[Grammar] "The ball kicked" cannot mean that the ball is the undergoer of the act of kicking.

[kadioguy]

"The ball kicked" cannot mean that the ball is the undergoer of the act of kicking.

English has no morphological middle voice category, but does have lexical middle verbs and syntactic middle voice constructions.

active voice: Dennis broke the window.
passive voice: The window was broken (by me).
lexical middle voice: The window broke.

Example 3 may be considered lexical middle voice because it is a feature of the lexical meaning of the verb to break. Not all verbs can be used this way, e.g., The ball kicked cannot mean that the ball is the undergoer of the act of kicking.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/middle_voice
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If The ball kicked cannot mean that the ball is the undergoer of the act of kicking, what does The ball kicked mean? (Or how can I correct it?)

 

[jutfrank]

Re: "The ball kicked" cannot mean that the ball is the undergoer of the act of kickin

The ball kicked is not possible.

 

[kadioguy]

Re: "The ball kicked" cannot mean that the ball is the undergoer of the act of kickin

The ball kicked is not possible.

a. The window was broken. (O)
b. The window broke. (O)
c. The ball was kicked. (O)
d. The ball kicked. (X)

(b) is correct because "break" has the lexical meaning of a lexical middle verb, whereas (d) is wrong because "kick" does not. (We should use (c) instead of (d).)

Have I understood it correctly?

 

[jutfrank]

Re: "The ball kicked" cannot mean that the ball is the undergoer of the act of kickin

Have I understood it correctly?

Yes.