Open AccessEnglish prepositional passive constructions
Author(s) -
Jesse Tseng
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
proceedings of the international conference on head-driven phrase structure grammar
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1535-1793
DOI - 10.21248/hpsg.2007.16
Subject(s) - computer science , hierarchy , point (geometry) , linguistics , natural language processing , mathematics , philosophy , geometry , economics , market economy
An empirical overview of the properties of English prepositionalpassives is presented, followed by a discussion of formal approachesto the analysis of the various types of prepositional passives inHPSG. While a lexical treatment is available, the significant numberof technical and conceptual difficulties encountered point to analternative approach relying on constructional constraints. Theconstructional approach is argued to be the best option forprepositional passives involving adjunct PPs, and this analysis can beextended to create a hierarchy of constructions accommodating alltypes of prepositional passives in English, and the ordinary NPpassive.