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

[Wilson Gray]

Thank goodness that someone has finally chosen to attempt to deal with
this hideous lacuna in the grammar of English!

-Wilson

On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 12:55 PM, Neal Whitman<nwhitman at ameritech.net> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Double passives (was Re: "long" and "short" vowels)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jun 20, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â 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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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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