Predicting the progressive passive: parametric change within a lexicalist framework

TY - JOUR

T1 - Predicting the progressive passive

T2 - parametric change within a lexicalist framework

AU - Warner, A.R.

PY - 1995/9

Y1 - 1995/9

N2 - The English progressive passive (e.g. is being carried) is first attested in the second half of the eighteenth century. The paper offers a new interpretation of this development as integrated into a series of changes which affected BE (and HAVE) at this period. It arose not as a combination of progressive and passive constructions but (with the other changes) was a consequence of the reduction of inflection in auxiliaries which followed the loss of THOU in informal speech. This is interpreted as a parametric change, for which there is an overt triggering difference in the primary linguistic data, and the account is formalized within HPSG.*

AB - The English progressive passive (e.g. is being carried) is first attested in the second half of the eighteenth century. The paper offers a new interpretation of this development as integrated into a series of changes which affected BE (and HAVE) at this period. It arose not as a combination of progressive and passive constructions but (with the other changes) was a consequence of the reduction of inflection in auxiliaries which followed the loss of THOU in informal speech. This is interpreted as a parametric change, for which there is an overt triggering difference in the primary linguistic data, and the account is formalized within HPSG.*

M3 - Article

VL - 71

SP - 533

EP - 557

JO - Language

JF - Language

IS - 3

ER -