Eesti keele impersonaali ja seisundipassiivi vahekorrast adessiivargumendi kasutamise põhjal
Estonian Impersonal and Stative Passive, and the Use of the Adessive Argument

Summary/Abstract: The use of the Estonian stative passive and impersonal is analysed considering the semantic role and topicalization of the adessive argument referring to a person. In Estonian the categories of stative passive and impersonal are hard to distinguish formally, as their paradigms partly coincide. The simple tenses of the impersonal are, however, clearly different both formally and semantically, as here the adessive argument is used in non-agentive roles, such as Location, Addressee, etc. In stative passive the absolutely predominant role of the adessive argument is Agent. In compound tenses of the impersonal, which can be distinguished from the stative passive also formally, the adessive argument appears both in agentive and non-agentive roles. Analysis of topicalization and semantic roles makes a special case of the construction [NPADE olema (P) VPPP], e.g. Mul on auto pestud 'My car is washed' / 'I have washed my car' / 'I have washed the car', which is related to a possessive construction, e.g. Mul on auto 'I have a car'. This clause type bears marks of grammaticalization, which resembles the development of the possessive perfect widely spread in European languages. Although the construction has similar elements as the impersonal and passive (the verb olema 'be' and the tud-participle) it has a different information structure and usage motivation – notably, in Estonian the construction is used to express the perfectivity of the agentive action.

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