Participles In English Research Articles

Indirect passives and the selection of English participles

Previous studies of the English passive have not recognized a subtype whose auxiliaries are not simply be or get, but transitive grammatical verbs, in particular have, get, want, need, see or hear. These “indirect passives,” as I call them, are shown here to be verbal and not adjectival, and to not consist of embedded passive clauses containing simple passives, such as reduced relatives or other types of “small clauses.” Rather, indirect passives are structurally parallel to the traditional (“direct”) passives, except that their auxiliaries are transitive rather than intransitive verbs. Both passive and active participle phrases, of all subtypes, are argued here to be adjective phrases (APs), whose verbs have word-internal right hand heads, the As -en and -ing. Passive auxiliaries in both direct and indirect passives are then grammatical verbs that select adjective phrase complements.The limitation of passive auxiliaries to grammatical rather than open class verbs provides crucial evidence for dividing lexicons into two components, whose members enter syntactic derivations differently. Open class items, including the -en and -ing heads of lexically stored adjectives, enter trees only when derivational phases begin, while closed class items, including auxiliaries and the inflectional endings -en and -ing, can also enter derivations “late,”after a phasal domain is sent to Logical Form. Their “empty A heads” are neither interpreted as properties nor visible during the next derivational phase τ, prior to the late insertion of closed class items on τ. Consequently, even though they are distributionally and often morphologically APs, the inflectional participles (so called verbal passives and progressives) all exhibit familiar internal V-headed syntactic patterns.

О грамматическом значении английского причастия

О грамматическом значении английского причастия

The Present and Past Participles in the Medieval English Translations of St. John’s Gospel from Latin

The present participle and past participle, together with the infinitive, have a long history in English; this is quite contrary to finite verb forms, which mostly developed during the Middle English period. Participles were already in use in the earliest stages of the language and performed functions similar to those of the present active participle and perfect passive participle in Latin. Therefore, one may assume that Latin participles are rendered into Old English and Middle English mostly by means of their English equivalents. It appears, however, that this was not the case. The data provided in our research lead us to the conclusion that the implementation of participles in English was rather difficult and slow, at least when it comes to the Gospel translations. This paper shows what was used instead – for example, various types of clauses; it also shows the reasons for this (such as ambiguity hidden sometimes in participles).

Verbal and adjectival participles: Position and internal structure

In this paper an analysis is presented of prenominal and postnominal passive participles in English and Dutch. Besides the three types of participles commonly distinguished in the literature (statives, resultatives, and postnominal eventive participles), a fourth type is distinguished: prenominal eventive participles. It is claimed that the four types of participles have a different interpretation, which is related to a different internal syntactic structure. The analysis of passive participles is also extended to other types of deverbal modifiers. It is argued that the internal syntactic structure of the four types of participles forces their merging to the left or the right of the noun.

Present participles: Categorial classification and derivation

The paper focuses on the categorial status of present participles in English and Hebrew, and on their formation. Using a large number of diagnostics, I show that while all present participles are verbal, only a subset of them are ambiguous, and have an adjectival reading in addition to their verbal one. I further claim that this subset is constrained aspectually: only stative verbs have adjectival present participle correlates. This constraint stems from the impoverished nature of the adjectival present participle morpheme, which is incapable of manipulating the aspectual properties of verbs. Having established a categorial split between two types of present participles, I argue that adjectival present participles are derived in the lexicon, and verbal ones—in the syntax, and outline the lexical operation deriving adjectival present participles from verbs. Finally, I discuss the prenominal position in English, showing that it must be analyzed as being able to host reduced relative clauses, and not only APs. The analysis offered in the paper sheds light on the nature of participles, reinforcing the view that ambiguous participles do not belong to a “mixed” or “neutralized” category, but rather correspond to two homophonous forms—one verbal and one adjectival.

On the Structure of Resultative Participles in English

The article examines the structure of resultative participles in English: participles that denote a state resulting from a prior event, such as The cake is flattened or The metal is hammered.The analysis identifies distinct stative participles that derive from the different heights at which aspectual morphemes attach in a verbalizing structure.The Aspect head involved in resultative participles is shown to attach to a vP that is also found in (a) the formation of deadjectival verbs and (b) verb phrases with resultative secondary predicates, like John hammered the metal flat. These distinct constructions are shown to have a shared structural subcomponent.The analysis proposed here is compared with Lexicalist approaches employing the verbal versus adjectival passive distinction.It is shown that a uniformly syntactic analysis of the participles is superior to the Lexicalist alternative.

English Participle Constructions

AbstractThis article provides an analysis of participial constructions in English, within the feature-checking approach to inflectional morphology. It argues for a unified treatment of the perfect, passive and adjectival uses of the past participle, involving a monosemous inflectional head checking a monosemous affix. There are two classes of constructions with -ing, each of which is given a unified treatment. The analysis requires the assumption that head-adjoined structures can be generated directly, rather than arising only as a result of movement. It also demonstrates that inflectional and derivational affixation are inherently different processes. An affix may in principle be attached by either process, with each process resulting in a different output structure. With these two provisos, it is possible to maintain both Johns’ (1992) One Form/One Meaning Principle and the more restrictive Strong Monosemy Principle proposed here.

Milton's Participial Style

AbstractThe English participles, present and past, are best interpreted grammatically as transformations from underlying sentences in which they were regular predicates. Interesting ambiguities and quasi-ambig-ities sometimes occur in Milton as a result of these and related transformations. Present participles tend to be active, narrative-furthering devices; past participles, expository, historical devices. Milton's practice changed from a heavier use of the present to a heavier use of the past participle. This is clear evidence of his growing Latinity. One esthetic consequence was a more compact exposition than had characterized earlier narrative poetry, with a greater density of historical implication. The heavy use of past participles also coincided well with the philosophical intention of Paradise Lost of explaining God's ways to man, since many times the implicit (but deleted) subject of the past participle is “God.” Thus God tends to be grammatically, as well as philosophically, omnipresent though hidden.

The English Participle Present and Gerund

The English Participle Present and Gerund

The English participle present and gerund

The English participle present and gerund