"I Hope They Don't Get Forgotten". A Descriptive Corpus-Based Approach to Get-Passives With Verbs of Cognition in English
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20420/Phil.Can.2021.376Keywords:
English languaje, corpus analysis, passive voice, get-passive, verbs of cognitionAbstract
It is widely held in the literature that English get-passives are only found with dynamic predicates, stative verbs being excluded from it. However, based on an extensive corpus-based analysis of occurrences with the verbs forget, know, remember, understand and believe, this article shows that the get-passive with stative verbs of cognition, although infrequent, does occur in English. The so-called cognitive get-passive is then examined in relation to the formal, semantic and pragmatic properties commonly claimed to define central get-passives with dynamic verbs. The analysis reveals, on the one hand, that these features are not equally relevant in the characterisation of these sentences and, on the other, that there exist strong interconnections between them and the lexical properties of the verbs analysed.
Supporting Agencies
This article is part of a research project funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Regional Government of Andalusia [Project code: UPO-1254742].
Downloads
References
ALEXIADOU, A. 2005. “A Note on Non-Canonical Passives: The Case of the Get-Passive”, in Broekhuis, H., Corver, N., Huybregts, R., Kleinhenz, U., Koster, J. and Huijbregts, R. (eds.), Organizing Grammar: Linguistic Studies in Honor of Henk van Riemsdijk. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 13-21.
ANDERWALD, L. 2017. “GET, GET-Constructions and the GET-Passive in 19th-Century English: Corpus Analysis and Prescriptive Comments”, in Hoffmann, S., Sand, A. and Arndt-Lappe, S. (eds.), Exploring Recent Diachrony: Corpus Studies of Lexicogrammar and Language Practices in Late Modern English. Helsinki: Helsinki University. Retrieved from https://varieng.helsinki.fi/series/volumes/18/anderwald/.
ARCE-ARENALES, M., AXELROD, M. and FOX, B. A. 1994. “Active Voice and Middle Diathesis. A Cross-Linguistic Perspective”, in Fox, B. A. and Hopper, P. J. (eds.), Voice: Form and Function. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 1-21.
BANKS, D. 1985. “Getting by with GET”, La Linguistique, 22(1), pp. 125-130.
BIBER, D., CONRAD, S. and LEECH, G. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.
BINNICK, R. I. 2006. “Aspect and Aspectuality”, in Aarts, B. and McMahon, A. (eds.), The Handbook of English Linguistics. London: Blackwell, pp. 244-268.
CARTER, R. and MCCARTHY, M. 1999. “The English Get-Passive in Spoken Discourse: Description and Implications for an Interpersonal Grammar”, English Language & Linguistics, 3(1), pp. 41-58. https://doi.org/10.1017/S136067439900012X.
CHAPPELL, H. 1980. “Is the Get-Passive Adversative?”, Papers in Linguistics: International Journal of Human Communication, 13 (3), pp. 411-452. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351818009370504.
COLLINS, P. C. 1996. “Get-Passives in English”, World Englishes, 15(1), pp. 43-56. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.1996.tb00091.x.
COMRIE, B. 1976. Aspect. An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
COTO VILLALIBRE, E. 2015a. “The ‘Fading’ of the Definitory Characteristics of Get-Passives: An Outer Circle Innovation?”, in Lázaro Lafuente, A. and Porto Requejo, M. D. (eds.), English and American Studies in Spain: New Developments and Trends. Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, pp. 181-188.
COTO VILLALIBRE, E. 2015b. “Is the Get-Passive Really that Adversative?”, Miscelánea. A Journal of English and American Studies, 51, pp. 13-30.
DAVIES, M. 2016. Davies, Mark. (2016-) Corpus of News on the Web (NOW). Retrieved from https://www.english-corpora.org/now/.
DECLERCK, R., REED, S. and CAPPELLE, B. 2006. The Grammar of the English Tense System: A Comprehensive Analysis. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOWNING, A. 1996. “The Semantics of Get-Passives”, in Hasan, R., Cloran, C. and Butt, D. G. (eds.), Functional Descriptions. Theory in Practice. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 179-205.
FLEISHER, N. 2006. “The Origins of Passive Get”, English Language and Linguistics, 10(2), pp. 225-252. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674306001912.
“forget, v.” 2020. Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from https://www.oed.com/.
GIVÓN, T. and YANG, L. 1994. “The Rise of the English GET-Passive”, in Fox, B. and Hopper, P. J. (eds.), Voice: Form and Function. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 119-149.
GOTOWSKI, M. K. 2016. “Secondary Agents in Get-Passives: Syntax or Pragmatics?”, Proceedings of the Third Linguistics Conference at the University of Georgia, pp. 1-10.
GUERRERO MEDINA, P. 2009. “Semantic and Pragmatic Constraints on the English Get-Passive”, in Buttler, C. S. and Martín Arista, J. (eds.), Decontrasting Constructions. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 271-294.
