Re: Question about transitivity/intransitivity

Something that english linguistic books forget to mention and french ones
always stress when talking about "transitivity" is the notion of
"direction".
There is a psychological notion of "flux" or lack of flux between actors.
"to eat" is fundamentally with a flux from patient that is eaten to agent
who eats. "to eat at" is reverse. "to see" is with no flux while "to look
at" may be considered with flux depending on languages etc. The object of
endotropic verbs (flux towards inside) is of the category of what Morneau
calls "focus". For instance, in his essay Morneau says he can't really
explain why the object of "to eat" is a "focus" and not a "patient". The
reason is that "to eat" is fundamentally endotropic but may also be made
exotropic and then the object is a patient.

Stone Gordonssen <stonegordonssen@...> wrote:
>>>>
"I think of:
1. "transitive" as applying to actions/states which a subject (agent?)
inflicts on an object whether or not the object is stated. "I am eating
<something>"
2. "intrasitive" as applying to actions/states are inflicted on the subject.
"I go."

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