A phrase-structure grammar for German passives* JOHN NERBONNE Abstract Personal and impersonal variants of the German werden passives are examined and argued to be (1) subjectless in the impersonal case and (2) lexically formed. A rule introducing these isformulated in GPSG and shown to accountfor (1) the evidence that indicates that impersonal passives are subjectless, in particular, the behavior of matrix-initial zs; and (2) the evidence that indicates a lexical rule, in particular (a) the various constituent structures in which passive participles and auxiliaries participate; (b) the admission of lexical exceptions; and (c) the behavior of reflexives in passives (in one variety of German). Illustrative derivations of personal and impersonal passives are provided. Introduction If we identify passive constructions as ones in which a notional object may appear as subject, then German has several passives, distinguished by main verb inflection and auxiliary verb: PASSIVE PARTICIPLE + werden PASSIVE PARTICIPLE + sein sich + INFINITIVE -t- lassen ZM + INFINITIVE + sein (There is likewise a medio-passive construction with the reflexive pronoun sich, but this case is complicated by several other possible meanings and isn't as productive as the others.) Having identified the constructions of interest, we won't restrict our attention to just those instances in which we find an actual notional object expressed as subject. Instead, we'll examine all instances of the construction, including those (impersonal) variants which have the form of one of the items in the table above, but in which no subject is expressed. Linguistics 24 (1986), 907-938 0024-3949/86/0024-0907 $2.00 © Mouton Publishers Bereitgestellt von | University of Groningen Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 28.05.15 14:49