phrase usage - Why is the verb form "am been" always grammatically incorrect?

As I understand it, "I am been" is a sentence similar to "I am mistaken". How can one of the sentences in the two sentences of similar structure be incorrect? Doesn't "I am been" mean that someone is being me or perhaps someone was me? Is it incorrect just because it is not used for communication?

I guess, there can be one use of am been. Suppose, there were a robot which could transform itself into any human, say me. Now I will say:

I am been the robot.

Means that, I was being that robot.

I was told that the phrase "I am been something" means that something was being me which is incorrect, because no one can be me. But I created a hypothetical robot which can be me.

Many people have told me that am been can never be correct. I've seen phrases like "I am told", "I am fallen", "I am sick" etc. I don't understand why I am been is incorrect.

Please explain in simple English; I do not know grammar.

Answer

Short answer

The reason that I am been is ungrammatical is that a Predicative Complement cannot become the Subject of a passivised sentence.

Main answer

The sentence

must be considered a passive sentence. The reason is that the auxiliary verb, BE, can only function with another verb as part of a continuous or a passive construction. In a continuous construction it is followed by the gerund-participle form, ---ing. In the passive it is followed by a past participle ( --ed, unless the following verb is irregular). Here am is followed by a past participle been, not a present participle form being and so the grammar says that the sentence must be passive. Really, I should say the grammar says that the sentence must be passive until we look at it properly. When we look at it properly, we can see that this is not a (grammatical) sentence at all.

Let us deal with "I am been the robot" first. Here the Original Poster says that the robot is the thing that is being me. Maybe we can think of this as a kind of action. But in a passive sentence, if we want to show the person doing the action we need to use the preposition by. There is no word by in this sentence, so it cannot be grammatical.

a) Complements

Back to the main sentence I am been. To understand why this sentence is not good we need to understand a bit about verbs and what kinds of complements they take. A complement is word or phrase that has a special relationship with the verb. Verbs often make a space, or 'slot' for a special type of phrase. All verbs make a special space for Subject phrase in a normal, canonical sentence. (A normal, canonical sentence means an active voice, declarative sentence.)

At the moment, we are concerned with the extra phrases, the extra complements, that a verb takes. We can use some verbs with no other complements. Some take one complement, some take two, some even take three.

1. Bob smokes


2. Bob eats [cheese]


3. Bob gives [his elephants] [donuts]


4. Bob bet [his wife] [fifty pounds] [that Obama will win the election]

To make a passive sentence, we change the grammar, and one of these complements becomes the subject of the new sentence. The meaning stays the same, but the information is organised in a different way in the sentence.

If we look at sentence (1), we cannot make a passive with this sentence, because there is no complement to become the new subject! This is obvious. But how about sentences that do have other complements?

The complements of a verb can do different jobs in the sentence. They can have different functions. How many complements a verb can have depends on the verb. And what functions these complements can have also depends on the verb. We have already talked about one function, the function of Subject. In normal sentences Subjects come before the verb. In this question, we are interested in the complements that usually come after the verb. Look at the following sentences:

5. Bob punched [the bank manager]


6. My elephant resides [in a zoo]


7. The patient became [very ill]


8. The patient became [a bank manager]

In (5) the bank manager has the function of OBJECT. It happens to describe the thing that undergoes the punching described by the verb. In (6), however, the phrase in the zoo is different. The phrase in the zoo explains the place where the residing is happening, but the zoo isn't the receiver of some residing action. Nobody resides the zoo. The term for the this type of complement in (6) is a LOCATIVE COMPLEMENT. Notice that it does not provide some kind of extra, unnecessary information. It is not an adjunct (adverbial). The verb RESIDE sets up a special space for a locative complement. If we do not have one the sentence is ungrammatical:

• *My elephant resides (ungrammatical)


• My elephant resides here (grammatical).

