers to:

Impersonal passives (It is said that figs are better for us than bananas.),
Adjectival Passive (“The strike was unexpected”)

and subsumes “Have” and “Get” Passives under one and the same type (“I had my car serviced. / I got my car serviced.”).

To be mentioned are also cases referring to states, some of which introduce the agent by means of

with (“The square was crowded with people.”) as well as a few instances allowing both,
with or by prepositions (“The house was surrounded with tanks and policemen dogs.”; “The building was surrounded by a deep green lawn.”^³).

Passives’ variety can be enriched by Huddleston (1984: 440-446), also mentioning:

Passives of ditransitive actives: (“Liz was given the money by Ed”; “The money was given Liz by Ed”),
passives with a stranded preposition (“It was dealt with by the boss”; “Her hat had been sat on”),
-en form non-finite complements (“I want them cooked by Angela”).

Active-passive diatheses include, in our view:

some pseudo-transitive structures^⁴, involving verbs such as: “resemble/look like/take after someone; suit/fit/become; have/possess/lack; number/hold; mean; mind; boast; befall; fail (let down); cost/weigh; marry/meet; agree with” (De Mattia-Viviès (2009: 94)). We sustain these verbs provide the basis for pseudo-actives or active-passives due to the lack of real agentive force on the part of subject. They stand for a sign of partial equality between subject and complement, expressing varieties of possession or equivalence, like in lack or marry; to put it differently, subject and complement turn out not quite distinct, their strict differentiation being a basic “activation” or passivization prerequisite.^⁵
idiomatic expressions, such as in: “He kicked the bucket” (De Mattia-Viviès (2009: 97), which cannot be passivized as not being interpreted literally,
reflexives, as in “John hurt himself.” (Stamenov 1977) due, in our view, to real transitivity lack again, agent and patient, subject and object representing one and the same entity.^⁶

Impersonal diathesis comprises phrases, such as: it’s five o’clock; it is going to rain; it takes me ten minutes to cover the distance from here to the post office, etc.

Meaningful teaching of English passive

Already conveyed information, selectively provided by means of appropriate examples, turns out to be crucial as to learners’ understanding of category. How should we meaningfully, not just formally teach the passive? We adhere to following five grammar teaching steps or stages: lead-in, elicitation, explanatory, accurate representation and immediate creativity (Harmer (1991: 60)).

We will describe some of them, not in great detail, suggesting ideas as to passive’s semantic instruction to be put into practice later on.

4.1. Teaching stages and illustrative diagrams

Lead-in: We propose to use a short text or a few paragraphs involving most typical passive voice utterances, such as the following ones presented by means of a multimedia projector:

These houses were built 20 years ago. Before that there was a cinema here but the building was damaged in a fire and had to be knocked down.
This bridge was built in 1925. It is used by hundreds of people every day. At the moment the bridge is being painted.
This street is called Wilton Street. It used to be called James Street but the name was changed a few years ago.
This is a bicycle factory. Bicycles have been made here since 1931. It’s the largest bicycle factory in the country-hundreds of bicycles are produced here every year. (after Murphy (2004: 259))

Passive voice phrases are underlined characteristically (in different colours or styles) as well as tense-aspect markers. Learners’ attention is drawn to passive voice instances mainly – they are read aloud and differentiated from active ones without providing any explanation at this stage.

Elicitation: Learners are asked questions aimed at arousing not only formal interest in taught structure, but also semantic one related to arguments’ meaning and connections, as well as at promoting voice/tense/aspect relationships understanding. We would like to suggest a few ideas (emphasis is laid on italicized words):

Do we know who built the houses? When were they built? What happened to the cinema? What damaged it?
Who built the bridge? Is this information relevant or unexpected? Do people use the bridge often? What is happening to it at the moment?
What is the present name of the street? How was it called before? Who changed its name? Is that information important?
What does the factory produce? Who has produced bicycles since 1931? How many bicycles do workers produce per year? How many bicycles are produced per year?

