Verb is one the important categories and main elements of sentence which is sometimes divided in similar types in Arabic and Persian. One of the main types of verb existed in both languages is passive verb. Although this appellation is apparently common in both languages, it seems passive verbs are completely equivalent in both languages; but since passive verb in the Persian language has been discussed from different aspects compared with Arabic, in this article we are looking for some answers to these questions that if we can find other structures apart from passive structure which are accounted as passive in their meanings? Which kind of relationship is there between grammatical and semantic structures of passive verb in both languages? What are grammatical and semantic differences and similarities of passive verb in Persian and Arabic languages? The results of this survey decreased translation errors of students. We also state this example as a result of this research that, not only there is an auxiliary verb in both languages is investigated as a passive-maker but also, there are some planar verbs in both languages and also voice changes are occurred in addition to inflection changes.

This paper presents an investigation of the passive structure in Persian from the standpoint of smuggling approach (Collins 2005). The smuggling approach to passive distinguishes itself from the predecessor generative approaches in its full conformity with Baker’s (1988) Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH). Successful, though, in accounting for the structure of passive in SVO languages, the smuggling approach to passive falls short of accounting for the correct word order in SOV languages such as Persian. To remedy the lacuna, we will adduce evidence from the independent properties of the syntax of Persian to establish that the smuggling approach can give rise to promising results in SOV languages as well, once certain syntactic variables of those languages are taken into account.

Keenan and Dyer (2007: 329) introduce the two types of passive constructions; basic passives and non-basic passives. In basic passives, no agent phrase is present and the main verb in its non-passive form is transitive. In these types of passives, the main verb expresses an action, having agent subjects and patient objects in its non-passive form (transitive form). Any deviation from the basic passive constructions leads to non-basic passives. Although in the basic passives, the main verb in its non-passive form is transitive, typological studies of passive construction show that some languages permit passives on intransitives. Keenan and Dryer (2007) introduce the term “impersonal passive” with 6 subtitles. They call the intransitive passive constructions as a kind of impersonal passive and classify the passivization of intransitives into two groups. The first one uses the syntactic and morphological pattern of basic passives to derive non-basic passives from intransitive verbs. The second one utilizes the same passive morphology on intransitives and the agent phrases in the same way as in the basic passives. In the Persian language, there is a rich literature on passives. Accordingly, some linguists do not agree on existence of passive construction in Persian. Those who disagree on the existence of passives called this so-called passive construction inchoative. In contrast, many linguists admit this idea and consider different aspects of passive construction in different approaches. Despite this rich literature on passive construction in Persian, no research has been conducted on the passivization of intransitives. This study which is both theory-based and corpus-based addresses the passivization of intransitives in the Persian language. The two corpora, including Persian Syntactic Dependency Treebank (Rasooli et al., 2013) and Hamshahri corpus (AleAhmad et al., 2009) provide the data required (passive verbs) for the research. For this purpose, different conjugations of the passive voice auxiliary verb ‘šodan’ are searched and then, among the different passive verbs, intransitive passives are listed. In the next step, in order to examine how these verbs are presented in the natural language data, the websites have been searched for the passive and active forms of these intransitive verbs. The results emerged from the frequency count and descriptive statistics showed that in Persian the language, some unaccusative and unergative intransitives can be passivized based on common passivization pattern in this language. The passives on unaccusative intransitives accept the subject of active form after being passivized in the subject position, whereas those from unergatvive intransitives maybe accept or do not accept, that is in the second form of intransitive passivization the subject is deleted or demoted in an optional oblique phrase. This corpus-based study therefore classifies passives on intransitive verbs into three groups. These three possibilities are determined by the type of intransitives and the subject's behavior. If the subject of active intransitive is agent, the verb is unergative intransitive. The subject of active unergative intransitive can be demoted by eliminating from the sentence or by demoting to the status of an oblique NP after passivization. Based on the subject's behavior of unergative verb in passivization, these verbs can be divided into two groups; unergative passive type 1 and unergative passive type 2. If the subject of the intransitive verb is the patient, the verb is unaccusative intransitive. After passivization, the subject of passive and active forms of these verbs are identical in the subject position. Some unergative passive type 1 in the Persian language are as follows ‘ɂɑbeɹuɹizi caɹdan’, ‘ɂɑbeɹudɑɹi caɹdan’, ‘casifcɑɹi caɹdan’, ‘xaɹɑbcɑɹi caɹdan’, ‘ɂezdehɑm caɹdan’, ‘ɂetesɑb caɹdan’. Some unergative passive type 2 in Persian language are ‘hamhame caɹdan’, ‘sɑxtosɑz caɹdan’, ‘xɑnesɑzi caɹdan’, ‘ʃahɹacsɑzi caɹdan’, ‘camfoɹuʃi caɹdan’, ‘Gijɑmat caɹdan’, ‘Ganunʃecani caɹdan’, ‘ceʃɑvaɹzi caɹdan’, ‘ɂenGelɑb caɹdan’, ‘tamaddonsɑzi caɹdan’, ‘sijɑhcɑɹi caɹdan’. Some accusative passive in Persian language are as follows ‘palɑsidan’ ‘paʒmoɹdan’ ‘ɹujidan’ ‘ʃecɑftan’ ‘ʃecoftan’ ‘fot caɹdan’ ‘ɂɑbse caɹdan’ ‘ɹosub caɹdan’ ‘taɹɑʃ xoɹdan’. Accordingly, the results of this corpus-based study revealed that the Persian language allows passivization of intransitives like some other languages (Dutch, German, Latin, Classical Greek, North Russian dialects, Shona (Bantu), Turkish, and Taramahua (Uto-Aztecan)). In addition to this central result, according to the findings, we could also explain why the subjects of some intransitive verbs remain in the subject position after passivization but the subjects of the other one demote in oblique position or deleted from the sentence. For this reason, the intransitive verbs can be divided into two groups; unergative and unaccusative intransitives where the subject of the first one is the agent and the subject of the other one is the patient. After passivization, the patient subject of the intransitive active verb remains in the subject position but the agent subject of the intransitive active verb demotes through deleting or appearing in the form of an oblique phrase.

