The Passives of German in an RRG Account

The German language distinguishes between three major forms of passive. They are differentiated according to the auxiliary used to form the passive. In that manner the different types of passive are termed “werden-passive” “sein-passive,” and “bekommen-passive.” This paper will show the complexity and the link between the syntax and semantic elements of the German passive in Role and Reference account and present two different constructional schemas. An analysis of the data has shown that the three passives express differences in terms of valency, case marking, and undergoer selection. Semantically, there are differences in perspective between the three passives. While the sein-passive expresses a state, the werden-passive expresses a process, and the bekomm-passive allows for marked undergoer selection. All three passives allow to put the focus on different parts of the sentence.