Re: THEORY: transitivity

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> Pasasgen/Mensa wrote:
> > (And possibly also distinguish between verbs that
> > don't have an agent, eg. "I sleep" and verbs that do.)
>
> Isn't that the same as the intransitive/transitive distinction?  Unless
> you're using "agent" in a different way than I am, an agent only exists
> in transitive sentences.
In ergative languages only?

Nik, I thought "agent" was an acceptable term, as well, for
volitionality
as opposed to experientiality... at least I've used that term without
disapproval by the experts on this list to describe what the difference
is between "I sleep" and "I kicked back aggressively."  I don't know
what
P/M means by verbs "that don't have an agent" in "I sleep" except in the
terms that I defined them in Teonaht, with its distinctions between
agentive
and experiential subjects.  But I'm sticking my nose into a longer
argument,
and may be completely off base.  :-(

Sally

> > The question is if transitive verbs should be conjugated
> > as intransitive if they don't have an object.
>
> I'd say no.  You could, perhaps, use affixes for passive and
> antipassive, tho.  In other words, take your example "I eat food".  The
> passive form would be "food is eaten", the anti-passive, "I eat".
> Perhaps those would be conjugated as intransitive verbs, but an affix
> should be used to indicate what is missing.
>
> > Do you have any comments?
>
> Interesting idea.  In my Eastern, the old antipassive particle, _su_ has
> evolved into a transitive marker _s(u)_ (/s(@)/), used whether or not
> the object is present.  Eastern has evolved from ergative to
> accusative.  That's the closest I have now, but an earlier conlang of
> mine, Tqa-Cize^ (/tTa tSi'zE/) had particles to indicate transitive and
> ditransitive, intransitive and stative (what you call zero-transitive)
> were indicated by no such particle being present.
>
> --
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> was hanged." - Irish proverb
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