Arrant Pedantry


Editing Chicago








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7 Responses to Editing Chicago

  1. goofy says:

    I don’t see how “being acted on” is intransitive. It looks passive to me.

    something is acting on the subject
    the subject is being acted on

  2. Brinestone says:

    Basically, it would be a true passive if you left out the on:

    something is acting* the subject*
    the subject is being acted*

    Since act can’t take a direct object like that, and since the subject is actually the object of a preposition, it’s not a true passive.

  3. Jonathon says:

    I would’ve simply called it a passive too, but when I wrote to Geoffrey Pullum about it, he called it a pseudo-passive because of the “on.” It’s not a distinction I’ve heard elsewhere. Perhaps it’s peculiar to Pullum and The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. I’ll see if I can find the original e-mail from him.

  4. goofy says:

    Isn’t “act on” a phrasal verb? How is different than:
    I made up the story
    The story was made up by me

    you added up the numbers
    were the numbers added up right?

  5. Jonathon says:

    Well, I wasn’t able the find the e-mail. Yes, I’d call it a phrasal verb, too. Unfortunately, syntax was never my strong point, so I really don’t know the value in the distinction. Google turned up some promising hits for “pseudo-passive preposition,” but I haven’t had time to look through them yet.

  6. The Ridger says:

    CEGL doesn’t like “phrasal verb”. If you do think of “act on” as a verb, then you’ve got a transitive “act on it” and a passive “it is acted on”. If you don’t, you have an intransitive + prepositional complement “acted on it” and a pseudo-passive “it is acted on”.

    They’re essentially the same thing, and of course “acted” is the past-participle form regardless, so the Garner guy is talking through his hat there. Would he argue “the advice is not being followed” isn’t passive?

  7. Jonathon says:

    Do you mean the CGEL? I don’t own a copy, so I don’t know what it says about phrasal verbs, but I do think it’s pretty clear that Bryan Garner doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Given how much he’s allegedly studied language and usage, he really should know better.

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