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Anonymous Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Passivisation

Hello. I would like to have your opinion about passivization. As is known, the following (1a) can be transformed into (1b).


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(1a) They believe him to be innocent.
(1b) He is believed to be innocent.

Then, can we do the same operation (2a)? More concretely, can we generate (2b) from (2a)?

(2a) They prefer John swimming.
(2b) John is preferred swimming.

Thank you for your kindness.
  

Top answer

#2 is not a natural formation, either a or b.

  • #2 is not a natural formation, either a or b.
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3 Answers
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#2 is not a natural formation, either a or b.
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Dear friend,

the first set of examples is quite correct grammatically, no doubt, representing the pattern verb + object + to-infinitive complementation. In this case, passivization is possible, though some constraints still apply even to this pattern.

However, we may not perform the same operation with the second pair of sentences, since they should feature an entirely d
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Hi,

Here's my reaction.

They prefer John swimming.

This seems like a rather odd thing to say. Can you explain what you mean by this, and provide some context in which you would say it?

Best wishes, Clive

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