Re: Further language development Q's

>Carsten also wrote:
>
>
>>That's also one thing I haven't fully
>>understood yet, I mean why transitivity is important for
>>Basque verbs. I know what the terms (in/di)transitive mean.
>>
>>
>
>It's important because most trans. verbs require one auxiliary, which marks
>both subject and object as well as tense, intransitives another, which marks
>only subject and tense. A handful of verbs, of both types, have special
>conjugation that doesn't use the aux.
>
>I recall there's a large number of periphrastic verbs, usually denominals,
>that are treated as transitive even though in most languages they'd be
>considered intransitive-- like 'sneeze', in Basque IIRC it's _sneeze (noun)
>make/do + trans.aux._
>
>
 The basic reason is that all the agreement is on the auxilliary (except
for the small number of verbs with their own simple finite forms) and
the auxilliary agrees with the Actor, Patient and Recipient/Beneficiary
if they're present, so if you use a transitive verb you need to use an
auxilliary which agrees with the Actor and Patient, and which is
different from an auxilliary with the same Actor but no patient. Some
examples (sorry if I make a mistake, I only just started learning
Basque...):

Nik Telebistan lan egin nahi dut
Ni-k Televista-n lan egin nahi du-t
I-ERG television-LOC work make want pres.transitive.3rd.ABS-1st.ERG
I want to work in Television

Ni Inglaterran bizi naiz
Ni Inglaterra-n bizi naiz
I-ABS england-LOC live pres.intrans.1st
I live in England

As you can see, the subject (I) is the same in both sentences, but the
auxilliaries are different because one is transitive (with "to work in
Television" as the other argument), and the other is intransitive, with
"I" as the only core argument. Note also that "to work", which is
intransitive in english, is treated as a transitive verb in Basque,
since its translated as "make work". This is an example similar to the
"sneeze" example Roger gave. To say "I work in Television" you'd say:

Telebistan lan egiten dut
Telebista-n lan egin-ten du-t
Television-LOC work make-(simple? I forget...)
pres.transitive.3rd.ABS-1st.ERG