English Syntax Rules Based on Word Choice

Solution 1:

Passives and pseudopassives are also sensitive to animacy.

For passives, consider a situation in which a man walking his dog is killed. If the killing is by a gunman (animate), then you can imagine, say, a newsreader opening a report on the killing with either of the following:

A man walking his dog has been killed by gunman ...

A gunman has killed a man walking his dog ...

If, however, the man was run down by a bus, the passive is strongly preferable:

A man walking his dog has been killed by a bus ...

?? A bus has killed a man walking his dog ...

Pseudopassives are passives of verbs that take a prepositional complement, but not a true direct object. To see the role that animacy plays in pseudopassives, consider:

Napoleon slept in this bed

The arrow quivered in his chest

The first of these, with an animate subject, completely straightforwardly admits passivization of the verb:

This bed was slept in by Napoleon.

The second, with an inanimate subject, does not:

?? His chest was quivered in by the arrow.

A more minimal pair, highlighting the role of animacy, is:

A bird/book flew across the room

The room was flown across by a bird/??book

An animate flyer (bird) permits the verb to undergo pseudopassivization, but an inanimate one (book) does not.