歷來有許多人把被動句視為表達施事與受事關係的受事主語句，實則漢語的被動句應涵蓋一種無主語的句式，傳達說話者微乎其微的遭事之感。本文即以南方方言的被動句為考察範圍，析分出直接被動句與間接被動句兩大類型，再說明無主語被動句可謂間接被動句中最為主觀的一類，其語法化程度當居所有被動句之冠。至於被動句的核心語義，本文將之定調為「非由自主」，即使無主語的被動句亦不例外。過去，有學者主張在使役句轉化為被動句的過程中，當經歷一個表非自願允讓的階段，非自願允讓實則已符合被動的意義，若視之為被動句，則所有的被動句都可統一解釋為蒙事者與事件之間的蒙受關係。

Chinese null-subject passives implicitly show the speaker's self-identification as the affectee of an event. Passives in Southern Chinese dialects can be divided into direct and indirect ones. Null-subject passives belong to the latter, at the same time being the most subjective and grammaticalized type among all. We further identify 'not of one's own will' to be the core meaning of all passives, thereby putting under 'passive' the so-called 'unwilling permissive', a category formerly seen as the bridging stage between causatives and passives. In so doing, we arrive at an affectee-event relation, which may well be said to lie at the semantic structure of all passives.