Rethinking passives: The canonical GOAL passive in Dutch and its dialects

The main GOAL of this paper is empirical: it challenges the claim repeatedly found in the current generative literature (Alexiadou et al. 2014; Broekhuis & Cornips 2004; 2012) that Dutch lacks the GOAL passive. As will be shown, among other things, these claims fail to take into account the microvariation already reported in the earlier generative literature. The paper contains a detailed discussion of the properties of GOAL passive in West Flemish, showing that, based on the standard diagnostics, the GOAL argument has acquired subject status in the passive. This conclusion thus provides a... Mehr ...