Transitive Verbs: Minding Your -l and -ti

Started by Eywayä Kato, January 18, 2010, 05:48:32 PM

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Eywayä Kato

I've been translating quotes from the Simple Phrases MEGATHREADDD, and I found -l and -ti everywhere.  Assuming my understanding of the Linguistics Terminology Crash-Course is correct (and totally let me know if I'm wrong), you don't need -l and -ti.

Transitive verbs are those verbs that don't make any sense on their own:

"I ate" makes sense all on it's own - it's intransitive.
"I put" simply begs for more information and isn't a stand-alone statement - it's transitive.

Everyone seems to get and agree on that part.  But I see people using intransitive verbs in more complex sentences like "I ate lunch at the lake."  That sentence now has all of the things a transitive verb needs, but "I ate" still works fine on it's own and is therefore not a transitive verb.  Doesn't this then mean it doesn't need -l and -ti?

An example of this is the sentence "I hunt mountain banshee." - "Oe-l taron ikran-ti"
As "I hunt" makes perfect sense on it's own, "hunt" is an intransitive verb.  As -l and -ti aren't used with intransitive verbs, wouldn't the sentence properly be "Oe taron ikran."?

omängum fra'uti

Who's doing the hunting in that sentence?  You're relying on English grammar rules to make sense of the sentence, but in Na'vi there is no meaning to be gleaned from the position of words.  If you re-worded that as "Oe ikran taron" - who's doing the hunting there?  Or "Ikran oe taron"?  According to the free word order, those sentences should be equivelent.

The truth is you're applying English grammar here.  English is actually very flexible with transitivity.  We have "I eat" as a sentence, appearing to use "eat" in an intransitive manner.  But the reality is just because you don't say what you're eating doesn't mean you're not eating something.  The same with "I hunt" - you're still hunting something.  Consider the verb "Smell".  If you said "I smell", that is actually a completely different meaning than "I smell something".

The verb "put" is actually a bad example because it's what would be termed "ditransitive" - if you said "I put eggs", it still doesn't make sense on it's own.

Another way to look at intransitive vs transitive, is that intransitive verbs are those which don't make sense except on their own.

For example, "smile".  "I smile" - perfect sense.  "I smile you" - nonsensicle.

Finally, the reason I say you're applying English grammar is that, in reality, these words may not be direct translations of the English, there may be a lexical definition of transitivity to go along with the verbs.  If that were the case, then for example "hunt" would be defined as a transitive verb, and even if you said "I hunt" you'd still use "Oel taron".  On the other hand, it could be that transitivity is more semantic/syntactic, in which case you'd say "Oe taron" - I hunt, but "Oel taron ikranit" - I hunt Ikran.

It's one of the things about the language we just don't know at this point.  However, any time a verb is saying it is doing something to something else, you need to differentiate what is doing it and what it's being done to.  In English we do this by word order.  In Na'vi, it is done with noun cases.
Ftxey lu nga tokx ftxey lu nga tirea? Lu oe tìkeftxo.
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Swok Txon

Yeah don't worry dude its a complex little grammar rules that always gets me

the rest are easy but this one is annoying lol

Eywayä Kato

omängum fra'uti, if I could karma you I would.  The Linguistics Terminology Crash-Course book-thing made it look real cut-and dry and like something which is transitive is transitive and something which is intransitive is intransitive, and the one never becomes the other.  Since I imagine that these aren't the final editions of these guides maybe clearing that up should be put on the to-do list for the next revision.

Thanks again, I hope others with this confusion find it as clear and helpful as I did, and now I'm of to play with verbs!

omängum fra'uti

Sadly it's not very cut and dry at all, and one of the areas I run into the most as something that makes me uneasy in translating stuff into Na'vi.

For example, "hum" is given us as "leave/depart".  If you asked me separately if "leave" and "depart" were transitive, I probably would have told you that "leave" was transitive (I left home) while depart was intransitive (I depart home?).  In reality that case is probably intransitive, and in English we're just assuming a preposition when "leave" is used transitively.  (I left FROM home, I departed FROM home.)

