The Synonymy of Actives and Passives

The Synonymy of Actives and Passives Jerrold J. Katz; Edwin Martin, Jr. The Philosophical Review, Vol. 76, No. 4. (Oct., 1967), pp. 476-491. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108%28196710%2976%3A4%3C476%3ATSOAAP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R The Philosophical Review is currently published by Cornell University.

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DISCUSSION

THE SYNONYMY OF ACTIVES

AND PASSIVES1

A sentence can be transformed by changing the verb from active to passive and making the object the subject at the same time. . Naturally such transformations are not indifferent in every respect; but they do not touch the thought, they do not touch what is true or false. If the inadmissibility of such transformations were generally admitted then all deeper logical investigation would be hindered. It is just as important to neglect distinctions that do not touch the heart of the matter as to make distinctions which concern what is essential. -Gottlob Frege, "The Thought: A Logical Inquiry"

..

I

N A recent article2 Paul Ziff challenged the claim made in A n Integrated T h e o v of Linguistic Descriptions3 that an active and its correlative passive are full paraphrases of each other.4 He listed a host of examples, all of which were presented as counterexamples to this claim. The impression he wished to convey was that any claim for which so many counterexamples are so readily available must be a rather ill thought-out claim 1 This work was supported in part by the Joint Services Electronic Program (Contract DA36-039-AMC-03200 [El), the National Science Foundation (Grant GK-835), the National Institutes of Health (Grant 2 POI MH04737-06), the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (Grant NsG-4g6), and the U.S. Air Force (ESD contract AF1g[628]-2487). a Paul Ziff, "The Nonsynonymy of Active and Passive Sentences," Philosophical Review, LXXV (1966), 226-232. a J. J. Katz and P. M. Postal, An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), pp. 72 ff. This work will be referred to as ITLD. 4 The main thesis of ITLD is that transformations do not change meaning. On the assumption that passives are derived transformationally from a corresponding active, it becomes necessary to argue for active-passive synonymy. I n ITLD, however, this assumption is gravely questioned and serious independent syntactic evidence is produced against it. Thus this issue is incidental to ITLD. We, though, will argue for active-passive synonymy in support of ITLD, even though this is not its thesis. Cf. 3 9.

ACTIVES AJVD PASSIVES which a little attention to relevant cases would have quickly dispelled. Ziff does not, however, establish any of his examples as counterexamples. We will try to show that none, in fact, meet the demands on genuine counterexamples and that many actually support the claim in ITLD. Ziff's alleged counterexamples divide into classes, according to the type of linguistic construction involved, and we shall take them, class by class, essentially following the order of Ziff's presentation. His numbering will appear with his examples for ease of cross-reference.

The first class of cases concerns examples in which the issue revolves solely around the semantic function of quantifiers: ( I ) Just a few people attended each wedding (3a). (2) Each wedding was attended by just a few people (3b).5 It is obvious that ( I ) is ambiguous as to whether it is the same few people at each wedding or a different few at each. The claim in ITLD that "both actives and passives containing quantifiers and pronouns are ambiguous in the same way and so are full paraphrases of each other" implies that (2), which is the passive of ( I ) , is ambiguous in just the way ( I ) is.6 Ziff denies that (2) is so ambiguous. Thus, there would seem to be just a disagreement of linguistic intuition here.' Ziff gives no argument to support his intuitions, so things would appear pretty much of a stalemate. But this appearance is conveyed by a deception on Ziff's part -namely, his failure to indicate to the reader that there is an extended argument for the synonymy of actives and passives in pure quantifier cases (compare the first paragraph of Section V of this paper).s It is curious that Ziff finds it unnecessary to Another of Ziff's exam~lesinvolves the same issue: Only the fresh meat was tasted by every tiger (4a). Every tiger tasted only the fresh meat (46). 6 ITLD, p. 72. 7 Perhaps this apparent conflict of linguistic intuition can be explained in the way Chomsky tries to explain the same sort of thing in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), ch. 3, n. 9, henceforth to be referred to as Aspects. ITLD, p. 73, 8 4.2.1, last par. 6