Explanation: Learners are supposed to have already started to grasp subject-object grammar-semantic relationships involved in Passive voice sentences in contrast with Active voice ones. At this stage we recommend use of appropriate attractive schemes and examples to better illustrate above-mentioned subject (agent) / object (patient) connections. Diagrams similar to here below (not all of them, of course, but selectively) can be implemented. Explanation follows each utterance used at lead-in stage.

Hundreds of people use it every day. (AV)

Subject (Semantic Doer) – Verb - Object (Semantic Patient)

It is used by hundreds of people every day. (PV)

Subject (Semantic Patient) – Verb – Instrumental Object (Semantic Doer)

Fig. 1

A (S1, S2) →→→→→→→ B (O1, O2) (AV)

MAKES
B (S1, O2) ←←←←←←←← A (O1, S2)^⁷ (PV)

IS MADE BY

Fig.2
B+Attribution (BE) of Activity Result (past/passive/perfect PARTICIPLE) performed by real Agent (A) (PV)

B (S1, O2) + BE + PASSIVE ADJECTIVE (RESULT OF A’S ACTIVITY) (PV)
B (S1, O2) + BE + PASSIVE/PERFECT ADJECTIVE (A HAS DONE THIS) (PV)
Fig. 3

Above presented figures aim at providing semantic and not just formal voice explanation. Their objective is to concisely present, on the one hand, Passive diathesis’ formula: [grammatically active patient (subject)] + [to be] + [past participle]^⁸ + [by] + [grammatically passive agent (object)] (Ruzhekova-Rogozherova 2012) (fig. 1) and, on the other, to emphasize on functions, such as source and recipient of activity (fig. 2) and on passive/perfect ^⁹result attribution to active patient by means of copulative verb be (fig. 3).

Learners, we believe, should realize this formula generally applies to all above presented typical passive voice instances (p. 3), not only to classical periphrasis. Thus, appropriate exemplifying utterances could be offered and schematically illustrated. For the purpose of clarity we suggest implementing above instances, though not presented in the same order; we have differently grouped them together in compliance with various passives’ common characteristics:

Passives of ditransitive actives and stranded preposition passives: (“Liz was given the money by Ed”; “The money was given Liz by Ed”; “It was dealt with by the boss”; “Her hat had been sat on”)

In our view classification should begin by this type, closest to traditional structure and, consequently, perfectly described by above figures. In (1) result is attributed to a grammatically active prepositional patient.

Complex and Impersonal passives (“John is thought to be intelligent.”; “It is said that figs are better for us than bananas.”)

Current passive type can be also illustrated by means of offered diagrams, diathetic relationships being characteristically passive, on condition that quoted structures usually accompany present simple sentences. Passive (or instrumental) agent is currently omitted, though frequently implicitly understood.

GET, HAVE and WANT + -en form passives (“Barry got invited to the party.”; “I had my car serviced. / I got my car serviced.”; “Alice had her purse snatched while shopping downtown.”; “I want them cooked by Angela”)

These passives’ strength is smaller than most frequent periphrasis strength, passivity being weakened by active meaning of GET, HAVE and WANT involving some, though not insignificant, participation and responsibility of an activity doer, coinciding with active patient (Barry), or not (I, Alice). Of course, passiveness largely outweighs activeness due to both passive arguments existence – not only of an active patient, but also of a passive agent, not always explicitly mentioned, but notwithstanding logically present. Examined more complex diathetic relationship can be schematically represented this way (fig. 4, obtained by fig. 2 modifying), B1active, B2passive referring to patient’s activo-passive role (see above, Barry), and A1 (occurring in most structures) standing for another agent, not really performing, but volitionally influencing and directing process (see above, I, Alice):

(A1) + B1active, B2passive + Attribution (GET, HAVE, WANT) of Activity Result (past/passive/perfect PARTICIPLE) (performed by real Agent (A))

Fig. 4

Adjectival (Stative, Adjectival, with or by prepositions) passives (“The wells are located near the edge of the reserve.”; “The strike was unexpected”; “The house was surrounded with tanks and policemen dogs.”; “The building was surrounded by a deep green lawn.”)

