Raising Passives

As discussed in Section 8.6.4, the passives of Exceptional Case Marking verbs are also treated as raising verbs. The passive therefore also selects the Vvx tree, and like other raising verbs such as seems will select for an infinitival complement. However, unlike seems, the <mode> feature is set to ppart, which therefore forces an auxiliary to also adjoin, as with other passives, as described in Chapter 13. For example, to derive ((93)), the Vvx tree for was adjoins at the root of the tree for expected in in Figure 9.7(a), which adjoins into a derivation for Bob to talk at the VP node.

(92)0(92

(93)

Bob was expected to talk . 

(a)		(b)		(c)

{ECM raising passive trees: $\beta$Vvx (a), $\beta$Vvxbynx (b), $\beta$Vbynxvx (c)

 

Also, the by phrase associated with the raising passives can appear to the left or right of the infinitival complement, as in ((94)) and ((95)).

(93)0(93

(94)

Bob was expected by Bill to talk .  (94)0(94

(95)

Bob was expected to talk by Bill . 

To handle these cases, the raising passives such as expect can also select the trees shown in figures 9.7(b) and 9.7(c). ECM verbs such as expect therefore select the ECM tree family and also, separately, the three trees in figure 9.7. Also, it has long been noted that passives of both full and bare infinitive ECM constructions are full infinitives, as in ((96)) and ((97)).

(95)0(95

(96)

Bob sees the harmonica fall .  (96)0(96

(97)

The harmonica was seen to fall .  (97)0(97

(98)

The harmonica was seen fall . 

Under the TAG ECM analysis, this fact is easy to implement. The foot node of the ECM passive tree is simply set to have <mode>=inf, which prevents the derivation of ((98)). Therefore, while verbs selecting full and bare infinitives will differ in the <mode> specified for the active form when selecting the ECM tree family, they all use <mode>=inf for the passive tree. Selecting the passive tree separately from the ECM tree family for the active trees has the advantage of allowing verbs which only have the passive to not select the active trees. There are a number of such cases, as in ((99)), where the raising passive exists but not its active counterpart. For more discussion of this issue, see [#!kj85!#].

(98)0(98

(99)

John is said to be a crook . 

There are also some cases for which the raising passive complement does not take <mode>=inf, but rather a nom/prep complement, as in ((100)) and ((101)):

(99)0(99

(100)

John is considered a crook .  (100)0(100

(101)

The Americans are believed involved in the coup .  (101)0(101

(102)

They believe the Americans involved in the coup . 

Such cases are handled by selecting the Vvx, Vbynxvx, and Vvxbynx trees with the appropriate <mode> on the foot node, instead of just inf. In some cases, as in ((102)), the corresponding active sentence sounds quite bad, and this is prohibited by not selecting the ECM family for the active cases with that mode. For example, believe selects the ECM family with <mode>=inf and the raising passive trees with <mode>=inf/nom/prep.