So that all goes back to knowing how the language treats transitivity - as lexical or semantic/syntactic.  If it's lexical, then that means we need to know if every verb is transitive or intransitive.  If it's semantic, then we still need to know what verbs mean in a transitive manner.  Just because "I left home" makes sense in English doesn't mean "Oe-l h<am>um kelku-t" makes sense in Na'vi rather than "Oe hum kelku-ftu".
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Txaslan

#5
I'm a student in linguistics, so I can clarify things here a bit: ;)

A transitive verb is a verb which must have an object. For example "to like". One cannot say "I like" as a complete sentence; the first thing a person hearing him would ask would probably be "You like...what?". You have to specify WHAT you like. This is a transitive verb. "-l" and "-ti" are required here.

An intransitive verb is the exact contrary. It's a verb which mustn't have an object. For example "to run". One cannot say "I run my sister" (unless you put "over" right after  ;D). "I run my sister" makes no sense. "I run", on the other hand, does. "-l" and "-ti" are NOT to be used here.

An ambitransitive verb is a verb which CAN have an object, but it doesn't have to. For example, "to eat" is a ditransitive verb. Both "I eat" and "I eat an apple" make perfect sense. In this case, when the verb is used transitively ("I eat an apple"), "-l" and "-ti" are required, when it's used intransitively ("I eat") they are not.

A special case (and I noticed many mistakes about this one) is the verb "to be". The verb "to be" DOES NOT require "-l" or "-ti" because it's NOT transitive (nor, for that matter, is intransitive). The verb "to be" is a copula. So with "to be" DO NOT use "-l" or "-ti".

Hope to be of help.

Eywa ngahu

Eywayä Kato

Thank you guys so very much!  This is something I've been struggling with.  You don't usually think of things like that in your own language and the only other language-learning experience I can really draw on was 1st year Japanese and their verbs were pretty straight forward; whatever is verbing has a -wa or -ga suffix, and verbs end with "su" and go that the end of sentences.  The end.

omängum fra'uti

Quote from: Txaklan on January 19, 2010, 11:23:16 AM
A ditransitive verb is a verb which CAN have an object, but it doesn't have to. For example, "to eat" is a ditransitive verb. Both "I eat" and "I eat an apple" make perfect sense. In this case, when the verb is used transitively ("I eat an apple"), "-l" and "-ti" are required, when it's used intransitively ("I eat") they are not.
I'm not a linguist so I'm only going on what I find online, but my understanding is ditransitive meant that it has a subject and two objects.  A verb which can be used transitively and intransitively would be ambitransitive.

Furthermore, it is my understanding that ambitransitivity is very common in English, but not necessarily in all languages.  So declaring something like "when it's used intransitively ("I eat") they are not" is a bit bold since we truthfully don't know either way for Na'vi.
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suomichris

Quote from: omängum fra'uti on January 19, 2010, 12:50:55 PM
Quote from: Txaklan on January 19, 2010, 11:23:16 AM
A ditransitive verb is a verb which CAN have an object, but it doesn't have to. For example, "to eat" is a ditransitive verb. Both "I eat" and "I eat an apple" make perfect sense. In this case, when the verb is used transitively ("I eat an apple"), "-l" and "-ti" are required, when it's used intransitively ("I eat") they are not.
I'm not a linguist so I'm only going on what I find online, but my understanding is ditransitive meant that it has a subject and two objects.  A verb which can be used transitively and intransitively would be ambitransitive.

Furthermore, it is my understanding that ambitransitivity is very common in English, but not necessarily in all languages.  So declaring something like "when it's used intransitively ("I eat") they are not" is a bit bold since we truthfully don't know either way for Na'vi.
Yes, you're right.  A ditransitive verb is a verb that takes two objects ("I gave Sally the book").  When you have verbs that can be either transitive or intransitive, they are often called ambitransitive, but never ditransitive.