We have decided to subsume these three types under the title of “Adjectival passives” though not all past participle forms respond to adjective requirements (such as gradability, various copulative verbs use)^¹⁰ due to typical emphasis on quality/result attribution to passive subject. Agent turns out quite irrelevant, apart from last by-agent example, this way activity diminishing and adjective characteristics becoming more prominent (we consider -with passives much more adjectival than their –by counterparts). However, these utterances should be still considered passive voice instances (see below on passive/adjectives similarities). Figures from (1) to (3) are applicable, on condition of passive agent’s frequent omission.

Change-of-state passives (“The red balloon burst.”)

This type of passive, which was commented on above, quite strangely superficially assumes active shape; it can be schematically represented in the following way:

B=A or [↔] + (by + real Agent (A1))

Fig. 5
Doer and patient (B=A) appear to refer to an identical entity, though an implicitly existing agent A1 performs the passive process.

Controlled and free use stages

As above mentioned we will not dwell in details on each one of teaching stages; though it must be pointed out that underlying lead-in, elicitation and explanation having been performed, practice and consolidation (accurate representation and immediate creativity) is always compelling. What matters most is that final stages are carried out within the framework of communicative methodology with as many as possible functional, communication gap activities, without drills, multiple choice and opening brackets exercises being excluded. It is recommendable to also implement writing and speaking tasks involving passive periphrases use. Appropriate and graded extracts of administrative, scientific, sometimes journalistic texts may be studied to provide the basis to more specific writing assignments. Learners could also be asked to describe the steps of a meal cooking, a car wheel changing, a report writing, etc., all these activities requiring result and not doer emphasis and, consequently, passive voice use.

4.2. Connections with passive related forms

Meaningful passive diathesis teaching is in our view strongly related to concise presentation of existing similarities between the passive and related categories. This component of meaningful teaching approach is supposed to beneficially influence learners’ understanding of passive category’s features and, thus, lead to students’ errors reduction.
We would like to refer to a set of exemplifying utterances considered in Ruzhekova-Rogozherova (2012):
(30) [He was] given [some money by his grandmother]

(33) [The officer] considered [responsible for the accident refused to resign]

(35) [He came across a] broken [vase]

(36) [The vase was already] broken

(37) [They were searching for the recently] escaped [prisoner]

(39) [He’s a] worried [man]

(selectively quoted from Huddleston (1984: 320, 321))
Examining –ed (en) past participle forms quite easily and logically leads to proximity conclusions between the passive, deverbal –ed (-en) adjectives and the perfect. Although broken in (35) and (36), escaped in (37) and worried in (39) are adjectives, being used either attributively, predicatively or/and allowing gradability (Ruzhekova-Rogozherova (2012)), quite an evident transition between passive instances (in (30) and in (33)), adjectives and perfect forms can be established. We consider “one and the same form possessing various, though related meanings” (ibid.) can be attested. Simple transformations to above examples, such as the following ones, reveal referred to closeness. Deverbal –ed (-en) adjectives testify, on the one hand, to a quality / result of an activity which has been already performed, and, on the other, to a quality / result of a process carried out by a passive agent (irrelevant or implicitly understood), this quality being attributed to an active patient. Resultativity feature, typical to three involved in comparison categories, reveals itself their common joining link.^¹¹
(33′) The officer was considered responsible by the court.

(35′) He came across a vase which was broken long years ago (by some ancestors).

(36′) The vase was already broken by the boy who frequently threatened to do it.

(37′) They were searching for the prisoner who had recently escaped.

(39′) This man is worried by some worrying experience he is going through.
Examined semantic connections may be shown by numerous examples aiming at learners’ understanding of each component’s meaning of already schematically illustrated passive periphrasis (fig. 1-5). Errors related to tenses and aspects implementation in copulative verbs BE, GET, HAVE, WANT, past/passive participle omission in verb phrase or faulty interpretation of agent/patient connection are likely to decrease.

