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Date: | Sun, 9 May 2010 18:42:59 -0400 |
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> I enjoyed Pullman's article very much and thought it was on the money.
I too quite enjoyed it. He's usually very sharp and very funny. Just for the record, he is Geoff Pullum, not Pullman.
> On another matter, would readers please tell me whether they would consider the following sentence passive:
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> The information gathered from a book was unquestioned.
The relative clause is a reduced passive ('it was gathered from a book'). The main clause certainly looks like a passive, but there is no verb 'unquestion'. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language calls this type of construction an "adjectival passive with the negative prefix un". Other adjectives like 'unquestioned' include: unaided, unmoved, unwanted, etc.
Best,
Brett
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Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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