The few studies dealt with passive in Kalhori Kurdish so far, treated only the morphological type. It is possible to identify, with the application of Keenan and Dryer scheme (1985), other types of passive such as basic passive and passive of intransitive verbs. According to the available data, there is no non-basic passive in this particular dialect. In simple verbs, the agreement marker of tense, person and passive is normally on the verb. But in the case of compound verbs there are two alternatives: in simple and progressive present, the agreement marker is on the verb, and in simple and progressive past as well as present perfect, the passive morphology is on the verbal element and the agreement marker is on the nominal element.

Auxiliation is a subfield of the more familiar field of grammaticalization in world languages and deals with the way in which complex lexical verb structures develop over time into auxiliary grammatical structures in some of their usages. Most auxiliaries in New Persian were used just as lexical verbs in Old or Middle Persian and converted into auxiliaries through grammaticalization. The present study deals with the process of auxiliation of "shodan" in passive structure in Persian. This paper by providing instances of the passive structures in Old and Middle Persian provides an answer to the question of whether the usage of "shodan" as an auxiliary in passive structure goes back to the Old Persian or has been the outcome of grammaticalization. According to the existing evidences, the grammatical function of "shodan" in New Persian has been acquired through auxiliation during Dari (early New Persian) in the process of the evolution of passive structure from stative passive in Old and Middle Persian to dynamic passive in Dari. From typological view point, comparing the evolution of passive structure in Persian with similar processes in some other languages makes it clear that such an evolution has been due to a common tendency in languages towards dynamic passive in order to disambiguate passive structures.

In this paper، after criticizing Sadra’s solution which is the distinction between Primitive and Common Predications، we will suggest a new solution based on analyzing the concept of ‘informing’ and show that ‘our inability of informing from absolute unknown’ is a feature of our cognitive state، not absolute unknown itself.

