| Abstract | This master’s thesis comprises theoretical research on two types of passive constructions used in the English language – get-passives and be-passives as well as qualitative and quantitative empirical research conducted by the author with English major students, based on recognition of differences between verbs get and be in passive constructions. The thesis consists of a theoretical framework, i.e. an overview of studies related to passive constructions (particularly, get-passives and be-passives) followed by the analysis of the author's research. Overall, the thesis primarily focuses on the emergence and occurrence of passives and on the main differences between get and be in functional grammar, with a higher emphasis on get-passives and the notion of grammaticalization it has undergone. The first chapter of the thesis provides a general concise analysis of passive constructions, i.e. what notions are related to passive voice. This chapter particularly relies on present-day English grammar books, with a brief reference to how passives are acquired. There are several classifications of passives proposed by different linguists, that will be epitomized by examples. Situations in which passives are impossible to use are also elaborated in this chapter, as well as the dichotomy between stative passives and dynamic passive and adjectival and verbal passives, ultimately discussing the question of what the term 'true passives' entails. The following chapter in the theoretical part focuses on the two passive forms being the main focus of this thesis: be-passives and get-passives. At the beginning of the chapter a brief overview of the treatment of get-passive as opposed to be-passives in grammars will be provided, which will be followed by a rough establishment of differentiations between the two types, based mostly on grammar as well. The chapter ends with a section examining the position of the patient in both types of passives (mostly focusing on the syntactic properties of both passives and patient-related constraints). The next chapter deals with 'get' as a lexical word and examines the process of grammaticalization. This will consist of corpus data and analysis of the semantic qualities of get, with a brief reflection on the interrelation and integration of grammar and lexis. The following chapter outlines get-passives from a perspective of research conducted so far, provides an insight into established classifications of get-passives, and examines the typical situations, and semantic constraints in which get-passives are employed. The theoretical part finishes with a brief overview of a diachronic approach to get-passives and a discussion on formulaic expressions that contain passive constructions.
The second part of the thesis is a qualitative and quantitative research with English major students from Croatia, who were given a questionnaire and were asked to tell their perception of difference based on whether a sentence contains be-passive or get-passive construction. This is also achieved through a contrastive analysis of their native language, Croatian, through the form of a translation task. |
