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0 ABSTRACT
There exist different views on passive sentences in Vietnamese. Some researchers claim that the Vietnamese language does not have passive voice, so does not have passive sentences. Other researchers argue that Vietnamese may not have passive voice as a morphological category, it still have passive sentences as syntactic constructions. Yet, there is no consensus among these researchers as far as identification criteria for this kind of constructions is concerned.
Aiming at a more relevant solution to the above-mentioned issue, the present paper will critically review the different approaches to Vietnamese passive sentences and discuss about their syntactic structure from a typological perspective. The paper will have three parts: The first one presents a review of two different approaches to passive sentences in Vietnamese; The second one discusses about Vietnamese passive sentences from a typological perspective; The third one differentiate passive sentences from other types of sentences in Vietnamese.
1. Two different approaches to passive sentences in Vietnamese
The issues of passive voice/passive sentences in Vietnamese have always been the most controversial among Vietnamese linguists. Their different approaches to Vietnamese passive sentences could be put into two groups - the morphological approach and the syntactic approach: the former denies and the later acknowledges the existence of passive sentences in Vietnamese.
1.1 The morphological approach
Some researchers (Trần Trọng Kim 1936, M.B. Emeneau 1951, L. Cadière 1958, etc.) claim that Vietnamese is an isolating language, its verbs do not have passive voice, therefore it does not have passive sentences as do inflecting languages (such as Russian, French, etc.). To transform an active sentence to the passive sentence, the verb in inflecting languages has to change it’s form from active voice to passive voice. The verbs in Vietnamese do not change their forms so they do not satisfy these strict morphological criteria of passive voice as a grammatical category. Not intending to contrast active voice and passive voice in Vietnamese, L.C. Thompson (1965: 217) also considers that the constructions with được/bị are just the translation equivalents of passive constructions in Indo-European languages. He calls these logical passive expressions and does not consider them as real passive constructions.
Besides the absence of passive voice as a morphological catergory, some researchers base on the fact that Vietnamese is a topic-prominent rather than subject-prominent language to deny the existence of passive sentences in Vietnamese. They argue that in topic-prominent languages there must not be passive constructions because passive constructions are typical of subject-prominent languages which have passive voice. This argument could be traced back to Ch.N. Li & S.A Thompson’s typological classification between two types of “topic-prominent languages” and “subject-prominent languages” (1976). These authors claim that passive constructions are very common in subject-prominent languages but usually absent or rarely present in topic-prominent languages. And if they do occur in topic-prominent languages, they usually carry a special meaning, like the adversity passive in Japanese. Based on this idea of Ch.N. Li & S.A.Thompson, some researchers (Nguyễn Thị Ảnh 2000, Cao Xuân Hạo 2001) also think that there is no passive voice and consequently no passive sentences in Vietnamese.
Those who support the view that there is no passive sentences in Vietnamese also base on a conception that bị/được are transitive verbs so they could not be considered as passive markers. Nguyễn Kim Thản (1977) considers that bị/được are independent verbs occupying the main role in the sentence’s predicate and are not function words marking the intransitive verb’s passive use, because: In terms of meaning, được means receiving or undergoing something pleasant (for example: được ăn – be able to eat), and bị means suffering from something unhappy (for example: bị ốm - suffer illness) or it could be said to express an unlucky state of the logical subject. In terms of grammatical characteristics, bị and được are still used as main verbs and have a high diversity of complements. Based on this argument, he concludes that these verbs still keep their full meanings and grammatical characteristics of main verbs and not those of function words, and the subsequent constituents are all their complements. In other words, Nguyễn Kim Thản does not acknowledge bị/được as passive markers of intransive verbs and to him Vietnamese verbs do not have the passive voice (p.185-191). This view is supported and further elaborated by Nguyễn Minh Thuyết (1986, 1998). Despite the fact that these two scholars do not acknowledge the existence of passive voice in Vietnamese as in other Indo-European languages, they both consider that Vietnamese has its own ways of expressing passive meanings, which are the syntactic structures (Nguyễn Kim Thản) or lexical means (Nguyễn Minh Thuyết). According to Nguyễn Thị Ảnh (2000), the passive voice as a grammatical category is expressed by absolutely obligatory morphological devices is found only in subject-prominent languages. Vietnamese is a topic-prominent language so its passive voice does not have such particular marking devices. To prove that Vietnamese does not have passive voice as a grammatical category, the author has provided many examples showing that được/bị are main verbs and are not function words marking “passiveness”. This view is supported by Cao Xuân Hạo (2002).
