OVERVIEW OF THE DI- PASIF FORMATION, BASED ON THE THREE GENERATIVE GRAMMAR APPROACHES

Based on the Syntactic Structures approach (Chomsky, 1957), passives have been analyzed as structures emerging from the active sentences. However, the development of the generative grammar theory in the 1980s and 1990s has seen a number of analytical changes in addressing the issue of passive structures, including the issue of passive structure formation in Malay. This paper aims to examine the issue of passive structure formation with di- in the context of analytical changes in the framework of generative grammar. For this purpose, this paper will examine three generative approaches, namely the Syntactic Structures (Chomsky, 1957), Government and Binding theory (Chomsky, 1981) and the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995, 2000, 2001). It is found that the three approaches offer different descriptions regarding the formation of the dipassive structure. The Syntactic Structures approach focuses more on the application of passive transformation rules in explaining the formation of di- passive structure. Based on this approach, the structure of the di- passive was analyzed as derived from the active sentence. Conversely, the Government and Binding theory focuses more on analyzing the dipassive structure in the context of its interaction with the Case theory, particularly in terms of NP (object) movement. Based on this approach, the formation of the di- passive emerges from a passive in the deep structure itself. Contrary to the previous two approaches, the Minimalist Program describes the formation of the passive structure di- as an independent derivation based on its own lexical array. This paper also proposes that the NP (object) movement in the di- passive structure is triggered by the need to check uninterpretable strong features.