Passives of obliques over direct objects

Passives of oblique objects were claimed to be ungrammatical in sentences containing direct objects. No explanation was provided for this structural restriction. In this paper an explanation is attempted in terms of a clash over the role of affected entity between the subject of the passive sentence and its direct object. This semantically-pragmatically based constraint has, apparently, become a fully grammaticized restriction for many speakers, but not for all. Instances where passives of obliques in sentences containing direct objects are marginally acceptable are discussed. It is claimed that the conflict between the two arguments of the predicate over the role of affected entity, which is responsible for thw ill-formedness of such construction in general, does not arise in these cases, since the direct object is perceived as an integral part of the verbal unit and not as an argument of the predicate. In this connection the non-discreteness of the argument-role of direct objects is considered and it is suggested that the identification of a given direct object as an argument depends on factors ranging from its degree of referentiality to the kind of verb with which it co-occurs in a particular context.