Hi A few comments to your question... Traditionally, ESL students have been taught passive tense by adding "by" to an agent in the sentence. This rule can be misleading, or at least proved confusing to some learners. Not

how could we make sure whether we are looking at a passive sentence or a sentence with a "be" verb followed by an adjective in cases like this I think you have already solved your own problem. The other words in the sentence, like by Joe

The crux here is that English is not no language is a mere procession of vagaries. We do not pick and choose ... regular feature of the tongue, by divination anew at every need: we apply rule, and rule in language is grammar. Of "my wife and

A "thematic role" is the semantic relationship that a noun ... bunch of others like "source", "goal", "cause", and so on. Isn't this thematic role often called "case" in modern linguistics? No,