McGonagall transfigured the chessmen to make them alive.
(Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)
If "to make them alive" is correct, why "to set them alive" is not?
In fact, after some searches, it seems to me that if one uses the verb "make" then "alive" has to be used, whereas if one uses the verb "set" then using "aliving" is mandatory.
Or, perhaps, am I wrong?
Best Answer
I can think of two common wordings that could be used in this situation: to make them alive, which is in the original text, and to bring them to life. (I personally think the second sounds better, but then I didn't make hundreds of millions of dollars selling childrens' books.)
I'm not sure where you were looking when you encountered to set them alive, but that simply doesn't make sense. We can set things on fire or set up a board game but we don't set things alive. You can make something alive, make something living, or bring something to life. But we don't use set here.
I'm not sure if this was intentionally part of your question or not, but aliving isn't a word. The closest thing that I think you could have meant is the previously noted construction to make something living (that is, to change its state into one of being alive).