Re: USAGE: 'born'

From: "Dennis Paul Himes" <dennis@...>
> > The canonical example English speakers know is "se habla español",
> > 'Spanish is spoken'.
>
>     It's odd, but I never would have interpreted that as a passive, despite
> the fact that it gets translated into a passive in English.  I think of that
> as the impersonal subject use of the reflexive, as in "One speaks Spanish."
> It obviously can be interpreted as passive, though (hence the English
> translation).
But that is what the passive is, though, isn't it?  The subject-agent of the
active sentence is demoted, and the patient of the active sentence becomes the
new subject.  English demotes it by moving it to an oblique phrase (Spanish is
spoken _by us_) or by deletion (Spanish is spoken).  These Spanish forms appear
to demote by resorting to the indirect, reflexive pronoun <se>.  Er... what?

<begin heavily oblique thinking>

Hmm.  The English passive is a4 P1 (weak agent in oblique case, strong patient
in agent's case).

    We speak  Spanish.
    A1 active P2

    Spanish is spoken (by us).
    P1      passive   a4

    [Nosotros] hablamos español.
    A1         active   P2

    Se   habla   español.
    *a4  passive P1
  ->(p)  passive P1

It can't work the same way as English, because *a4 doesn't correspond to
'nosotros'.  If it corresponds to anything (it may not at all) then it would be
'español'.  Or, perhaps more clearly:

    They call   me Angel.
    A1   active P2

    I  am called Angel (by them).
    P2 passive         a4

    [Ellos] me llaman Angel.
    A1      P2 active

    [Yo] me   llamo   Angel.
    P1   *a4  passive
  ->P1   (p)  passive

..or not.  Now I've completely confused myself.  The 'reflexive' pronoun here is
clearly not impersonal 'se' so its referent is easier to spot ('yo').

>     However, in "Se habla español" the subject is the object of the active
> form of the sentence, "Alguien habla español".  That is not true of "María
> se nació".  Both "María se nació" and "María nació" have the same
> subject.  "Nacer" is not a transitive verb, as "hablar" is, and, to me at
> least, "passive" (as a "function") doesn't have a meaning when applied to
> an intransitive verb.
I think I am learning the term here... This "passivization" of an intransitive
verb (and possibly the transitive ones too?) would actually be making a
*mediopassive*/middle verb, wouldn't it?

What's the connection between ergative, mediopassive, and reflexive?  Many of
the quotes the OED lists under 'mediopassive' tend to list two or all of them at
once, but being isolated quotes I can't get much.  (Though one says "A
reflexive--hence, by ergative criteria, mediopassive--form of the verb. [...] In
keeping with the ergative focus, the object (non-ergator) is retained formally
in an intransitive, mediopassive form, there being no external agent of the
action described.")

A preliminary search tells me a change like what appears to happen in Spanish
(reflexive becoming passive) occurred in Late Common Watakassí[1], and actually
a reverse change (the passive becoming the mediopassive/unergative) happened in
Teonaht; 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 :|

    *Muke!
[1] This may of course no longer be current.  I wonder what kind of hideous
conlang might be reconstructed if all the comments and examples I've posted
about my lang to the list were collated and made into a grammar?

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