The Functional Effect of Agent Retention in English Passives: An Examination of the Informativeness Condition

Abstract

Different treatments of passives in English have concentrated on providing and account of this particularly interesting construction from diverse frames of reference. There are formal (e.g. Quirk et al., 1979), semantic (e.g. Keenan, 1985), and functional analyses (e.g. Riddle & Sheintuch, 1983). One feature of passives that formal analyses apparently have taken for granted has to do with the by phrase or agent role. In most formal and semantic accounts it is argued that the topicalizing function of passives may have a concomitant formal effect on the agent, and, thus, authors claim that the agent is generally optional. The agent is deleted, such accounts argue, because it is associated with actives where the performer is unimportant.