KATZ AND MARTIN

mention this argument, but we shall see that he is guilty of other such sins of omission, too.g

The second class of cases concerns pronominalization and reflexivization. Among Ziff's cases are the examples (3) Everyone pleases his wife (IU). (4) His wife is pleased by everyone ( I b) .lo Ziff claims that (3) is ambiguous while (4) is not; thus they cannot be paraphrases. The others involve nothing more than the above. Though such cases are counterexamples to Ziff's version of the thesis about actives and passives put forth in ITLD, they are not counterexamples to this thesis itself because Ziff's version is a misformulation of the thesis in ITLD. O n Z i p s version the objects which the thesis is about are sentences. But in ITLD the objects are not sentences but certain abstract syntactic structures underlying them, which, as a first approximation, may be thought of as corresponding to syntactically unambiguous sentences. I t can easily be seen that sentences themselves cannot be the active and passive objects about which a synonymy claim can sensibly be made. The sentence (5) John knows a kinder person than Bill. is syntactically ambiguous, being the elliptical version of both (6i) John knows a kinder person than Bill is. (6ii) John knows a kinder person than Bill knows. The passives of (6i) and (6ii) are (respectively) (7i) A kinder person than Bill is is known by John. (7ii) A kinder person than Bill knows is known by John. See below, secs. V and VI.

Others are:

No one is liked by his wife (la).

His wife likes no one (26).

Everyone is frightened by his house.

His house frightens everyone.

Everyone murdered his wife.

No married man is liked by his wife (8a).

His wife likes no married man (8b).

9

10

ACTIVES AND PASSIVES

I t makes no more sense to say that (7i) and (7ii) are both the passives of (5) than it does to say that (6i) and (6ii) are both synonymous with (5). We must distinguish two distinct syntactic structures underlying (5), one of which is both the active of (7i) and synonymous with (6) and the other of which is both the active of (7ii) and synonymous with (6ii). Indeed, the distinction between the abstract syntactic structure underlying a sentence and the sentence itself is required to explain the syntactic ambiguity of an example like (5) since only on the basis of this distinction can we account for this ambiguity as a case where a sentence has two senses because the structures underlying it bear different semantic interpretations but are transformationally converted into the same phonetic or orthographic object. This distinction is, moreover, required to account also for every other syntactic property and relation. For example, in order to account for syntactic differences and equivalences and to account for ill-formedness and well-formedness, it is necessary to hypothesize underlying syntactic structures with a form quite different from the surface form of the sentences they underlie. Consider the sentences (84 John is easy to leave. (8ii) John is eager to leave. Their surface form is essentially the same, but nonetheless "John" is the subject of (8ii) and the direct object of (8i). To account for this difference, we have to hypothesize underlying structures for (8i) and (8ii) such as (respectively): (94 ( ( (it)N ( (one)NP ( (leaves)v (John)NP) VP) S)NP ( (is)q ((easy)A ( (for)p(one)N) N P ) P ~ ~ S (gii) ( (John)NP ( (is)c, (eager)A ( (for)P ( (it)N ( (John)NP (leaves)V)S) NP) PP) VP)S On the basis of them, we can apply the normal notion of subject (that is, the noun phrase preceding the verb) and object (that is, &henoun phrase after the verb) to mark correctly the different grammatical relation of "John" to "leaves" in (8i) and ( 8 4 . Notice, further, that these hypothesized structures will also account for the fact that (8i) is equivalent to the cases in ( ~ o i ) : ( ~ o i I) t is easy for one to leave John. Leaving John is easy for one.

