Passive vP is not phasal in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian

Abstract

Legate (2003) argues, contra Chomsky 2001, that passive vP is a phase in English. In this paper, I present novel Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) data from (i) theme vowel quality, (ii) apparent non-local allomorphy and allosemy, and (iii) agreement to support the claim that passive vP is not phasal in this language. Comparing these findings with Legate’s, I show that those of her diagnostics that can be applied to BCS put BCS passive participles on a par with active verbs, patterning with the English data. This result, I argue, supports the view that Legate’s diagnostics may not be phasehood detectors at all and has consequences for our general understanding of phasehood.