Become with Passive Voice

[Baker, John]

        The OED says, "In English, the passive voice usually consists of
an auxiliary (freq. be; occas. also get, become, etc.) plus the past
participle of the verb."  I don't have any concrete examples using
become to put forward.


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Laurence Horn
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 11:26 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Become with Passive Voice

At 10:49 AM -0400 4/28/09, Baker, John wrote:
>         The passive voice usually requires the use of to be, or
>sometimes to get, as an auxiliary verb.  Can to become, or other
>auxiliary verbs, also be used?  Authoritative sources seem to differ,
>or perhaps I simply fail to understand them correctly.
>
>John Baker
>
While "become" can be followed by a passive (past) participle, the
general interpretation of such cases, AFAIK, is that those are
adjectives or adjectival "passives".  So we can become tired, but we
can't become tired out by exercising, the way we can be kissed or
killed by strangers or get arrested by the cops.   Which sort of
cases are you thinking of?

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