短被動與長被動的一致性：論台灣華語中的被字句

Unifying the Long Passive and the Short Passive: On the Bei Construction in Taiwan Mandarin

本文的目的有三個：顯示被字句是單一結構、探討語言中被動句的普遍特徵、論證被字句確實是被動句。被字句有兩種型態：帶有施事的長被動以及不帶施事的短被動。先前的分析賦予長短被字句兩種截然不同的結構，因此也假設了兩個不同的「被」。本文主要是以最近在台灣華語中所發現的真實語料做為論證基礎，證實被字句並不因施事的出現與否而有不同的句法行為，因此長短被字句應為單一結構。在詞彙功能語法的理論下，本文將被字句分析為把字句的被動對應，並給予明確的單一結構。此外，本文也探討被動句在語言中的普遍特徵以及施事被降格後在句法上的表現類型。最後論證被字句中施事的句法表現無論是降格後的賓語或是完全被壓制，都合乎被動句的普遍特徵。

This paper has three goals: to show that the Mandarin bei is a unified construction, to explore a universal characterization of the passive, and then to demonstrate that the bei construction is a genuine passive. The bei construction comes in two forms, one with an overt agent, known as the long passive, and the other without, known as the short passive. Previous accounts assign two very different structures to the two forms and posit two lexically different bei’s. This paper, however, based largely on newly discovered natural occurring data in Taiwan Mandarin, demonstrates that bei behaves rather similarly with or without an overt agent and thus dismisses the short passive and argues for a unified bei. Specifically, the bei construction is analyzed, within Lexical-Functional Grammar, as the passive counterpart of the active ba construction. The paper then explores a universal characterization of the passive and a typology of the syntactic assignment of the demoted agent, and it demonstrates that bei’s optional agent phrase, demoted to an object function, is in line with the universal characterization of passive.