Re: Question about transitivity/intransitivity

On Mon, 9 Jun 2003 10:01:32 +0200, mathias <takatunu@...> wrote:

>How does OurTongue work with the following:
>
>The teacher teaches the language to the kids.
>The kids were taught (the language).
>The language was taught (to the kids)
>(try also with "show", etc.)
>
>Farmer plants the field with trees.
>The trees are planted (in the field).
>The field are planted (with trees)
>(try also with "cover", etc.)
>
>The writer writes a poem on a piece of paper / to his wife.
>The poem is written (up).
>The piece of paper is written (on).
>The wife is written a letter (to).
Thanks for your reply, Mathias.  The sentences you list above are examples
of what I would call "English preposition-omitting ambiguity."
Prepositions indicating oblique relationships are often omitted in casual
speech in English, giving rise to sentences like "I give John the dog."
While such sentences can be sorted out by fluent English-speakers via
context, they may be difficult for others to sort through.

OurTongue does not do this, because its main oblique relationships are
expressed as case inflections:

Teisejo ninaile lengun teise.  "[The] teacher to-[the]-kids [the] language
teaches."  Here -le is the allative suffix, -n is the accusative suffix,
and -jo [yo] is the agent suffix.  The words used are "dummy words,"
adapted from the English, since OurTongue's actual vocabulary has hardly
been created yet.

In the above OurTongue-ish sentence, there is no ambiguity; "language" is
the direct object, and "kids" is an oblique argument indicating to whom the
language is (being) taught.  Thus, the medio-passive* forms are:

Ninaile lengu teisui.  "To-[the-]kids [the] language was-taught."
Lengu teisui ninaile.  "[The] language was-taught to-[the-]kids."

English, because of its ambiguity, can confuse direct and oblique objects,
resulting in "the kids were taught" and "the language was taught."  In
OurTongue, the same thing is effectively expressed by merely changing word-
order; in both, the medio-passive verb agrees with the
focus/subject, "lengu."

"The farmer plants the field with trees" is very idiomatic English.  In a
construction of the form "verb X with Y," "with" usually implies a means.
But one can hardly expect a farmer to use trees to plant his field.  Again,
a native or fluent English-speaker will have no trouble sorting out the
proper meaning by context, but other foreign speakers may have (great)
difficulty.  The OurTongue equivalent to that sentence would involve a verb
that has the same (or similar) meaning to the original meaning of "plant";
that is, "to put/place something into the ground."  Thus,

Vamajo argani doruin bala.  "[The] farm-er into-[the-]field trees plants."
Here the word "field" is in the illative case (-ni), which specifies where
the trees are being planted.  Expressed this way, the medio-passive forms
are easy to derive:

Dorui (argani) balusi.  "The trees (into the field) are planted."
Argani (dorui) balusi.  "Into the field (trees) are planted."

In the sentences above, -si is the 3pl ending.  If "trees" was not included
in the second sentence, the translation would be akin to "In the field
somethings are planted."

The last group of sentences is even easier to translate into OurTongue:

Retajo poiman papelana/ses ivale reta.  "The write-er poem on-the-paper/of-
he to-the-wife writes."
Poima retu.  "The poem is written."
Papelana retu.  "On-the-paper (something) is written." ~ "The paper is
written-on."
Ivale retu.  "To-the-wife (something) is written." ~ "The wife is written-
to."

- Rob

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