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A paper titled "Three Types of English Pseudo-passives" has these examples (p8):

(31) a. *Seoul was walked around by his father.

b. Seoul can be walked around in a day.

(32) a. *The hotel was stayed in by my sister.

b. The hotel can be stayed in by foreigners.

The paper explains these examples as follows:

Walking around Seoul in a day and staying in the hotel both can characterize the general or characteristic property of Seoul and the hotel. However, if these actions are performed by a particular individual such as his father or sister, they cannot represent the general properties of the subject referent.

I wonder why the writer focuses on the agents in (a) examples being particular individuals. Isn't it the use of modals such as 'can' that allows (b) examples?

For example, aren't these (c) examples possible?

(31) c. Seoul can be walked around by his father.

(32) c. The hotel can be stayed in by my sister.

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JK2
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  • Somewhat related: Passive voice of “Stay” – herisson Jul 16 '19 at 07:14
  • I think the point here is that neither Seoul nor the hotel were affected by the father's walking or the sister's staying. Hence the sentences, which refer to specific incidents, are regarded as ungrammatical . By contrast, the sentences with modal can describe characteristics of Seoul and the hotel, and thus license the passive. I see nothing wrong with your (c) sentences. But as the discussion under the answer shows, what is grammatical to one native speaker may be problematic (or infelicitous as the CGEL p1433 says in this context) to another. – Shoe Jul 17 '19 at 16:30
  • @Shoe Thanks. Good to know. – JK2 Jul 18 '19 at 11:33
  • Possible duplicate of Is it correct that only transitive verbs can have passive form?: 'A lot of intransitive verbs can become effectively transitive with the addition of a preposition, like see/look at or hear/listen to:

    Everyone heard the concert. --- Everyone listened to the concert. --- The concert was heard/listened to by everyone. But Passive isn't limited to these prepositional transitives; any ...

     – Edwin Ashworth Aug 15 '19 at 18:33
  • preposition can work, provided it refers to a significant effect produced in the noun phrase. Then Passive can work. So, for instance, the first sentence below is grammatical, but the second isn't.

    This bed was slept in by George Washington. // *This garden was coughed in by Harry Smith.' [@John Lawler] [bolding mine]

     – Edwin Ashworth Aug 15 '19 at 18:34

2 Answers2

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I don't think it's just a matter of modals allowing a (pseudo)passive construction. I don't know of any theoretical reason why modals would be expected to have such an effect, and I would not classify 31c) or 32c) as acceptable sentences.

(It's harder for me to say whether they are "possible", because they are "possible" in a certain sense: e.g. I might come up with 31c) if I was forced to provide a passive version of "His father can walk around Seoul". But I think I likewise might produce 31a) if I was forced to provide a passive version of "His father walked around Seoul.")

32b) actually doesn't sound very acceptable to me to begin with, but "The hotel was stayed in by foreigners" doesn't sound much worse, whereas your 32c) "The hotel can be stayed in by my sister" definitely sounds more unnatural/unacceptable to me than either.

Likewise, "walked around" sounds as acceptable to me in the following sentences (taken from the web) as it does in 31b) (that is, it sounds like fairly awkward wording in all of these sentences):

  • By faith, the walls of Jericho fell, after it was walked around for seven days.

    –"Aramaic Bible in Plain English" (a translation, of course, but the translator presumably wasn't aiming to produce an outright unacceptable or ungrammatical sentence.)

  • This lake was treated in 1954 and planted with rainbow trout in 1955. The lake was walked around completely and no fish were observed from shore, although a number were seen jumping for flies. One 6" rainbow trout was found dead (winter kill?). It appeared to be in good condition.

    –the first of three paragraphs in the one-page "File Note: Woods Lake, Alpine County." July 25, 1956. From California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) Data Portal.

