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In passives, a verb loses the ability to assign a theta role to its subject and the ability to case-mark its object. Under the present analysis, a light verb is responsible for theta-marking the subject and assigning case to the theme argument in the specifier position of its thematic VP complement. If there is no light verb in the construction, neither theta-marking of the subject, nor case-marking of the theme occur. Thus, passivisation is seen as a process where the light verb responsible for theta-marking and case-marking is removed and replaced by the passive morpheme. As a result the theme argument of the thematic verb cannot receive case and moves out of the VP to a position which is case-marked.