HALLIDAY, M. A. K. and MATTHIESSEN, C. M. I. M. 2004 (1985). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Hodder Arnold.
HATCHER, A. G. 1949. “To Get/Be Invited”, Modern Language Notes, 64(7), pp. 433-446. https://doi.org/10.2307/2910009.
HUDDLESTON, R. and PULLUM, G. K. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
HUNDT, M. 2001. “What Corpora Tell Us about the Grammaticalisation of Voice in Get-Constructions”, Studies in Language, 25(1), pp. 49-88. https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.25.1.03hun.
JESPERSEN, O. 1949. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. Part IV, Syntax. Vol. 3. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
KIM, J.-B. 2012. “English Get-Passive Constructions: A Corpus-Based Approach”, Studies in Generative Grammar, 22(2), pp. 437-457. Retrieved from http://web.khu.ac.kr/~jongbok/research/2012/2012-dom-get.passive.pdf.
LAKOFF, R. 1971. “Passive Resistance”, Papers from the Seventh Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, pp. 149-162.
LANGACKER, R. W. 1991. Concept, Image and Symbol. The Cognitive Basis of Grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
LEECH, G., HUNDT, M., MAIR, C. and SMITH, N. 2009. Change in Contemporary English. A Grammatical Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
LINDSTROMBERG, S. 1999. “Get: Not Many Meanings”, International Review of Applied Linguistics, 29(4), pp. 285-301. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral.1991.29.4.285.
MAIR, C. and LEECH, G. 2006. “Current Changes in English Syntax”, in McMahon, A. and Aarts, B. (eds.), The Handbook of English Linguistics. London: Backwell, pp. 318-342.
MARTÍNEZ VÁZQUEZ, M. 1989. “Valores aspectuales de get + participio pasivo en el inglés actual”, Anuario de Estudios Filológicos, 12, pp. 187-195.
MITKOVSKA, L. and BUŽAROVSKA, E. 2012. “An Alternative Analysis of the English Get-Past Participle Constructions: Is Get All That Passive?”, Journal of English Linguistics, 40(2), pp. 196-215. https://doi.org/10.1177/0075424211418978.
PALMER, F. R. 1988 (1974). The English Verb. London: Longman.
PHOOCHAROENSIL, S. 2020. “English Get-Passives: Reassessing the Frequencies across Genres”, GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 20(3), pp. 123-135. http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/gema-2020-2003-08.
QUIRK, R., GREENBAUM, S., LEECH, G. and SVARTVIK, J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.
RÜHLEMANN, C. 2007. “Lexical Grammar: the GET-Passive as a Case in Point”, ICAME Journal, 31, pp. 111-127.
SCHWARZ, S. 2017. “‘Like Getting Nibbled to Death by a Duck’. Grammaticalization of the GET-Passive in the TIME Magazine Corpus”, English World-Wide, 38(3), pp. 305-355. https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.38.3.03sch.
SCHWARZ, S. 2019. “Signs of Grammaticalization. Tracking the GET-Passive through COHA”, in Claridge, C. and Bös, B. (eds.), Developments in Historical Morpho-Syntax. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 199-221.
SMITH, C. S. 1991. The Parameter of Aspect. Dordrecht: Foris.
THOMPSON, D., LING, S. P., MYACHYKOV, A., FERREIRA, F. and SCHEEPERS, C. 2013. “Patient-Related Constraints on Get- and Be-Passive Uses in English: Evidence from Paraphrasing”, Frontiers in Psychology, 4, pp. 1-24. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00848.
THOMPSON, D. and SCHEEPERS, C. 2013. “Harmonizing the Passive: A New Proposal for Passive Constructions in Generative Grammar”, Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics, 19(2), pp. 74-95.
TOYOTA, J. 2007. “An Adversative Passive in English: in Search of Origins”, in Delbecque, N. and Cornillie, B. (eds.), On Interpreting Construction Schemas: From Action and Motion to Transitivity and Causality. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter, pp. 143-169.
VANRESPAILLE, M. 1991. “A Semantic Analysis of the English Get-Passive”, INTERFACE. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5(2), pp. 95-112.
VENDLER, Z. 1957. “Verbs and Times”, The Philosophical Review, 66(2), pp. 143-160. https://doi.org/10.2307/2182371.
WANNER, A. 2009. Deconstructing the English Passive. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter.
WANNER, A. 2013. “The Get-Passive at the Intersection of Get and the Passive”, in Alexiadou, A. and Schäfer, F. (eds.), Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today: Non-Canonical Passives. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 43-61.
YONEKURA, Y. 1999. “On the Semantic Development of Get”, Osaka University Papers in English Linguistics, 4, pp. 205-229. https://doi.org/10.18910/72948.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Luisa González Romero
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Philologica Canariensia is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional.
Philologica Canariensia allows authors to retain unrestricted copyright and to retain it in the future.
The author is allowed to deposit the publisher's PDF version on his or her personal website, in an institutional or subject repository or in an social network. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website), as it can lead to greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
1.png)
1.png)
