"participated in by"

[sallie]

Dear Teachers,

The following is the headline of an article.

>> Power of electric power plants installed, participated in by and attributable to ACCIONA at June 30, 2006

"ACCIONA" is the name of a company. What I want to know is, is "participated in by" ungrammatical? Why or why not?

Thanks for your help.

[BobK]

I'd say it was on the borderline of grammaticality; others may disagree. The newspaper presumably got this from a press release, issued by Acciona. The Marketing Department wanted to say 'Acciona installs power plants', but the Legal Department objected on the grounds that Acciona only participated in the installation, and advised the use of the passive voice because lawyers like that stuff. The result is the horror you have before you: 'participated in by'. A passive rarely works with a phrasal verb. I'm not sure I'd call it ungrammatical though; it just tends to hinder comprehension - so I'd avoid it anyway.

b

[sallie]

Dear BobK,

Thank you very much for your help! I like your explanation. :)