[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by Andrew Whitehead

You mean "Why do some grammar books say "The book reads well" is acceptable?" You can ask directly: I don't mind.

Acceptability... Open that cans of worms and this thread'll go on for years with this one says and that one says. My question was more along the lines of, where did mediopassive read come from?

Originally Posted by Andrew

You would probably be better asking [grammarians], as I am not privy to their thoughts,

OK. So, where do you think they got it from?

Originally Posted by Andrew

...but deduction (or cynicism!) comes up with four reasons:

1) They consider, as you do, that 'reads' has a stative quality.

Do I assume that?

Originally Posted by Andrew

2) They assume, by analogy, that if the structure is correct any verb can be inserted in there, stative quality or not.

OK. Explain this to me, because it sounds as if you're saying grammarians make up words and, moreover, in doing so they don't use rules.

Originally Posted by Andrew

3) They follow the herd and think it is acceptable because the grammar book says so.

First, what herd are they following? Aren't they, the grammarians, the supposed shepards?

Originally Posted by Andrew

4) If a lot of people are using it, it must be right.

And, yet, you don't seem to run with that pack, so why assume that "they" do?

It'd be more enlightening to find out how, when, and where mediopassive read originated and, most importantly, why.

I recently read a chapter on Morphology, sematics and argument structure in which Fagan (1988) argues the verb read in English is lexically derived (See bottom of page 58 and top of page 59 here.) Now, the reason she, Fagan, is accounting for that verb, and others like it, is to find out how speakers are using it. That is, even if, let's say, people use "The book reads well" because they think it's posh, they are still using it. It's entered the wet-wear, it's been processed; it's now part of their grammar, the rules. The question now is, where do they house that new information? It has to have some sort of semantics to it. So, what are those semantics?

All the best.