The link is somewhat looser in English, but it seems to be governed by
other factors we know to be related to transitivity (cf. Hopper and
Thompson's article in Language 1980), such as agentivity, causation
and object affectedness.
Incidentally, the link between transitivity and boundedness is also
related to the middle in some languages (dunno about Greek: perhaps
part of my next process): some middles seem to be restriced to things
that can be bounded, cf. the English middle-type construction, X Verbs
easily:
This bread cuts easily. (bounded, okay)
This letter reads easily. (bounded, okay)
English writes easily (not bounded, not okay)
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Mari Broman Olsen
Research Associate
University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
3141 A.V. Williams Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
(301) 405-6754 FAX: (301) 314-9658
molsen@umiacs.umd.edu
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