Search results for "VDP::English language: 020"

The expletive passive and beyond : A comparative analysis of passives in English and Norwegian

2020

This thesis argues that passives in English and Norwegian can be explained by a casetheoretic approach inspired by Chomsky (1981, 1995, 2000 and 2001). I argue that the passive morpheme originates in little v and blocks little v's case-assigning properties in English but not in Norwegian. Thus the passive feature —[PASS]—forces a postverbal DP to move out of the vP phase in English so that the basic passive, although seemingly driven by the EPP, is in reality a result of a combination of the EPP and case theory. Following Bruening (2013), I further argue that the by-phrase is an adjunct just like instrumental PPs that can be freely inserted in structures that have external arguments that ar…