A new analysis of the get‐passive is advocated in the following paper. It is based on the belief that the study of semantics is fundamental and prior to the study of syntax. This initial assumption leads to the postulation of a discrete number of intuitively‐verifiable interpretations of the get‐passive construction in the main section of the article. Natural language is used as the semantic metalanguage in the analysis of the passive. Bach interpretation is subsequently reduced into less complex but more readily comprehensible units. The article begins with an outline of earlier attitudes towards the use of get, followed by a brief description of several different kinds of passive constructions in other languages. An appraisal of two comparatively recent articles that specifically deal with the get‐passive precedes the presentation of the semantic analysis.
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Hilary Chappell (1980) studied this question.