I've been running examples through my head, and I *think* that -- at
least in my case -- the possibility of having the Recipient as Subject
of a passive is related to the specific verb used. "I was given a cake"
sets off no alarms at all; "I was baked a cake" bothers me. I suspect it
has to do with the frequency with which the verb is accompanied by a
Recipient argument in normal usage. It's almost impossible to use "give"
without one, but "bake" seldom has one. I don't think it's a matter of
some verbs being "underlyingly 100% ditransitive," since "I was tossed a
hot potato" works fine for me, and 'toss' doesn't seem to require a
Recipient nearly as often as 'give'. 

I'm using "recipient," by the way, partly to dodge the whole "Is it an
IO if it's in a prepositional phrase?" debate.

Sincerely,

Bill Spruiell 



-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 1:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Future perfect and another passive +object; was ATEG Digest
- 3 Mar 2009 to 4 Mar 2009 (#2009-50)

One of the ongoing areas of uncertainty in English grammar, one that has
been particularly clear in early transformational-generative
discussions, is the extent to which indirect objects of active voice
sentences can become subjects of corresponding passive voice sentences.
The consensus among TG grammarians back in the late sixties and early
seventies was that some speakers allow them and some don't.  I find both
of Scott's sentences well-formed, but I suspect other, very well
informed grammarians on the list will not.  

Herb

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott
Sent: 2009-03-05 12:13
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Future perfect and another passive +object; was ATEG Digest
- 3 Mar 2009 to 4 Mar 2009 (#2009-50)

"We will have finished the project tomorrow."
At a time in the future and action will have been completed.
Where's the beef?  My ESOL students had no problem with future
perfects--then again, all were college graduates.  My non-college
graduate
ESOL students spoke a fluent but very basic English and I concentrated
on
their obvious errors in writing.  I once remarked that they were
illiterate
in two languages: Los Angeles schools do not require even a basic
command of
written English to graduate and they were not allowed to take Spanish 
because they spoke Spanish in the home--making them illiterate in
Spanish.

My pebble in the pond:

I was taught in my advanced grammar class in 1960 that "I was baked a
cake"
was perfectly grammatical and all in the class had heard or used similar
phrases.  When we went to diagram the sentence we found "cake" to be the
subject and "I" to be the indirect object.  The professor explained that
"I" was a retained indirect object in the nominative position and I used
that explanation for that sentence and for "He was fried three eggs"--a
contribution from a student.

Does modern English grammar still support that explanation.  All grammar
teachers who rejected the concept had to fall back on the supposition
that
the sentences were ungrammaticalbacause they insisted that 'I' and 'He'
had
to be subjects and they had never heard of retained indirect objects in
the
nominative position; ergo, such things did not exist.

Scott Catledge

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