Re: USAGE: 'born'

Muke Tever <alrivera@...> wrote:
>
> From: "Nik Taylor" <fortytwo@...>
> > Muke Tever wrote:
> > > If "to be born" was _lexically_ an *active* verb (like Sp. <nacer>),
> > > then its
> > > passive would mean something like "to be given birth to".
> > >
> > >     Maria nació.   "Mary was born."
> > >     Maria se nació.  "Mary was born [PASS]"
> > >         (which makes me want to ask: ¿Cómo se nació Maria?)
> >
> > Nacerse is not a legal verb in Spanish.
>
> I don't see why not.  People use it, in any event.
    You both seem to be missing the point that nacerse is not passive.  It's
reflexive.  Spanish has a lot of idiomatic uses of the reflexive, but I
don't believe passive is one of them.  One use is to emphasize the subject's
role in the sentence, e.g. ir "to go", irse "to leave".  (I can vividly
remember parents at a little league game I was umpiring shouting "!Se va!"
when the first baseman had his foot off the bag during a would-be force
out.)  Another is to indicate commencement, e.g. dormir "to sleep",
dormirse "to go to sleep".  Another is to indicate an indefinite subject,
e.g. ?Como se vende una casa?  "How does one sell a house?"
    Disclaimer: I am not a native speaker, nor particularly fluent.
Hopefully some of the native speakers on the list (are you still around,
Pablo? Carlos?) can confirm this or else set me straight.

 ===========================================================================

             Dennis Paul Himes    <>    dennis@himes.connix.com
             homepage: http://www.connix.com/~dennis/dennis.htm
        Gladilatian page: http://www.connix.com/~dennis/glad/lang.htm

Disclaimer: "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle
brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as
the air."                      - Romeo & Juliet, Act I Scene iv Verse 96-99

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