Passivization

Passive sentences have specific passive morphology, i.e.

an auxiliary verb and the lexical verb in the past participle
form:
(1) a.The old lady was tricked into selling her house.
b. The suspect is being tailed.
c. They had never been seen.
d. He cant have been invited too.
The auxiliary tense, aspect, agreement with the subject

Passivization
Q: What does the presence of passive morphology
involve?
A1: Passive verbs do not have an external argument any
more.
A2: Verbs that do not have an external argument cannot
give accusative case to their internal argument
(rememeber Burzios generalization).
passive morphology makes the verb intransitive;
passive verbs behave like unaccusatives. See next
example.

Passivization
(2) a. *The old lady be tricked thief.
b. *The suspect is being tailed a spy.
trick and tail are transitive verbs. As such, they can
give accusative case to the internal argument, the direct
object
when passivized, these verbs cannot have internal
arguments anymore due to the presence of passive
morphology.

Passivization
Since passive verbs cannot support their internal
argument, the latter has to move to a position where it
can get case the subject position.
(3) The old ladyi was tricked ti.
This type of movement is known as A-movement
(argument movement, movement from one argument
position to another).

Passivization
Q: Under what condition can the internal argument (the
direct object) move to subject position in passive
sentences?
A: The internal argument can move if it occupies a
position adjacent to the verb:
(4) The minister told the president the truth.
The president was told the truth.
*The truth was told the president.
The NP that is immediately adjacent to the verb: the
president.

Passivization
Q: Why can the following sentences with prepositional
objects allow passivization?
(5) a. He didnt account for the loss of money.
b. The loss of money wasnt accounted for.
(6) a. The blackmailer alluded to the crime.
b. The crime was alluded to.
the internal argument is not adjacent to the verb, the
P intervenes
the internal argument can get accusative case from P

Passivization
Prepositional passives have one property: the verb and the
P form an inseparable unit (consider the following
examples).
(7) a. He didnt account entirely for the loss of money.
b. The blackmailer alluded angrily to the crime.
adverbs can break up the verb preposition unit in the
active voice.
(8) a. *The loss of money wasnt accounted entirely for.
b. *The crime was alluded angrily to.
The verb preposition unit cannot be broken by adverbs
if the verb has been passivized.

Passivization
(9) a. He looked right at her.
b. He saw right to their needs.
particles can break up the verb preposition unit in
the active voice.
(10) a. *She was looked right at.
b. *Their needs were seen right to.
The verb preposition unit cannot be broken by
particles if the verb has been passivized.

Passivization
Q: Do all prepositional verbs have a passive counterpart?
A: If the PP is not an argument of the verb, passivization
is not an option:
(11) a. He laughed in the room.
b. *The room was laughed in.
(12) a. He ran with his sister.
b. *His sister was run with.

The domain of passivization

There are some restrictions on the passivization of
transitive verbs.
First, transitive verbs that denote states do not passivize,
i.e. have, possess, resemble, hold (in the sense of
contain). This is so because their direct object is not a
real Theme, i.e. an affected constituent.

The domain of passivization

(13) a.*Seven cars were had by prime minister.
b.*A lot of knowledge was possessed by the
new Pope.
c.*John was resembled by his twin sister.
d.*A lof of water is held by that container.
e.*Confidence was lacked (by) John.

The domain of passivization

Transitive verbs that take an expletive/idiomatic direct
object do not passivize either.
(14) a. John got it last time I tried to explain things to
him/*It was got (by John).
b. He blew it, Im afraid/*It was blown (by him).

This restriction falls in line with the fact that idiomatic

Theme arguments are not referential and as such they
cannot refer to affected entities.

The domain of passivization

Finally, it is also important that the referent of the Agent
argument be [+ Animate] for a passive sentence to be
well-formed.
(15) a. My car needs a wash.
*A wash is needed by my car.
b. The train left the station.
*The station was left by the train

The by-phrase
The by-phrase in passives corresponds to the external
argument that has been suppressed as a result of the
presence of passive morphology.
Q: Does this mean that the Agent is absent in passive
sentences?
(18) a. The meeting was called to please the boss.
b. The man was released to avoid protests.
the purpose clause (to ) has a null subject; this
subject; the antecedent of this null subject is the Agent.

