摘要：This paper presents a corpus-linguistic case study on the GET-passive in conversation.
The aim is twofold: the first aim is to discuss register distribution,
association patterns and discourse factors governing the use of the GET-passive
as evidenced in the British National Corpus. The second aim is to portray the
GET-passive as an illustration of ‘lexical grammar’ (Sinclair 2000), that is, of
the intricate integration of two areas traditionally separated from one another,
lexis and grammar. It is argued that the GET-passive construction is poorly represented
if described solely as a grammatical structure. Rather, its position on
the grammar-lexis cline can be shown to be strikingly volatile. In the concluding
section, some consequences arising from the notion of lexical grammar are outlined.