In sentences (7, 8), the phrases very ill and a bank manager have the function of PREDICATIVE COMPLEMENTS. In both cases the phrases very ill and a bank manager give us information about the Subject. In (7) very ill describes a quality of the patient. In (8), a bank manager is an attribute of the patient, it is not an extra person or thing. Notice that example (8) only talks about one person. There is only one participant in the 'becoming a bank manager' process. Notice that what we care about here is what type of job or function the phrases have. It is not important whether they are adjectives or nouns (or adjective phrases or noun phrases) and so on. Both very ill and bank manager are predicative complements, even though very ill is an adjective phrase and bank manager is a noun phrase.

Some verbs, like PUT need an Object Complement and a Locative complement:

9. We put the elephant in the zoo. (Object=elephant;Locative Complement=in the zoo)


10. *We put the elephant. (Ungrammatical, no Locative Complement)


11. *We put in the zoo. (ungrammatical, no Object)

Some verbs like APPOINT can take an Object Complement and a Predicative Complement:

• The board appointed Bob Managing Director.

Here Bob is an Object, but Managing Director is a Predicative Complement. Managing Director describes Bob at the end of the appointing process. It does not introduce an extra person. There are only two participants in this appointing process, the board and Bob. The phrase Managing Director does not give us a third participant.

Some verbs like GIVE may take two Object Complements:

• I gave the elephant a donut

In the sentence above, both elephant and donut are Objects of the verb gave. Both of the elephant and a donut describe participants who are acted upon in the giving process. The elephant and a donut are slightly different types of Object, their relationships with the verb are slightly different - but this difference is not important today.

Notice one very important aspect of verbs that take Objects. The sentences that these verbs appear in usually have at least two things or people who are participants in the situation described. Notice that in Bob punched the bank manager there are two people involved in the action. But in the patient became a bank manager, there is only one person; the bank manager is the patient. Predicative Complements do not describe an actual extra person or thing taking part in the action or relationship described.

Compare the following:

• Bob was being an idiot.


• Bob was punching an idiot.

In the first sentence, there is only one person taking part in the being an idiot activity. The phrase an idiot is not a separate person taking part in the action with Bob. An idiot is not an Object of being here. But in the second sentence an idiot is a second person involved in the punching an idiot action. Here, an idiot does happen to be an Object Complement. Now consider the sentence:

• I was being a Robot

Here Robot is not an Object of being. This is not surprising, because the sentence only describes one actor in the sentence: me. The same of course is true if the Robot decides to be me, Araucaria:

• The Robot was being Araucaria.


• The Robot was being me.

Here again there is only one actor actually involved in this sentence. Both the phrases Araucaria and me describe something about the Robot's behaviour, or appearance. But neither Araucaria nor me are separate actors in the sentence. These senetnces are describing the actions of a single person, a single entity. Neither Araucaria nor me is an Object Complement here.

b) Functions are about grammar, not meaning

Now, I have described some of these functions vaguely in terms of their meaning, but in reality, these meanings are just a guideline to help us see what kind of complement a phrase might be in a declarative sentence. They can help us guess what kind of grammatical job a phrase might have. We didn't talk, for example, about Subjects, but if we did, we might say, for example, that in declarative sentences Subjects are usually actors of some sort. We might say that they are agents. But although this might be a good way of helping us guess the Subject, it is not always true. For example in the sentence:

• Pip seems a nice guy

Pip is not doing anything! Similarly in the sentence:

• There's a new president!

The word there does not describe anything at all. Very importantly, in a passive sentence the subject is often the person receiving the action. The action is being done to the Subject. The Subject may not be doing anything at all:

• The bank manager was punched by Bob.

Here, the bank manager is not doing anything. Subject describes a grammatical or syntactic relationship in the sentence. And subjects really need to be defined by syntax, not by meaning. The kinds of properties that subjects have, for example, include changing places, inverting, with auxiliary verbs to make questions:

• Does Pip seem a nice guy?



• Is there a new president?


• Was the bank manager punched by Bob?

Here we see Pip, there and the bank manager occurring after different verbs to form questions. Another property of Subjects of sentences is that when they are pronouns that take case, the pronouns will be nominative, not accusative:

• He seems a nice guy


• He was punched by Bob.

Above we see the subjects represented by nominative case he, not accusative case him or genitive his.

