active vs passive (If you had sat the plant in a cooler location, the leaves...)

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Please have a look at this sentence:

  1. If you had sat the plant in a cooler location, the leaves would not have burned

=> First, I find “you had sat the plant” here so strange…

Second, can the word “burn” here be used in active voice?

2

If you had put the plant in a shady place, the sun would not have burnt/singed/scorched the leaves.

3

Hi Nessie

The verb ‘burn’ is an ergative verb. You can say either ‘the sun burned the leaves’ or ‘the leaves burned (in the sun)’. You can read a little bit about ergative verbs here.
And here is a list of some common ergative verbs in English.
.

4

The verb ‘burn’ is an ergative verb.

Indeed it can be.

Why do you find it strange?

5

Why offer that alternative, Ralf? “to sit something (down) up/on something” is a common collocation. And the use of the ergative verb is fine in the original.

6

Thanks a lot, Ralf, but Molly is right because I surely know how to right a proper sentence, I just wonder if this usage is right, that’s why I posted it here

To Amy:
Have you any idea about the phrase “you had sat the plant” here, Amy?
I have no idea of not believing Molly, but I found no structure like hers in my OALD. In fact I could only find “to sit someone on something”

Many thanks
Nessie

7

Could anybody please tell me if the phrase “you had sat the plant” here is all right. I find it so strange… (+_+)

Many thanks
Nessie

8

It’s ‘had set’, folks, not ‘had sat’, unl;ess you’re that someone had purposely sat down himself. ‘To sit’ is volitional–that is you sit down, he sits down, he has sat down. It’s an act of will. If you set something down, the thing getting set down hasn’t got a choice. So ‘I set the plant down’. or-- I set myself down. It’s the same thing for ‘to lie’ [volitional–I lie down on my bed] and ‘to lay’ [not volitional. 'I lay the baby down.]

Of course, there’s a lot more to these verbs than the little bit I’ve discussed, as they are slightly irregular. But this does for present tense and simple past tense.

Here’s an old mnemonic: People lie, hens lay; people sit, hens set. [Although I have a newly divorced friend who says, 'Men lie, hens lay…]

9

I do beg your problem for all my typing mistakes. Let me reprise.
The first sentence should read:

t’s ‘had set’, folks, not ‘had sat’, unless someone has purposely sat down, himself.