1.2 The syntactic approach
In contrast to the first view, some other researchers consider that even though Vietnamese does not have passive voice as a morphological category, it does have passive sentences as syntactic constructions. Nguyễn Phú Phong (1976) acknowledges “the passiveness” as a grammatical category in Vietnamese. He argues that it is possible to identify an alternation of active-passive sentences in Vietnamese which correspond to the translated active-passive sentences in French and points to the formal relations among constituents of each type of sentences in common terms. He also considers được, bị, do passive auxiliaries. Hoàng Trọng Phiến (1980) states that “in Vietnamese the opposition between passive and active voices is not done through purely grammatical ways but through lexico-grammatical ways” (p.167). According to this author, the syntactic structure of a Vietnamese passive sentence are as follows:
- The subject of the passive is the object of the alternative active.
- The predicate of the passive includes an auxilary bị/ được/ d and a transitive verb.
- The agentive subiect are optional to be present in the passive.
(Hoàng Trọng Phiến, 1980: 166-67)
Lê Xuân Thại (1989) also has a similar view when he claims that even though Vietnamese does not have passive sentences completely similar to those in inflecting languages, it does have sentences which could be named passive with the following characteristics:
- The subject denotes the action’s patient, not the action’s agent.
- The predicate are added by bi/được.
- The predicate may be followed by a clause. For example:
(1) Em học sinh này được cô giáo khen
adr. student this get teacher appraise
“This student is appraised by the teacher”
(2) Thành phố Vinh bị máy bay giặc tàn phá
city Vinh suffer airplanes enemy destroy
“Vinh city is destroyed by enemies’ airplanes.”
Besides, he also acknowledges that bị/được could be absent from passive sentences, for example:
(3) Bữa cơm được dọn ra
meal get set out
“The meal (is) set all.”
(4) Ngôi nhà này xây bằng gạch
house this build by bricks
“This house (is) built by bricks.
Diệp Quang Ban & Nguyễn Thị Thuận (2000) also support the existence of passive sentences in Vietnamese. They argue that, the passive voice in Vietnamese is not marked in the form of verbs but in the form of a special syntactic construction with established grammatical and semantic characteristics. Accordingly they come up with the following characteristics of Vietnamese passive constructions:
- The appropriate grammatical means for expressing the passiveness in Vietnamese are function words (bị/được) and word order.
- Verbs joining in passive constructions are transitive verbs which have semantic relations with entities expressed by noun phrases as subjects before được/bị.
- Semantically, the passive sentences have the following structure: i) The subject of the passive is assigned to the semantic roles as pacient, recipient, goal, beneficiary. ii) The types of state of affairs of passive sentences are actions with two semantic characteristics [+dynamic] and [+control].
- Syntactically, passive sentences have two clauses in their construction: C-V [C –V].
In brief, according to these two authors, the passive voice in Vietnamese are not expressrd by the form of verbs but by a syntactic construction with specific grammatical and semantic characteristics, i.e passive construction/sentence.
2. Vietnamese passive sentences from a typological perspective
2.1 Are there passive sentences in Vietnamese?
The review presented so far has shown that in order to prove the existence of passive constructions/sentences in Vietnamese it is necessary to clarify 3 points of controversy:
- Vietnamese does not have passive voice as a morphological category, therefore there is no passive construction/sentence.
- Vietnamese is a topic-prominent language, therefore it does not have “passive construction” or the passiveness is a marginal syntactic phenomenon.