KATZ AND MARTIN

( ~ o i i *) It is eager for one to leave John. "Leaving John is eager for one. in the sense of being stylistic variants of them (hence being synonymous with them) and for the fact that the parallel cases ( ~ o i i a) re just ungrammatical. There would be no basis for any of these explanations if one were restricted to the surface structure of (8i) and (8ii). Diagrams like (gi) and (gii) represent underlying syntactic structure in terms of a labeled bracketing of a string of morphemes and are referred to as underlying phrase markers.ll Transformational rules apply to them and yield representations (also in the form of labeled bracketings) of the surface syntactic structure of sentences. The semantic component of a transformational grammar interprets only underlying phrase markers since they alone represent all a sentence's constituents and all their relations to one another, and this information is necessary if the meaning of a whole sentence is to be explained by the grammar as a compositional function of the meanings of its parts. Accordingly, sentences with the same underlying phrase marker or underlying phrase markers that are the same, except for elements that do not bear meaning, are marked as-predicted to be-synonymous by the grammar. It is just for this reason that in ITLD the claim about the synonymy of actives and passives was formulated as the thesis that an active underbing phrase marker and its corresponding passive underlying phrase marker receive the same semantic interpretation. Against this thesis Ziff's examples (3) and (4) cannot be considered genuine counterexamples, for (3) is syntactically ambiguous just as (5) is. For sentences like (3), the morphemes or lexical items are indexed when picked from the dictionary with identical indexes to indicate identical reference.12 Hence (3) has two underlying phrase markers of the form ( I I ) Everyone, pleases his, (own) wife. l1 ITLD, ch. 3. Our underlying phrase marker is the merger of the constituent phrase marker and the matrix phrase marker: cf. ITLD, § 3.7 and Aspects, ch. 3. 12 Cf. Paul M. Postal, "A Note on 'Understood Transitively,' " International Journal of American Linguistics, 32 (1966),esp. p. 91.

ACTIVES AND PASSIVES

(12) Everyone, pleases his, wife. When "own" is deleted13 (11) and (12) collapse into the same orthographic object (3). Indexing is also essential in relative clause construction; for example: (13) The man who came to dinner left hurriedly.

( I 3) derives from

(14) The man, came to dinner. (15) The man, left hurriedly. (15) can be embedded in (14) yielding (13) only if their subjects are indexed identically. This is also involved in (16) The queen came home and she went to bed.

which has two phrase markers of the form

(17) The queen, came home and she, went to bed. (18) The queen, came home and she, went to bed. In (17) it is the queen who went to bed, and in this case (17) may reduce to (19) The queen came home and went to bed.14 while in (18) it is some other female who went to bed. (20) The man, killed the man,. (21) The cat, cleaned the cat,. have perfectly good passive forms: (22) The man, was killed by the man,. (23) The cat, was cleaned by the cat,. Parallel cases with identical indexes have reflexive pronouns as direct objects; namely: (24) The man killed himself. (25) The cat cleaned itself. and have no passive forms. Some verbs require a reflexive object; for example: (26) The children behaved themselves. Here l3 Cf. Aspects, pp. 144-1147and ch. 4, 8 2.2 on deletion of recoverablei.e., repeated-elements. We regard "own" as an orthographic (or phonetic) realization or spelling of identical indexing, often used by speakers as a stylistic device for purposes of emphasis. l4 The identity of indexes in the underlying phrase marker of (19) makes the subject of the second clause of (19) recoverable and so explains why this sentence is understood to mean that the person who went to bed is the queen who came home.

KATZ AND MARTIS (27) "The children behaved the children. is ungrammatical, so of course (26) has no passive. The syntax, thus, keeps track not of reference, but of identity and difference of reference.15 Consequently, (4) is the passive form of (12). What then is the correlative passive of ( I I ) ? It cannot be (28) *His (own) wife is pleased by everyone. for this is ungrammatical when regarded as the coreferential case. Rather, it is (29) everyone,)^ (own) wife is pleased by him,. The explanation of this passive form is based on two principles of linguistic theory.le First, pronominalization-that is, the conversion of a noun phrase into a pronoun or reflexive pronoun -works from left to right: it is the rightmost of two identical (identically indexed) noun phrases which undergoes pronominalization; the leftmost is left alone. This principle applies to all cases except ones in which the leftmost noun phrase is dejnite and is embedded in a sentence constituent at the point of pronominalization. There right-to-left pronominalization can occur. Consider the two pairs of examples: (30a) If John comes, he will die. (306) If he comes, John will die. (3I a) John will die if he comes. (3I b) He will die if John comes. In (30a) and (306) the occurrences of "he" may be coreferential with the occurrences of 'Tohn" in those examples. This is also true of the "he" in (31a). But it is not true of "he" in (316). The type of case with which we are dealing, however, involves genitives in which the original sentence structure of the object has been destroyed before pronominalization. That is, cceveryone's wifey' comes from the sentence structure "everyone has a wife" in the underlying phrase marker, but this sentence structure has been destroyed before pronominalization. Consequently, the initial noun phrase of an NP's N construction is not embedded in a sentence constituent at the point of pronominalization, but only in a noun phrase. Thus, this noun phrase is not available for

