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What is the grammar of the word married in this sentence?

They are getting married in April.

herisson
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nicholas ainsworth
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2 Answers2

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The ‘Cambridge Grammar of English’ by Carter and McCarthy calls this construction the get-passive. That perhaps becomes clearer if we re-write the sentence as They will be married in April. Married is the past participle of the verb marry, just as it is in the more conventional passive. As the authors say, 'the get-passive is used in more informal contexts and is more common in spoken than in written English.’

Barrie England
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  • This usage of 'marry' is intransitive, so it can't be the get- passive. I'd say it's a case of the past participle being used as an adjective. – Gaston Ümlaut Oct 10 '11 at 11:35
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    @Gaston: Why is this usage of 'marry' intransitive? I would have thought it was the same usage as "The minister married the bride and the groom", which is definitely transitive. (It's still transitive even if you get married by a judge.) – Peter Shor Oct 10 '11 at 14:08
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    It's just occurred to me to wonder whether this construction is calqued from Celtic (as "do support" is said to be). In Welsh the passive is usually expressed using "cael" = "get", as in "cael ei dorri" = "get its breaking" = "be broken". – Colin Fine Oct 10 '11 at 14:14
  • For 'marry' to be intranstive the sentence would have to be 'They are to marry in April.' – Barrie England Oct 10 '11 at 14:19
  • @PeterShor No, 'they are getting married' indicates the referents of 'they' are marrying each othe; it has only the one argument, the subject 'they'. 'The minister married the bride and groom' has two arguments, subject (the minister) and object (bride and groom), so is transitive. A third verb 'marry' is seen in 'John married her'; this is transitive. – Gaston Ümlaut Oct 10 '11 at 21:00
  • @BarrieEngland Yes, that's intransitive as well, there is only the single argument 'they' (with a prepositional adjunct 'in April'). – Gaston Ümlaut Oct 10 '11 at 21:03
  • @Gaston: Would you say 'fired' in "he got fired last April" is intransitive, as well? If you do, then I think we mean different things by 'intransitive'. If you don't, then I fail to understand the distinction between the sentences. – Peter Shor Oct 10 '11 at 21:49
  • @PeterShor 'Fire' (=sacking someone) is transitive, so the usage 'get fired' is passive (a get- passive) with the oblique argument (the by- phrase which contains the demoted subject) being left out. A transitive verb requires two arguments, an intransitive only requires one. The verb 'marry' has several different senses, each taking a different argument structure. One of them is intransitive (but reciprocal), taking a subject that refers to the two (or whatever number) of people that are marrying each other. Being intransitive this verb can't be passivised. – Gaston Ümlaut Oct 10 '11 at 22:29
  • @Gaston: but when I say "they are getting married", do I mean that a minister is marrying them to each other, or do I mean that they are marrying each other? As far as I can tell, it's perfectly ambiguous, since the end result is exactly the same. So why are you so sure that this is the intransitive meaning, and a past participle, rather than the transitive version, and a get-passive? – Peter Shor Oct 10 '11 at 23:44
  • @PeterShor Transitivity doesn't relate to meaning but to the verb's obligatory arguments. The sentence 'They are getting married' has a single argument, a subject, in the form of 'they'. You could add a by- phrase to make it ?'They are getting married by a priest', but that feels less than grammatical to me. Let's try a different formulation: 'They got married yesterday': that's intransitive 'get' (inchoative) with a past participle as adjective (and then a temporal adverb). – Gaston Ümlaut Oct 11 '11 at 00:00
  • I think there's an idiomatic use of "to get" involved here, instead of "to be". I'm not sure why I slightly prefer "That goose is being cooked tomorrow", over "That goose is getting cooked tomorrow". They both seem okay to me, but I associate "getting" with volition - and I don't suppose that goose will be exercising much free will over the matter! – FumbleFingers Jan 10 '12 at 03:50
  • @FumbleFingers: Equally, it seems to me that 'get' can carry the opposite sense: 'That goose is getting cooked tomorrow - and it's had it coming for a long time.' OK, unlikely in a goose context, but you see what I mean? – Barrie England Jan 10 '12 at 08:31
  • @Barrie England: Given the idiomatic usage, I bet someone, somewhen, has said something along the lines of "My goose is getting cooked tomorrow, and I've had it coming for a long time!" :) – FumbleFingers Jan 10 '12 at 14:46
  • Well, if we're going to talk about cooked geese, then grammar aside, I'd say that the act of getting married is invariably transitive. ;-) – MickeyfAgain_BeforeExitOfSO Jan 17 '12 at 14:56
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It's a past participle used as an adjective. So it's an adjective. The problem is the action and process involved in this word as it means that an act is going to happen.

Danny Rodriguez
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  • Is is really an adjective? Can we use this structure with other adjectives? – herisson Oct 05 '15 at 02:40
  • "They are getting employed/hired in April" seems to work, is employed acting like an adjective here also? An alternative rewording would be: "Someone is employing/hiring them in April" – Mari-Lou A Oct 05 '15 at 05:08
  • I wouldn't know what else it would be if not an adjective. Past participles that are not used in the verb tense are often adjectives. The "married" couple showed up today. You can replace that adjective with another one: they are getting "ugly" tonight. But you can also say they are getting "married" tonight. No other word category but adjectives fit. – Danny Rodriguez Oct 06 '15 at 20:58