- Được/bị are not function words (verbal auxiliaries), but are modal verbs or lexical verbs, therefore they can not be used as passive markers.
With regards to the first point, we agree with the view that the “passive voice” as a morphological category should not be identified with those passive construction. This view has been discussed by many authors from different angles (Nguyen Kim Thản, 1977; Hoàng Trọng Phiến, 1980; Lê Xuân Thại, 1989; Diệp Quang Ban & Nguyễn Thị Thuận, 2000). Evidences from passive sentences in other languages also show that, the morphological forms of verbs are just one of the morpho-syntactical devices used to mark the passive voice (M. Kenan 1985, Shibatani 1994). If we take the strict morphological criteria for “passiveness”, even in such languages like English or French the passive voice will not meet this strict requirement, because the passive voice in these languages is not marked only by morphological form of the verb, but also by an auxilary (be in English, être in French) and word order. So it is possible to conclude the fact that Vietnamese does not express the “passiveness” by morphological markers and therefore does not have a passive voice as a morphological category does not mean it does not have syntactically passive constructions/sentences. We will return to this issue later when we will discuss the syntactic characteristics of Vietnamese passive sentences.
With regards to the second point which considers that Vietnamese is a “topic-prominent” language (and not a “subject-prominent language) and therefore does not have passive constructions, we think there is a need to discuss more details here. First of all, we should restate here Li & Thompson’s view that the topic (what the sentence is about) and the subject (denoting the agent of the action expressed by the predicate) do not exclude each other like in topic-prominent languages there are no subjects, or in subject-prominent languages there are no topics. Even in a typical “topic-prominent” language like Chinese or Vietnamese, these functions do not exclude each other in most sentences. A syntactic description of Chinese sentences offered by Li & Thompson in a subsequent work (1981) also highlights that there are more sentences with subjects (topic on non-topical) than sentences with only topics (without subjects), and sentences with topical subjects prevail. If we apply both the topic and the subject functions in Li & Thompson’s understanding to analyze Vietnamese sentences, we will see that Vietnamese has a large number of sentences where subjects are identical with topics (especially in the cases where predicate is a transitive verb). Once the subjects are so prevalent, and the majority of transitive constructions also have subjects (which may be topical or non-topical), there is no reason why the “passiveness” is not present or it is marginal. Moreover, it should be noted that Ch. N. Li & S. A. Thompson do not absolutely exclude the passive voice out of topic-prominent languages, they just do not consider it a typical passive voice, i.e. it is not “purely morphological” passive voice as it is in Indo-European languages.
Because of the typological characteristics of the Vietnamese language as an isolating language, its grammatical catergory in general and the “passiveness” in particular do not have morphologocal markings as they do in inflectional languages. In one of his research, Dyvik (1984) came to a conclusion that if “subject” is acknowledged as a part of sentence in Vietnamese, it is not as clear as the subject in Indo-European languages, because grammatical properties of the subject in Vietnamese are more abstract. Just as the subject, the “passiveness” could only be
indentified by ways of rather “abstract” criteria. In other words, both “subject” and “passiveness” occur in Vietnamese although they are not as clear as similar categories in Indo-European languages (p.7-12).
With regards to the third point which is related to the syntactic function and meanings of được/bị, we consider the fact that these words are grammatically important and to some extent have lexical meanings does not exclude their function as markers of passive relations if we look at this issue from the gramaticalization viewpoint.
- Grammatically, with various arguments Nguyễn Kim Thản (1977), Nguyễn Minh Thuyết (1976), Nguyễn Thị Ảnh (2000) and Cao Xuân Hạo (2001) all consider that được/bị are not function words used to mark the “passiveness” but modal verbs, or even lexical verbs occupying the role of main verbs in predicates. Dyvik (1984), in contrast, tries to prove that được/bị are gradually losing their roles as a main verb to become an auxiliary marking the “passiveness” on its way of grammaticalization. Agreeing with Dyvik, but we still think that even if được/bị play the central grammatical role in predicates as shown by some researchers, that does not mean these words can not function as passive markers. This is similar to the auxiliares of passive sentences in English (be), in French (être), or in Russian (byt'). An auxiliary like be, will have almost no semantic role in creating the lexical meaning of a passive state which results from the form of the transitive verb (the past participle), but will play the central grammatical role in the predicate of passive sentences. The evidence is that it is the auxiliary be, and not the past participle, has the morphological agreement in persons and numbers with the subject of a passive sentence. Thus, grammatically the auxiliary verb be is not different from a main verb in the predicate of active sentences. Yet this does not impede it from being a passive marker.
