Thoth distribution@thoth.pub Google 20260428T232607

urn:uuid:8e9152ab-df61-4c76-ba56-286466277433 03 15 9781805118282 00 EB E107 10 10 02 26326914 01 02 Semitic Languages and Cultures 01 01 Passivisation in Semitic, Iranian, Armenian, and Beyond 1 A01 Paul M. Noorlander <p>(PhD, Leiden University, 2018) is a Research Associate in Hebrew and Aramaic Studies at the University of Cambridge and Lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic at Leiden University. He has published widely on Semitic languages, both ancient and modern. His main research concerns the typology of endangered Neo-Aramaic dialects from an areal-diachronic perspective. He is a laureate of a Rubicon Fellowship awarded by the Dutch Research Council and is the author of Ergativity and Other Alignment Types in Neo-Aramaic: Investigating Morphosyntactic Microvariation (Leiden: Brill, 2021).</p> 2 B01 Hiwa Asadpour <p>(PhD, Goethe University Frankfurt, 2021) is a Research Fellow at the Johanna Quandt Young Academy at the Goethe University Frankfurt (JQYA), where he explores interdisciplinary applications of his linguistic research. He specialises in comparative and corpus-based linguistic analysis of Iranian and non-Iranian languages, with a focus on morphosyntax. His current research examines language production mechanisms in Kurdish varieties, Persian, Armenian, Neo-Aramaic, and Azeri-Turkic, integrating natural language corpus data (both fieldwork and published sources) with experimental results. He is actively involved in the development of treebanks for several Kurdish varieties within the Universal Dependencies framework, and is supervising the development of treebanks for other low-resource Iranian languages at Saarland University.</p> 01 eng 00 385 03 23 Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 10 LAN009000 04 P381.M53 23 Passive constructions 23 Detransitivisation 10 LAN009060 23 Linguistics 23 Agent demotion 23 Asian Studies 10 LAN009010 10 LAN009050 23 Patient promotion 23 Diachronic development 23 Language contact 01 06 03 00 <p>This volume brings together research on passive voice constructions in low-resource languages of Western Asia, a region marked by extraordinary linguistic diversity as well as a long history of cultural suppression and marginalisation. The contributions showcase the passive voice in Semitic, Iranian, Armenian, Greek, and Turkic languages, many of which are endangered, understudied, or confined to diaspora communities and disappearing language islands. Education and cultural expression in these languages remained heavily restricted across parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, underscoring the urgent need for documentation and revitalisation.</p><p>The chapters explore the rich typological variation of passive voice constructions, examining their typological traits, synchronic microvariation and diachronic developments. Drawing on Siewierska’s definition, the studies investigate processes of agent demotion and patient promotion, reductions in transitivity, and the fuzzy boundaries between passive and other detransitivisation strategies such as middles, anticausatives, statives and light verbs as well as impersonal subjects and agent omission. They also shed light on the impact of text genre, verbal aspect, and language contact on passivisation.</p><p>By integrating theoretical, typological, historical, and areal perspectives, the volume discusses the internal stability of detransitivisation strategies, their evolution from earlier source constructions, and their position in voice systems more broadly. It raises fundamental questions about whether cross-linguistic tendencies in passives reflect universal patterns or area-specific historical contingencies.</p><p>This collection thus provides an essential resource for scholars of all theoretical persuasions that are interested in voice and valency and/or in Western Asia’s linguistic diversity, while foregrounding the pressing need to support communities whose linguistic heritage is at risk.</p> 04 00 Contributors Introduction Passivisation in Semitic: Case Studies from Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic Passive Voice in Ṭuroyo Passivisation in Northeastern Neo-Aramaic A Contact-Induced Structural Change with a Lexical-Functional Asymmetry: A Passive Construction in Nayini Passive Constructions in Garrusi Kurdish Passive in Armenian Passives in Asia Minor Greek Passive Formation in Turkic: Diachronic Developments and Synchronic Patterns with a Focus on Azeri Index Open Book Publishers 01 Open Book Publishers 04 01 20260107 02 WORLD 06 15 9781805118268 06 15 9781805118275 06 15 9781805118282 WORLD 09 Open Book Publishers 20 01