scholarly journals D‐Licensing in Adjectival Passives

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 522-562
Author(s):  
Peter Hallman
Keyword(s):  
Adjectival Passives

Passives of Spanish Subject-Experiencer Psychological Verbs are Adjectival Passives

Probus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo García-Pardo ◽  
Rafael Marín
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Aspect ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Adjectival Passives ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Psychological Verbs ◽  
The Way

Abstract This paper argues that <ser ‘to be’ + past participle> constructions with subject-experiencer psychological verbs are adjectival passives, contra the received view that <ser + past participle> constructions are verbal passives across the board. We put forth a battery of morphological, syntactic and semantic tests to support our claim. The divide, we argue, is based on the individual-level/stage-level distinction, rather than on the lexical category of the participle. We provide a theoretical, aspect-based account that generates the distribution of ser and estar in verbal and adjectival participles and paves the way for a comprehensive analysis of the ser and estar distribution across other constructions where the alternation is attested, such as underived adjectives and prepositions.

Passives and Syntax

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artemis Alexiadou
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
The Core ◽  
Adjectival Passives ◽  
Principles And Parameters

Cross-linguistic differences in passive formation and the differences between verbal and adjectival passives reveal some of the core properties of the passive. In earlier stages of the Principles and Parameters framework, differences in both these domains were taken as evidence that the grammar has two distinct components to build passives, namely the lexicon and the syntax. This intuition can be restated by adopting the view that all passive formation is syntactic. Indeed, it has been posited that there are two syntactic domains to build passives, and these two domains correlate with distinct properties of passive formations within a language and across languages.

A Diachronic Study of the English Passive

Diachronica ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Estival
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Study ◽  
Relative Frequency ◽  
Structural Description ◽  
Syntactic Category ◽  
Internal Argument ◽  
Passive Construction ◽  
Diachronic Study ◽  
Adjectival Passives ◽  
Selection Of

SUMMARY The paper presents the results of a quantitative study of the evolution of the passive construction in English. Some of the syntactic environments studied (e.g., the presence of modifiers before the participle, passivization of indirect or prepositional objects, the passive of 'accusative object' verbs or of verbs with predicative complements) have been used as tests for the syntactic category of the passive participle (Wasow 1977). The relative frequency of these environments (and others, such as coordination) in a selection of texts from different periods provide evidence that the change in the grammar of English cannot be described as the introduction of a new rule forming verbal passives instead of adjectival passives (Lightfoot 1979), but is best explained by a change in the structural description of the passive rule, due to a reformulation of the rule in terms of the notion of internal argument (Williams 1981), instead of the notion of direct, or accusative, object of the active verb. RÉSUMÉ L'article présente ici les resultats d'une étude quantitative de l'évolution de la construction passive en anglais. Certains des environnements syntaxiques considérés (par exemple la présence de modificateurs du participe passé, la passivisation d'objets indirects ou prépositionnels, le passif du sujet de complément infinitifs ou de compléments prédicatifs) ont servis de tests pour la catégorie syntaxique du participe passé passif (Wasow 1977). La fréquence relative de ces environnements (ainsi que d'autres, tels que la coordination) dans une sélection de textes de différentes périodes prouve que le changement syntaxique survenue dans la grammaire de l'anglais ne peut être décrit comme l'introduction d'une nouvelle règle qui formerait des passifs verbaux par l'opposition à des passifs adjectivaux (Lightfoot 1979), mais doit s'expliquer par un changement de la description structurelle de la règle du passif, dû à une réformulation de la règle en termes de la notion d"argument interne' (Williams 1981), plutdht que de la notion d'objet direct, ou accusatif, du verbe actif. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Der Aufsatz stellt das Ergebnis einer quantitativen Studie der historischen Entwicklung der Passivkonstruktion im Englischen dar. Einige der hier unter-suchten syntaktischen Umgebungen (etwa das Vorhandensein von Modifikato-ren vor der Partikel, die Passivisierung indirekter oder pràpositioneller Ob-jekte, das Passiv von 'Akkusativobjekt'-Verben oder von Verben mit prädika-tivem Komplement) sind als Test für die syntaktische Kategorie des Passivpar-tizips verwendet worden (Wasow 1977). Die relative Häufîgkeit dieser Umgebungen (und anderer, z.B. die der Koordination) in einer Textauswahl ver-schiedener Zeitabschnitte liefern den Nachweis, daß die Veränderung in der Grammatik des Englischen nicht als die Einführung einer neuen Regel, die verbale anstelle von adjektivalen Passivkonstruktionen bildet, beschrieben werden kann (Lightfoot 1979), sondern vielmehr als ein Wandel in der strukturellen Beschreibung der Passivregel, und zwar als Folge einer Neuformulierung der Regel nach MaBgabe des Prinzips eines 'internen Arguments' (Williams 1981)ß und nicht des eines direkten (Akkusativ-) Objekts des aktiven Verbs.

