Re: just curious.. ;)

I would classify them as middle voice; and disagree that the middle
is just a jumped up passive. [Historically, I think it's rather the
other way round, the passive developping from the middle, in IE.]

What the stew is doing is _clearly_ not active and it's clearly not
passive; nor is it reflexive because the D.O. and subject aren't
identical. It's in the middle! The middle is where the subject acts
upon, for or in reference to itself. Such verbs seem to fall in the
last of these categories.

All we'd need to do now is use the middle termination (which is null
in English). Probably won't happen though!

Padraic.

On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, Andreas Johansson wrote:

> David Peterson wrote:
> >     One of the functions might be the so-called "middle voice", which I
> >disagree with whole-heartedly--I think it's just a glorified passive with
> >no
> >agent.  Nevertheless, it's in phrases like "The stew cooks nicely" ("up" is
> >often added after the verb), "It eats like a meal", "It smells good"
> >(??!?!?).
>
> Odd - I'd never thought of "smells" in sentences like "It smells good" as
> anything but a plain, boring, active verb. Why would one characterize it as
> middle or passive voice?
>
>                                                  Andreas
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
>