The agentive passive in Slovenian from a corpus pragmatics perspective

Abstract

The agentive passive involves agent demotion; consequently, its use is closely linked to information structure in fixed word-order languages, but its function in flexible word-order languages is less clear. The present corpus-based study examines the use of the agentive passive with the -n/-t participle in Slovenian, a flexible word-order language, focusing on how the register and the semantic and pragmatic factors influence its use. Two reference corpora of contemporary Slovenian were used in the analysis: GOS, comprising spoken discourse, and KRES, comprising mainly written discourse. The results show that the passive with s strani is used more frequently than the traditional passive with od . A cross-register comparison reveals considerable differences in the use of the agentive passive with s strani and od . The findings also reveal that the agentive passive is often used to reduce the responsibility of the agent to avoid assigning blame or to create the impression of objectivity.