The by-phrase
(19) a. John was arrested on purpose.
b. The suspect was hit violently.
manner adverbials modify the Agent
A: The agent is implicit in passive sentences.
If the Agent is not mentioned, then
it is interpreted generically; it refers to a non-specific
individual
(20) Food is put in jars ..

Passivization
the agent is familiar, its identification does not matter
in discourse:
(21) a. The suspect has been arrested.
b. I was accompanied to the station and helped to
board the train.

The by-phrase
However, there are cases in which the omission of the
by-phrase makes a passive sentence ungrammatical, as
in (22), (a) and (b) quoted from Avram 1999.
(22) a.
b.
c.
d.

*This house was built.

*The bridge was designed.
*The film was produced.
*The turkey was cooked.

The by-phrase
Q: What do all the passivized verbs in (22) have in
common?
A: Semantically, they are verbs that denote creation. We
can conclude that when such verbs are passivized, the
by-phrase must be mentioned.

Get-passives
In addition to be-passives, English also features another
type of passive construction, the get-passive, which is
exemplified below:
(23) a. John was killed in yesterdays accident.
b. John got killed in yesterdays accident.
(24) a. The window was broken by my younger son.
b. I know how the window got broken.
(25) a. The cat was run over by a bus.
b. The cat got run over by a bus.

Get-passives
There are differences bewteen the two types of passives,
which concern
(i)
(ii)

the status of be versus get,

semantic interpretation and compatibility with
certain verb classes.

Get-passives
Be in passive sentences behaves like an auxiliary verb
(it inverts with the subject in interrogative sentences, it
is negated by not, it is used in tag questions). Get, on the
other hand, shows different behavior. Consider the pairs
of sentences below.
(26) a. Was John robbed yesterday?/*Got John robbed
yesterday?
b. She was not paid at all/*She got not paid at all.
c. The child was kidnapped, wasnt he?/*The
child got kidnapped, gotnt he?

Get-passives
Get passives are interpreted as eventive whereas be
passives focus on the result of the event denoted by the
verb.
The connection between eventive interpretation and get
passives explains why this kind of passive is
ungrammatical if the verb has a stative interpretation.
This basically means that psychological verbs as well as
verbs that denote mental perception will be
ungrammatical in get passives (though not in be
passives).

Get-passives

(27) a. Sue was admired/hated/feared by her brother.

b. *Sue got admired/hated/feared by her brother.
(28) a. The dean was considered a fool.

b. *The dean got considered a fool.

Adjectival Passives
There is a set of properties that differentiate verbal
passives (which we have already discussed) and
adjectival passives (presentation and examples based on
Emonds 2005).
i) Verbal passives may denote an ongoing activity
(29). Adjectival passives refer to completed
activities (30):
(29) The door is being painted.
verbal
(30) The door looked painted.
adjectival

Adjectival passives
This is why the copulative verbs that are not compatible
with the completed sense cannot occur in adjectival
passives:
(31) a. *Many polluted cities remain avoided during
the summer.
b. *New York seems left in the tourist season.

Adjectival passives
ii) Selection by different copulative verb classes: all
verbs that select an AP can form an adjectival
passives. Here is a short list of such verbs in
English: act, appear, be, become, look, remain,
seem, smell, sound.
Verbal passives are grammatical with verbs such as
be and get (which may also select an AP)

Adjectival passives
iii)

Degree words can modify adjectival passives, but

not verbal passives.
(32) The garden seemed too overplanted.
The region does not seem very inhabited.
How spotted with food did these clothes look?
(33) *New York is more avoided by tourists than other
cities.
*That prison is not very escaped these days.

Adjectival passives
iv)

The adjectival prefix un- modifies only adjectival

passives.

(34) The work seemed unknown/unrewarded.

These books should remain unsold/unfinished.
(35) *That work was unfollowed by others.
*These books should get unhanded to customers.

Adjectival passives
v)
Only verbal passives have external arguments.
(36) The meeting was started on time by Susan (to
please the host).
Our workers are better paid (intentionally by the
new boss).
(37) Most of our furniture is still unmoved (*by the
company).
Our workers remain better paid (*intentionally).