Teacher Discussion Forums

Do you see anything wrong with the sentence below, grammatically?

Only transitive verbs can passivize.

Oh, you sly devil!

Larry Latham

Epimenides.

LarryLatham wrote:Oh, you sly devil!

Larry Latham

Me?

So, what do you think?

JuanTwoThree wrote:Epimenides.

Have you seen a doctor?

No, M56, I don't see anything wrong with either the sentence grammar or with the message.

Verbs can be derived from many nouns by adding a -ize suffix. That's a rule. (itemize, powerize, traumatize)

If you want to passiveize a verb, you make its grammatical object the sentence subject. But intransitive verbs do not require an object, hence there would be nothing available to subjectize.

Larry Latham

What do you think?

But does a verb passivize, or is it passivized?

And, as a Brit, I'm not sure if I prefer the spelling passivize or passivise. They both look wrong to me.

LarryLatham wrote:No, M56, I don't see anything wrong with either the sentence grammar or with the message.

Verbs can be derived from many nouns by adding a -ize suffix. That's a rule. (itemize, powerize, traumatize)

If you want to passiveize a verb, you make its grammatical object the sentence subject. But intransitive verbs do not require an object, hence there would be nothing available to subjectize.

Larry Latham

What do you think?

I have no problem with the verb passivise, it's just that the OED gives it as both trans. and intrans. but the Cambridge International dictinary gives it as only trans. .

If it were only trans. then, according to some forumites, on other fora, the thread sentence would not be possible - no direct object.

lolwhites wrote:But does a verb passivize, or is it passivized?

Does it passivise itself and, as a consequence, the sentence? Or, is it passivised along with the sentence?

If it were only trans. then, according to some forumites, on other fora, the thread sentence would not be possible - no direct object.

Did you mean to say, "If it were only intrans..."?

Larry Latham

" " The ergativization of transitives"
The fact that ergativization is common in modern English has not gone unnoticed in the literature.
For example, Keyser and Roeper (1984) observe the productivity of the ergative pattern in modern
scientific and bureaucratic English, as reflected, for instance, in the ergativization of processes
expressed by verbs ending in -ize (oxidize, federalize, etc.). They immediately add, however, that not
all -ize forms ergativize, but that it involves a combination of ize and the properties base form."

www.univ-lille3.fr/silex/equipe/lemmens ... hronic.PDF

I found this when I was looking for something else ( things like "walking the dog" and "marching the soldiers" actually)

I doubt if passivize has been around as a word for long. If I'm right, it seems to me that passivize, or ergativize for that matter, can be what it wants to be. It's far too early for dictionaries that do cite the words (Chambers doesn't, nor does Webster on-line) to describe, let alone prescribe, their (in)transitivity. Half the first ten mentions of passivize on Google Scholar use it with an object, half without.

Anyway somebody (Halliday?) once gave a figure for how many verbs ergativize (are ergativized) every year and it ran into the tens if not hundreds. The dictionaries can damn well catch up. Who's running this show?

LarryLatham wrote:

If it were only trans. then, according to some forumites, on other fora, the thread sentence would not be possible - no direct object.

Did you mean to say, "If it were only intrans..."?

Larry Latham

I'll reword that. Many forumites on other fora have claimed that the sentence "Only transitive verbs can passivize." is, in itself, an incorrect construction. Why? Because they see "passivise" as only being able to be used transitively (and therefore needing a direct object). I told them that my use was intransitive (no direct object needed) but they refused to accept that use.

Does this mean that the verb passivize (passivise?) works a bit like grow so that a verb can passivize or be passivized in the same way that potatoes can grow or be grown?

metal56 wrote:I'll reword that. Many forumites on other fora have claimed that the sentence "Only transitive verbs can passivize." is, in itself, an incorrect construction. Why? Because they see "passivise" as only being able to be used transitively (and therefore needing a direct object). I told them that my use was intransitive (no direct object needed) but they refused to accept that use.

Ahhh... Perhaps we can take a hint from JTT above and suggest that "passivize", in your sentence, is an ergative verb (in contrast to intransitive, although I'll confess that the exact nature of the contrast is a bit fuzzy to me), not requiring a complement.

Reading through some of the earlier posts again, I'm struck here by lolwhites question, and M56's expansion of it, "Does the verb passivize itself, and therefore the sentence, or is it passivized by some process?" If the original sentence is a true statement, then exactly what is it that transitive verbs can passivize? Hmmmm... Looks to me like both verbs and sentences can be passivized (you can speak of a passive verb, or of a passive sentence), so now the question is, "Do verbs, themselves, do the passivizing?" Or is it the process of combining (be) with a past participle and arranging the other words in the sentence so that the agent of the action invoked is not the focus?

On the other hand (I'm really just letting my mind run, here (obviously )), perhaps the objections of M56's friends on other fora can be overcome if we say that, "Only transitive verbs can passivize" refers to the passivization of a sentence, but that M56's construction contains an ergative verb, and therefore does not require a complement.

Larry Latham

LarryLatham wrote:

metal56 wrote:I'll reword that. Many forumites on other fora have claimed that the sentence "Only transitive verbs can passivize." is, in itself, an incorrect construction. Why? Because they see "passivise" as only being able to be used transitively (and therefore needing a direct object). I told them that my use was intransitive (no direct object needed) but they refused to accept that use.

Ahhh... Perhaps we can take a hint from JTT above and suggest that "passivize", in your sentence, is an ergative verb (in contrast to intransitive, although I'll confess that the exact nature of the contrast is a bit fuzzy to me), not requiring a complement.

Reading through some of the earlier posts again, I'm struck here by lolwhites question, and M56's expansion of it, "Does the verb passivize itself, and therefore the sentence, or is it passivized by some process?" If the original sentence is a true statement, then exactly what is it that transitive verbs can passivize? Hmmmm... Looks to me like both verbs and sentences can be passivized (you can speak of a passive verb, or of a passive sentence), so now the question is, "Do verbs, themselves, do the passivizing?" Or is it the process of combining (be) with a past participle and arranging the other words in the sentence so that the agent of the action invoked is not the focus?

On the other hand (I'm really just letting my mind run, here (obviously )), perhaps the objections of M56's friends on other fora can be overcome if we say that, "Only transitive verbs can passivize" refers to the passivization of a sentence, but that M56's construction contains an ergative verb, and therefore does not require a complement.

Larry Latham

Can you take a look at this and tell me if * needs a direct object?

Hoy! Is there an electrician in the house?

Teacher Dave: Right, listen up. Theme for today is "control objectives" and how to make a generator passive.

Student Stan: (Engrossed in a thin paperback) Uh? Oh great!

Teacher Dave: Are you listening?

Student Stan: Uh-huh.

Teacher Dave: This is the generator.

Student Stan: Uh-huh. Mm-m.

Teacher Dave: This is the loop.

Student Stan: Loop?

Teacher Dave: The loop can passivize*.

Student Stan: Passivise what?

Teacher Dave: I feel like I'm in an Abbot and Costello sketch.

Student Stan: Uh?

Teacher Dave: Concentrate! And put that grammar book down!