Analogues of the passive voice and ergativity in the Chinese and Russian languages (taking into account the experience of communication in the Guoyu linguistic environment)

Abstract

The aim of the research is to identify the most typical grammatical means of expressing passivisation (building constructions similar to or equivalent to the basic ones in ergative typology languages) in the Chinese (topic-prominent) and Russian (subject-prominent) languages. The scientific novelty lies in the revealing of the manifestation of passivisation in Chinese language in the context of topic-prominent typology of languages, by comparison with the variety of semantically and pragmatically similar constructions in the Russian language, and attracting the data on ergativity and on the analysis of contemporary works of Taiwanese scientists. It is demonstrated and justified that the commonly learned method of expressing the passive voice with the preposition 被 /bèi/ is far from being the only and typologically marginal way. A wide range of ergative-like constructions in the Chinese and Russian languages has been analysed. As a result, it has been revealed that in the Chinese language as a “descriptive language” without constant imitation of the agent and action, topic constructions do not require formalisation and markers and actually correspond more to the semantics and pragmatics of the passive. In the Russian language as a “language of banal metaphor”, a wide range of reflexive, impersonal, indefinite-personal, and generic-personal constructions are used.