Your 31c) "Seoul can be walked around by his father" doesn't sound much, if at all, better to me than 31a) "Seoul was walked around by his father." I'd say both sound less acceptable than the examples above with "walked around".

herisson
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  • Thanks for letting me know how you don't necessarily agree with the paper's assessment of the examples. But the invalidity of (a) examples and the validity of (b) examples have never been questioned in other papers that cite these specific examples. So I think I'd need more evidence (than your own assessment) before I dismiss the paper's assessment of the examples. Since your assessment is not in line with that of the paper, I'd also need more evidence that (c) examples are as impossible as (a) examples. – JK2 Jul 16 '19 at 08:15
  • As for your two examples that you have cited, I find the first one acceptable because the "walking around" did affect the city whose walls fell down. God's people had faith, and when they had walked around the city of Jericho for seven days, its walls fell down. But I couldn't find your second example on the Internet, so I can't figure out the context in which the passive was used. – JK2 Jul 16 '19 at 08:21
  • @JK2: The second citation is from a PDF document for which I only have a download link: https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=51074 It isn't very long. – herisson Jul 16 '19 at 08:24
  • The link doesn't seem to work. – JK2 Jul 16 '19 at 08:32
  • Given the limited context, I suppose that the "walking around" in your second example doesn't merely refer to the act of walking around the lake but to the purposeful act of observing the lake for its fish population possibly followed by treating it by planting some kinds of fish such as rainbow trout, which does have some effect on the lake. Without such context, I'd find The lake was walked around completely ungrammatical. – JK2 Jul 16 '19 at 08:53
  • @JK2 I've perused the whole paper, and would rather not do so again. I can't remember any reference to the decision-making organs conferring 'grammaticality' or otherwise on the examples. Are these hidden back in the (end-)referenced works? ? It's wondrous that (and I agree) 'The lake was walked around by X' needs licensing context (eg contesting its non-circumnavigatableness). – Edwin Ashworth Jul 16 '19 at 16:17
  • @EdwinAshworth What's your take on (c) examples? – JK2 Jul 17 '19 at 03:40
  • @JK2 You want me to say 'They're un/grammatical'. I'm not going to. But I wouldn't use them, I consider them unidiomatic, and I'd knock a mark off if marking an essay. // Grammaticality is ultimately(?) decided by panels of 'experts' in the language, as detailed for example in a paper by Wayne Rimmer 'Grammaticality Judgment Tests: Trial by Error' – but Rimmer concludes: It is concluded that grammaticality judgment tests offer a probabilistic rather than definitive answer to the question, ‘Is x well-formed?’ – Edwin Ashworth Jul 17 '19 at 16:40
  • @Edwin Ashworth. Thanks. That's a very interesting article. The sentence Seoul can be walked around by his father is passivized because the subject/topic/theme is Seoul, and one of its characteristics is its walkability. I myself would probably try to find an alternative way to express the idea. But I would be interested in your opinion of the following expanded sentence: Seoul can be walked around by his father, who is very fit for his age, but not by his brother, who has a foot impediment. – Shoe Jul 17 '19 at 18:25
  • I wouldn't mark that wrong! Such is English:) (at least, that's my take) (and I'm reasonably well educated / read / advanced in years). And of course, you can thus have the sentence 'Seoul can be walked around by his father.'. [Double punctuation to emphasise end of quote as a sentence.] So, I'd only mark it wrong sans licensing (IMHO) context. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 17 '19 at 18:43
  • @EdwinAshworth When I figure out whether a stand-alone sentence such as (c) examples is grammatical or not, I assume there to be some "licensing context" even if no such context has been provided along with the sentence being examined, and only when I cannot think of any plausible "licensing context" do I find it ungrammatical. (But if later on a plausible licensing context is provided, I will find it grammatical, and I'd attribute my earlier judgment to my own lack of imagination.) Having said that, I'm curious if you'd mark (b) examples wrong since they lack "licensing context". – JK2 Jul 18 '19 at 03:27
  • @Sheo Thanks for providing "licensing context". Honestly, your expansion is along the lines of what I subconsciously assumed 31c to be predicated upon. – JK2 Jul 18 '19 at 03:38
  • @JK2. On a side issue, the argument for the ungrammaticality of "Seoul was walked around by his father" seems to rest on the fact that Seoul was unaffected by the action. Whereas "This bed was slept in by Abraham Lincoln" is grammatical because the bed was affected - obviously a bed is in a different state after the sleeping than before it. – Shoe Jul 18 '19 at 07:53
  • But, in the other example ("The hotel was stayed in by my sister"), the hotel and particularly its bedroom was surely affected by being stayed in. It is nevertheless marked as ungrammatical. I can only conclude that the whole notion is affectedness is rather too nebulous to base definitive grammatical judgements on. – Shoe Jul 18 '19 at 07:53
  • @Shoe Theoretically, you're right that the hotel is affected by being stayed in via its bedroom. But I guess that's just not how affectedness is applied to passivation in English. It's entirely arguable that, viewed from the outside, the hotel is not affected by being stayed in. This seemingly nebulous notion of affectedness as applied to English passivation I don't find too arbitrary to dismiss it as useless. – JK2 Jul 18 '19 at 08:07
  • Good point about the hotel, which adds a nuance to the concept of affectedness (as viewed by internal/externer observers). I agree with you that the notion is useful; my argument is that it does not allow definitive judgements. For example: a soft chair is obviously affected by being sat on by a heavy person, less so by a dog and not very much at all by a kitten. Does this mean that "This chair was sat on by my overweight brother" is grammatical, but "This chair was sat on by my newly-born kitten" is not? I have no answer. – Shoe Jul 18 '19 at 10:00
  • @Shoe I'd say the first one is grammatical as is, whereas the second one is not without further licensing context. – JK2 Jul 18 '19 at 11:18
  • @JK2 Obviously, everything has context, if only the experiences / proficiency of the reader. But where there needs to be great thought in coming up with licensing written context, I'd put a cross. Some people have even come up with reasonable contexts for 'Colorless green ideas sleep furiously', which I'm sure Chomsky chose as an irredeemably daft assemblage. Something obviously wrong (though grammatical). – Edwin Ashworth Jul 18 '19 at 15:01
  • @EdwinAshworth I can't really think of a licensing context for that 'assemblage'. Glad Chomsky himself agrees with me. I think you just have to draw the line somewhere. – JK2 Jul 19 '19 at 05:14
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The author is discussing phrasal verbs. A phrasal verb consists of a verb + an adverb (as complement).

