2.1.3.2. Passive
There is no overt morphological marker on the verb to mark the verb as passive but there are some agent backgrounding strategies that are functionally parallel to constructions in other languages with passive morphology where the agent is demoted. One of these strategies is having no overt expression of an agent as the following example shows.
bn
house sell
‘The house has been sold.’
(Kelepir, Özkul & Özparlak 2019: 262)
Another strategy for agent-demotion is using a null subject as an impersonal 3rd person plural pronoun. The following sentence means ‘It was understood that …’
federation president3a ten minute late. say ix3a drunk late understood3pl
‘The president of the federation was ten minutes late. It is said that people understood he was late because he was drunk!
(Kelepir, Özkul & Özparlak 2019: 264)
Also, 1st and 2nd person pronouns can be used in a generic meaning to demote the agent.
ice_cream eat sick be ix2
‘If you eat ice-cream, you will get sick.’
(Kelepir, Özkul & Özparlak 2019: 266)
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant Agreement No 693349.