Contrastive teaching remarks

Contrastive teaching (CT) essence formulated by James (1980: 154) “involves presenting to the learner at the same time all the terms in a linguistic system of L2 which, as a system, contrasts with the corresponding L1 system.”^¹² The task being rather ambitious and unachievable for the time being, we reckon CT should encompass a restricted number of categories depending on learners’ needs and teaching opportunities. CT, a serious motivation tool (Ruzhekova-Rogozherova (in the press)), is likely to help learners to more satisfactorily get aware of two or more languages linguistic categories’ convergences and divergences and, consequently, promote students’ general linguistic and specific knowledge.

Similarities (not only contrasts) between categories of various studied by learners languages, we believe, can be really beneficial to be examined, giving ground not only to frequent positive language transfer use, but also contributing to better understanding of categories’ essence and functioning mechanism (Ruzhekova-Rogozherova (2012)).

We suggest getting students acquainted with French counterparts of examined passive category in English; French passive reveals itself “facilitator”, its formation, varieties and values being rather close to above presented ones. Thus, explanation referring to arguments’ grammatical and semantic parts as well as to passive periphrasis’ functioning mechanism in French will not be included hereby.

Passive diatheses types in French

Passive voice studying is obviously incompatible without mentioning active and active-passive diatheses (stipulating here again that in our view this “middle” usage may quite often exhibit a more passive than active meaning); similarly to English and Bulgarian, we reckon French also reveals the existence of an impersonal diathesis.
Active voice (Voix active)^¹³ (highly transitive, with high degree of passivization, like in (2)):

Manet a peint «Le déjeuner dans l’atelier».
«Le déjeuner dans l’atelier» a été peint par Manet.

Passive voice (Voix passive) (passive diatheses instances apart from traditional one in (2)) :

Impersonal passive (Voix passive impersonnelle) («Il a été beaucoup bu et mangé»^¹⁴ )
Factitive passive (Voix passive factitive) («Paul fait donner un livre à Marie par Luc»^¹⁵)
Reflexive passive (Voix passive réfléchie) («Ce vin se déguste avec plaisir»^¹⁶)
Metaphorical passive (Voix passive métaphorique) («Ce livre compte Léa parmi ses lecteurs»^¹⁷)
Adjectival passive (Voix passive adjectivale) («Une fois le travail terminé, nous sommes partis»; «La ville est entourée de murailles» (ex. of Muller (2005: 9))
Passive based on se faire; se laisser; se voir + infinitif constructions (Voix passive basée sur les constructions se faire; se laisser; se voir + infinitif) («Paul s’est fait laver la voiture (par Julie)»; «Paul s’est laissé donner un livre par Marie»; «Parker s’est vu remettre la Légion d’Honneur» (ex. of Veecock (2008: 9-11)))

Middle voice (activo-passive) (Voix moyenne)

Typical and reinforced middle voice (Voix moyenne typique et renforcée) («Pierre se rase»; «Un vautour s’abattit sur le petit lapin» (ex. of Declès, Guentchéva (1993: 93)))
Middle voice of impassivizable verbs (Voix moyenne des verbes non-passivables) («Cette voiture pèse une tonne»; «Jean sent la rose»; «Jean fait / paraît idiot»; «Jean a son livre de chevet à côté de lui» (ex. of Declès, Guentchéva (1993: 73)))

Impersonal voice (Voix impersonnelle) (Il fait chaud; Il est interessant; Il importe que; Il est très tard, etc.)
Due to form/meaning English/French diatheses similarities above presented by exemplifying utterances passive diathetic relationships can be easily illustrated by means of already proposed diagrams. Thus, typical Voix passive, Voix passive impersonnelle, Voix passive adjectivale can be exemplified by figures (1-3) adapted for this purpose; Voix passive factitive, Voix passive basée sur les constructions se faire ; se laisser ; se voir + infinitif can be schematically supported by figure (4), whereas Voix passive métaphorique matches figure (5).

