A deliberation on Passive Structure in Persian Language

This article deals with passive process in Persian language with a new approach. To the contrary of traditional approaches, which divide verbs into two main absolute types – transitive and intransitive- this article shows that verbs have such complex semantic features that assuming them as two or more absolute types is impossible. Reviewing thecommonly mentioned reasons for passivization, the author claims that the main reason for passivization in Persian is defocusing from the agent. And as the agent has different representations in various verbs, passive structures, also, have different properties. Actually, this article supports the ‘prototype theory’ and provides a speculative continuumfor passive process in Persian.