>Would people agree that this sentence is in the passive voice? > I get paid a large sum each month. No. 'Get' is a normal full verb - cf 'I don't get paid ...'. As an auxiliary this sentence would be a Shakespearian 'I get not paid ...'. It's an active sentence, structurally, albeit similar in meaning to a passive sentence, but just similar, not equal. It you call this a passive sentence, you would have to call 'The book sells well' a passive sentence, too. Form and meaning should not be mixed up as it often is, and not just in traditional grammar. (Traditionally, the above sentence is said to be passive.) I get paid very much for my work. The object is 'very much', not just 'much'. And 'much' is not a noun, but a quantifier or whatever you may want to call it. I call it a numeral, which means I can describe it the same way as the definite numerals - structurally they behave very similarly. They fill (e.g.) object slots on their own, or modified by adverbs (not adjectives!), 'very much', or by prepositional phrases, 'three of them', 'much of it'. In some cases they can be regarded as noun modifiers with the noun being zero: 'There were lots of pretzels on the table. I ate five 0.' This is not possible with 'five of them' - 'five pretzels of them' doesn't make sense, does it? >So "very" is here an adjective modifying the noun "much"? >>So what is "much" quantifying in "I don't like it very much"? Here 'much' is not a quantifier, but a degree adverb, and 'very much' fills a free adverbial slot. And now for the usual grammarless beer. Burkhard Leuschner Paedagogische Hochschule, Schwaebisch Gmuend, Germany INTERNET: BITNET: [log in to unmask] Leuschne@dulruu51