I have this doubt now that I'm writing down a translation of a text: the word "birth" can be either a noun or a verb, but its usage in different sentences is not completely clear to me.
For example, if we are talking about a dog, I could say "Dog birth" using the word as a noun, or "Dog birthing" using it as a verb, but then, if I want to use a present time verb I would like to say "The dog births", third person, singular, and its the dog who births, not her mother who gives her birth.
Now back to the question, is the sentence "The dog births" correct and commonly usable, or is it better to use "X gives birth to Y"?
EDIT for specific case:
"The dog gives birth to a happy puppy" is the starting sentence, present form, but here the dog is the subject, while I want to be the puppy to be it, like in the bad-sounding "The happy puppy births from (?) the dog", I mantained "from the dog" just for reference to the main sentence, but the aim is exactly to avoid the "birth-giver" subject and result in a simple "The happy puppy births".
We already stated (in answers and comments) that while not incorrect, its not commonly used, so are there alternatives in the sentence construction that don't need altering the present o the "birth" verb?
Best Answer
The Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for birth as a verb, and defines it as ‘To give birth to; to give rise to.’ That means that in principle the form ‘births’ is grammatically possible. In practice, however, it would be unusual, and you’d do much better to use the alternative you suggest.