Thanks for the expansion, Craig. Note that most of the verbs you give
are also statives, as you mention. In general, stative verbs in English
indicate present _time_ by using present _tense_  of the verb, as in 'I
like him', not 'I am liking him' (the latter can be used to indicate
_change of state_, as in 'I am liking him more every day'). 'You inspire
me' would be passivize as 'I am inspired by you'. So I guess we have a
category of stative passives, as well.

I like the 'all men are created equal' example; I always though of it as
predicative, but I do see a passive reading as well, as in 'every time a
man is created, that man is equal to other men'. And as you note, it is
the present tense of universal truths, or habitual aspect; true not just
at the moment of speaking but at all other moments. This is another
difference between present progressive and simple present.

As to Cognitive Grammar, its principal creator and exponent is Ronald W.
Langacker, and he has several books out on the subject (I recommend the
slimmer volumes from Mouton over the 2-vol.  set from Stanford U Press.
One is called 'Concept, Image, and Sybbol, 1991, I think; I can't
remember the latter's title, but it is very recent--99,00,01). There is
a linguistics journal entitled Cognitive Linguistics, also published by
Mouton, which publishes Cognitive Grammar analyses (cog. ling. is
broader than Cog Gram). A lot of people are now using the framework in
linguistic research, and they tend to publish in the more arcane
theoretical journals.

Those two Mouton books are nice because they are divided into shorter
papers that make relatively easier reading than the thick volumes.
Concept etc. has a chapter called 'The English Passive' in which several
semantic profiles of past participles are set out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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