Re: USAGE: 'born'

Dennis Paul Himes wrote:
>> some examples from the Teonaht page of English-like uses:
>>
>>     << The pork cooks up nicely
>>        The jacket wears well
>>        It feels soft
>>
>>        i.e.: The pork is being cooked up (by someone)
>>        The jacket is normally worn well (by anyone)
>>        It is felt to be soft (by the speaker). >>
>>
>> ...although this probably isn't relevant at all :|
>
>    These seems to be examples of the English phenomenon of verbs for which
>the object of the transitive form is the subject of the intransitive form.
>The canonical example is "break":  "The window broke; I broke it."
Yes and no.  According to Wallace Chafe's "Meaning and the Structure of
Language" (IIRC the title; publ. late 60s), which influenced me (and Kash)
greatly-- though it  may well now be old hat-- these are
1. Stative:  broken-- "the window is broken"
2. Inchoative:  'become broken' = intr. break-- "the window broke"
3. Causative (or caus/incho in many cases): 'cause-become-broken' = trans.
break
"I broke the window" (Engl. does not specify intention; some languages
would.)

Perhaps is a very broad sense, the verbs in Muke's examples are
inchoatives--
the pork [becomes cooked= cooks] easily (or quickly, in 10 minutes,  etc.) .
But I can't get this precise sense in all cases, e.g. "that book (or: "his
prose") reads easily" or "that piano plays nicely" where, in at least some
paraphrases, you get the sense of "can, able to"-- "you can read that book
easily, you can play that piano nicely (i.e. it has an easy action)."
Admittedly, there is a lot of overlap.

Reply