Las construcciones pasivas del español

This chapter presents the essentials of Spanish passive constructions. The passive that is most widely used features the element se (“reflexive passive”, e.g. se preparan los platos); a special case of this se-passive expresses modal meanings (“mediopassive”, e.g. los platos se preparan así). The other two constructions addressed (“analytic passives”) feature a participle and a copula; one expresses mainly processes, e.g. los platos son preparados por el chef, while the other expresses states, e.g. los platos están preparados. The chapter focuses on the synchronic characterization of these constructions’ structures, with special attention to the various semantic and syntactic restrictions placed upon them. This structural characterization is complemented by a brief typological commentary that allows an adequate contextualization of the constructions discussed. In addition, the chapter addresses some aspects treated by the literature on the use of the different passives, with special attention to register variation.