Middle voice and middle constructions

According to Fagan (1992), the term ‘middle voice’ comes from Indo-European

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languages like Greek, in which ‘[t]he subject may do something to himself, for himself, or with something belonging to himself’ (Fagan, 1992: 1). The examples are as follows.

(Examples of Classical Greek from Fagan, 1992: 1) (16) a. loûsthai ‘wash oneself’

kosmeîsthai ‘adorn oneself’

b. porízesthai ‘provide for oneself’

haireîsthai ‘choose (take for oneself)’

c. paréchesthai ‘furnish from one’s own resources’

lanbánesthaí tinos ‘put one’s hand on (seize) something’

The term ‘middle voice’ refers to an inflectional system in which the voice is between an active and a passive one. Another example is the German middle constructions, in which the reflexive sich ‘self’ is added to express a ‘middle’ voice. The examples in (17) illustrate the German active/middle/passive formations.

(Examples of German middle constructions from Fagan, 1992: 2-3) (17) a. active: Er verkauft Bücher.

‘He sells book.’

b. middle: Das Buch verkauft sich gut.

the book sell REFL well

‘The book sells well.’

c. passive: Das Buch wird verkauft.

the book is sold

‘The book is being sold.’

As the above sentences show, in German the reflexive sich is added to middle constructions. In Romance languages such as French and Italian, a reflexive pronoun (or ‘clitic’) se (French) and si (Spanish) are inserted in middle constructions to incorporate with the verb, as Keyser & Roeper (1984), Fagan (1992), and Sung (1994) have pointed out.

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French (Fagan, 1992: 59; from Zribi-Hertz, 1982: 348; boldface mine) (18) a. Cette étoffe se repasse rapidement.

‘This fabric irons rapidly.’

b. La Tour Eiffel se voit loin.

‘The Eiffel Tower can be seen from afar.’

c. Sa voix ne s’entend pas.

‘His voice can’t be heard.’

Italian (Keyser and Roeper, 1984: 406; boldface mine) (19) Le mele si mangiano.

Si mangiano le mele.

‘The apples si eat.’

In English, however, the reflexive is not necessary in middle constructions, as the sentences in (20) show.

(20) a. The vase breaks easily (by itself).

b. The car drives easily (*by itself).

In (20a), the reflexive PP by itself seems to be optional, while in (20b) the addition of the reflexive leads to ungrammaticality. The examples show that Agent is not necessary in English, but obligatory in other European languages like German (in the form of a reflexive), French and Italian (in the form of a clitic). Mandarin Chinese, on the other hand, either allows or disallows an Agent in the V-qilai, as the sentences in (4) show. Chapter 3 will continue the discussion and include both Evaluative [-Agent]

V-qilai constructions and Eventive ([+Agent]) V-qilai constructions as middle constructions.

After looking at the term ‘middle voice’, the next subsections review two main approaches of analyzing English middle constructions: movement analysis and non-movement analysis.

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2.3.1. Movement analyses of middle constructions

Consider first the movement analysis of middle constructions in Western languages. The advocates of this approach assume that there exists an Agent in English middle constructions, and the theoretical background of the movement analysis is that languages have different levels of representation, and it is recognized by various researchers, e.g. Chomsky (1988), Hale and Keyser (1987, 1988), Grimshaw (1990), Ackema and Schoorlemmer (1994, 1995), etc. It is usually pointed out in the literature that the lexical properties of the entities in a sentence will project to the underlying structure (D-structure), and through some syntactic mechanism (such as movement, licensing, control, etc.) project to the S-structure, as the following pattern shows.

(Ackema and Schoorlemmer, 1994: 65) (21) Different levels of representation

Hale and Keyser (1987, 1988) propose a Lexical Conceptual Structure (LCS) model in analyzing English middle constructions, and argue that middle constructions are nothing more than unaccusative constructions. The LCS representation of the verb cut is as follows (Hale and Keyser, 1988: 42).

Lexical-Conceptual Structure (LCS)

D-structure

S-structure

Projection

Move α

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(22) The bread cuts easily.

cut

And Hale and Keyser (1987: 20) propose an ergative-middle alternation model.

(23) The Ergative-Middle Alternation:

[x cause [y “undergo change”], (by …)]

<--->

[[y “undergo change”], (by …)]

As the representation in (23) shows, Hale and Keyser (1987) argues that the English middle constructions pattern with unaccusative constructions in that the Theme NP moves from the object position to the matrix subject position; it implies that the an Agent exists at the level of the D-structure.

Stroik (1992) also argues that there is an Agent in English middle constructions and it is a PRO. The examples and the structural representations are as follows.

(24) Structural representation of Stroik (1992: 135) a. Books about oneself never read poorly.

b. [IP e [I’ I [VP[VP never read books about oneself poorly] PRO]]]

Stroik (1992) proposes the structure in (24) to argue that there exists an Agent, which is the PRO; it is controlled by the logical subject e in the matrix clause position;

vp

v arg

y x produce linear separation in material integrity of by sharp edge coming into contact with latter

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therefore, the Theme NP is in the object position at the level of D-structure; if this is correct, it may imply that an Agent exists at the level of D-structure in English middle constructions.

2.3.2. Non-movement analyses of middle constructions

Another research approach of Western middle constructions, the non-movement analysis (the presyntactic approach), argues that the structure of middle constructions is determined pre-syntactically; i.e. it is determined at the lexical level. Different from Hale & Keyser (1987, 1988) and Stroik (1992), Ackema and Schoorlemmer (1994, 1995) argue that the Agent in middle constructions is not syntactically manifested after examining Dutch middle constructions; the existence of an Agent in middle constructions is determined at the lexical level. They also argue that the Theme NP is base-generated in the grammatical subject position and no movement occurs in the middle constructions. Thus, it is also called a non-movement analysis of middle constructions. One crucial difference of the two pairs of researchers’ arguments is that while Hale and Keyser (1987, 1988) argue that middle verbs are no more than unaccusative verbs, Ackema and Schoorlemmer (1994, 1995) argue that middle verbs are more like unergatives, because as (25) and (26) show, they provide evidence of Dutch middle constructions to show that the behavior of unergative verbs and middle verbs are the same. First, Dutch middle verbs, like unergatives, select the auxiliary hebben ‘have’.

Dutch (Ackema and Schoorlemmer, 1994: 61)

(25) a. Dit vlees heeft/*is altijd gemakkelijk gesneden.

this meat has/is always easily cut b. Dit soort boeken heeft/*is altijd goed verkocht.

this sort books has/is always well sold

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Second, in Dutch, unergatives, like middles, only select the present participle prenominally, while unaccusatives allow either the present or past participle prenominally, as the sentences in (26) show.

Dutch (Ackema and Schoorlemmer, 1994: 63) (26) a. het makkelijk snijdende/ *gesneden vlees

the easily cutting cut meat

b. de lekker lopende/ *gelopen schoenen the nicely walking walked shoes

Therefore, middle verbs are actually unergative verbs. Unlike ergative constructions, in which the Theme NP is an object at the level of D-structure and then moves to the grammatical subject position, the Theme NP in middle constructions is base-generated in grammatical subject position.

After reviewing the two different views about the Western middle constructions, the follow-up discussions will show that neither the movement analysis nor the non-movement analysis can account for the V-qilai constructions, because as will be discussed in the next chapter, the Theme NP in the Evaluative V-qilai constructions is base-generated in the subject position of the modification clause, while the Theme NP in the Eventive V-qilai constructions is base-generated in the matrix subject position.