The Comparative Syntax of Passive Structures in Chinese and Vietnamese

Building on previous research on the bei construction in Chinese and similar forms in other East Asian languages in Huang (1999) and other works, this paper offers a further comparative perspective on Chinese-type passives and their parametric variation with a consideration of passive structures in Vietnamese, an Austroasiatic language which has received much historical influence from Chinese. The paper indicates how Chinese and Vietnamese passive forms are in many ways very similar, and also shows how passive-type forms in the two languages may diverge in significant ways, leading to a re-examination of hypotheses seeking to identify fully universal properties of passive constructions.