The agentive passive involves agent demotion; consequently, its use is closely linked to information structure in
fixed word-order languages, but its function in flexible word-order languages is less clear. The present corpus-based study
examines the use of the agentive passive with the -n/-t participle in Slovenian, a flexible word-order language,
focusing on how the register and the semantic and pragmatic factors influence its use. Two reference corpora of contemporary
Slovenian were used in the analysis: GOS, comprising spoken discourse, and KRES, comprising mainly written discourse. The results
show that the passive with s strani is used more frequently than the traditional passive with
od. A cross-register comparison reveals considerable differences in the use of the agentive passive with
s strani and od. The findings also reveal that the agentive passive is often used to reduce
the responsibility of the agent to avoid assigning blame or to create the impression of objectivity.
The passive voice entails the demotion (with agentive passives) or deletion (with agentless passives) of the agent (cf.
Baratta 2009, 1409); however, this definition only provides part of the picture. The
actual use of the passive is complex, as the choice of voice is influenced by a range of pragmatic factors. The complexity of the
passive voice (see Toyota and Mustafović 2006, 191) becomes apparent when various forms
classified as passives and the different functions they may fulfil are compared across languages and registers (cf. Abraham and Leisiö 2006 for typology, Lyngfelt and
Solstad 2006 and Sansò 2016 for agent demotion and defocusing, Al-Ali and Alliheibi 2015 for how cross-linguistic differences are reflected in translation,
etc.). The discourse-functional effect of the passive is prominent in languages with fixed word order, where the link between the
passive and the information structure is clear: the passive enables the thematization of elements other than the agent and
postponement to achieve end focus. In languages with flexible word order, however, the passive is used primarily for reasons other
than information packaging (see also Abraham 2006, 493), as thematization and postponement
can be achieved by changing the word order.
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