ABSTRACT
It sometimes happens that a single word or string of words may be analysed in two ways. We have seen (2.4.3.4), for example, that the elements be and have are structurally ambiguous, in that they may behave like lexical verbs or like auxiliaries. Another instance of double structure in English is that of V-Od strings like kick the bucket, which in their literal sense can regularly occur in the passive (The bucket was kicked), but not when they are used in their idiomatic sense (*The bucket was kicked by the old man=The old man died). It appears that kick the bucket, as an idiom, is no longer a V-Od string, but has been restructured into just a composite intransitive verb. A well-known example of ambiguous patterning is also that of strings such as depend on, look at, give in to and others, which may be structurally interpreted as intransitive verbs followed by a PP, or alternatively as transitive verbs followed by a Direct Object.
