Re: Sensible passives (was: confession: roots)

On Tue, 8 May 2001 22:04:09 +0200, BP Jonsson <bpj@...> wrote:

>Swedish has the transitive _föda_ "give birth", as in _Hon ska föda
>imorgon_ "she is going to give birth tomorrow".  What the baby does is
>expressed with the passive of the same verb, e.g. _barnet ska födas
>imorgon_ "the child is going to be born tomorrow".
Which corresponds directly to Icelandic _fæða_; what you mention as the
passive, _födas_, corresponds to what is generally called middle voice in
Icelandic, _fæðast_. Is it any less a middle voice in Swedish (and other
Scandinavian langs, for that matter)?

In Icelandic, you have three distinct voices; active, middle, and passive:

"Hún fæðir"    (she gives birth)
"Hún fæðist"   (she is born.MIDDLE)
"Hún er fædd"  (she is born.PASSIVE)

(Where the passive formation is basically just the perfect combined
with 'to be' instead of 'to have')

Now, my feeling for Danish and the other Scandinavian languages, is that
the three corresponding forms work pretty much the same as in Icelandic:

(Danish)

"Hun föder"
"Hun födes"
"Hun er födt"

(I would list the Swedish equivalents, but I don't know the perfect form -
 "fött"?)

How are the functions of those three formations explained by Scandinavian
linguists?

---

On Wed, 9 May 2001 19:13:08 +0000, Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
wrote:

>16th cent. literal translation of Latin, I assume:
>..qui natus est ex Maria Virgine.
I'd really like to know why the "ex before consonant > e" rule works so
sporadically... in my study of Classical Latin, I'm instructed to use "e"
before consonants, and I notice it used that way at all times. However,
I've also noticed lots of texts, perhaps particularly mediaeval ones,
using "ex" at all times, such as above. My friend asked me about exactly
this thing today. All I could say is that later texts seem not to observe
the rule, and that it's always "ex" in word-composition. Any explanation?

Regards,
Óskar

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