Passive and 'raising verbs'

Question

" The child seemed to have been abandoned."

In the sentence, 'the child' was a object of the verb 'abandon'. After 'the child' was passivized, 'the child' was raised to the main clause. It means that 'the child' became a subject of the verb 'seem'. So, we can call verb 'seem' as 'raising verb' in syntax.

"There is known to be opposition in Congress to the arms deal."

In this sentence, can I classify 'be known to' as 'raising verb' like 'seem'?
'be known to' is just passivized? but I think, a subject 'there' might be a subject of 'to be opposition' in the deep structure.
It is very difficult for me.

Dimsumexpress · Accepted Answer

crabstixThe child seemed to have been abandoned."

Others may or may not agree, but this is how I would approach it.
To brerak down this sentence:

The child's parents have abandoned him. - active voice
The child has been abandoned. (by his parents) - Passive voice
The child seemed happy. - seemed, appeared, looked etc. are stative verbs. You are right, "The child" is the subject to the verb "seemed", but was passivized by the perfect infinitive phrase "to have been abandoned" in the sentence. It needs to be noted that "abandoned", other than its role as a past participle, it can also be commonly considered as participle adjective.

i.e. "This house looks [to be]/ [to have been] abandoned". If the infinitive phrase is included in the sentence, it's a passive voice construction, without the infinitive phrase, "abandoned" is a participle adjective. If you understand this concept, you potentially can resolve a lot of similar issues. Hope that helps.

Passive and 'raising verbs'

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