Reviewed by Giorgio Iemmolo, University of Pavia.

This collection of papers deals with valency changing devices, such as passivization, causativization, and antipassivization, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. The volume is divided into two parts. Part 1, which consists of three papers, is devoted to general issues of passives. Part 2 examines a number of case studies in individual languages or groups of languages that mainly belong to the Uto-Aztecan family.

In the first paper appropriately entitled ‘What is a passive?’, Bernard Comrie provides some parameters, such as markedness and agent- versus patient-orientation, for determining a passive prototype as a morphosyntactic category.

The second paper, by Talmy Givón, ‘On the relational properties of passive clauses: A diachronic perspective’ convincingly discusses the sources of the grammaticalization of passive clauses and shows that the similarities between the relational properties of passive clauses and their sources are motivated by a functional overlap between the different constructions.

Søren Wichmann, ‘Valency-reduction in event-oriented languages’, discusses valency-decreasing strategies based on semantically aligned languages (i.e. active-stative). Wichmann introduces the concepts of event- and participant-orientation to account for the rarity of passives in semantically aligned languages: in his analysis, these languages exhibit a strong tendency towards event-orientation, since argument structure is also primarily event-oriented.

Part 2, ‘Case studies in Uto-Aztecan and other languages’, begins with ‘Participios estativos en yaqui y mecanismos de detransitivización’ in which Albert Álvarez González analyzes the morphology and syntax of stative participles in Yaqui, a Uto-Aztecan language. Specifically, he examines their derivation mechanisms and the syntax of the stative/resultative constructions in which stative participles can be used. Finally, these constructions and other valency-decreasing devices (e.g. the passive) are compared and three different kinds of passive constructions are identified in Yaqui.

In ‘Antipasivas en español: Forma y función’, Sergio Bogard argues for the presence of antipassive constructions in Spanish in which the direct object is suppressed and the verb becomes intransitive. Bogard considers instances of antipassive predicates that express atelic activity, such as Maria cultivó flores ‘Maria grew flowers’.

The paper by Marisa Censabella, ‘Derivación causativa en toba’, provides an analysis of causativity in the Guacaran language Toba. Censabella identifies seven types of causative constructions, describing them with reference to semantics (e.g. direct vs. indirect causation), morphological productivity, and grammaticalization.

In ‘Looking for a new participant: The Purepecha passive’, Claudine Chamoreau focuses on the passive in the isolate language Purepecha. Chamoreau compares the morphosyntactic properties of passive and active subjects and studies strategies used to introduce a new participant in passive constructions.

The paper by Zarina Estrada Fernández, ‘The interplay of the causative and the applicative in sociative causation’, discusses causative and applicative strategies in the Uto-Aztecan language Pima Bajo. She describes the use of the causative and applicative morphemes in direct and sociative causative situations, showing some interesting features of the sociative causation.

In ‘The passive in the Taracahitic languages Yaqui, Warihio and Tarahumara’, Rolando Félix Armendáriz describes, based on Givón’s approach, passives in three closely related Uto-Aztecan languages: Yaqui, Warihio, and Tarahumara. He shows the differences and the similarities of the different types of passive found in these languages.

Ana Fernández Garay, ‘La voz media en la lengua mapuche’, discusses middle verbs in Mapudungun, especially those borrowed from Spanish. Middle verbs are marked by the same suffix of passive and reciprocal. The author demonstrates, through an analysis of old dictionaries, that the middle meaning of the suffix did not occur prior to the twentieth century.

The last paper, by Lilián Guerrero, ‘Yaqui causation: Its form-function interface’, describes in detail the morphosyntactic means and the semantic differences of the causative constructions in the Uto-Aztecan language Yaqui in the framework of role and reference grammar.

This rich collection of papers is informative and full of details from both a theoretical and a typological point of view. It will be of great value to researchers who are interested in valency-changing mechanisms, transitivity, and detailed analyses of Uto-Aztecan languages.