Re: USAGE: 'born'

From: "Dennis Paul Himes" <dennis@...>
> > > > 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.
'Reflexive' is the name for the *form*, and possibly the major use of it, but
its functions range from reflexive to middle to passive.

> Spanish has a lot of idiomatic uses of the reflexive, but I
> don't believe passive is one of them.
Oy.
http://www.businessspanish.com/LECCION/passive.htm
http://spanish.about.com/homework/spanish/library/weekly/aa100200a.htm
http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ecall/reglas/pron_se.html

The canonical example English speakers know is "se habla español", 'Spanish is
spoken'.

>     Disclaimer: I am not a native speaker, nor particularly fluent.
I am, unfortunately, a third-degeneration speaker.  [Somebody mentioned a
canonical model for families new to the country to be linguistically
assimilated.  The immigrants rely mainly on their mother tongue, and use it with
everybody; their children learn both languages, but only use the old one with
their parents; _their_ children may learn both, but almost never use the old one
themselves. I'm in that last stage, where I can understand it as given but my
production faculties are ... underdeveloped.]

     *Muke!

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