Prototypicality and Markedness: A Study of [Subject+V1+V2ing] Passive Construction in English

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In an effort to answer ESL/EFL students’ questions about meanings, uses and functions of passive voice, this paper attempts to address two significant concepts-Prototypicality and Markedness-in studies of the categorization of the English passive voice system. In particular, it confines its discussion to [Subject+V1+V2ing] Passive Construction. On the basis of prototype theory and markedness theory, it is argued that category PASSIVE, starting from the prototype and unmarked form of central Passive ‘Be+Past participle’, extends in the chained way of concatenation to the adjacent near-prototype and unmarked form of Get-Passive, and expands in the way of radiation to peripheral, untypical and marked forms of [Subject+V1+V2ing] passive construction’ and the ‘V-able passive construction’. The idiosyncrasies and constraints of [Subject+V1+V2ing] passive construction in real context are discussed by using examples from corpus. Comparison and Contrast are also made among different types of passive construction and other related constructions in order to show that ‘[Subject+V1+V2ing] passive construction is one of the peripheral and marked members of passive voice system in English. Taking the Family resemblances as the operating principle, ‘[Subject+v1+v2ing] passive construction not only shares the common features with other passive constructions within the passive domain, but also shares the common properties with other constructions such as middle construction and progressive construction across domains. It also suggests that there exists vagueness among the various forms of passive constructions which are conducive to extend and expand the boundary of category PASSIVE and the perspective of construal and role alignment in cognition also play a significant part in categorization of passive voice and other related constructions.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Abstract
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Category, Categorization and Markedness
• 3. Prototype Effect and Markedness in Passive Voice
• 4. Shared Features and Unshared Features of Passive Structures and Related Structures
• 5. The Idiosyncrasies of the [Subject+V1+V2ing] Passive Construction
• 6 Conclusion
• References