The study of passive constructions in various languages, particularly in English, has a long tradition in the linguistic literature. Thisvolume looks at five key theoretical issues.

The study of passive constructions in various languages, particularly in English, has a long tradition in the linguistic literature. Among the theoretical issues which this literature addresses are: 1. questions involving the definition of passive (universal or language-specific) and diagnostics for recognizing passive; 2. characterization of the class of active verbs (or verb phrases) which have corresponding passives ; 3. exceptions to whatever mechanism is used to describe the occurrence of passive forms; 4. the location of the mechanism used to account for passives (syntactic, lexical, or both); and, 5. the function of passives.