Valency-changing operations

In languages where a passive voice exists, a transitive verb can be passivized in order to turn it into an intransitive one. For example, the transitive verb kill becomes the intransitive verb phrase be killed. Passivization involves deleting the subject and replacing it by the direct object (this shift is called promotion of the object).

Intransitive verbs, of course, cannot be passivized in the strict sense, However, some languages (like Dutch) have so-called impersonal passives that allow one to transform, e. g. He phoned into the equivalent of There was a phoning [a phone call] (by him).

There are ergative-absolutive languages with an antipassive voice. In this voice operation, the direct object (marked with the absolutive case) is deleted, and the subject (marked ergative) is promoted to absolutive.

Causative operators can turn intransitive verbs into transitive. In English, the general causative form is a periphrasis: cause X to verb, make X verb, etc. In other languages there is specific verb morphology for this. In many cases the causation is expressed by a different lexical item: fall → drop; eat → feed.

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