Brett,

One of the types I tend to see involves a passive version of a verb that
can't be transitive. While I'm doing this from memory, I'm 99% sure that
I have on at least four or five occasions gotten writing with "Something
bad was happened" in it. Since a lot of English verbs can be used in the
active as both as transitives and as intransitives, it's the kind of
problem you'd expect. 

"Happen" is particularly prone to this use in the interlanguage of
speakers of Thai, Khmer, Vietnamese, etc., possibly because the closest
parallel in those languages uses a transitive verb with a clausal object
(roughy, "I suffered (that) my leg broke in the accident" instead of "My
leg was broken in the accident"). 


Bill Spruiell

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