- Semantically, được/bị indeed still carry the meaning of “enjoy” or “suffer”. However, even this semantic feature does not prohibit them from being passive markers if we put được/bị in the process of grammaticalization. In his article titled “The formation of oppositions among the three words “được/bị/phải”, Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (1978) considers that “bị” has shifted from a morpheme to a word, and from a lexical word to grammatical one. Đinh Văn Đức (1986: 118-19) offers more detailed explanations about the grammaticalization of được/bị and the relationships between their grammatical meaning of passiveness and their modal meanings: “There is a group of Vietnamese verbs such as cần (need), muốn (want), có thể (can), toan (inted), định (intend), dám (dare), bị (suffer), được (get, enjoy), etc., which clearly have no meanings at all. The lexical meanings of these verbs are very insignificant, they have been grammaticalized but they have not yet become true function words. These verbs have very narrow intensions so their extensions should be broad – they are always accompanied by secondary constituents. While expressing the meanings of need (cần - need), possibility (có thể - can), intension (toan – inted to , định – intend , dám – dare), wish (mong -wish, muốn-want), passiveness (được-get/enjoy; bị - suffer), etc., these verbs are used according to speakers’s attitudes towards and assessments of the realities. These relations reflect the subjective consciousness: When we say “Tôi được khen” (I was appraised) or “Tôi bị phạt” (I am punished), the words được/bị are the grammatical markers of the passiveness but the passive meaning here could be understood depending on the nuances of “good luck” or “bad luck”, and the meanings of “good luck” or “bad luck” are completely dependent on the understanding and assessments of the speakers. Consequently được/bị have temporarily become modal words…” (p.139-140). Agreeing with this explanation, we think the fact that được/bị still keep their original lexical meanings while functioning as function words (passive markers) is quite normal of the grammaticalization.
This analysis has highlighted that it is not surprising if được/bị still have the syntactic attitudes of a lexical verb (as a main verb in the predicates) and still keep their original lexical meanings (bị means suffering from something unhappy and được means enjoying something beneficial) while playing the roles of an auxiliary marking the passiveness. According to Keenan (1985: 257-61), in languages with periphrastic passive, there are at least 4 types of verbs used to mark passive predicates: (i) intensive/relational verbs (like be in English, byt’ in Russian, ªtre in French, etc.), (ii) giving-receiving verbs (like the passive constructions with get in English), (iii) motion verbs (like gayee in Hindi), and (iv) enjoying-suffering verb (like được/bị in Vietnamese). Clearly, the fact that Vietnamese uses modal verbs được/bị as auxiliary verbs expressing the passiveness is not an exception.
With the arguments presented above we have come to the following conclusion: Theoretically and practically we have enough evidences to talk about the presence of passive sentences in Vietnamese.
2.2 Typology of Vietnamese passive sentences
As presented above, there are different views on passive sentences in Vietnamese. Even among those who acknowledge passive sentences, there is no consensus as far as their identifications are concerned. We consider that, just like in other languages, Vietnamese passive sentences are syntactically transformed from the alternative active sentences, despite the fact that not all active sentences could be transformed into passive ones. Of course, the syntactic transformations should satisfy certain semantic and pragmatic constraints of passive sentences.
Formally, a prototypical passive sentence in Vietnamese could be identified and differentiated from an active sentence via the following syntactic criteria:
- The subject of the passive is derived from the object of the alternative active. Depending on each sentence, the subject of the passive could be a patient, a recipient, a goal, or an intrument (see also Diệp Quang Ban & Nguyễn Thị Thuận, 2000).
