Bas Aarts gives the following sentence as an example of a prepositional phrase (PP) functioning as a verb complement:
A. You can refer [PP to your notes] whenever you need to.
He argues that, unlike direct and indirect objects, these PP types of verb complements can't function as subjects of a passive sentence:
B. *To your notes can be referred by you whenever you need to
This example has made me wonder whether the following passive sentence is acceptable or not:
C. ?Your notes can be referred to by you whenever you need to
Please, ignore the rhyme in this example.
* indicates an ungrammatical sentence
? indicates a sentence I'm uncertain about its grammaticality
Best Answer
Well, let me answer the motivation part of your question first -- because it is the easy part! :D
Yes, PPs can function as the subjects of passives. For example:
"We spent [over a year] on this problem." <-- active voice
"[Over a year] was spent on this problem." <-- passive voice
Notice that the PP "over a year" is the direct object in #1, and the subject in #2. (Example #2 was borrowed from H&P's CGEL, page 646 bottom.)
EDIT 06/30/2015:
The beginning of this answer post has an example from H&P's CGEL that uses the phrase "over a year" as subject (in #2 "[Over a year] was spent on this problem"), but unfortunately that phrase might not clearly be a preposition phrase (PP). There could be a reasonable argument that it is a noun phrase (NP).
In light of this, I would like to use the following as examples where unquestionable PPs (e.g. "after Christmas") are functioning as object and subject:
"They won't consider [after Christmas], of course, to be soon enough." <-- active voice with PP as object
"[After Christmas] won't of course be considered to be soon enough." <-- passive voice with PP as subject
Example #3 is borrowed from H&P's CGEL, page 647, [37.ii.c]; and example #4 is borrowed from their text on that same page.
END of EDIT 06/30/2015:
As to your other part of your question, which deals with whether sentence #C is acceptable: the actual sentence is kind of awkward (due to "by you"), but in spite of that awkwardness, I can imagine a reasonable context where it would be acceptable. That is, it could be a context where your testing instructor is standing next to your desk and is explaining to you that you can use your notes during that test:
Notice that your example #C is a prepositional passive of your example #A. Here's a more prototypical example of a prepositional passive:
The trial judge repeatedly referred to [my previous instructor's book]. <-- active voice
[My previous instructor's book] was repeatedly referred to by the trial judge. <-- prepositional passive
CGEL also provides an example of a prepositional passive using the verb "refer (to)":
ASIDE: Note that the verb "refer (to)" is labeled as a prepositional verb by CGEL, and that its preposition "to" is considered to be a mobile specified preposition. CGEL discusses these topics, including the verb "refer", on pages 274-80.
After re-reading this part of your original post:
It seems to me that he is arguing that the PP of a prepositional verb can't function as the subject of a corresponding passive. I'm not sure if specific info related to that issue is in CGEL, but it might be. It's that, er, it might take a bit of more work to look into this, er, ... :)
NOTE: H&P's CGEL is the 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum (et al.), The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.