Double passives (was Re: "long" and "short" vowels)

[Neal Whitman]

On Jun 20, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "long" and "short" vowels
>>
>> [1] Are any of these projects still going on, or has all the funding
>> finally dried up for them?
>>
>> [2] I can't think up an elegant passive construction for this. Weird.
>>
> Maybe Arnold can direct us to something on Language Log on this.
> I've noticed the same gap, largely through attempts by students to
> fill it ("The chimpanzees were tried to teach/taught/be taught
> American Sign Language") without striking success.
>
> LH
I've blogged a lot about these "double passives". They occur in
Turkish and some Scandinavian languages, too.

http://literalminded.wordpress.com/category/syntax/passive-voice/double-passives/

Neal Whitman

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