9. Inflectional categories of nouns and verbs
9.6. Transitivity and agreement
Transitivity
In some languages, verbs may inflect to indicate whether they are transitive or intransitive.
In addition, some verbal inflection may indicate a change in the argument structure of the verb.
In English, we have one inflectional category that indicates a change in argument structure: the passive voice. In the passive, the subject argument of the verb is removed and the object is promoted to subject. The English passive is marked by the auxiliary BE and the past participle, as shown in (x). The subject may also be indicated in a passive through an optional by-phrase.
(x) a. The apple was eaten (by me). past passive
b. The apple is eaten (by me). present passive
c. The apple will be eaten (by me). future passive
Note that the passive voice can be combined with the perfect, the progressive, or both.
(y) a. The apple had been eaten. past perfect passive
b. The apple was being eaten. past progressive passive
c. The apple had been being eaten. past perfect progressive passive
Watch out! There is more than one way to delete the subject in English, and they aren’t all the structural passive voice!
Two other ways to delete the subject in English include the middle construction in (B) and the got passive in (C). Compare these to the active sentences in (A).
(A) a. The torpedo sank the boat.
b. I read the book.
(B) a. The boat sank.
b. This book reads easily.
(C) a. The boat got sunk.
b. The book got read.
To identify the structural passive voice, don’t only look at the meaning. Check which auxiliary and participle are being used!
Agreement
In some languages, verbs will agree in person and/or number with one or more of its arguments.
**HIERARCHY OF AGREEMENT**
**RICH VS. NOT RICH AGREEMENT**
English has a limited amount of subject agreement. Most verbs agree with third person singular subjects in the present tense only. Agreement does not occur with other subjects or in other tenses, as shown in Table X.
| present | past | |
| 1SG | walk | walk-ed |
| 2SG | walk | walk-ed |
| 3SG | walk-s | walk-ed |
| 1PL | walk | walk-ed |
| 2PL | walk | walk-ed |
| 3PL | walk | walk-ed |
The verb BE is irregular and exhibits a little more agreement, as shown in Table X, but it still does not encode enough distinctions to be considered rich agreement.
| present | past | |
| 1SG | am | was |
| 2SG | are | were |
| 3SG | is | was |
| 1PL | are | were |
| 2PL | are | were |
| 3PL | are | were |
