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Thank you. Now, I've got a very interesting assumption on using to get in the passive voice: when it comes to Passive I (one of the three existing passive constructions), we can only use to get instead of to be with dynamic verbs; whereas with stative ones, we cannot. Examples:

Dynamic verbs; both to get and to be can be used:

  1. The alarm clock has finally gotten/been repaired.

  2. My house's roof got/was destroyed by the thunderstorm.

  3. When we came, we saw that our lettuce had got/been eaten by that freaking beaver.

Stative verbs; only to be can be used:

  1. I  was loved by a very nice girl.

  2. The company of the city's mayor was all owned by the government.

  3. I have finally been understood by my parents.

What's your view on this, exciting in my opinion, presumption of mine?

Note that in the other passive construction (Passive II and Passive III), to get can never be used at all.

  • I bieve The alarm clock has finally gotten/been repairing still has current in Irish (and other topolects per chance). So I understand your example in terms of present participle, German zu-partizip, ga-prefix Partizip II, French participle ending -ant, and Old English infinitive -en, present participle -onde. It's got to be. The onus Gotta be onde me to prove it though. – vectory Feb 06 '23 at 16:36
  • The first three are all passive verbs. get + past participle often works for be + past participle to mean be transformed into some condition. "was loved" is not stative. It is passive for: A very nice girl loved me. "own" is a transitive verb. He owns property here. – Lambie Feb 06 '23 at 16:59
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    What are "Passive I", "Passive II", and "Passive III"? – Draconis Feb 06 '23 at 17:12
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    @Lambie There is no such thing as a passive verb in English; all the examples are, however, passive constructions. And yes, to the extent that the distinction between stative and dynamic verbs (or constructions) is accepted, the former three examples are dynamic and the latter three are stative. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 06 '23 at 19:46
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    Really, this is about the English get-Passive, not about linguistics. It should be migrated to ELU. BTW, the get-Passive is not limited to action predicates -- He has gotten sick is perfectly grammatical (in the US, at least), and sick is certainly stative. – John Lawler Feb 06 '23 at 22:02
  • Sick is an adjective, not a verb at all in this case. My assumption has to only do with stative and dynamic verbs. –  Feb 07 '23 at 04:57
  • I recommend starting with section 3.66 The passive auxiliaries: be and get in Quirk et al. 1985 A comprehensive grammar of the English language – Alex B. Feb 07 '23 at 14:01
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Of course, passive verbs is a shortcut (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/verb_tenses/passive_verbs.html). In fact, it is not even passive construction if you want to be real picky, it is passive voice v. active voice. – Lambie Feb 07 '23 at 17:17
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    @Lambie Actually, the Passive construction is sufficiently complex and variegated to be considered its own thing (like Progressive), rather than being some part of a Latinesque "voice system". Voice, along with mood, tense, and aspect, are just typological terms in English, but not syntactic, because English isn't an inflected language any more and depends on novel syntactic constructions instead of paradigmatic inflectional systems. – John Lawler Feb 07 '23 at 17:44
  • @jlawler With all due respect, for a language learner, I don't think it makes a difference if you say passive construction, voice or verb. Ultimately, whether you use construction or voice depends on many factors. https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxc/nlp/nlpgloss.html#voice – Lambie Feb 07 '23 at 18:53
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    The problem is that most erroneous posts about the passive construction use the term "passive voice" because it sounds official; students should be warned about these dog whistles. – John Lawler Feb 07 '23 at 20:04

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