Tham khảo tài liệu 'the grammar book teacher course part 51', ngoại ngữ, ngữ pháp tiếng anh phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | 348 The Grammar Book subject NP is typically more definite than any predicate NP because it represents given information what the predicate is about. Wc have more to say about this in the section on use. The third observation stems from the fact that die subject of a passive sentence needs to be somehow affected by the action of the verb. Thus certain transitive verbs when used statively are not likely to occur in the passive This is true for example of the following verbs verbs of containing . contain hold comprise -. Two gallons of water are held by the watering can. verbs of measure . weigh cost contain last Five dollars is cost by the parking fine. reciprocal verbs . resemble look like- equal Lori is resembled by her father. verbs of fitting . Z suit He is suited by the plan. verbs of possession . have belong A car is had by him. and others. Meaning Difference between the Active and Passive At other times both active and passive voice can be used but there is a difference in meaning. This is especially true when numerals or quantifiers are used and in generic statements Everyone in the room speaks two languages . any two languages per person Two languages are spoken by everyone in the room . two specific languages that everybody speaks Chomsky 1965 Few people read many books . There are few people in this world who read lots of books. Many books are read by few people . There are many books that are read by few people. Lakoff 1968 Moles dig tunnels. A true statement about all moles Tunnels are dug by moles. This is not true. Not all tunnels are dug by moles. Be-Passives Versus Get-Passives Wc offered an explanation for the difference between the passive have and the causative have by saying tliat the passive have talks about the subject as experiencer. Next wc turn to the semantic distinction between be and get. As we said earlier the -passive is the prototypical passive verb. It is unmarked and thus semantically neutral which
