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Comparing grammaticalization paths

The German bekommen and the English get passive

ORCiD logo with link | Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany
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Abstract
This paper provides a contrastive analysis of the German bekommen and the English get passive. Sparked by their identical formation (GET verb + past participle), it contrasts their diachronic evolution and systemic function based on previous research and data from four corpora (Die ZEIT (1946–2018), newspaper corpus (563,279,363 tokens, effective 26.01.2021). Available online at [URL] [last accessed 14 April 2025]., Mode-/Beauty Blogs, TIME Magazine Corpus, COCA). Indicating that both passives are originally constrained in similar ways, e.g., by subject animacy, the data suggest that bekommen and get passive share significant commonalities. However, the GET passives in question grammaticalize from different source constructions. Therefore, they tread different paths of grammaticalization, with parallels such as the Subject Animacy Constraint becoming relativized when put into diachronic context. Besides grammaticalizing along different paths of grammaticalization, bekommen and get passives grammaticalize within different, language-specific voice systems. The contemporary German and English voice system have different functional gaps, which are, as will be argued, systematically addressed by the newly grammaticalizing GET passives.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.From lexical to passive GET: Early steps in the grammaticalization of the German bekommen and the English get passive
    • 2.1Bekommen passive
    • 2.2Get passive
    • 2.3Comparison
  • 3.The extension of passive GET: Corpus-based analyses of grammaticalization trends in bekommen and get passive
    • 3.1Data and method
    • 3.2Results I: Bekommen passive
      • 3.2.1The ZEIT data: (In-)animate bekommen passive subjects diachronically
      • 3.2.2Period II: (In-)animate bekommen passive subjects synchronically
    • 3.3Results II: Get passive
    • 3.4Comparison
  • 4.Function(s) in comparison: The bekommen and the get passive within the PDG/PDE voice system
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (66)
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