l6 l6

Cf. Aspects, p. 145, last par.

Thanks are due to Paul Postal for them.

482

ACTIVES AND PASSIVES

right-to-left pronominalization but only the normal left-to-right variety. The second principle is that the passive transformation applies before the transformations which pronominalize. That is, the passive transformation operates at a point before the actual replacement of the pronominalized 3VP by a pronoun-morphological stretch. Given these principles, a case such as (32) John, likes John,'s wife. his, (where "his" comes from the subject of the sentence structure "he has a wife" where "he" is not a pronominalization of 'Yohn") yields the ambiguous sentence (33) John likes his wife.

But the case

(34) John,'s wife is liked by John,. can only yield (35) John's wife is liked by him. Thus, the sentence (36) His wife is liked by John. can come only from an arbitrary, nonrepetitive pronoun. Correspondingly, the structure immediately underlying ( I I ) is, roughly, (37) Every one, pleases every onel7s wife. which is passivized, resulting in (38) every onel's wife is pleased by every one,. and then, by left-to-right pronominalization, becomes (29). Ziff's mistake here can be thought of as owing to the false assumption that the passive transformation operates on structures which already contain pronominalizational forms such as "his." I n summary, sentences like (3) are indeed ambiguous. The ambiguity is syntactical, however, not semantical, as Ziff must claim. (3) is a case entirely parallel to (5). One of the phrase markers underlying (3) has (4) as its correlative passive. (4) is unambiguous. The other underlying phrase marker for (3) has (29) as its correlative passive ("Everyone's wife is pleased by him" being ambiguous). Accordingly, Ziff's examples in this connection are by no means counterexamples to the thesis, properly interpreted, that actives and passives are synonymous.

I

I

KATZ AND MARTIN

Another case Ziff makes out is this: Again [39] "I saw some logs" is ambiguous in a way that [40] "Some logs were seen by me" is not, while the latter is again ambiguous in a way that the former is n0t.l'

If we read (39) with the verb "to saw," then it might be argued that (39) is ungrammatical. Ziff's point could as well be made, however, with: (41) I saw logs. (42) Logs were seen by me. where (41) has a sense of habitual action, or occupation. The ambiguity in (41) is again syntactical. I t would yield the two phrase markers (43) ( (1)NP ( (PAST)A , (see)v (logs)NP) VP) s (44) ((1)NP( (saw)v(logs)NP) VP) s (43) has one of the phrase markers of (42) as its passive form, while (44) has one of the phrase markers of (45) Logs are sawed by me. as its passive form. The other sense of (42)-that the logs were seen in my vicinity -arises from the uncertainty as to whether "by" is playing the role of a locative adverbial or is part of the passive construction. This same ambiguity is also seen in (45) and in Ziff's earlier example, "Everyone is frightened by his house." This ambiguity, like that of (3), is syntactical.18 Thus underlying phrase markers for (42) and (45) will sort out this ambiguity. And since the claim concerns these (unambiguous) phrase markers, Ziff again has no counterexample.

The second section of Ziff's paper-the section which attacks Katz's and Postal's claim that "a particular constituent cannot have a given reading in a sentence context unless that reading l7 l8

Ziff, 04. cit., p. Cf.Aspects, pp.

