How much bekommen is there in the German bekommen passive?
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Markus Bader
Abstract
We present an experiment and a corpus study jointly examining possible semantic constraints on the formation of the bekommen passive in German. In particular, we address the question of whether the recipient role that the lexical verb bekommen (‘get’) assigns to its external argument still constrains the formation of the bekommen passive. We capture this potential restriction in the Recipient Constraint. Our data show a split between verbs whose dative object is not a recipient – many of them are perfectly acceptable in the bekommen passive, but some are not. We conclude that the Recipient Constraint does not hold, but the formation of the bekommen passive is still sensitive to semantic properties of the main verb use of bekommen.
Abstract
We present an experiment and a corpus study jointly examining possible semantic constraints on the formation of the bekommen passive in German. In particular, we address the question of whether the recipient role that the lexical verb bekommen (‘get’) assigns to its external argument still constrains the formation of the bekommen passive. We capture this potential restriction in the Recipient Constraint. Our data show a split between verbs whose dative object is not a recipient – many of them are perfectly acceptable in the bekommen passive, but some are not. We conclude that the Recipient Constraint does not hold, but the formation of the bekommen passive is still sensitive to semantic properties of the main verb use of bekommen.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Non-canonical passives 1
- Adjectival passives and adjectival participles in English 21
- The get -passive at the intersection of get and the passive 43
- Three “competing” auxiliaries of a non-canonical passive 63
- Variations in non-canonical passives 95
- How much bekommen is there in the German bekommen passive? 115
- Haben -statives in German 141
- Another passive that isn’t one 163
- Passives and near-passives in Balto-Slavic 185
- How do things get done 213
- Anticausativizing a causative verb 235
- On the syntax-semantics of passives in Persian 261
- Two indirect passive constructions in Japanese 281
- Få and its passive complement 297
- The Danish reportive passive as a non-canonical passive 315
- (Non-)canonical passives and reflexives 337
- Index 359
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Non-canonical passives 1
- Adjectival passives and adjectival participles in English 21
- The get -passive at the intersection of get and the passive 43
- Three “competing” auxiliaries of a non-canonical passive 63
- Variations in non-canonical passives 95
- How much bekommen is there in the German bekommen passive? 115
- Haben -statives in German 141
- Another passive that isn’t one 163
- Passives and near-passives in Balto-Slavic 185
- How do things get done 213
- Anticausativizing a causative verb 235
- On the syntax-semantics of passives in Persian 261
- Two indirect passive constructions in Japanese 281
- Få and its passive complement 297
- The Danish reportive passive as a non-canonical passive 315
- (Non-)canonical passives and reflexives 337
- Index 359
