PSEUDO-INTRANSITIVES
A further type of Affected Subject occurs with certain processes (break, read, translate, wash, tan, fasten, lock) which are intrinsically transitive, but in this construction are construed as intransitive, with an Affected subject.
Glass breaks easily.
This case doesn’t shut/close/lock/fasten properly.
Colloquial language translates badly.
Some synthetic fibers won’t wash. Usually they dry-clean.
Fair skin doesn’t tan quickly, it turns red.
Pseudo-intransitives differ from other intransitives in the following ways:
• They express a general property or propensity of the entity to undergo (or not undergo) the process in question. Compare glass breaks easily with the glass broke, which refers to a specific event.
• Pseudo-intransitives tend to occur in the present tense.
• The verb is accompanied by negation, or a modal (often will/won’t), or an adverb such as easily, well, any of which specify the propensity or otherwise of the thing to undergo the process.
• A cause is implied but an Agent can’t be added in a by-phrase.
• There is no corresponding transitive construction, either active or passive, that exactly expresses the same meaning as these intransitives. To say, for instance, colloquial language is translated badly is to make a statement about translators’ supposed lack of skill, rather than about a property of colloquial language. The difficulty of even paraphrasing this pattern shows how specific and useful it is.
For the similarity of intransitive subjects and transitive objects as conveyors of new information. These are the roles in which new information is overwhelmingly expressed.
These, like copular counterparts, are not identical in meaning to the structures discussed here, but demonstrate some of the many ways of conceptualizing an event.
Ed broke the glass active
The glass was broken (by Ed) be-passive
The glass got broken get-passive
The glass was already broken copular (state)
The glass broke (anti-causative)
Glass breaks easily (pseudo-intransitive)
