ABSTRACT
There is considerable cross-linguistic variation in the way languages distinguish between passive, middle and reflexive constructions. It is often the case that a single term covers a variety of constructions in one language without necessarily corresponding to a similar set in another language. This is as much due to the difficulty of finding a morphological or syntactic factor that uniquely distinguishes one construction from the others, as it is to ascribing to any one of them a cluster of properties by which one could provide a universal characterisation. In other words, not only are there differences between, say, the properties of passivisation in various languages, but there is also considerable overlap between each construction within a single language in terms of sensitivity to syntactic phenomena and morphological properties. Such factors make it very difficult to use the terms reflexive, passive and middle as guidelines even at a descriptive level.