scholarly journals Spanish participios activos are adjectival antipassives

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Grant Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
External Argument ◽  
The Past ◽  
Linguistic Inquiry ◽  
Adjectival Passives ◽  
The Right ◽  
Semantic Properties

Abstract In many languages a set of adjectives are characterized by their “past/passive” participial morphology. Lexicalist and syntactic approaches to word formation converge on the claim that such adjectives can be derived from verbal inputs with no external argument but never from verbal inputs with an external argument. That is, there are “adjectival passives” but no “adjectival antipassives” marked with the same morphology. I argue that a sub-class of adjectives marked with the “past/passive” participial morpheme –do in Spanish, labeled participios activos in descriptive grammars, should be treated as adjectival antipassives in precisely this sense. I propose that Spanish has an Asp head that (i) is spelled out with “past/passive” participial morphology and (ii) selects an unergative verbal input creating a state/property whose argument corresponds to the external argument of that verbal source. If on the right track, the proposal supports the existence of a typology of adjectivizing heads that are spelled out uniformly with “past/passive” participial morphology but must be distinguished in terms of selectional and semantic properties (Bruening 2014, Word formation is syntactic: Adjectival passives in English. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 32. 363–422; Embick 2004, On the structure of resultative participles in English. Linguistic Inquiry 35. 355–392). It differs from previous approaches in claiming that such a typology must include root-derived adjectives, as well as ‘active (=unergative)’ and ‘passive’ deverbal adjectives.

scholarly journals Not all diatheses are created equal: Evidence from semantic drifts

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noa Brandel
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Entry ◽  
Quantitative Survey ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Adjectival Passives ◽  
Operational Component

This paper examines the distribution of Modern Hebrew semantic drifts across four diatheses (voices): transitives, unaccusatives (anticausatives), adjectival (stative) passives, and verbal (eventive) passives. A quantitative survey of dictionaries reveals a discrepancy between these diatheses: Only transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives can give rise to unique semantic drifts, unshared with their related root counterparts, while verbal passives cannot. A corpus-based study shows that frequency is unable to account for this finding; nor can approaches demarcating a syntactic domain for special meanings. I argue that semantic drifts are stored as subentries of the entries from which they evolved, as long as the drift’s frequency remains comparably small. Once its frequency surpasses that of the original entry, the drift is stored as an independent lexical entry. In light of that, I suggest that predicates giving rise to unique semantic drifts have to constitute lexical entries. It thus follows that transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives are formed and listed in the lexicon, while verbal passives are not. Consequently, the lexicon is argued to function as an active (operational) component of the grammar, contra syntacticocentric approaches.

Voice, manners, and results in adjectival passives

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Anagnostopoulou
Keyword(s):  
External Argument ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Target State ◽  
Adjectival Passives ◽  
Verbal Meaning ◽  
New Evidence

The chapter argues that there are two functional heads in the VP domain: a little v head introducing an event and Voice introducing the external argument. Evidence is drawn from adjectival passives, which split into several types that can be described in terms of this architecture. The chapter explores the interaction between Voice, v, and manner vs. result interpretations of verbal meaning in resultant state vs. target state adjectival passives. First, a summary is given of the main arguments for postulating a v head and a Voice head in adjectival passives. The chapter then focuses on the absence of Voice in target state adjectival passives. New evidence for the absence of Voice comes from two empirical domains: constraints on verb classes that are allowed and disallowed to form target state adjectival passives and a phenomenon of coercion of manner, instrument-based denominal verbs into result verbs in target state adjectival passives.

Word category conversion causes processing costs: Evidence from adjectival passives

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 651-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britta Stolterfoht ◽  
Helga Gese ◽  
Claudia Maienborn
Keyword(s):  
Word Category ◽  
Adjectival Passives
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