ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
Online ISSN : 1884-3107
Print ISSN : 0918-3701
ISSN-L : 0918-3701
Brief Article
ON THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE GET-PASSIVE: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO GRAMMATICALIZATION
SHOKO HONDA
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2012 Volume 29 Issue 1 Pages 69-87

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Abstract

This paper aims to clarify the origin and development of the get-passive in the history of English, and account for the process of its development in terms of the grammaticalization of get. It is proposed that the origin of the get-passive is “inchoative get + predicative adjective,” based on empirical data from historical corpora. After establishing the exact path of the development of the get-passive, it is shown to be neatly captured in terms of the grammaticalization of get from a lexical verb to a light verb, in accordance with the principle of Late Merge proposed by Gelderen (2004).

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© 2012 The English Linguistic Society of Japan
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