Re: Passive Causatives

On Sun, 24 Jan 1999, Rhialto wrote:

> X forces Y to eat Z
> X forces Y to be eaten by Z
> X is forced to eat Y by Z
> *X is forced to be eaten by Y by Z
>
> Essentially, there are 2 verbs running in parallel, either or both of which
> could theoretically be passive. In English, the agents are distinguished by
> using the proposition 'by'. But when there are two agents, the meaning is
> confused. Admittedly, this is a very odd sentence structure, but how do
> natural languages make the last sentence clear?
The dative/focus case used with verbs like "give"
only make the problem worse ... not to mention
"W made X more Y than Z (did/is)".

I have played with using serial-verb constructions
to evade these problems, with some success.
Perhaps a more sophisticated use of switch-references
would help. I assume you don't favor relative clauses.