Korean Job Discussion Forums

[raewon]

I have another question on the passive sturcture - this time on changing commands to passives. Although I could not find any information in my grammar books, I found the following on an Internet site:

[transmogrifier]

I don't know about the first question; to me "Do the job" and "Let the job be done" have completely different meanings. Also, I would never bother to teach that passive imperative structure because it is uncommon and, well, pointless. So, I don't know.

As for the second case, there are many verbs that can take two objects (one direct, one indirect) and most allow them to be switched (with to/for added to the indirect object if it is second). However, there are some that take two objects, but don't allow switching (e.g. ask).

As far as I know, "boil" allows switching (e.g. He boiled me some water/He boiled some water for me). But you have to consider the context. I am accustomed to "me/him/her/you" as the indirect objects by themselves immediately followed by the object being boiled.

I'll boil you water.
I'll boil him water.
I'll boil them water.

BUT

"her" is complicated because it can also be used as a possessive rather than changing form like the others (i.e. him/his, them/their, her/her).

So when you do something like this:

I'll boil her kids water.

many people are initially going to read "her" as the object given the standard pattern above, and "kids" as the thing being boiled. But then "water" comes along, and the reader is momentarily like "Huh?" making it seems as if the sentence has a grammatical error rather than it simply being a problem with the context. A sentence like:

I boiled his kids some water.

Reads fine because there is no mistaking "his" as the direct object. Even the basic sentence:

I'll boil her water.

has an element of confusion. Am I boiling water for her? Or am I boiling water that she owns for some other purpose? All because "her" as an object and "her" as a possessive are the same word. A good writer would switch both to:

I'll boil water for her kids.
I'll boil water for her.

To avoid this confusion, even though the originals aren't grammatically incorrect.

[raewon]

Thanks for the reply.

As for putting imparitives in the passive, I'm not sure when they would be used either. But the following sounds possible.

Punish the prisoners. > Let the prisoners be punished. (said by a King?)

Perhaps in the same way, the original sentence could be OK?

Do the task. > Let the task be done. (again, said by a ruler?)


Hmm....maybe not.....

[transmogrifier]

I can imagine something like:

"The prisoners are to be punished" or "This room is to be cleaned"

as indirect imperatives, but not "Let the prisoners be punished" which has the connotation of allowing something to happen, rather than ordering it to be so. But as I said, it may be a use of "let" I haven't encountered before, but I wouldn't bring it within miles of the classroom.