Soup
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Dawnstorm, I enjoyed reading your post.
[1] I agree that passivisation is not a reliable test (i.e., that all transitive verbs can be passivised is not true); its the verb's meaning that plays the major role and the example change trains as in to transfer is a perfect example of this: transfer money (to move the money from here to there) and transfer trains (to move oneself from here to there) express different meanings, and it is the words money and trains that make that difference possible--pragmatics, as you have pointed out.
[2] adverbial complements answer the questions where, when, etc; e.g. she is upstairs. In chang[ing] trains, the noun trains isn't a place or a time, which makes it seem unlikely that it's adverbial in function.
[3] Could you explain the following point further?
[1] I agree that passivisation is not a reliable test (i.e., that all transitive verbs can be passivised is not true); its the verb's meaning that plays the major role and the example change trains as in to transfer is a perfect example of this: transfer money (to move the money from here to there) and transfer trains (to move oneself from here to there) express different meanings, and it is the words money and trains that make that difference possible--pragmatics, as you have pointed out.
[2] adverbial complements answer the questions where, when, etc; e.g. she is upstairs. In chang[ing] trains, the noun trains isn't a place or a time, which makes it seem unlikely that it's adverbial in function.
[3] Could you explain the following point further?
As far as participant roles are concerned, I'd ask who's involved with "changing trains". If the context takes care of "trains", you can just leave it off.
"Take the train for Brighton and change at East Croydon Station for East Grinstead then follow directions above."