This paper is an attempt to explore the prepositions used to encode the agent in Persian passive constructions. According to Givón (1983) the main function of the passive constructions is to defocus the agent. As the general trend in Persian is to omit this defocused agent، we will stylistically divide the passive constructions into two main sub branches، namely unmarked and marked passives according to whether or not the agent is included. Having analyzed the prepositions using in the passive construction (e. g. t{v{ssot-e، be d{st-e، bA، {z suy-e، {z t{r{f-e، and be v{sile-y-e) a complete semantic characterization of the type of agent that normally occurs with these prepositions will be provided. The results indicate that، in contrast to some linguists who treated the prepositions in the passive construction as stylistic forms، they are not always interchangeable; in fact they are meaningful which have a prototype for the type of agent that co-occurs with them.

By investigating the passive structures in Persian using a qualitative method in terms of the theory of Dynamic Anti-symmetry (hence, DAS) (Moro, 2000), we intended to examine the factors which trigger passive sentences; the study was done in a unified and different way. A passive sentence is a kind of unaccusative sentence which has an explicit/implicit external theta role as an agent; it`s the most eminent distinction between unaccusative and passive structure. Having studied the literatures, we understood that none of those previous studies, except Karimi & Osmani (2016), had explored the external theta role; they have considered an essential role for the verb /ʃodæn/ (to become) in passive structures, though. These facts persuaded the researcher to scrutinize the passive structure and provide an explanation for the presence of the agent and study the role of verb /ʃodæn/ (to become) in passive sentences. Meanwhile, according to DAS, we took movement as a symmetry breaking process, but not a process through which uninterpretable features can be checked.
We indicated that active and passive structures are alike. In other words, in both types of sentences we observed that in line with UTAH and Collins (2005), a DP, but not a by-phrase, merges (as an external argument) with a in Spec-ⱱP and construct a ⱱP and another DP merges as the complement of this ⱱP. The first DP carries the agent theta role and the second one carries a theme theta role. This fact justifies the presence of an agent in passive sentences. In passive structure, this ⱱP then merges with a by-phrase, then this by-phrase merges with a Voice Phrase (hence, VoP) which is the result of the hierarchy of projection; this VoP is assumed to bear the passive feature and values the [u-infl.] feature of the light verb as passive. This light verb cannot value its complement as accusative; therefore, the [u-case] feature of the complement of the light verb is valued as nominative through the agreement with tensed passive (Voice) node and then, the complement can move to Spec-TP according to the principles of DAS. This ⱱP will be spelled out as the past participle unless the VoP is not filled by verbs such as "/ʃodæn/, /gæʃtæn/, /ɑmædæn/ and /ræftæn/".
Although previous studies have considered the verb /ʃodæn/ (to become) as a trigger for passive, we showed that according to Bateni (1969), Dabirmoghadam (1985) and Mansouri (2010) this verb is not the only verb which can appear in passive sentences and since there is no trace of such a verb in passive structures in Old and Middle Persian, this is crystal clear that /ʃodæn/ (to become) by no means triggers passive sentences, rather this verb is considered as a phonological representation of a Voice node bearing the passive feature. Therefore, this verb can be assumed neither a light verb nor an auxiliary one but something completely different (Bateni, 1969). According to the results of this study we argued that there is no such a structure as passive, but it is the emergent property of a functional node called Voice node.

Much of the research on the comprehension of passive sentences has targeted healthy adults, L1 acquirers and people with aphasia. However, a topic that lacks evidence is the comprehension challenges of EFL learners facing different passive structure types. Consequently, this study investigated the comprehension difficulty of different passive structures by 186 intermediate EFL learners. The participants’ task was to read a sentence and choose a corresponding answer in a multiple-choice format via a software application designed for this study. The answers were analyzed in terms of the comprehension accuracy and the reaction time. Compared with the passive sentences, the participants needed less time comprehending active sentences and had a higher success rate. The results suggested that different passive verb types (i.e., regular/irregular, action/state, double-object/single-object, negative/affirmative, and question/statement) imposed different degrees of comprehension challenge to EFL learners; passives with regular verbs (PR) were the least challenging and passives with double-object verbs (PDO) were the most demanding structures. It was also revealed that the participants’ comprehension of different passive structures was significantly different based on their reaction times. The study’s findings may be of insight for EFL instructors and material developers to possibly invest more time for the more challenging passive structures.