would have already been dead & would have already been died

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Stenka25  #461780  Tue, 08 Jan 08 11:58 AM

If they had lived in the days of capital punishment, they were already died.

A test requested to correct the errors of the underlined part.

In the question, the answer is 'would have already died'.

How about 1, or 2?

1. would have already been dead

2. would have already been died

Is it ok to exchange the answer with 1. or 2?

If not, why?

  
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Yoong Liat  #461789  Tue, 08 Jan 08 12:22 PM
 Stenka25 wrote:

If they had lived in the days of capital punishment, they were already died.

In the question, the answer is 'would have already died'.

How about 1, or 2?

1. would have already been dead

2. would have already been died

Is it ok to exchange the answer with 1. or 2?

If not, why?

#1 is correct. The second option cannot be used because 'they would have already been died' is grammatically wrong. It should be 'they would have already died'.
  
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Stenka25  #461919  Tue, 08 Jan 08 05:19 PM

In dictionary, 'die' is intranstive verb.

So 'die' don't have 'be died.'

But I aksed if "#2 would have already been died" could be possible because there sometimes is 'be died' form.

You know, I found out the sentence, "Love should be died for."

If this sentence was possible-is it?-, could #2 be possible?

Sorry if I'm too picky but I'm so curious.

  
CalifJim  #461954  Tue, 08 Jan 08 08:31 PM
Love should be died for is a highly irregular turn of phrase that comes from One should die for love.  It's treating die for as a prepositional verb.  It's not the passive form of die, but of die for, which is a highly suspect "verb".
Note that love is not died in this construction.  Nobody is "dying love", whatever that could possibly mean.  You can throw a ball, but you can't die love.

Compare:

The mayor should be relied on.

Here, the mayor is not relied.  Nobody is "relying the mayor".  That would be meaningless.
Instead, One should rely on the mayor.

CJ

  
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Stenka25  #462017  Wed, 09 Jan 08 02:39 AM
Thanks CalifJim. Thanks.
  
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