ABSTRACT
The passive construction, according to the Arab early grammarians, is syntactically derived from a corresponding active construction. The process of passivization involves the deletion of the subject of the verb in an active construction; consequently the verb takes the passive form and what used to be the object becomes subject in the passive sentence and is assigned the nominative surface case ending. The Arab grammarians, in addition, described passivization in terms of the entities that may become subject of the passive verb. James A. Snow provides the first treatment of Arabic passives in transformational grammar. He proposes two separate optional transformations, one for the derivation of ordinary passives, the other for the derivation of impersonal passives. Although the Arabic passive construction is agentless on the surface, it indicates implicit or understood external agency. The term “nonpassivizable verbs” is used to refer to verbs that cannot occur in the passive form.
