Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.2.9
On Non-Homogeneity of the Construction Used to Express the Periphrastic Passive
Ismail Palić
orcid.org/0000-0002-9128-236X
; Filozofski fakultet Univerziteta u Sarajevu
Abstract
The construction used to express the periphrastic passive in Bosnian and other languages based on Neo-Štokavian dialect (biti + passive participle) is not homogeneous, but semantically and grammatically diverse. The grammatical diversity of this construction is manifested in the fact that its first member – the verb biti – is used either as an auxiliary verb or as a copulative verb. Consequently, the second member of the construction – the complement to the verb biti – is used either as a verb (when biti is in the function of an auxiliary verb) or as an adjective (when biti is in the function of a copulative verb). All constructions with the auxiliary verb biti in this case belong to the morphological passive, and it can only be the perfect passive and the plusquamperfekt passive. On the other hand, constructions with a copula biti can express both the passive – which is then called copulative – and non-passive constructions that can be resultative and non-resultative. Thus, the construction used to expresses the periphrastic passive is potentially realized as four types of homoform structures: as morphological passive, copulative passive, resultative, and non-resultative. The identified structures are strongly semantically related to each other, which explains their homoformity. The strongest connection is between the two subtypes of the passive and the passive and the resultative, while the non-resultative is in a very loose connection with the resultative. The morphological and copulative passive differ semantically slightly, and the pragmatic difference is practically non-existent. The resultative has a strong semantic relation to the passive because it operates on the result of a previously performed action, which, however, does not exist at a given time. Due to extremely strong mutual relations, none of the constructions belonging to the passive and the resultative is unambiguous in a minimal context, but contextual indicators are needed to resolve the potential ambiguity. It turns out that where such indicators are missing, the difference between passive and resultative is not pragmatically relevant.
Keywords
auxiliary verb; copulative verb; verbal adjective (passive participle); periphrastic passive; morphological passive, copulative passive; resultative, non-resultative
Hrčak ID:
343685
URI
Publication date:
31.1.2026.
Visits: 462 *