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
> 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?
> A better way to look at it is to consider
> that there are 3 actors in the sentence, jon, ben, and the fish, and 6
> possible
> permutations, some of which are ungrammatical in English.
> ben jon fish ben makes jon eat the fish
> ben fish jon ben makes jon be eaten by the fish
> jon ben fish *ben is made by jon to eat the fish
> jon fish ben *ben is made to be eaten by the fish by jon
> fish jon ben *ben is made to be eaten by jon by the fish
> fish ben jon ben is made to eat jon by the fish
In my idiolect as an English speaker, I personally consider sentence 3
> jon ben fish *ben is made by jon to eat the fish
(which you feel is ungrammatical) grammatical and prefer it to the
structure of sentence 6
> fish ben jon ben is made to eat jon by the fish
(which you feel is grammatical) which, while not *ungrammatical* per se,
sounds a little strained to me.
If you agree with that premise, then solving the double causative
passive quandry is a snap (at least for English) -- simply move one of
the prepositional phrases forward in the sentence.
> jon fish ben *ben is made to be eaten by the fish by jon
becomes: Ben is made by Jon to be eaten by the fish.
> fish jon ben *ben is made to be eaten by jon by the fish
becomes: Ben is made by the fish to be eaten by Jon.
> fish ben jon ben is made to eat jon by the fish
becomes: Ben is made by the fish to eat Jon.
Again, these are perfectly grammatical, if unusual, sentences for me.
Dunno if this is an option open to your lang or not.
Kou