On So-called Adjectival Passive in English

Authors

  • Junichi Toyota

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2013.5.1

Keywords:

adjectival passive, alignment, fluid ergativity, split ergativity, perception

Abstract

This paper analyses a structure commonly known as adjectival passive. This structure has been termed adjectival based on the morphosyntactic characteristics of the participle. Surprisingly, this structure has not received its deserved attention, since previous research only focuses on the characteristics of the participle. However, one should notice that verbs used for this structure are rather limited, and they are less likely to be used in the active voice, and the whole construction, when used as the adjectival passive, denotes perception. Thus, the subject entity in the adjectival passive is predominantly human, unlike the passive voice which tends to have the inanimate entity as the grammatical subject. Such peculiarities raise a question: what is the grammatical status of the adjectival passive in English? It seems difficult to explain this construction within a common descriptive grammar of English. One possible answer to this question is posited based on a typological distinction of the alignment system and the adjectival passive is considered as a case of fluid intransitive subject. In addition, considering the diachronic changes of this construction, the adjectival passive is becoming a special category, i.e. the fluid intransitive subject system, in the verbal system in English. It can also be predicted that this may turn into the split ergative based on the lexical meaning (i.e. mental state) in the future.

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Published

2013-11-18

How to Cite

Toyota, J. . (2013). On So-called Adjectival Passive in English. Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies, 5(1), 11–48. https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2013.5.1

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2013): BELLS - volume 5

Section

THEORETICAL AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Junichi Toyota

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