Middle Constructions in English : With a short comparison to German

Seminar paper from the year 2000 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,1 (A), University of Dusseldorf "Heinrich Heine" (Anglistisches Institut III), course: Verb Classes and verb alternations in English, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: With this paper I want to give a survey about middles in English, verbs which form middles, general characteristics, make obvious the relationship between middles and passives and middles and ergatives and in the end compare German and English middles. I dedicated this paper also to the question: Are verbs which form middles transitive or intransitive? Some experts claim, that middle verbs can be both, transitive or intransitive (cf. Dixon), others try to prove that verbs which form middles are always transitive and that with middle formation the transitivity is lost.