Contrastive teaching steps

Current paper’s objective is not to exhaustively dwell on passive diatheses CT stages. Though, it should be pointed out that CT in our view should comply with above presented five grammar teaching steps^¹⁸. Lead-in is supposed to include not only an illustrative paragraph in English, but also its French translation (translated text can be used at this very stage or later on, depending on learners’ knowledge); elicitation encompasses specific questions as to forms and use of studied category in both languages (without underestimating context relevant components); explanation comprises functional equivalents fans, charts, diagrams depicting English and French categories’ essence, additional questions and exemplifying utterances; both final stages require varied communicative activities in FL2 and FL1, sometimes drills and even mechanical exercises if there are still problems related to understanding, formation and values, guided or/and topic (selective) translation^¹⁹ from English into French or vice-versa, contrastively corrected passive voice written assignments, etc.

While contrastively working, it is essential to lay stress also on the fact that passive diathesis is much more frequent in English than in French; e.g. a passive verb in French cannot be followed by a complement as in English: “On lui a demandé son nom et son adresse. He was asked his name and his address.”; “être en train de” cannot be passivized, though “This machine is being repaired.” is perfectly acceptable and current (ref. http://www.bertrandboutin.ca/Folder_151_Grammaire/B_k_frequence_passif.htm#_top).

Contrastive teaching with Bulgarian

CT procedures when implementing Bulgarian examples will not be rather different from already suggested ones involving French instances. However, a few lines will be devoted to concise presentation of Bulgarian language diathetic system; its components should be presented to learners by means of English ↔ Bulgarian equivalences based on diathetic classifications while carrying out above mentioned teaching stages.

Similarly to English and French classifications (see above) we believe there are three main types of diatheses in Bulgarian, apart from the impersonal one. They can be also schematically represented by figures (1)-(5).

Active voice (Деятелен залог) (It is characterized by high transitivity degree and consequently, by enhanced passivization prospects):

Иван Вазов е написал този роман, а не Елин Пелин.
Този роман е написан от Иван Вазов, а не от Елин Пелин.^²⁰

Passive Voice (Страдателен залог)

Typical passive (Типичен страдателен залог) (coinciding with utterance (2) diathetic relationships)
Factitive passive (Фактитивен страдателен залог) (Той се бръсне винаги при Стефан; Шия си костюм (при добър шивач))
Impersonal Passive (Имперсонален страдателен залог) (На моето креватче е лежано; По този въпрос много е говорено и писано)

Middle Voice (Междинен/Среден залог)

Typical middle (typical reflexive) voice (Типичен междинен (типичен рефлексивен) залог) (Мия се. Самообесвам се.^²¹)
Active-passive reflexivity (Активно-пасивна рефлексивност) (Храната се готви (сама на котлона; от мен).)

Impersonal Voice (Имперсонален залог) (боли ме, догневява ме, досмешава ме, прилошава ми, призлява ми, прияжда ми се, доспива ми се, ходи ми се, съмва, съмва се, мръква, мръква се, заесенява се, трябва, изглежда, бива, личи, личи си)

Conclusion

Current paper has generally set a two-fold objective: to put forward ideas, on the one hand, as to meaningful, stimulating learners’ understanding of structures and diathetic relationships, presentation of English passive diatheses, and, on the other, as to contrastive (with French and Bulgarian) teaching of the Passive, this approach also contributing to better understanding. We believe above suggested techniques will be useful not only to arousing and maintaining students’ motivation in discussed issues, but also to errors reduction and thus, to the achievement of higher degree of category mastery. Contrastive teaching, as well as teaching involving comparison with other categories, is worth trying and implementing. It is inspirational, rewarding, motivational and useful.
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http://www.bertrandboutin.ca/Folder_151_Grammaire/B_k_frequence_passif.htm#_top
Boryana Tomova Ruzhekova-Rogozherova – VTU “Todor Kableshkov” (Todor Kableshkov University of Transport) 158 Geo Milev Street, Sofia; tel. + 359 2 9709 434; + 359 886 056 032; e-mail address: boryana@vtu.bg

1 As it will be shown in 3, diathesis is much larger, mainly semantic, notion than simply active and passive; on the other hand, due to voice specificity, we may only roughly state there is no difference in active and passive sentences meaning.

