Comparing grammaticalization paths

Abstract This paper provides a contrastive analysis of the German bekommen and the English get passive. Sparked by their identical formation (GET verb + past participle), it contrasts their diachronic evolution and systemic function based on previous research and data from four corpora ( Die ZEIT , Mode-/Beauty Blogs, TIME Magazine Corpus, COCA ). Indicating that both passives are originally constrained in similar ways, e.g., by subject animacy, the data suggest that bekommen and get passive share significant commonalities. However, the GET passives in question grammaticalize from different source constructions. Therefore, they tread different paths of grammaticalization, with parallels such as the Subject Animacy Constraint becoming relativized when put into diachronic context. Besides grammaticalizing along different paths of grammaticalization, bekommen and get passives grammaticalize within different, language-specific voice systems. The contemporary German and English voice system have different functional gaps, which are, as will be argued, systematically addressed by the newly grammaticalizing GET passives.