The regular passive may be viewed as a configuration of grammatical characteristics, such as having a non-agentive subject which corresponds to the object of an active construction, having a verbal cluster consisting of the past participle of a transitive main verb and a passive auxiliary and – optionally – expressing agentivity through an adjunct introduced by the preposition deur by. In this section an array of constructions are discussed which differ from the regular passive in one or more respects.

While the regular passive is available to transitive verbs, constructions consisting of past participles of intransitive main verbs and passive auxiliaries such as word be.AUX.PASS.PRS or is be.PST as auxiliary, as in (7), may also be regarded as fully-fledged passives. This also applies to constructions with prepositional object verbs, as in (8). The adverbial particle daar there is employed to introduce new information or simply as a syntactic "filler", as in (9). Intransitive passive constructions introduced by daar are also known as impersonal constructions, cf. Ponelis (1979:408).

Although "minimal" passives such as (7) and (8) are fully acceptable, they are more frequently complemented by daar, as in (9).

The daar may retain its introductory function in spite of being replaced by another constituent through topicalisation, as in (10), (11) and (12). (Cf. Ponelis (1979:408).

In certain complex sentences with subjective or objective complements, such as the infinitival clauses in (12), sentence anaphoric dit it seems to be a competitor of introductory daar there. This is attributed byPonelis (1979:453) to English influence. However, the semantic convergence of (12a) and (12b) may simply be the result of passivisation. In (12b) the infinitival subordinate clause om Robert uit te jaag is in an objective or patient relationship with the matrix verb verwag expect. But although anaphoric dit in (12a) has become the sentential subject through passivisation, it – and the infinitival clause it refers to – remains in a patient relationship with the matrix verb.

The extraction of a noun phrase, such as my motor my car from a prepositional object, as in (13), or die rivier the river from a prepositional adjunct, as in (14), is also quite common in Afrikaans.

Intransitive passives differ from transitive passives in that their acceptability diminishes when, as in (15), human agency or, as in (16), intentional or voluntary action, is not expressed or implied. According to Ponelis (1979:408-409) impersonal constructions are restricted to intransitive verbs which are able to take personal subjects and express an action, activity or deed.

As pointed out earlier, the regular passive has a number of typical characteristics. One criterion is employed here to distinguish between passives, pseudo-passives and non-passives, namely whether the sentential subject assumes the role of patient in relation to the main verb (which is typically but not necessarily a past participle) (Type 1). If the patient in relation to the main verb coincides with the object rather than the subject of the sentence, the construction will be considered a pseudo-passive (Type 2), and if the agent in relation to the main verb coincides with the grammatical subject of the sentence (as in active sentences), the construction will not be considered a passive at all (Type 3). See Table 1.

Type		Example
Type 1	Passive	Subject is patient of main verb
Type 2	Pseudo-passive	Object is patient of main verb
Type 3	No passive	Subject is agent of main verb

In (17) the sentential subject (die probleem the problem) has a patient role in relation to the main verb oplos solve, as would be the case in the regular passive. The construction with kom come rather than the passive auxiliary word become, expresses terminative rather than inchoative or durative aspect In such cases the past participle closely approaches adjectival status and may in fact be replaced by an adjective.

This construction is exemplified by the following:

In example (19) the past participle geskryf written is readily replaceable by an adjective such as klaar finished.

In (20) die probleem, which is now the object of the sentence, has a patient role in relation to the main verb oplos. With the infinitive hê, as in (21) to (23), agentivity is partly ascribed to the sentential subject, as in active constructions, although external agentivity cannot be excluded. Past participles combining with hê to have are usually terminative and replaceable by an adjective.

With hou keep in (23) agentivity is restricted to die olifante the elephants, which is not the object of the main verb, while with kry get in (24) agentivity is expressed by a deur adjunct, as in passives. (Kry constructions are described extensively by Molnárfi (1995) and (1997).

In (25), the implied agent of the main verb adverteer advertise is non-identical with the sentential subject hy he.

In the examples with kry get, kom come, lê lie and staan stand from (26) to (31), the sentential subject always has an agentive role in relation to the main verb. Since this a typical characteristic of active constructions, these examples cannot be considered to be passives. Apart from kom, which expresses movement, past participles combining with verbs such as kry, lê and staan are often terminative.

In constructions with causativelaat let, as in (32) and (33), the object (or an implied object) of the sentence may also have a patient role in relation to the main verb, just as in the case of (17) above. Although the main verb is not a past participle, agentivity may be expressed by a deur adjunct, as in (32). In (33) the existence of an entity with a patient role is implied by the locative hier here.

In (34a), the sentential subject, geen vervoer no transport, has a patient role in relation to an infinitival complement, here headed by the verb vind find, and according to the criterion adopted before, this construction should also be classified as a passive. In comparison to a regular passive, such as (34b), it is, however, a semantically and syntactically specialised construction, which includes the modal sense of 'capability'. The same parallel with 'capability' passives can be seen in (35) and (36).