Talk:Impersonal passive voice

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Not only German, but Danish, Norvegian and Swedish have the exact same construction.

[edit] Anticausative verbs

Should we add a section about anticausative verbs in Romance languages? For example, "se habla español", literally "Spanish speaks itself", could mean either "they speak Spanish" (where "they" is a non-specific group) or "Spanish is spoken". I had taken a small stab at it, but I removed it mostly because I'm not sure "impersonal passive" is a good description for it... - furrykef (Talk at me) 12:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad style

Isn't use of passive voice considered bad style in most cases if it can be avoided? I am pretty sure this is true in at least German and English. Maybe the article should mention something to this effect. Also I was curious, would the scope of this article include other common passive formations other than the generic ones that work with every verb? For example in English at least, certain verbs don't require an explicit subject: "It rains." This doesn't follow the standard passive construction in English. The Article also makes a brief, slightly ambiguous reference to statements such as "There are books." Is that considered under the umbrella of this article? If so, we could include the equivalent formation in other languages, like in German "Es gibt Bücher." for which a literal translation would be "It gives books." I am something of a hobby linguist, but I am lacking when it comes to specific terminology and the like.--Shadowdrak 17:14, 17 June 2007 (UTC)