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Re: Copula

From:Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 20, 2007, 15:30
Hi!

MorphemeAddict@WMCONNECT.COM writes:
> In a message dated 3/20/2007 10:03:11 AM Central Daylight Time, > theiling@ABSINT.COM writes: > > > > indirect passive voice: > > Ich kriege den Zahn gezogen. > > 'I=NOM get the=ACC tooth pulled.' > > > > Is this standard? I've never seen this before.
Yes, it's standard. For a more formal or written register, you should use 'bekommen' instead of the more colloquial 'kriegen'. Anyway, I don't know the exact constraints when this is perfectly acceptable -- some sentences sound ungrammatical in indirect passive. I think the verb must be clearly ditransitive, not transitive with indirect object: Ich vergebe Dir. I=NOM forgive you=DAT *Du kriegst vergeben. You=NOM get forgiven. I suppose the direct object must not be optional, since the above sentence is even ungrammatical with a direct object: *Du kriegst das Schummeln vergeben. You=NOM get the=ACC cheating forgiven. I'd know the intension of that sentence, but spoken as a Chinese: I would not say this myself. :-) Hmm, I found some hits with Google for 'vergeben kriegen', which finds only a subset of possible usages -- at least two hits are really indirect passive voice. But at least one of them uses quite colloquial German around that hit, however. Maybe someone else knows the constraints when this is usable? **Henrik