Huang, C-T2017-09-202013C.-T. James Huang. 2013. Variations in non-canonical passives. In Non-canonical passives, ed. Artemis Alexiadou and Florian Schäfer, 95-114. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33921597This paper shows that non-canonical passives (like English get- and Chinese bei-passives) exhibit a chameleonic character that makes them amenable to a control and/or a raising analysis – depending on context and lexical choice. Such passives are formed by superimposing on the main predicate a higher semi-lexical verb whose meaning may include one or more points in the causative-unaccusative spectrum. Such semi-lexical verbs may differ in their ‘bandwidths’ along the spectrum, exhibiting lexical, contextual and idiolectal micro-variation – accounting for the controversies that have often arisen in the literature. The paper demonstrates the need for fine-grained decomposition in argument structure theory by providing several concrete cases, and ends with a case study of so-called ‘give-passives’ in Mandarin, arguing that they are raising constructions involving an existential use of gei ‘give’ and an implicit affectee which gives rise to their passive-like meanings.en-USnon-canonical passivespassivization cartographycontrol-raising controversyget-passivesbei-passivesgei-passivesMandarinMonograph or Book2013-05-03C.-T. James Huang2017-09-20