Examples of mediopassive verb constructions

Question

If you wanted to say "the clothes are drying" and the "the meat cooking," would you say "die Wäsche trocknet sich" and "das Fleisch kocht [sic] sich" respectively?

I was reading a blog on linguistics, and one commenter offers these sentences as examples of reflexive (likely mediopassive?) constructions.

Another commenter disagrees, writing this:

"To use reflexive constructions in your examples would mean action. Ergative, if you will. It would mean that the laundry and the meat heat themselves up, cause themselves to heat up, instead of being heated by the sun or the stove."

I'm assuming the example sentences are correct (gramatically - note the "sic" next to "kocht"), having alternative forms in "die Wäsche kann mann trocknen" and "das Fleisch kann man kochen [sic]."

One reservation I have is that every other example of the mediopassive voice I have seen that I recall has had an adverb. Can this voice be used without an adverb?

On a related note, how would you say "that tastes good"? Would you say "das schmeckt sich gut," or is this incorrect?

Source:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2903

Answer 1

Causative alternation, anticausatives/inchoatives

English and German both have verbs participating in causative alternation.

She was drying her clothes. Her clothes were drying.
Sie trocknete ihre Kleider. Ihre Kleider trockneten.

In the second variant (called anticausative or inchoative), the object of the first or causative variant has become a subject. That's parallel to what happens in the passive. However, the removal of the causative component changes the meaning: Whereas actives and passives are synonymous (disregarding certain complications), causatives and anticausatives are not. The above sentences describe different situations.

Moreover, causative alternation is a lexical phenomenon: A few verbs allow it, but most will not. This is different in the passive, which applies to the whole class of transitive verbs.

The lexical nature of the phenomenon is underlined by the fact that certain verbs will require a reflexive pronoun in the anticausative.

Sie öffnete die Tür. Die Tür öffnete sich.
Die Sonne erwärmt die Erde. Die Erde erwärmt sich.

Note that German kochen, trocknen do not belong in this group, so the following are out:

*Die Wäsche trocknet sich.
*Das Wasser kocht sich.

The middle or mediopassive construction^{1, 2}

Finally, there seem to be cases where something that looks like an anticausative is only allowed when there is an adverbial present.

Das Buch verkauft sich gut/von selbst/wie heiße Semmeln/nicht.

One property that distinguishes this from genuine anticausatives is that the meaning is generic. Whereas

Die Kleider trockneten.

is referring to a specific event where there are wet clothes present,

Dieser Stoff trocknet besonders schnell.

is referring to a property of the subject that is connected to the type of events denoted by the verb, i.e. the meaning is generic.

For some discussion, see Language Log here and here.

Ordinary reflexives

Cases such as the following belong to neither of the above groups, but are simple reflexives, as the subject is a genuine agent.

Die Natur reguliert sich selbst.
Wenn man sich öffnet, ist man verletzbar.

Answer 2

German has only active and passive, but not mediopassive voice.

active
die Wäsche trocknet
^{(the clothes are drying)}
das Fleisch kocht
^{(the meat is cooking)}

passive
die Wäsche wird getrocknet
^{(the clothes are being dried)}
das Fleisch wird gekocht
^{(the meat is being cooked)}

These voices do not, however, have anything to do with reflexive pronouns, such as sich in:

Peter wäscht sich gerade.
^{(Peter is just washing himself).}

The voices are especially not changed by the mere presence or absence of reflexive pronouns. Appending sich in the previous two phrases would leave the (active) voice unchanged:

die Wäsche trocknet sich
^{(the clothes are drying themselves)}

das Fleisch kocht sich
^{(the meat is cooking itself)}

Even though the phrases are not grammatically wrong per se, the statements are absurd, as you may infer from the translations.

Answer 3

As a native speaker I can assure you, that you would never say

Die Wäsche trocknet sich.

I guess, the reason would be, that (a) there is just no need for the reflexive "sich" and - probably more importantly - (b) the laundry can not be considered as kind of an independent actor that does anything for itself.

In any case,

Das schmeckt sich gut.

is not - as it were - proper german. Because that would mean, that 'das' - whatever it is - tastes itself.