The Semantics of Get-passives

Downing, Angela

doi:10.1075/cilt.121.07dow

Cited by 29 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Many authors note some implication of initiative, control, or responsibility in get-passive descriptions (among many others, Hatcher, 1949 ; Lakoff, 1971 ; Barber, 1975 ; Givón and Yang, 1994 ; Downing, 1996 ; Sasaki, 1999 ). A similar feature is noted by Vanrespaille ( 1991 ), who suggests that “resultativeness” (an action that leads to a result that cannot be undone) is a major feature of the get-passive, and also that the Patient is at least partly responsible for the occurrence of the action.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patient-related constraints on get- and be-passive uses in English: evidence from paraphrasing

et al. 2013

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In English, transitive events can be described in various ways. The main possibilities are active-voice and passive-voice, which are assumed to have distinct semantic and pragmatic functions. Within the passive, there are two further options, namely be-passive or get-passive. While these two forms are generally understood to differ, there is little agreement on precisely how and why. The passive Patient is frequently cited as playing a role, though again agreement on the specifics is rare. Here we present three paraphrasing experiments investigating Patient-related constraints on the selection of active vs. passive voice, and be- vs. get-passive, respectively. Participants either had to re-tell short stories in their own words (Experiments 1 and 2) or had to answer specific questions about the Patient in those short stories (Experiment 3). We found that a given Agent in a story promotes the use of active-voice, while a given Patient promotes be-passives specifically. Meanwhile, get-passive use increases when the Patient is marked as important. We argue that the three forms of transitive description are functionally and semantically distinct, and can be arranged along two dimensions: Patient Prominence and Patient Importance. We claim that active-voice has a near-complementary relationship with the be-passive, driven by which protagonist is given. Since both get and be are passive, they share the features of a Patient-subject and an optional Agent by-phrase; however, get specifically responds to a Patient being marked as important. Each of these descriptions has its own set of features that differentiate it from the others.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patient-related constraints on get- and be-passive uses in English: evidence from paraphrasing

et al. 2013

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“…14 Para las pasivas inglesas con become y get, véanse, entre otros, Svartengren (1948), Hatcher (1949), Chappell (1982, Givón y Lang (1994) y Downing (1996; y para las pasivas españolas, (43) "Yo sé que fue de Liverpool y (tenía) (estaba conocida) se ponía conocido cuando era muy joven". (SPLLOC1, I69SMP13) (44) "During the first half of this century the tribe had become Christianized".…”

Section: Ciónunclassified

El sistema atributivo de devenir en la interlengua de los estudiantes ingleses de español como lengua extranjera. Problemas y propuesta de solución

Arrizabalaga¹

2017

Pragmalinguistica

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RESUMEN:Este trabajo presenta un estudio contrastivo de corpus sobre el sistema atributivo de devenir en la interlengua de los estudiantes ingleses de español, donde se examinan los errores encontrados en su producción. En concreto, el análisis de hacerse, ponerse, volverse, quedarse, llegar a (ser) y convertirse en en los corpus de aprendices CE-DEL2, CAES y SPLLOC demuestra que la adquisición de este área específica del español, mucho más desarrollada y restringida en términos sintáctico-semánticos que su contrapartida inglesa, debido principalmente a la ausencia de un verbo atributivo equivalente a become, resulta extremadamente difícil para los estudiantes ingleses. Los resultados obtenidos constatan, primero, la presencia indiscutible de la lengua materna del estudiante en la adquisición de este grupo verbal español y sugieren, consecuentemente, que su enseñanza debería apoyarse en estudios contrastivos que enfaticen las semejanzas y diferencias entre sendas lenguas, contribuyendo, así, a evitar los errores detectados en la producción de los estudiantes.ABSTRACT: This paper presents a contrastive corpus-based interlanguage study of the attributive system of becoming, where the errors made by the English learners of Spanish are examined. Specifically, the analysis of hacerse, ponerse, volverse, quedarse, llegar a (ser) and convertirse en carried out in the learner corpora CEDEL2, CAES and SPLLOC demonstrates that the acquisition of this particular area of Spanish grammar, much broader in scope and more syntactico-semantically constrained than its English counterpart, due mainly to the lack of an attributive verb equivalent to become, proves extremely difficult for English learners. The findings obtained show, first, that the students' mother tongue is highly present in the acquisition of this specific Spanish verbal group and, consequently, suggest that its teaching should be supported with contrastive analyses that, by highlighting the similarities and differences between both languages, will help learners avoid the common mistakes found in their production. RÉSUMÉ:Cet article présente une étude contrastive du corpus sur le système attributif de devenir dans l'interlangue des étudiants anglais d'espagnol, où les erreurs dans leur production sont examinées. Plus pré-cisément, l'analyse de hacerse, ponerse, volverse, quedarse, llegar a (ser) et convertirse dans le corpus des apprenants CEDEL2, CAES et SPLLOC montre que l'acquisition de ce domaine spécifique de l'espagnol, beaucoup plus développé et syntaxico-sémantiquement restreint que son équivalent anglais, principalement en raison de l'absence d'un verbe attributif équivalent à become, reste extrêmement difficile pour les étudiants anglais. Les résultats obtenus constatent, en premier lieu, la présence indéniable de la langue maternelle de l'élève dans l'acquisition de ce groupe verbal espagnol et suggèrent, par conséquent, que son enseignement devrait être basé sur des études contrastives qui soulignent les similitudes et les différences entre les langu...

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“…These properties refer to English auxiliaries occurring with negation, inversion, code, and emphatic affirmation. In the following subsections, I explain these properties, relaying on Hauge (2003) (for further discussion about the NICE properties, see Huddleston 1980, Haegeman 1985, Downing 1996, Huddleston & Pullum 2002, Payne 2011).…”

Section: The Nice Properties Of Auxiliariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Universality of Auxiliary Verbs

Al-Horais¹

2012

J. Univers. Lang.

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Cross-linguistically, it has often been observed that there is no any specific language-independent formal definition that can be used to determine the characterization of any given element as an auxiliary verb. This paper, though it agrees to some extent with this observation, argues that there is still room to find some universal properties that help us end up with the conclusion that auxiliaries and lexical verbs are two distinct types of syntactic entities. To this end, this paper describes the characteristics * I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Qassim University for supporting this work. Here I would like to extend my sincerest thanks and appreciation to the University's Rector Prof. Khalid Al-Humodi, and his Vice-Rectorate for Graduate Studies & Research: Prof. Abdulrahman Al-Wasel for having created the "right environment" for scientific research in Qassim University. Also, I extend my thanks to Anders Holmberg, Abdelkader Fassi Fehri, Jeffrey Pool, and Maggie Tallerman for insightful comments, suggestions, and discussions on an early version of this paper. I am grateful to Mohammad Al-Moaily for his invaluable help during all phases of this work. Special thanks also go to the anonymous reviewers and editors for clarifying my ideas and for significant editorial improvements which I tried to put to use here. I am solely responsible for any mistakes or inadequacy.

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The Semantics of Get-passives

Cited by 29 publications

References 0 publications

Patient-related constraints on get- and be-passive uses in English: evidence from paraphrasing

Patient-related constraints on get- and be-passive uses in English: evidence from paraphrasing

El sistema atributivo de devenir en la interlengua de los estudiantes ingleses de español como lengua extranjera. Problemas y propuesta de solución

On the Universality of Auxiliary Verbs

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