Can an intransitive verb be passive? What about in the Latin language?

Answer 1

Dr Shorty is correct. It is impossible to passivize an intransitive verb in any language. An intransitive verb means there is no direct object. A passive sentence makes the direct object the subject. Therefore you cannot make "nothing" the subject.

EDIT about deponent verbs in Latin. These verbs may be conjugated as if they were passive, but they are not passive. They are still active. English formerly had a similar type of structure for marking perfectives (and other Germanic languages still have this). Passives in English are marked with a conjugated form of the verb BE followed by a past participle (I was kicked, I am kicked). In earlier periods of English, motion verbs were marked for perfective with a conjugated form of the verb BE followed by a past participle (other verbs were marked with a conjugated form of the verb HAVE followed by a past participle) (I was come, I am come, versus I had kicked, I have kicked). This leads to a situation where an intransitive verb looks like it is passive, but it is not. Notice how the form "I am kicked" looks. It is a passive but it looks like a simple stative "I am big", "I am angry", "I am kicked". This interaction in marking leads to ambiguity in form, but not in meaning. It is still impossible for an intransitive verb to be passive.

Answer 2

No, intransitive verbs cannot be passive, simply for the fact that they can't "do anything to anything", as it were.

For example, if I tried to passivize
"John snored."
I would get something like
"It was snored by John."
But there is no "something" that was snored by John in the first sentence, so the second sentence doesn't work very well.

(I'm not real fresh on my types of intransitive verbs e.g. unergative and so forth, so there may be some kinds in other languages that do allow passivization. Ask a syntactician.)

Answer 3

Deponent verbs in Latin are passive in form and active in meaning. Some of them are intransitive.
egredior, -i, egressus sum
sequor, -i, secutus sum
patior, -i, passus sum
experior, -iri, expertus sum
fateor, -eri, fassus sum
oquor, -i, locutus sum
utor, -i, usus sum
nascor, -i, natus sum
morior, -i, mortuus sum
proficiscor, -i, profectus sum
conor, -ari, conatus sum
arbitror, -ari, arbitratus sum