Descriptive Versus Generative Grammar: The Passive  

Oleh:

Beedham, Christopher

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Language Sciences (Full Text) vol. 8 no. 2 (1986), page 103-128.
Fulltext: 08_02_Beedham.pdf (1.15MB)

Isi artikel

The most widely accepted descrivtive account of the passive, be + Past Participle, is one based on voice. A voice analysis of the passive brings with it a range of problems, for which generative grammarians have "postulated" various "formal" devices in order to "explain." The problems encountered include the following, with proposed generative solutions in brackets: subject and object switching (NPmovement rules); non-passivizable transitive verbs (the rule feature [-passive]); the role of quantifiers and negation (Extended Standard Theory); the passive of Beavers build dams (trace theory); the passivization of non-constituents (A-over-A principle and Tensed-S condition). I propose a new descriptive account of the passive which replaces the voice analysis. The passive is an aspect of the type Auxiliary + Participle; its syntax is determined by lexieal and compositional aspect; and its meaning is the expression of a state as the result of a preceding action. Under this account many of the problems created by a voice analysis do not even arise and the remainder are explained (descriptively). Thus, it can be seen that the above generative solutions do nothing more than to "formalize" the anomalies of a faulty descriptive analysis, and clearly are not explanations of anything.

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