Re: Sensible passives (was: confession: roots)

Roger Mills wrote:


> as opposed to the more common {BORN}[pat (agt? ben?)]-- "Seymour was born" ~
> "Seymour was born ([to/of]) Ethel" (I'm unsure of Ethel's
> semantico-grammatical role)
The English historical evidence strongly suggests "agent" as the correct
role.  Consider the Apostle's Creed:  "Jesus Christ [...] who was [...]
born of the Virgin Mary."  Now in modern language we'd expect "born to",
so what is that "of" doing?

Well, in Early ModE "of" was the regular preposition of the agent:
"And being warned of [i.e. by] God in a dream that they should not return
to Herod, they departed into their own country another way."  (Matt. 2:12).

So we have an ordinary passive verb construction here.  And what is the
active form, of which "born" is the participle?  Why, "bear", to be sure.
"And she [Eve] again bare [past] his brother Abel." (Gen 4:2).

So that answers your other question.  English has, or had, a verb
that does exactly what you want, with three roles: agent, the mother;
patient, the child; beneficiary, the father.  "And Hagar bare [to] Abram
a son."  (Gen. 16:15).

> Same with die/kill-- with the added complication that there are many ways of
> dying and killing, which might need to be specified.
As with the classical examples (And will remember who made these up):

        On Tuesday I caused him to die, and on Friday he died.
        *On Tuesday I killed him, and on Friday he died.

--
There is / one art             || John Cowan <jcowan@...>
no more / no less              || http://www.reutershealth.com
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