Virtual lexical items: On the (impersonal) passive in Danish and other Germanic languages

Abstract

This paper deals with the passive in Germanic languages. The variation is explained including quirky case in Icelandic. Danish poses an interesting puzzle, since it allows for impersonal passives, although Danish requires a subject. Due to such a subject requirement, languages like English do not allow an impersonal passive. Danish solves the problem by inserting an expletive. The paper argues that there is a general process of expletive insertion in Danish and that the impersonal passive is just a special case. This would require lexical items that contradict the subject requirement. The paper argues for virtual lexical items that can be used as input for lexical rules but not in syntactic analyses. I also discuss passives in German, which involve participles that can be used in the perfect and in the passive and which would lead to a contradiction, if the Argument Realization Principle would apply to them. So, criteria for exempt lexical items are developed.