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Originally Posted by Casiopea  The verbs in question are both active and passive: syntactically active (i.e., their morphology) but semantically passive (i.e., their roles). Break, wash, and read are done to the glass, the clothes, and the book, respectively, by someone. |
This is where we differ. Read, as a mental activity, cannot be seen as symantically passive. Read is not something you do
to a book: the book never changes. Glass breaks: the glass changes. Wash clothes: the clothes change. Read a book: the book stays the same while the reader changes.
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What about the implied doer here?
Ex: The book reads well (for me).
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The implied doer is the book, and we are back to square one. Books can't read!
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Originally Posted by Casiopea only read "feels" awkward. Could the reason for that be that read is not all that common in both passive voice? |
It feels awkward because it is a mental activity that acts on the person doing the reading, making it different to verbs like wash and break - it has no stative quality.
In mediopassive the verb has to have a stative quality. Not every verb has that, so not every verb can be used in mediopassive. My view is that 'reads' is one of those non-passive verbs that shouldn't be used this way.