Now Object Complements and Predicative Complements really need to be defined by syntax, by grammar, not by meaning, not just by the thematic roles that these phrases have in the sentence. In reality, this it is quite hard to do. However, there are some important things we can say. When a verb takes a Predicative Complement this complement can be either a noun phrase or an adjective phrase. Compare the verb BECOME, which takes Predicative Complements, and the verb MEET which takes Objects:

• The patient became very ill (PC adjective phrase)


• The patient became a bank manager (PC noun phrase)


• The patient met the doctor (Object noun phrase)


• *The patient met ugly (Ungrammatical, Object adjective phrase)

Verbs that take Predicative Complements can usually take bare role noun phrases. This means a singular noun phrase without a or the which denotes some kind of title. Verbs that take Objects cannot usually take bare role noun phrases:

• The patient became Managing Director (Bare role noun phrase as Predicative Complement)


• *The Patient met Managing Director (Ungrammatical, bare role noun phrase as Object).

Another property of Predicative Complements is that in a very formal style of English, Predicative Complements may have nominative case, if they are pronouns. Direct Object usually cannot:

• Who goes there? It is I. (Nominative I as Predicative Complement)


• It was he who left, not I. (Nominative he as Predicative Complement)


• Who did he punch? *He punched I. (Ungrammatical. I as Object)


• I recognise he who left you. (Ungrammatical. he as Object)

c) Predicative Complements, Objects and Passives

We said at the beginning of this post that to make a passive sentence from an active voice sentence, we need to change the Subject. One of the (non-subject) Complements of the acitve sentence, needs to become the Subject of the passive. However, we need to be more specific. Probably the most important grammatical difference between Objects and Predicative Complements, is that

• Object Complements can become the Subjects of passivised sentences. Predicative Complements cannot

Predicative Complements in active voice sentences cannot become the Subjects of passivised sentences. If we look at all the sentences with Objects in this post, we can passivise them and make any of the Objects the Subjects of the passive sentences:

Active sentence with Object Complement

• Bob eats cheese


• Bob gives his elephants donuts


• Bob bet his wife fifty pounds that Obama will win the election


• Bob punched the bank manager.



• Bob was punching an idiot.


• We put the elephant in the zoo


• The board appointed Bob Managing Director.


• The patient met the doctor

Passive version

• Cheese is eaten (by Bob)


• Donuts are given to the elephants (by Bob)


• The elephants are given donuts (by Bob)



• Fifty pounds was bet that Obama will win the election (by Bob)


• Bob's wife was bet fifty pound that Obama will win the election (by Bob)


• The bank manager was punched (by Bob)


• An idiot was being punched (by Bob)


• The elephant was put in the zoo (by us)


• Bob was appointed Managing Director (by the board)


• The doctor was met (by the patient)

However if we take the sentences with Predicative Complements or Locative Complements and try to passivise them, the passives will all be ungrammatical - because—even though Objects can—Predicative Complements cannot become the Subjects of passive sentences. Neither can Locative Complements :

Active sentence with Predicative or Locative Complement

• The patient became very ill.


• The patient became a bank manager.


• Pip seems a nice guy.


• My elephant resides here.


• The board appointed Bob Managing Director.


• Bob was being an idiot


• It is I Claudius.


• I was being a robot.


• The robot was being me.

Ungrammatical passive sentence

• *Very ill was become (by the patient)


• *A bank manager was become (by the patient)


• *A nice guy is seemed (by Pip)


• *Here is resided (by my elephant)


• *Managing Director was appointed Bob (by the board)


• *An idiot was being been (by Bob)


• *I, Claudius am been by it.



• *A robot was being been (by me)


• *I was being been (by the robot)

We can add to this the Original Poster's Sentence:

• The robot is me. (me as Predicative Complement)


• *I am been the robot. (Ungrammatical: Predicative Complement passivised to Subject)

Notice that me in the Original Poster's example is still a Predicative Complement. There is no extra person taking part in the being me process. The robot is the only participant in the being me action!

Conclusion

Predicative Complements of active voice sentences cannot become the Subjects of passivised sentences.