Re: HELP--Quick Transitivity Questions

Christophe Grandsire wrote:


>En réponse à Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>:
>> >
>> >They cannot take a direct object, so yes, they are intransitive :)) .
>>
>> Mais non, mon ami!
>> Some passive verbs in English _can_ (and often do) take a direct object,
>> e.g.
>> "He was given the award yesterday."
>
>Oops! Forgot about this one (which is quite a quirk of English grammar.
Come
>on, promoting the dative object? :))) ). A little too much French thinking
in
>my head I think :)) . Well, let's take French then, in this language my
claim
>works :)) .
>
This also ties in with Elliot Lash's interesting post about the Dative
Transformation......
Indonesian can do it too, though it's one of the foggier areas in my
competence.  Something like (very much open to correction):

Active 1: Ali memberi buku kepada Siti 'Ali gave a book to Siti'
Passive 1:  buku diberi oleh Ali kpd. Siti 'a book was given to Siti by Ali'
(....diberi kpd. Siti oleh Ali may be acceptable too-- a foggy area)

Active 2:  Ali memberikan Siti buku 'Ali gave Siti a book'
Passive 2: Siti diberikan buku oleh Ali 'Siti was given a book by Ali'
( another foggy area-- I'm not sure if ...diberikan oleh Ali buku is OK; I
don't think so-- the above is what came out naturally.)
The main foggy area is that I'm not entirely sure but that _-kan_ should be
in the -1- sentences and not in the -2-s.  _-kan_ is supposed to focus on
the "object"-- but which object when there are two of them????)

KASH has no passive, but you can front (focus) either the dative IO or the
accusative DO; the correct _translation_ would probably be a passive.

1. Ali yavele Siti-e etengi
    he-give   -dat. book(nom/acc)
2. etengi yavele Siti-e Ali (you can't separate V-IO) passive translation
2a. etengi Ali yavele Siti-e  is OK -- but more like a cleft S 'it was a
book that Ali gave to Siti'-- egad, syntax rules developing as we
speak.....)
3. Siti-e yavele etengi Ali (can't separate V-DO) 'Siti was given a book by
A.'
3a. Siti-e Ali yavele etengi  OK, but as above, 'it was Siti to whom Ali
gave a book.'