What kind of complementation for "be regarded"?

Solution 1:

From OALD this verb is shown as being neither transitive nor intransitive; it is not labelled aither as linking verb (as "to be" is in this dictionary). If we can convince ourselves that this verb expresses no action, the void of information on the transitivity of the verb becomes understandable: it is a stative verb (as opposed to "dynamic" (action)). The structure that follows is the complement of the verb.

Those verbs must not be confused with copular verbs (copulas, linking verbs) (ref.).

A copular verb expresses either that
• the subject and its complement denote the same thing or that
• the subject has the property denoted by its complement.

• John is Mr X's only son.
• John is a student.

There is in "to regard sb/sth as sth" no idea at all of the subject and the complement being the same thing nor that the subject has the property denoted by the complement, and there is instead the idea that
someone is in the state of believing that sb/sth has the property denoted by the complement.

• John is regarded as being Mr X's only son.

The following test is useful (ref.).

Dowty's analysis

Dowty gives some tests to decide whether an English verb is stative. They are as follows:

■ Statives do not occur in the progressive (the * before a sentence means that it is ungrammatical or absurd to most native English speakers):

• John is running. (non-stative)
• *John is knowing the answer.

■ They cannot be complements of "force":

• I forced John to run.
•*I forced John to know the answer.

■ They do not occur as imperatives.

• Run!
•*Know the answer! (The phrase "Know thyself!" is imperative, but it uses the archaic "know" as a dynamic verb.)

■ They cannot appear in the pseudo-cleft construction:

• What John did was run.
• *What John did was know the answer.