PASSIVIZATION 2

Middle verbs
A. - small group of transitive verbs that do NOT normally occur in the passive inaccurate explanation
"We have a house." But NOT: A house is had by us.
"This does not fit me." But NOT: I am not fitted by this.
B. In the following examples, sentence (i) is active, and sentence (ii) is
passive. Sentence (iii) shows a third possibility; here the object of the
equivalent active sentence is in the subject position (like passive) but
there is no auxiliary verb or special passive morphology. Examples like
(iii) are called MIDDLE. a better explanation
(29) (i) The cook melted the ice.
(ii) The ice was melted (by the cook).
(iii) The ice melted.
(30) (i) The torpedo sank the boat.
(ii) The boat was sunk.
(iii) The boat sank.
(31) (i) Maxine accepted the parcel.
(ii) The parcel was accepted.
(iii) *The parcel accepted.
(32) (i) The birds resembled fish.
(ii) *Fish were resembled.
(iii) *Fish resembled.
(a) Why are some of the above sentences ungrammatical in the
middle form (iii)? Test your hypothesis by making up some more
examples.
(b) Explain why The lion killed cannot mean that the lion ended up
dead. (Compare The boat sank ((iii) in example (30)) where the
boat ends up sunk.)
Other verbs that cannot form passive sentences
Explanation: passivization happens to certain sentences that have the potential for it.
The potential varies depending on the semantic quality of the subject and object (see
Syntax notes 1). In other words, some verbs are more transitive than others. The
more transitive verbs can get passivized, the less transitive verbs dont. The
degree in which the object is affected by the action of the verb indicates the potential
for passivization.
The more transitive verbs have agent and causer subjects (see Semantic roles of the
subject in Syntax notes 1) and affected direct objects.
The less transitive verbs have experiencer subjects and their direct objects are not
really affected by the action of the verb usually with sensory (see, taste etc.) and
psych-verbs (hate, loathe, love etc.), but also other categories such as possession
(have, exception own*) verbs and reciprocal (resemble) verbs.

Verbs with preposition vs multi-word verbs (phrasal verbs)

This rule is frowned upon by the senior staff. (VP= V + PP+PPby)
vs
The killer was tracked down by the police. [The killer was found by the police]
(VP=Vmulti-vb+PPby)