227.

IOO ff.

and esp. p. 105.

484

ACTIVES A.ND PASSIVES

is one of the constituent's readings in isolationu-will appear an irrelevant digression to those unfamiliar with ITLD, for it is prima facie unclear what relation this claim has to the thesis of active-passive synonymy. This principle, though, is a crucial premise in an argument (in ITLD) for the thesis in the pure quantifier case (see above, Section 11). We should like to quote the argument in full, for, once again ignoring Katz's and Postal's discussion, Ziff fails to give the slightest indication of its existence. It goes: Stronger support for the position we are taking comes from a consideration of the meaning of sentences which contain as an embedded subpart strings which are essentially active structures with quantifiers and pronouns. An example of such a case is (3) there are two languages which everyone in the room knows which is derived from (4) There are two Re1 languages and [ ( I ) everyone in the room knows two languages] by an embedding transformation. The argument that in the passive (2) the two languages referred to are the same two for everyone, while in ( I ) the two languages are different for different individuals, and hence that ( I ) and (2) differ in meaning is disconfirmed, because in (3) the languages referred to are the same two for everybody and (3) could not have this interpretation if its constituent ( I ) did not have this meaning as well as the other. This follows because it is clear from the character of the semantic component that a particular constituent cannot have a given reading in a sentence context unless that reading is one of that constituent's readings in isolation.19 Ziff's example in support of his criticism is (46) That was a pleasant thing to say. said in a sarcastic tone of voice, for "to read him right one must read 'unpleasant' for 'pleasant'; and since that would be reading him right, that must be one of the readings in isolation of 'pleasant.' " 2 0 Notice, first, that Ziffys argument is based on a pun on "reading": "reading" in the Katz and Postal claim (above) is a technical term, meaning a representation of a sense of an expression assigned to it by the semantic component of a la 20

ITLD, op. cit., p. 73. ZX, o@. cit., p. 227.

XATZ AND MARTIN

grammar, whereas Ziff's use of the verb alludes to the ordinary sense of construing what someone says. If we were to accept Z i p s argument, then one of the dictionary entries for "pleasant" must be a synonym of "unpleasant," and, similarly, every word must have as one of its dictionary entries an antonym, for irony is unrestricted in its use. Not only is this ridiculous, but it is oblivious to the goal of semantic theory: semantic analysis of underlying phrase markers-of syntactically unambiguous sentence bpes, not tokens.21 Such a theory cannot possibly be required to provide information about someone's interpretation of a sentence token due to inferred irony (inferred, perhaps, on the basis of the hearer's knowledge of the speaker's personality), due to the (physical) situation, or interpretation due to code or the invention of a fantasy context.22 There is, however, another way to interpret Ziff's argument. What Ziff might be claiming is that the "sarcastic tone of voice" with which (46) is uttered represents an irony or sarcastic intonation contour of the sentence type, hence a linguistic feature of the type, not a feature supplied by the hearer in interpreting one of its tokens. But on this way of interpreting Ziff, his conclusion, that the sense of "unpleasant" must be represented by one of the readings for "pleasant" (in isolation), does not follow. It would follow only if a structural analysis of the linguistic feature of irony or sarcastic intonation were impossible, since, then, the relevant part of the semantic interpretation of the sentence type would have to come from the meaning of the particular word(s) in question. Not only is this assumption wholly unsupported, but there is strong reason to regard it as false. For the ironic or sarcastic meaning of 21 Cf. J. J. Katz and J. A. Fodor, "The Structure of a Semantic Theory," in The Structure of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language, ed. by J. A. Fodor and J. J. Katz (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1964)~pp. 483-491. Z2 The interpretation of (46) mentioned by Ziff is of the first kind; sentences like: He struck the blow. (11) = (12)

have interpretations of the second kind; and sentences embedded in fairy tales about robots and Indian rope dancers tend to have interpretations of the third kind.

