Diachronic Change in the English Passive (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change)

Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 12
List of Figures......Page 14
List of Tables......Page 16
Abbreviations......Page 19
1.1 Introduction: a general view on the passive voice and its description......Page 20
1.2 Various approaches to the voice system......Page 21
1.4 Method......Page 23
1.4.2 Data......Page 24
1.5 Organisation of the Study......Page 25
2.2 Overview: what is passive?......Page 27
2.3.1 General aspectual change in the passive......Page 34
2.3.2 Development of perfective constructions......Page 51
2.3.3 Syntactic environments......Page 60
2.4 Summary......Page 68
3.2 Auxiliaryhood......Page 70
3.3 Past participle and its various uses......Page 78
3.3.1 Various tests for the distinction between adjectival and verbal participles......Page 79
3.3.2 Affixes......Page 83
3.3.3 Participle with two different forms......Page 89
3.3.4 Stative verbs......Page 94
3.3.5 Prepositonal verb phrase......Page 97
3.4 Be + past participle as a syntactic unit......Page 102
3.5 Summary......Page 112
4.2 Functions of the passive......Page 113
4.2.1 Topicality change......Page 115
4.2.2 Impersonalisation......Page 118
4.2.3 Other functions......Page 120
4.2.4 Presentative passive......Page 121
4.4 Summary......Page 132
5.2.1 General changes and functions of the passive......Page 134
5.2.2 Word order and topicality......Page 138
5.2.3 Interaction of different functions in historical change......Page 142
5.3.1 Periphrastic passive vs. morphological passive......Page 147
5.3.2 Origin of topicality......Page 151
5.4 Uniformitarian principle......Page 153
5.5.1 What is voice continuum?......Page 155
5.5.2 Be-passive in voice continuum......Page 162
5.6 Summary......Page 165
6.2 Get-passive: dynamic counterpart of be-passive?......Page 167
6.2.1 Problems......Page 170
6.2.2 Get-passive: more than a dynamic counterpart......Page 191
6.3.1 Inchoative get + predicative adjective......Page 193
6.3.2 Reflexive causative get oneself + past participle......Page 195
6.4 Get-passive in the voice continuum......Page 202
6.5 Summary......Page 203
7.2 Characteristics of unaccusative......Page 204
7.2.1 This book is printing (V (INTR) in progressive type)......Page 207
7.2.2 This book sells well (OBJ. + V (INTR) type)......Page 209
7.3 Potential passive......Page 211
7.3.1 Mood and potentiality......Page 214
7.3.2 Adjective with suffix -able......Page 216
7.4 Necessitative passive This TV needs fixing (main V + V-ing) type......Page 226
7.5.1 Get-passive: comparable to unaccusative?......Page 230
7.5.2 Diathesis in relation to the passive......Page 235
7.6 Summary......Page 237
8.2 Inversion......Page 238
8.3 Indefinite pronouns......Page 240
8.3.1 English indefinite pronouns......Page 241
8.3.2 Functional linkage......Page 247
8.3.3 Historical relationship......Page 252
8.4 Quasi-passive in voice continuum......Page 254
8.5 Summary......Page 255
9.2 Variation of the passive: a three-way distinction......Page 257
9.3 Diachronic change of English and grammaticalisation of the passive......Page 258
9.4 Diathesis and quasi-voice constructions......Page 259
9.5 Voice continuum and gradience......Page 260
9.6 Directions for future research......Page 264
Notes to Chapters......Page 265
Appendix: Stativity Tests......Page 275
Bibliography......Page 280
B......Page 301
I......Page 302
P......Page 303
S......Page 304
W......Page 305