Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Whitehead  In "the clothes wash well" there is a syntactical link between 'clothes' and 'wash' - 'wash' happens to the clothes.
In "the glass breaks easily" there is a syntactical link between 'glass' and 'breaks' - 'break' happens to the glass
In "the book reads well' there is no syntactical link between 'book' and 'reads' - reads doesn't happen to the book, it is performed by an actor. |
Very nice explanation. However, that
is exactly how mediopassive verbs (not middle verbs) are described.
Wash and
break can be either middle or mediopassive, whereas
read cannot. The latter two admit ambiguity,
read does not:
The clothes wash well.
middle: they wash themselves
mediopassive: they are washable
The glass breaks well.
middle: it breaks itself
mediopassive: it is breakable
The book reads well.
middle: it reads itself
mediopassive: it is readable
In short,
read is not a middle verb; it's mediopassive. It doesn't have a 'deep subject', whereas
wash and
break can in middle voice. We could, of course, interpret
read as having a deep subject, but that would make it a middle voice verb, or rather a semantically awkward middle voice verb, as you well know.