ACTIVES AND PASSIVES

(47) That was a pleasant thing to say. is predictable by a general rule, on the basis of the presence of the intonation marker. If the lexical entry for this intonation marker is the same as that for ccNeg,"23with the scope the single word "pleasant," then the reading assigned to (46) will be the same as that assigned to (48): (48) That was an unpleasant thing to say. without any change being necessary in the entry for "pleasant."

In Section I11 of his paper, Ziff introduces the notion of expression-specific synonym. As Ziff notes, more precision is wanted than is available with ordinary locutions such as "is synonymous with." I t should be pointed out, however, that the needed precision is already available in the technical vocabulary of semantic the0ry.~4Where one of the senses of a word or expression A is the same as that of another, B-where Ziff would call A an expression-specific synonym of B-we would say that A and B are synonymous on a reading. Where every sense of A is also a sense of B and vice versa, we would say they are fully synonymous. Where two sentences are on Ziff's terminology sentence-specific synonyms, we refer to them as paraphrases on a reading, and where Ziff would say they share all sentencespecific synonyms, we would say they are full paraphrases. Here, then, is another example of Ziffyspractice of failing to indicate aspects of the doctrine he is criticizing, thus making it appear as if that doctrine were inadequately stated. VII ZifF says of: (49) The tiger ate the man (18a). (50) The man was eaten by the tiger (18b). 23 J. J. Katz, "Analyticity and Contradiction in Natural Language," in The Structure of Language (see n. 2 I), pp. 519-544. 24 Cf. "The Structure of a Semantic Theory" (see n. 2 I ) and ITLD, p. 27.

KATZ AND MARTIN

Since to eat a man is hardly the same as to be eaten by a tiger, and since that which is said of the tiger in (49) is hardly the same as that which is said of the man in (50), what is it that makes some think that (49) and (50) might, somehow, after all, be synonymous? Sadly enough, isn't it only this: one is true if and only if the other is t r ~ e ? ~ 5 Although (49) is true if and only if (50) is, this fact alone would not prompt us to say that the two are synonymous. Surely the situation is the other way around: their synonymy prompts us to say that one is true if and only if the other is. Moreover, Z i p s "counterexamples" to the view, falsely attributed to Chomsky and the authors of ITLD, that such equivalence establishes synonymy are not counterexamples because, contrary to Ziff's supposition, they are s y n o n y m o u ~ Z . ~i ~p s examples are: (5I i) Someone is a wife (2 I ) . (51ii) Someone is a husband (22). and ( p i ) Someone was a child (19). (52ii) Someone was a parent (20). But it seems clear that (5I i) and (5I ii), as well as (52i) and (52ii), are synonymous ifwe take the words "wife," "husband," "child," and "parent" in their relational sense, for the difference is only one of the order of existential quantifiers. For example, using M for "is a male," F for "is a female," and W for "is married to," (5I i) is rendered "(32) (3y)(Mx . Fy . W y ) " whereas (5I ii) is rendered "(33.') (3x) (Mx . Fy . Wxy) (gri) and ( g ~ i i ) as , well as (52i) and (52ii), are true or false together. Likewise with: (53) Some triangle is equiangular. (54) Some triangle is equilateral. and with (55) Cleo is a creature with a heart. (56) Cleo is a creature with a kidney.

."

Ziff, op. cit., p.

231.

Ziff's criticism of Chomsky occurs in n. 5, p. 231 of his paper. That cases such as (51i) and (51ii) are actually synonymous was pointed out to us by Chomsky. He also pointed out that such examples are, in fact, classical cases of pure synonymy, and that Abelard, for instance, uses Ziff's example (52i) and (52ii) as an example of pure synonymy.

