Les ruptures liées au passif : un cas particulier de variation diaphasique ?

This article, mainly based on literary and journalistic written corpora from the end of the 20^th century, discusses, in connection with register, passive and middle constructions followed by infinitives or gerunds which do not refer to the main verb. Some of these non-standard constructions, such as the passive followed by an infinitive expressing purpose, are particularly frequent. Part of the reason may lie in the fact that syntactic and semantic roles are thus dissociated. It is also suggested that such constructions are characterized by indeterminacy (as opposed to ambiguity), possibly exploited by polite speech. In contrast, some constructions, like the middle one followed by an infinitive expressing purpose, are rare, which may be due, as is argued, to the ambiguity of the pronominal form.