- The predicate of the passive is derived directly from the predicate of the alternative active by adding an auxiliary được/bị before the transitive verb.
- The oblique of the passive is derived from the subject of the alternative active. These oblique is usually optional (in passive sentences without agentive oblique NP). If they are not omited, they could be replaced before the predicate (in passive sentences with agentive oblique NP) or after predicate provided that a preposition bởi is added (in passive sentences with agentive oblique PP).
The transformation of Vietnamese active sentences into alternative passive sentences could be summarized as follows:
NP1 V NP2 (active sentence)
a) NP2 được/bị V (non-agentive passive sentence)
b) NP2 được/bị NP1 V (passive sentence with agentive oblique NP)
c) NP2 được V bởi NP1 (passive sentence with agentive PP)
(NP – Noun Phrase, NP1 – Agentive NP ; NP2 – Patient NP, NP3 – Recipient NP
PP – Prepositional Phrase, V- Predicative Verb, Aux – Auxilary Verbs, Pr - Prepostion)
Following are some illustrating examples:
NP2 được/bởi V
(5) Nó được khen
he get appraise
NP2 Aux V
“ He is appraised.”
(6) Tôi bị mắng
I suffer scold
NP2 Aux V
“I am scolded.”
NP2 được/bị NP1 V
(7) Nó được thầy khen.
he get teacher appraise
NP2 Aux NP1 V
“He is appraised by his teacher.”
(8) Tôi bị mẹ mắng
I suffer mother scold
NP2 Aux NP1 V
“I am scolded by my mother.”
NP2 được/bị V bởi NP1
(9) Ngôi nhà này được xây dựng bởi những tay thợ lành nghề
House this get build by workers skilled
NP2 Aux V Pr NP1
“This house is built by skilled workers.”
(10) Tiếng con chim sơn ca bị át đi bởi tiếng còi tàu rúc
singing lark suffer drown by wristle train hoot
NP2 Aux V Pr NP1
“The lark’ singing is drown by the train’s wristle.”
Thus, with regards to the structure of passive sentences in Vietnamese, the main means used to marking the passiveness are word order and được/bị acting as function words (auxilaries). If we compare Vietnamese passive sentences with passive sentences from languages belonging to different typologies, from highly synthetic ones like Russian, to less synthetic ones like English, it will become clear the fact that Vietnamese, a typical analytic language which uses purely syntactic devices (i.e, word orders and function words) to express the passivenes, conforms to the general laws about the typological differences among languages. These differences are represented in the following table:
Passive Types | Passive marking means | Language | Examples |
| Synthetic |
form of verbs (purely morphological)
|
Russian
| Rabotchie stroili dom “Workers built the house”
Ø Dom stroilsa rabochimi “The house was built by workers.” |
|
Analytic |
form of verbs + auxilary + word order (morpho - syntactic)
| Rabotchie postroili dom “Workers have built the house”
Ø Dom byl postroen rabotchimi “The house has been built by workers” | |
| English | Workers built the houseØ The house was built by workers | ||
| auxilary + word order (purely syntactic) | Vietnamese | Công nhân đã xây xong ngôi nhà “Workers have built the house”
Ø Ngôi nhà đã được công nhân xây xong “The house has been built by workers.” |
3. Differentiation of passive sentences from other types of sentences
It is necessary to distinguish types of protypical passive sentences in Vietnamese (identified according to the above-mentioned criteria) from other types of sentences which are similar in forms or meanings but which are not the passive per se.