ACTIVES AND PASSIVES The equivalence of (55) and (56) is explained via physiological theory; that of (53) and (54) via geometrical theory; and that of (5I i) and (5I ii), as well as (52i) and (52ii), via semantic theory. Thus the equivalence of (49) and (50) is also explained via semantic theory, and the explanation is this: they are synonymous. Although (49) and (50) can be put into symbolism as (57) At (58) Em Ziff acts as if the logical form of (49) and (50) were, respectively, (57) and (58)-that is, as if (57) and (58) represented all the information relevant to decisions on the question of the synonymy of (49) and (50) and on questions about entailments involving (49) and (50). Then, fallaciously taking this construal of the logical form of (49) and (50) to be a correct account of their logical form, Ziff asks how anyone could think they are synonymous. In doing this, Ziff shows that he has missed the main point of transformational grammar-namely, that taxonomic analysis of surface syntactic form cannot provide a comprehensive, systematic account of logical relations since these rdlations depend on features of the abstract underlying structures (represented in underlying phrase markers) which are, in general, eliminated when underlying structures are transformationally converted into surface forms.27 Now-famous examples such as (8i) and (8ii) as well as (59) Flying planes can be dangerous. (60) The shooting of the hunters was terrible. (61) They don't know how good meat tastes. were originally introduced to establish the need for postulating abstract underlying structures different from, but transformationally related to, surface forms. Thus it is surprising to find someone who has taken it on himself to explain transformational grammar to philosophers and to criticize other philosophers' attempts to apply transformational grammar missing the main point about transformational analysis and taking the position a7 See, e.g., Chomsky, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (The Hague, 1964), p. 34; Chomsky, "Current Trends in Linguistics," in Theoretical Foundations, ed. by T. A. Sebeok (The Hague, 1966),p. 8; and P. M. Postal, "Constituent Structure," International Journal of American Linguistics, 30 (1964), I I I ff.

KATZ AND MARTIN

which transformational grammar was designed to super~ede.~S What the underlying phrase markers of (49) and (50) reveal is this: they are exactly alike, except that (50) has a passive transformation marker. Thus the logical subject of both sentences is identical (the tiger). The topics-the leftmost NPs in the superficial phrase markers-of the sentences are different, owing to the stylistic variation.2gFurther, Ziff's rather loose criterion of synonymy-which seems to be "that that which is said of the person chiefly in question" be the same-is fulfilled by (49) and (50) if we understand "person chiefly in question" to mean the subject of the sentence, and "what is said" to mean the predicate. VIII Ziff also seems to think the following damaging: (62) That man struck that man (13a). (63) That man was struck by that man (13b). (64) A man strikes a man (16a). (65) A man is struck by a man (16b). (66) No one spoke to anyone ( I 7a). (67) No one was spoken to by anyone (17b). Inclination to think (62)- (63) a counterexample reveals the failure to distinguish type from token mentioned in Section V. It is false that tokens of synonymous sentence types are always employed in making the same statement. The example cited in note 22, for instance, can certainly be used to make more than one statement, owing principally to the indexical "he" it contains, yet this sentence is certainly synonymous with itself. (64)-(67) present no real problem, either, and inclination to think them counterexamples seems to reveal use of Ziff's flocculent criterion together with subject-topic confusion. We find no reason for not saying (64) is synonymous with (65), and (66) with (67).

In conclusion it should be made clear that ITLD is not 2s

Cf. T. Patton and P. Ziff, "On Vendler's Grammar of 'Good,'

Philosophical Review, LXXIII (1964), 528-537. Cf. Aspects, pp. 220-221, n. 32 of ch. 2.

"

ACTIVES AND PASSIVES

primarily about the semantic relation between actives and passives. I t puts forth the general thesis that sentences with the same underlying phrase marker are paraphrases of one another. This thesis is thus that transformations make no contribution to the semantic interpretation of a sentence, that the semantic interpretation of a sentence is determined exclusively by its underlying phrase marker(s) and the semantic component of the grammar (see note 4). In I T L D , considerable evidence is offered to support the claim. Thus, to appreciate the strength of this claim one cannot look at it just in terms of one of its consequences, but one must see its application to question transformations, imperative transformations, negation transformations, nominalization transformations, and so on. For this, we refer the interested reader to ITLD. JERROLD J. KATZ EDWINMARTIN, JR.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Humanities Department Research Laboratory of Electronics