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From: dinitz@uicsl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: reposting of Bi-directional verbs - (nf)
Message-ID: <5724@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Feb-84 22:47:29 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.5724
Posted: Fri Feb 17 22:47:29 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 20-Feb-84 07:11:13 EST
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#R:linus:-70300:uicsl:8600042:000:3278
uicsl!dinitz    Feb 17 11:12:00 1984

I assume you are discounting trivial relations of "fail" such as "pass."

For starters, there is the famous:

   The chicken is ready to eat.

Is the chicken the diner or the dinner here?


Here are some (untested) heuristics for discovering further examples:

1. Find verbs with at least one transitive sense
which allow both animate subjects AND animate objects.

2. Find a subject/object pair (or just one if you intend to leave one
implicit, as in the above example) that make sense in both transpositions of
the sentence.

3. The simple past form of an active verb often doubles as passive, allowing
both readings in a cleverly constructed sentence.

4. An embedded infinitive may have a similar effect.

Perhaps, one reason for the alleged rarity of this type of verb is that some
verbs which satisfy (1) take on a cooperative-reflexive meaning.
This tends to happen with communication verbs like "correspond with," "talk
with," and "argued with."
For example, in:

   Ursala corresponded with Clive.

They both end up doing the corresponding.  We start searching for cases
where the tail might reasonably wag the dog, and we end up with cases where
the tail and the dog wag each other.  This phenomenon looks rather ordinary
when incorporated into the form of the first example above:

   The champion is ready to wrestle.

The ambiguity is disguised because in a wrestling match, each
participant is simultaneously wrestling and being wrestled.


Guideline (1) may be circumvented in cases where a verb has multiple senses
and the sentence exploits that fact.  E.g.:

   The clock is ready to strike.

Are we about to hear chimes, or witness a clock smashing contest?

   The Xerox machine is ready to copy.

Is the machine operational to copy documents, or have we learned enough to
build a look-alike machine that will compete with it in the office machine
market?

   The ball is ready to roll.

Will it roll by itself if we let it, or must we actively roll it.
Similarly,

   The bell is ready to ring.

Is it going to ring by itself, or wait until someone hits it with a mallet.


Note the role that the word "ready" plays in these examples.  Other words
may destroy the passive reading, as in:

   The chicken is about to eat.
   The clock is about to strike.
   The champion is about to wrestle.
   The chicken is going to eat.
   The chicken is waiting to eat. (May be ambiguous in some ideolects)
   The chicken is anxious to eat.
   The chicken is fixin' to eat.

Or they may destroy the active reading, as in:

   The chicken is perfect to eat.
   The chicken is fixed to eat. (May be ambiguous in some Ideolects)

"Ready" seems to emphasize the ambiguity of the infinitive.
Does anyone know other words that act similarly?
(Yes, I know that some of those words are not adjectives but rather verbs.
That isn't the point.)
There are other forms besides the infinitive which behave this way with
"ready."  E.g.:

   President Marcos is ready for the execution.

Will he be in the grandstand while his opponent is executed, or is being
brought to the firing squad after some new dictator has risen to power?
Notice that the verb has become a noun!  But the noun describes an event,
and there is an ambiguity as to how Marcos fits into that event.


-Rick Dinitz