3.1 Passive sentences NP2 được/bị V vs. pseudo-passive sentences NP1 được/bị V
NP1 được/bị V is a type of active sentences which have the subject NP1 denoting the experiencer or actor of the state of affairs expressed by the predicates V. V could be an intransitive verb (Tôi bị ngã - I fell, Nó được nghỉ - He has a day off) or a transitive verb (Tôi bị nghe lời phàn nàn - I have to listen to the complaints; Nó được xem phim - He got to watch the movie). NP2 được/bị V is a type of passive sentences which have the subject NP2 denoting a non-agentive semantic role (patient, recipient) and V is a transitive verb (Tôi bị mắng - I was scolded; Nó được khen - He was appraised). In this second type of sentences, the agentive oblique NP1 could appear before V or could not. It should be noted that when NP1 is absent, the passive sentences NP2/3 được/ bị V (11, 13) will have the surface structures similar to those of the active sentence type NP1 được/ bị V (12, 14):
(11) Tôi bị mắng
I suffer scold
NP2 Aux V
“I am scolded.”
(12) Tôi bị ngã·
I suffer fall
NP1 Aux V
“I fell.”
(13) Tôi được tặng giấy khen
I get award Certificate of Merit
NP3 Aux V NP2
“I was awarded with a Certificate of Merit.”
(14) Tôi được xem phim
I get watch movie
NP1 Aux V NP2
“I got to watch the movie.”
Some researchers base on this characteristics to consider sentence type NP2 ®îc/ bÞ V (like examples 11, 13) as active sentences just as sentence type NP1 ®îc/ bÞ V (like examples 12, 14) and not as passive sentences. To our understanding, these two sentence types look similar in their surface structures but different in their deep structures: sentences like 12 and 14 have experiencer subjects (i.e, their subjects coinciding with the experiencers of process); sentences like 11 and 13 have patien subjects (i.e, their subjects coinciding with the patients of action). These two types of constructions can be distinguished by a transformational test - adding an agentive NP before V:
(11) Tôi bị mắng > (11’) Tôi bị mẹ mắng
I suffer scold I suffer mother scold
NP2 Aux V NP2 Aux NP1 V
“I am scolded” “I am scolded by my mother”
(12) Tôi bị ngã > * (12’) Tôi bị mẹ ngã
I suffer fall I suffer mother fall
NP1 Aux V NP1 Aux NP1 V
“I fell” * “ I suffer my mother fell”
(13) Tôi được tặng giấy khen > (13’) Tôi được trường tặng giấy khen
I get award Certificate of Merit I get school award Certificate of Merit
NP2 Aux V NP3 NP3 Aux NP1 V NP2
“I was awarded with a Certificate “I was awarded with a Certificate of Merit
of Merit” by the school”
(14) Tôi được xem phim > * (14’) Tôi được trường xem phim
I get watch movie I get school watch movie
NP1 Aux V NP2 NP1 Aux NP1 V NP2
“I got to watch the movie.” * “ I got the school to watch the movie.”
The test show that sentences 12 and 14 do not accept an agentive NP (mẹ, nhà trường) before V whereas the addition of an agentive NP before V in sentences 11 and 13 does not change the sentence meaning if not make it clearer. From this test, we can conclude that NP2 được/ bị V (11, 13) and NP1 được/ bị V (12, 14) are two different sentence types: The former type represent a typological type of passive sentences (they are passive both in terms of grammar and semantics), the latter type represent a type of active sentences with the pseudo-passive form (they are passive in terms of grammar but active in terms of semantics), i.e pseudo-passive sentences.
3.2 Passive sentences NP2 được/bị V vs. active sentences NP2 do NP1 V
Some researchers consider a sentence like “Hàng này do xí nghiệp chúng tôi sản xuất” (This marchandise is produced by our factory) a passive one (Nguyễn Phú Phong 1976, Nguyễn Kim Thản, 1977), . According to us, this sentence is not a passive one because of the following reasons:
- First, do in this construction does not have the same functions as được/bị in passive sentences. The evidence is that do can not independently combine with a transituve verb to form a passive predicate. For example, we cannot say:
(15) * Hàng này do sản xuất
Marchandise this by produce
NP1 Pr V
* “ This marchandise by produced”
In other words, do is always used together with the presence of an agentive subject before a predicative verb, so it ‘s not an auxilary marking the passiveness like ones được/bị.
