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 To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/