Informal phrase violating Grammar

Question

There is the phrase that could be spoken to one mate:

I have been worried about you.

This is the pattern of Present Perfect Passive Voice i.e. have+been+V3. It means that it should be passive construction, but It's not by the sense (I was worrying, I had been worrying). As e.g. in the next sentence:

At the conference I have been asked about my work a lot.

Here, this is the really passive construction (Others had been asking me about my work).

But why the first sentence is not grammatical?

Are you asking why it doesn't parallel, say, "It has been taken from the table", with corresponding words I-It, worried-taken, you-table? That is, one can construct an active voice "He took it from the table", but not an (equivalent sense) active voice *"He worried me about you"? — Lawrence, Apr 20 '18 at 06:21
Possible duplicate of Proper use of passive and active voices? and others. — Edwin Ashworth, Apr 20 '18 at 08:17
Or possibly of 'He is loved': is 'loved' an adjective or a verb here?. 'But why the first sentence is not in the Grammar frames?' has me beaten. — Edwin Ashworth, Apr 20 '18 at 09:01
The first sentence is not a passive construction. It is the present perfect active. Hint: try adding an agent to it, such as by John (you get the truly ungrammatical 'I have been worried about you by John'). So one really doesnt understand your question. — Arm the good guys in America, Apr 20 '18 at 17:57
Worried, like tired, is an experiential adjective formed from the past participle of a verb. This does not make it a verb, and it does not make a clause like I am tired a passive clause; it's just a predicate adjective. — John Lawler, Apr 20 '18 at 19:18

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 20 '18 at 06:40

Language is not all about grammar, semantics play a big part too.

A sentence like this:

I was worried about you.

You could grammatically try to parse as a passive construction, parallel to, say

I was asked about my work.

However, that second sentence can be easily reread as an active construction:

(Someone) asked me about my work.

Whereas the original sentence struggles a bit:

(Something) worried me about you.

Nothing is really off, though.

Now, let's compare the original sentence to a different construction:

I was happy for you.

Here, happy can not be parsed as a verb in any way, and we are simply looking at a subject+(past copula)+adjective. If we interpret the first sentence in the same way, we can see the obvious parallel:

I | was | worried | about you.
I | was | happy | for you.

Grammatically we can parse the sentence as a passive construction, or as an active construction where worried functions attributively ("like an adjective"). Semantically, I think the sentence is usually parsed as the latter, active, construction.

Informal phrase violating Grammar

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