completedpassive

Completedpassive is a term used in linguistic typology to describe a subclass of passive voice that foregrounds the completion of an event. In completedpassive constructions, the action is described as having reached its endpoint and the resulting state is presented as central to the meaning, while agentivity is reduced or not encoded.

Formation and distribution can vary by language. Completedpassive may be formed morphologically by attaching a completive or perfective marker to a passive form, or analytically through a periphrastic construction that pairs a passive auxiliary with a participle or a participial phrase. In many descriptions, the patient is promoted to the syntactic subject, and the agent may be omitted or marked as external or optional.

Semantics and use: The construction emphasizes the resultant state rather than the process or the agent who initiated the action. It can convey relevance to the present or to a specific discourse context, similar to how a resultative or perfective reading interacts with the passive. Because of its focus on completion, completedpassive often overlaps with, but is not identical to, perfective passive or resultative constructions in languages that have different means of encoding agentivity and aspect.

Examples are largely language-specific and discussed in descriptive grammars or typological surveys. In some languages, a single form may bear both passive meaning and a completive marker, yielding a clause like “The door was closed” with an emphasis on the completed state.

Notes: The term is not universally adopted; some scholars distinguish completedpassive from related notions such as the resultative, the perfect, or the standard passive. See also passive, perfect, completive, resultative.