Re: Copula

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