Re: THEORY: transitivity

Philippe wrote:
> As I always quote, "to follow" is transitive in French (and
> in English),
I can't speak for French, but 'follow' in English is labile:

  'You should follow those signs until you see the busstop.'
  'You run along, and I'll follow.'

> but not in German (dative).
Paul Hopper and Sandra Thompson wrote an excellent article in the early
80s (Language, Vol. 56, no. 2) entitled "Transitivity in Grammar
and Discourse". Therein they list 10 (!) different criteria that
languages use to encode transitivity, and they show that transitivity
is really more of a cline than a discrete proposition.  The 10
criteria are:

(1)  Participants:  two or more vs. one
(2)  Kinesis: action vs. nonaction
(3)  Aspect: telic vs. atelic
(4)  Punctuality: punctual vs. nonpunctual
(5)  Volitionality: volitional vs. nonvolitional
(6)  Affirmation:  affirmative vs. negative
(7)  Mode: realis vs. irrealis
(8)  Agency:  A high in potency vs. A low in potency
(9)  Affectedness of O:  O totally affected vs. O not affected
(10) Individuation of O: O highly individuated vs. O nonindividuated

By most of these criteria, I would say German 'folgen' is high on
the transitivity cline, despite the fact that it subcategorizes for
a dative object. Another point is that sometimes verbs just lexically
specify things, and their behavior does not reflect any actual synchronic
generalizations about where the verb fits on the transitivity cline.
So, if we've decided to lump things as transitive or intransitive,
I would say 'folgen' is transitive.

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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