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From Nordan Symposia
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==Etymology==
[http://nordan.daynal.org/wiki/index.php?title=English#ca._1100-1500_.09THE_MIDDLE_ENGLISH_PERIOD Middle English], from Late [[Latin]] impersonalis, from Latin in- + Late Latin personalis [[personal]]
*Date: [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/15th_Century 15th century]
==Definitions==
*1 a : denoting the verbal [[action]] of an unspecified [[agent]] and hence used with no expressed subject (as methinks) or with a merely [[formal]] subject (as rained in it rained)
:b of a pronoun : indefinite
*2 a : having no [[personal]] [[reference]] or [[connection]] <impersonal [[criticism]]>
:b : not engaging the [[human]] [[personality]] or [[emotions]] <the [[machine]] as compared with the hand [[tool]] is an impersonal [[agency]] — John Dewey>
:c : not existing as a [[person]] : not having human [[qualities]] or [[Attributes|characteristics]]
==Description==
:Impersonal passive voice
The '''impersonal''' passive voice is a verb [[voice]] that decreases the valency of an intransitive verb (which has valency one) to zero.
The impersonal passive deletes the subject of an intransitive verb. In place of the verb's subject, the construction instead may include a syntactic placeholder, also called a dummy. This placeholder has neither thematic nor referential [[content]]. (A similar example is the word "there" in the English phrase "There are three books.")
[[Category: General Reference]]
==Etymology==
[http://nordan.daynal.org/wiki/index.php?title=English#ca._1100-1500_.09THE_MIDDLE_ENGLISH_PERIOD Middle English], from Late [[Latin]] impersonalis, from Latin in- + Late Latin personalis [[personal]]
*Date: [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/15th_Century 15th century]
==Definitions==
*1 a : denoting the verbal [[action]] of an unspecified [[agent]] and hence used with no expressed subject (as methinks) or with a merely [[formal]] subject (as rained in it rained)
:b of a pronoun : indefinite
*2 a : having no [[personal]] [[reference]] or [[connection]] <impersonal [[criticism]]>
:b : not engaging the [[human]] [[personality]] or [[emotions]] <the [[machine]] as compared with the hand [[tool]] is an impersonal [[agency]] — John Dewey>
:c : not existing as a [[person]] : not having human [[qualities]] or [[Attributes|characteristics]]
==Description==
:Impersonal passive voice
The '''impersonal''' passive voice is a verb [[voice]] that decreases the valency of an intransitive verb (which has valency one) to zero.
The impersonal passive deletes the subject of an intransitive verb. In place of the verb's subject, the construction instead may include a syntactic placeholder, also called a dummy. This placeholder has neither thematic nor referential [[content]]. (A similar example is the word "there" in the English phrase "There are three books.")
[[Category: General Reference]]
