Re: USAGE: 'born'

From: "Nik Taylor" <fortytwo@...>
> Muke Tever wrote:
> > Nik Taylor wrote:
> > > How's that a passive of "to be born"?  That's a passive of "to give
> > > birth", it seems to me.
> > It would be *in English*, because we don't have a morphological way to
passivize
> > 'be born', and it has to be done lexically.  The passive means the subject
is
> > acted on, and if the active means the subject is the baby coming into the
world
> > ('being born'), then the passive would be the baby being brought into the
world
> > ('being given birth to'), wouldn't it?
>
> Right ... if something is acting on something else, it's transitive,
> i.e., "give birth to", or if you prefer "cause to be born".
But again that's reversing it.
"to give birth to" and "to cause to be born" are transitive verbs, yes, but they
are what the *mother* does.
"to be given birth to" is a passive verb *whose subject is the baby* but with
the implied agent being the mother.

    Jane gave birth to Mary.
    Mary was born.
    Mary was given birth to. (...shouldn't there be more sentence?)

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?)

[I don't actually know a Spanish verb for 'to give birth'.]

> > <se X> is also used as a (medio-)passive verb form. ["se habla español..."]
> > And in any case, a reflexive of 'to die' is equally nonexistent in English
> > for the same reason, isn't it?  If it's "intransitive", it can't take a
> > reflexive, because the reflexive takes an object (which is the same as the
> > subject)?
>
> Spanish reflexive is sometimes used with intransitive verbs as a sort of
> "strengthening", like "Me voy" *"I'm going myself" for "I'm leaving"
My understanding is that that use of <se X> is middle voice, not reflexive.  [At
least, that's what the other list said it was when they had that discussion on
whatshisface's "El hombre se es".]


    *Muke!

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