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Theimpersonal passive voice is averbvoice that decreases thevalency of anintransitive verb (which has valency one) to zero.^[1]: 77

The impersonal passive deletes thesubject of anintransitive verb. In place of the verb's subject, the construction instead may include a syntactic placeholder, also called adummy. This placeholder has neither thematic nor referential content. (A similar example is the word "there" in the English phrase "There are three books.")

In some languages, the deletedargument can be reintroduced as anoblique argument orcomplement.

In most languages that allow impersonal passives, onlyunergative verbs may undergo impersonal passivization.Unaccusative verbs may not. The ability to undergo this transformation is a frequently used test to distinguish unergative and unaccusative verbs.^[2] InTurkish, for example, the verbçalışmak "to work" is unergative and may therefore be passivized:

The verbölmek "to die", however, is unaccusative and may not be passivized:

In a passive construction with an unergative verb, the unexpressed agent is understood to be an indefinite human agent.[3]^{: 275–276}

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The Dutch impersonal passive can be seen in the following sentences.^{[1]: 76–7}

[De	jongens]s	fluiten.
the	boys	whistle
"The boys are whistling."

Er	wordt	([door	de	jongens])	gefloten.
there	is	by	the	boys	whistled
"There is whistling (by the boys)."

German has an impersonal passive voice,^{[3]: 281–283} as shown in the examples below:

Active voice:

Impersonal passive voice:

In the latter example, the subject (Die Kinder, "the children") has been deleted, and in its place is the dummyes "it".

The sentence can be constructed without an overt subject by placing an adverbial in the first position:

Venetian has the impersonal passive voice, also called intransitive passive, since it is built from intransitive verbs.The verbparlar "to speak" is intransitive and takes an indirect object marked bya "to" or byco "with": although there is no direct object to be promoted to subject, the verb can be passivized becoming subjectless, i.e. impersonal. The usual auxiliary "to be" is employed, in the formxe "is" (with zero-dummy) or in the formgh'è "there is" (with gh'-dummy) depending on the local variety.

Xe stà parlà co Marco?

has DUMMY been spoken to Mark? = has someone spoken to Mark?

(Literally) "Is been spoken to Mark?"

Xe stà parlà de tiorGh'è stà parlà de ti

DUMMY has been spoken about you = someone spoke about you

(Literally) "Is been spoken about you"or "there is been spoken about you"

Likewise, the verbtełefonar "to phone / to ring up" takes a dative indirect object in Venetian (marked bya "to"), still it is often used in the impersonal passive:

Xe stà tełefonà a Marco?

has DUMMY been phoned Mark? = has someone rung up Mark?

(Literally) "Is been phoned to Mark?"

Differently from Dutch, the subject can be introduced only with the active voice:

Gavìo parlà co Marco?

have you spoken to Mark?

(Literally) "Have-you (pl.) spoken to Mark?"

Impersonal passive constructions are quite common in Latin. While transitive verbs can appear in the impersonal passive, intransitives are much more likely to. One notable example is a phrase from Virgil:

Sic itur ad astra. (Aen. 9.641)

It is translated "thus one goes to the stars" (i.e. "such is the way to immortality") or "thus you shall go to the stars" but the worditur is the passive form ofire ’to go’ in the third person singular, so its literal meaning could be rendered like "this is how it gets gone to the stars."

Similarly,Saltatur is literally the third person singular passive form of the verbsaltare ’to dance,’ and it means "they (or: people) are dancing" or more precisely, "it is being danced".Pugnatum est is aperfect passive form of the verbpugnare ’to fight’, so this form means "they (or: people) were fighting" or "there was a fight going on" or even more precisely, "it was fought" or "it has been fought."

Another example is the answer to the questionQuid agitur? (approx. "what's up?", lit. "what is being done?") in a play by Plautus:Vivitur, approx. "not too bad", literally: "one is alive" or more precisely, "it is being lived", from the impersonal (intransitive) verbvivere (’to live’).

Slavic languages have the impersonal passive, formed with the reflexive particle (the examples below are inSerbian):

Pleše se.

There's dancing.

(Literally) "It's danced."

The verb is in the third person singular (compare with Latinsaltatur) As with other impersonal forms, the past tense forms are in neuter singular:

Plesalo se.

There was dancing.

(Literally) "It was danced."

No dummy pronoun can be used. There appears to be no restriction like in Turkish, e.g. the verb "to die" can be put into impersonal passive as well.

• Grammatical voice
• Reflexive verb

• The Impersonal Passive in German
• Impersonal and Personal Passivization Of Latin Infinitive Constructions: A Scrutiny Of The Structures Called AcI

• Grammatical voices
• Transitivity and valency

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