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Old 10-Mar-2007, 12:42
Andrew Whitehead Andrew Whitehead is offline
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Default Re: The book reads well.

Quote:
I don't agree. You said it was colloquial in usage
I say it is colloquial because I have never actually heard anybody say it, though I have heard 1970s teenagers say 'the car drives well' so I put it in the same category.


Quote:
I see no sense in saying that non-native speakers are expected to show standards that are not expected of native speakers, and nothing to see that this is colloquial.
Where did I say they were? I said they should be aware that is not standard (with a small 's') English, and then make up their own minds. I use plenty of non-standard, colloquial, or just plain trendy phrases, but I wouldn't stand in front of my students and tell them it is common usage and every native speaker in the world is using them. That, IMO, is both misleading and bad teaching.

There is a huge difference between using unusual phrases for effect, and using them through ignorance.


Casiopea...

I could grow to like you!

Mediopassive. You may be right, and I am not confident enough to say you are wrong .

'The book reads well' is sometimes given as an example of mediopassive, on Wikipedia for instance, but I have a bit of trouble with the idea of 'read' having a stative meaning because it fails most of the Dowty tests for a stative verb.

Specifically, 'read'
1) occurs in a continuous form.
2) can be used as an imperative.
3) can be used as a complement of 'force'.

which all indicate that it has no stative form.

Compare with 'like' as an example, which we all know is stative and
1) rarely occurs in the continuous ('I like you' not 'I am liking you')
2) would sound ridiculous as an imperative
3) makes little sense as a complement of 'force' ("I forced her to like beef"?)
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