It is distinct from an intransitive verb that may be followed by {Preposition + NP = [adverbial] modifier}

The transitivity of a phrasal verb and its root verb often differ.

I don't agree with the central proposition of the paper:

English is peculiar in that it allows some of the prepositional verbs (multi-words consisting of a verb and a preposition) to be passivized.

a. They talked (intransitive) {about (preposition) the scandal} for days.

(Compare "They talked (intransitive) for days .....{about (preposition) the scandal} .

...........................................................(adv. mod.)...............(adv. mod.)

b. The scandal was talked (passive) about (adverb) for days.

Compare "To relax, he walked about(adv.)" and "To relax, he walked about(prep.) the garden."

OED

About

A. adv. I. Expressing actual or implied motion or direction.

1922 J. Joyce Ulysses i. ii. [Nestor] 30 Three, Mr Deasy said, turning his little savingsbox about in his hand.

b. With verbs denoting activity, with the sense of movement weakened or absent: at large, freely; in an aimless, idle, or frivolous manner; without any definite purpose.

For the more established phrasal verbs with this sense, as to fool about, to mess about, to muck about, etc.: see the verbs. Earliest in to play about at play v. Phrasal verbs 1.

1992 I. Rankin Good Hanging 225 Chief Inspector Lauderdale just laughed, thinking Rebus was clowning about as per usual.

Greybeard
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