2 Celce and Larsen 1983 in Molhova et al. (1991: 305-307, 311, 312)

3 Examples quoted from Collins (1990: 406) in Kurtoğlu (2006: 12)

4 Some authors treat them as transitives which cannot be usually passivized.

5 However, above quoted verbs allow passivization providing that “the subject of the active is agentive or partly agentive” (De Mattia-Viviès 2009: 95); we assume change of meaning is involved thus leading to real, not pseudo transitivity appearance, as in: “The letter was weighed by John.” (ibid.)

6 Alexieva 1981 (in Molhova et al. 1991) treats change-of-state verbs diathesis as “activo-passive use of verbs”; though we prefer examining these structures as passives rather as a result of their grammatical diathetic neutrality (“Cheese cuts easily.” (ibid.: 286), revealing agent and patient equivalence) and of their semantic passiveness – cheese is always cut by somebody.

7 S1, S2, O1, O2, referring to grammar subject, semantic subject, grammar object and semantic object

8 Huddleston (1984: 321) distinguishes between passive past participles and perfect past participles, depending on the auxiliary requiring the –en form, be and have.

9 The terms of passive adjective (result) and passive/perfect adjective (result), referring to whether result expresses passive agent’s activity assumed by active patient or attribution of a perfect result to active patient, are related to Huddleston’s (1984) passive and perfect participle.

10 Ref. as to adjectives’ characteristic features in Huddleston (1984: 299) and in Greenbaum (1991: 54)

11 Ref. Cohen (1989: 97, 112) who believes original perfect periphrasis stems from the passive. We support (ref. Ruzhekova-Rogozherova (2010: 144)) the idea of a strong relationship between HAVE passive and perfect due to reinforced resultativity and acquisition meaning.

12 In our view L1 may refer to native tongue as well as to FL1.

13 Current classification as well as some diatheses’ denominations belongs to us, though we frequently refer to various researchers’ views and examples.

14An example of Wilmet (CommuneLangue.com 2008-2009: 20) who estimates (Wilmet 2007) there are five diatheses (“voies” (ways)) in French, amongst which three voices (active, passive, moyenne) and two constructions (impersonnelle and factitive). We consider impersonal diathesis can be treated as passive one just in its passivized form, as above.

15 An example quoted from Muller (2005: 2); in French faire + object + verb structure is not as easily passivizable as in English. Thus, not all factitive instances can be, in our view, classified as suggested above.

16 An example quoted from Declès, Guentchéva (1993: 74); we estimate not all, but only some semantically passive reflexive instances like this one (as wine is drunk by somebody) belong to above classification.

17 An example quoted from Muller (2005: 5) and which belongs to Gross 2000; we consider it passive as the book cannot obviously “count”; Léa has been numbered among this book readers.

18 Ref. Ruzhekova-Rogozherova 2011 as to preterit/perfect CT; same stages are applicable and similar procedures may be carried out.

19 Topic (selective) translation (term of ours) refers to translation of a French text, for instance, which is not supposed to be entirely translated into English, but only passive voice structures within it.

20 Mutual reflexives as well as some intransitive structures can also be included into Active Voice instances, such as пея, скачам, etc. being internally transitive. If appropriate we suggest introducing learners not only to passive voice subject/object connections, but also to tense forms active/passive equivalences, one passive form often corresponding to more active ones.

21 Examples in italics from here are quoted from Grammar of Contemporary Bulgarian Language (1983: 237, 242, 243, 254, 255), Volume 2.

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