John,

    For fairly extensive coverage of this, see Halliday and Matthiessen, An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 3^rd edition, roughly pages 287-290.

   This is probably a frame of reference not shared by many on the list. But Halliday distinguishes between transitive/intransitive pairs (The tourist hunted the lion, the tourist hunted) and non-ergative/ergative pairs (Mary cooked the rice for two hours/ The rice cooked for two hours. )

    I agree with Dick that “the tomatoes grew” would be intransitive because the tomatoes are growing of their own volition, which is not true of the rice.

   The nail tore the cloth/ The cloth tore. I spilled the milk/ The milk spilled. The sun dried up the fields/ The fields dried up. I broke the mirror/ The mirror broke into a hundred pieces. These are non-ergative/ergative pairs.

        In each case, the one indispensable element is called the medium. In these non-ergative/ergative pairs, the medium is capable of being object or subject without the clause being passive.

   Halliday goes on to say that these are increasingly widespread in English and part of a “complex process of semantic change” that, among other things, tends to “emphasize the textual function” over the “experiential.” That might just be a way of saying that we know full well that clothes don’t tear and milk doesn’t spill and fields don’t dry up and rice doesn’t cook of their own volition, but we can obscure agency when we construct sentences about them. When we say “the tomatoes grew” (intransitive) we are calling attention to the fact that tomatoes are agents of their own growing. When we say “the rice cooked,” we are attending to the rice while  connoting that it is a medium, but not an agent  of its own change.

    I should say, again, that this is the view expressed within systemic functional grammar. It probably makes more sense within that framework than it would independently.

 

Craig

  

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dick Veit
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 8:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: I'm Curious

 

John,

This is sometimes called the "passival," where the subject of certain active verbs can be used in the progressive as a kind of passive. Other examples:

• The water is boiling. [i.e., being boiled]
• The cookies are baking.
• The laundry is soaking.

The passival was formerly in general use (The house is building) but is now restricted to a few verbs.

I don't think "growing" is an example of this, since the verb has both transitive and intransitive definitions.

Dick

On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 7:23 AM, John Crow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

What's up with the following pair of sentences?

1. The Smiths are selling their furniture.
2. The plants are selling like hotcakes.

• #1 is obviously a standard present progressive SVO.  Is #2 just an intransitive form of "to sell"? 
• Are there other examples like this or is this idiosyncratic to "sell"?

Just thought of another possible candidate:

• John is growing cauliflower.
• The cauliflower is growing bigger every day.

Thanks,

John

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/