- Secondly, the transformation of the object in active sentence into subject in the sentence type NP2 do NP1 V are very limited. Only the pacient object could appear in the position of NP2 , other types of object (recipient, tool, etc.) do not have this posibility. For example, we can not perform the following transformation:
(16) Tôi viết thư cho Nam > (16’) * Nam do tôi viết thư cho
I write letter to Nam Nam by I write letter to
NP1 V NP2 Pr NP3 NP3 Pr NP1 V NP2 Pr
“I wrote a letter to Nam ” * “ Nam by I write a letter to”
3.3 Passive sentences NP2 được/bị V vs. de-trasitive sentences NP2 - V
Sentences with a pattern NP2 - V have non-agentive NP at the beginning of the sentence (NP is a recipient, pacient, etc.) followed by a predicate (V) which has the original meaning of a transitive verb, usually accompanied by an auxilary (before V) or an adverb (after V). For examples:
(17) Cửa mở rồi
door open already
NP2 V Adv
“The door opened”
(18) Cầu đang xây
bridge being build
NP2 Aux V
“The bridge is being built”
(19) Nhà cửa cuốn sạch rồi
houses carry away already
NP2 V Adv
“All the houses have been carried away”
According to some researchers, these NP2 - V sentences could be considered as passive (Nguyễn Kim Thản 1977, Lê Xuân Thại 1994). However, if we take into careful consideration all NP2 - V sentences as the above-given examples, it becomes difficult to say whether they are passive or active. At first they may seem passive because without được/bị they are still understood as having a passive meaning. And if we add được/bị after NP2, all the above sentences will become passive sentences :
(18) Cửa mở rồi > (18’) Cửa được mở rồi
door open already door get open already
NP2 V Adv NP2 Aux V Adv
“The door opened” “The door is opened”
(19) Cầu đang xây > (19’) Cầu đang được xây
bridge being build bridge being get build
NP2 Aux V NP2 Aux Aux V
“The bridge is being built” “The bridge is being built”
(20) Nhà cửa cuốn sạch rồi . > (20’) Nhà cửa bị cuốn sạch rồi
houses carry away already houses suffer carry away already
NP2 V Adv NP2 Aux V Adv
“All the houses are carried away” “All the houses are carried away”
But if we add an agentive NP before V, all sentences will lose their passive meanings, or in other words, they have active meanings and become active sentences. For example:
(18) Cửa mở rồi. > (18”) Cửa mẹ mở rồi
door open already door mother open already
NP2 V Adv NP2 NP1 V Adv
“The door is open” “The door, mother has opened it”
(19) Cầu đang xây > (19”) Cầu thợ đang xây
bridge being build bridge workers being bulid
NP2 Aux V NP2 NP1 Aux V
“ The bridge is being built” “The bridge, workers is building it "
(20) Nhà cửa cuốn sạch rồi > (20”) Nhà cửa lũ cuốn sạch rồi
houses carry away already houses flood carry away already
NP2 V Adv NP2 NP1 V Adv
“All the houses are carried away” “All the house, the flood carried them away”
In the newly formed sentences, the function of NPs cửa, cầu, nhà cửa could be switch from the subject of sentence to the topic of sentence. These transformation possibilities suggest that the sentences NP2 - V could be a middle type between the passive and the active sentences, not yet be a typical passive sentence. We call this as a type of detransitive sentences (see Nguyễn Hồng Cổn, 2004).
4 Conclusion
The present paper discusses the issue of passive sentences in Vietnamese from a typological perspective of syntax. Based on a distinction of 3 types of passive sentences which are purely morphological passive, morpho-syntactic passive and purely syntactic, and based on a variety of evidences, the paper has demonstrated that: 1. Although it has no passive voice as a purely morphological category, Vietnamese still has passive sentences as syntactic constructions, marked by word orders and function words (được/bị); 2. There are 3 types of passive sentences in Vietnamese (NP2 được/bị V1, NP2 được /bị NP1 V, NP2 được/bị V bởi NP1 ) and all could be identified and differenticated from other sentence types by certain syntactic criteria.
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