THE PASSIVE REVISITED: BE-PASSIVE VS. GET-PASSIVE
THE PASSIVE REVISITED: BE-PASSIVE VS. GET-PASSIVE

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to compare and contrast uses of be- and get-passives in order to challenge widely accepted idea that be-passive is used mostly, if not only, in formal discourse, while get-passive is said to be used in informal discourse. This paper will also question the claim of most grammarians that passives are the products of transformation and prove that some passives are to be regarded as original structures. Furthermore, contrastive analysis of the two passive forms will elucidate when they are interchangeable or, on the other hand, exclusively dependent on a particular type of verb. Using the British National Corpus (BNC) I will also examine to what extent the corpus data conform to what is said in the relevant literature about these two forms of passive. Special attention will be paid to generic context in order to find out interrelation with different genres and passive forms, as well as to characteristics of verbs that are used mostly with be and those used mostly with get. In addition, elliptic forms of passive will be examined to further illuminate the nature of be- and get-passives by determining their original full forms.

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