An important point for English speakers though: English is VERY weird in allowing verbs to be transitive or intransitive without any morphology to indicate the change.  In most languages, you will have an explicit marker that makes a transitive verb intransitive, or vice versa.  Until we know more, I'd suggest people not treat anything Na'vi as ambitransitive; it may turn out that there are ambitransitive verbs in Na'vi, but it seems unlikely, and it will just create confusion later if you were using 'eat' as both transitive and intransitive...

kewnya txamew'itan

Quote from: Txaklan on January 19, 2010, 11:23:16 AM
I'm a student in linguistics, so I can clarify things here a bit: ;)

A transitive verb is a verb which must have an object. For example "to like". One cannot say "I like" as a complete sentence; the first thing a person hearing him would ask would probably be "You like...what?". You have to specify WHAT you like. This is a transitive verb. "-l" and "-ti" are required here.

An intransitive verb is the exact contrary. It's a verb which mustn't have an object. For example "to run". One cannot say "I run my sister" (unless you put "over" right after  ;D). "I run my sister" makes no sense. "I run", on the other hand, does. "-l" and "-ti" are NOT to be used here.

A ditransitive verb is a verb which CAN have an object, but it doesn't have to. For example, "to eat" is a ditransitive verb. Both "I eat" and "I eat an apple" make perfect sense. In this case, when the verb is used transitively ("I eat an apple"), "-l" and "-ti" are required, when it's used intransitively ("I eat") they are not.

A special case (and I noticed many mistakes about this one) is the verb "to be". The verb "to be" DOES NOT require "-l" or "-ti" because it's NOT transitive (nor, for that matter, is intransitive). The verb "to be" is a copula. So with "to be" DO NOT use "-l" or "-ti".

Hope to be of help.

Eywa ngahu

I think you've got ditransitivity and ambitransitivity confused.

A ditransitive verb requires both a direct and indirect object.

What you've defined is an ambitransitive verb.
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It's also important to note that we don't know how verbs work, regarding the transitivity, in Na'vi. Transitive, ditransitive, ambi- We still don't know if it is lexically or syntactically bound. Also consider that the english translations we're given may not accurately reflect the Na'vi definition.

Txaslan

Yeah, you're all right.

As a linguist to be, I am very sorry for the terrible mistake.

I apologize. :(

PS: corrected  ;D

Eywayä Kato

Weird question for the day, how would I say it's going to rain my friend Galhast?  We're guessing the basic sentence would be "Galhast tìyompa si," but we don't know if it's Galhastil or Galhasti, or neither.

Clearly we are spending our time wisely.

suomichris

Quote from: Eywayä Kato on January 19, 2010, 10:56:11 PM
Weird question for the day, how would I say it's going to rain my friend Galhast?  We're guessing the basic sentence would be "Galhast tìyompa si," but we don't know if it's Galhastil or Galhasti, or neither.

Clearly we are spending our time wisely.
This is where we get to use our fun vocative particle ma!

tompa sìyi, ma Galhast!

(Note also that I've moved the ìy to the verb si... Since tompa is a noun and si the verb, the ìy should go with the si).

Eywayä Kato

Quote from: suomichris on January 19, 2010, 11:10:28 PM
tompa sìyi, ma Galhast!

(Note also that I've moved the ìy to the verb si... Since tompa is a noun and si the verb, the ìy should go with the si).

Wouldn't ma mean I'm talking to Galhast rather than declaring that he's raining?

suomichris

Quote from: Eywayä Kato on January 20, 2010, 11:00:35 AM
Quote from: suomichris on January 19, 2010, 11:10:28 PM
tompa sìyi, ma Galhast!

(Note also that I've moved the ìy to the verb si... Since tompa is a noun and si the verb, the ìy should go with the si).

Wouldn't ma mean I'm talking to Galhast rather than declaring that he's raining?
Ah, sorry, I misunderstood what you were asking!  Hmm, that's tricky...  One might say:

Galhastä tompa sìyi
"A rain of Galhast is imminent"

This is definitely in the realm of speculation, though :p

Eywayä Kato

Quote from: suomichris on January 20, 2010, 12:02:12 PM
Galhastä tompa sìyi
"A rain of Galhast is imminent"

I have never loved Na'vi as much as I do right now.  ;D