Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site linus.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!mat From: mat@linus.UUCP (Michael A. Turniansky) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: reposting of Bi-directional verbs Message-ID: <703@linus.UUCP> Date: Mon, 13-Feb-84 07:47:00 EST Article-I.D.: linus.703 Posted: Mon Feb 13 07:47:00 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Feb-84 01:38:21 EST Organization: MITRE Corp., Bedford MA Lines: 28It appears that I forgot to appease the line-eater, causing my message to be munged.....here it is in its entirity: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have mused about the following concept. Take a look at the following sentence: John Smith failed his Science class. Note that it makes a difference whether John is the teacher of the class, or merely a student. In the first case, "failed" is active: in the second case, it is passive (or something like that.). For a more striking example, how about a course of study where one class graded another class as a unit? Then we have "Mr Smith's class failed Ms. Jones' class." Which ones are the graders, and which the "gradees"? Verbs which exhibit this behavior, I term "bi-directional verbs". So far, I have only discovered the one. Care to post more examples? "Missing positives" have been known and talked about for more than an ordinate amount of time. The subject, while ane, is also winding down. This is a new class to think about. --Mike Turniansky (linus!mat Usenet) (mat@Mitre-Bedford ARPAnet)