Table Of ContentVoice and Argument Structure in Baltic
Valency, Argument Realization and
Grammatical Relations in Baltic (VARGReB)
issn 2352-0159
This series of five volumes is the outcome of a research project coordinated by Vilnius
University, aiming at bundling research efforts of scholars from different countries
in the domain of the Baltic languages (Lithuanian and Latvian). Baltic linguistics has
long been fraught with a strong diachronic bias, but there is now a growing body of
theoretically and typologically informed work on these languages. The series focuses
on a core domain of Baltic grammar, viz. that of clausal architecture, case marking
and grammatical relations, and the syntax-semantic interface. In addition to three
collections of articles the series will also comprise two monographs, dealing with
copular sentences and argument alternations respectively. The first volume to appear
in the series is concerned with non-canonical grammatical relations in Baltic. The
next volumes will deal with a variety of issues in the domain of valency and argu-
ment realization.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
http://benjamins.com/catalog/vargreb
Volume 2
Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic
Edited by Axel Holvoet and Nicole Nau
Voice and Argument Structure
in Baltic
Edited by
Axel Holvoet
University of Warsaw & Vilnius University
Nicole Nau
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan´ & Vilnius University
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
doi 10.1075/vargreb.2
CIP Data is available from the Library of Congress.
isbn 978 90 272 5910 3 (Hb)
isbn 978 90 272 6795 5 (e-book)
© 2015 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · https://benjamins.com
Table of contents
Preface vii
Voice in Baltic: An overview 1
Nicole Nau and Axel Holvoet
Part I. Causatives
Lithuanian morphological causatives: A corpus-based study 39
Peter Arkadiev and Jurgis Pakerys
Morphological causatives in contemporary Latvian 99
Nicole Nau
Extended uses of morphological causatives in Latvian 147
Axel Holvoet
Part II. Reflexives and middle voice
Middle voice reflexives and argument structure in Baltic 181
Axel Holvoet, Marta Grzybowska and Agnieszka Rembiałkowska
Converse relations with the reflexive marker in Lithuanian and Polish:
Between grammar and lexicon 211
Björn Wiemer and Marta Grzybowska
Part III. Passives
Passivization and argument structure in Lithuanian 289
Cori Anderson
Solving the puzzle of the Lithuanian passive 323
Birutė Spraunienė, Auksė Razanovaitė and Erika Jasionytė
Latvian passives – personal, impersonal and evidential 367
Axel Holvoet
Language index 395
Name index 397
Subject index 399
Preface
The present collection of articles is the second in a series of five books, opened
in 2014 by the volume Grammatical Relations and their Non-Canonical Encoding
in Baltic. This series is the outcome of a research project conducted by Vilnius
University and supervised by the Lithuanian Research Council. It is financed
from the European Social Fund under measure VP1-3.1-ŠMM-07-K “Support to
Research Activities of Scientists and Other Researchers” (also called the Global
Grant Measure), Priority 3 “Strengthening of Capacities of Researchers and other
Scientists” of the Operational Programme for Human Resources Development.
In this volume we have brought together a number of articles that were, in
different ways, concerned with voice in a broader sense, i.e. with morphosyntactic
and morphosemantic devices affecting grammatical relations and often also argu-
ment structure. All contributions have greatly profited from the fruitful discus-
sions at the Salos conferences in July–August 2013 and 2014, and at the Vilnius
workshops in January 2014 and 2015 (also known as ‘Midwinter Salos’).
Our warmest thanks are due to the following external reviewers who, in spite
of numerous other obligations, have found time to read the articles contained in
this volume and to give incisive and constructive criticisms: Tor Anders Åfarli,
Johan van der Auwera, James P. Blevins, Seppo Kittilä, Ekkehard König, Johanna
Nichols, Masayoshi Shibatani, and Jae Jung Song.
Wayles Browne has, once again, rendered us invaluable services both as a lan-
guage editor and as a careful and benevolent reader whose comments have allowed
the authors to refine many a formulation and to avoid many a mistake. He cannot,
of course, be held responsible for any of the imperfections that will inevitably still
be found adhering to this volume.
The collective work behind the volume would not have been possible without
the competent efforts of the project manager, Gina Kavaliūnaitė, and the admin-
istrative staff at Vilnius University. The benevolent and constructive supervision
of the Lithuanian Research Council has been greatly appreciated.
The Editors
doi 10.1075/vargreb.2.001pre
© 2015 John Benjamins Publishing Company
Voice in Baltic
An overview
Nicole Naui, ii and Axel Holvoetii, iii
iAdam Mickiewicz University in Poznań / iiVilnius University /
iiiUniversity of Warsaw
1. Introduction1
Voice and related phenomena belong to the core topics of grammatical investi-
gation and have been on the agenda of linguists of various persuasions, taking
typological, theoretical, functional, or historical approaches. It is also one of the
rare fields where data from Baltic languages have been made the point of departure
for a general typological investigation and brought to the awareness of a broader
audience, thanks to Emma Geniušienė’s monograph on the typology of reflexives
(1987). With the current volume we hope to show that modern Lithuanian and
Latvian still have a lot to offer to linguists interested in these topics. It is devoted to
several phenomena that may be grouped under the label voice in the broad sense
(cf. Kulikov 2011: 372, 395): passive, middle, conversive and causative. They have
in common that they affect the diathesis, or valency pattern of a verb, that is the
matching of semantic roles and syntactic functions, and go along with a change
in verbal morphology.
Despite the obvious similarities, the grouping of these phenomena under a
common label such as voice is not unproblematic. Following the approach of the
St Petersburg (erstwhile Leningrad) Typological School, Kulikov (2011: 371–372)
restricts voice sensu stricto to those regular morphological encodings of diathe-
sis where no semantic argument is added or deleted (cf. also Mel’čuk 1993). The
causative, where an external causer is added and the valency thus increased, does
not belong to the category of voice in this narrow sense. It is a typical example of a
1. For helpful comments on this introduction we are grateful to Peter Arkadiev, Björn Wiemer,
and Anna Kibort, as well as to Joan Maling, whose comments unfortunately reached us too late
to be taken into account.
doi 10.1075/vargreb.2.002int
© 2015 John Benjamins Publishing Company
Description:The second volume in the VARGReB series deals with voice in the wider sense, encompassing both alternations that preserve semantic valency, with passives as the most typical instance, and valency-changing devices such as the causative. Regarding the former, special attention is given to event-struct
