Components of be-passive and their Historical Change

Abstract

In this chapter, each component of the verb phrase ‘be + past participle’ is analysed. The results in Table 2.2 indicate the aspectual change, but, as hinted at in the discussion of Table 2.7, we need to look at auxiliary and past participle separately in order to understand the change better. For auxiliary, we look at the status of be as auxiliary and some particular syntactic constructions with the passive. As for the past participle, we look at various characteristics such as the suffix -ed, the prefix ge-, verbs with two different forms, stative verbs and prepositional verb phrases. These various features will clarify the grammaticalisation of the be-passive.