A constructional analysis of English un-participle constructions

Abstract

AbstractThe present paper reports on an investigation into an English un-participle pattern that is called unpassive, or is described as an adjectival passive. The main characteristic of the pattern is an (adjectival) past participle prefixed by un-, which is used as a predicative complement to a verb. Besides the different terms used for the pattern, there is also some indeterminacy with respect to its particular form. All of the descriptions focus on the verb be, but mention is also made of go and remain. That is, the specifications of the pattern’s formal side differ to some extent. To provide information on this issue and to get hold of potential (verb-related) differences in the pattern’s function, we conducted an empirical analysis from a usage-based construction grammar perspective. Our focus is on the form-function interplay of the pattern in order to gain information about its constructional status and its exact formal and semantic make-up. The database selected for this study is the BNC, from which all occurrences of ‘verb plus un-participle’ were extracted. The data were submitted to collexeme and covarying collexeme analyses to identify the spectrum of meanings/functions associated with these forms, and distinctive collexeme analyses were carried out to see whether the un-participles found pattern differently with the individual verbs. The results indicate that, on closer examination, the un-participle construction does not represent a homogeneous category, but must be seen as a schematic template of related, though different, usage events that may have expanded analogously from a prototype construction. On the basis of our analyses and informed by findings from developmental studies, we suggest that the related constructions form a network.