Agent demotion and patient promotion do not affect prominence in upcoming discourse: Results of a continuation task for Polish passives and impersonals

Summary Both passives and impersonal constructions demote agents, and personal passives also promote patients. The present paper reports two questionnaire studies on Polish aimed at answering the question whether this has an effect on the prominence status of agent and patient referents in upcoming discourse. In a forced-choice scenario, participants had to pick one out of two possible continuations after a stimulus, one containing the (implicit) agent and one the (always explicitly mentioned) patient of the stimulus sentence. Additionally, they were asked to give an acceptability rating, and their reaction times were recorded. No matter whether the stimulus contained a short personal passive, a -no/-to impersonal, or a personal active construction, participants invariably preferred the agent over the patient (at a rate of about 50 % vs. 40 %, with 10 % opting for ‘neither’). The findings allow to conclude that agent demotion and patient promotion only have local effects within the sentence or clause but do not affect the prominence structure of upcoming discourse.