Re: THEORY: transitivity

On 26 May 99, at 13:17, Pasasgen/Mensa wrote:

> Hello all.
>
> I've been thinking about making a lang which distinguishes
> between zero-transitive, intransitive, transitive and
> ditransitive (is that the English term?) verbs in that
> the conjugation would be different in each form.
> (And possibly also distinguish between verbs that
> don't have an agent, eg. "I sleep" and verbs that do.)
>
> 0. (It) rains   [no S or O]
> 1. I sleep    [only S]
> 2. I eat (food)    [S and O]
> 3. I give (it to you)    [1 S and 2 Os]
My project gzb doesn't go into quite that much detail, though the
system is a little similar.

bly-van I'm falling.  (state, intransitive)

bly-zox pwiq-bly-cxa hxy-i.   I throw the ball (lit. game-throw-tool).
{-zox} shows an active, agentive verb but it isn't always transitive.

bly-ca.  I jump (reflexive).

I've been thinking of breaking up the -van verb type into two, one for
intransitive states like "to fall" and one for transitive states like "to
be seeing, hearing," etc.  (These involuntary sensation states really
have two patients and no agents.  So I need two different patient
case markers...)

An earlier form of the language had separate forms for state and
becoming.  I mark the difference with the cases now.


Jim Henry III
Jim.Henry@pobox.com
http://www.pobox.com/~jim.henry/gzb/gzb.htm
*gjax zaxnq-box baxm-box goq.