tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon May 08 05:44:29 1995
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Re: Transitivity
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: Transitivity
- Date: Mon, 8 May 95 13:43:51 BST
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> (message from Alan Anderson on Mon, 8 May 1995 08:18:13 -0400)
On Mon, 8 May 1995 08:18:13 -0400, ghunchu'wI' said:
> {jIHoH} means "I kill." This also implies "I am a killer."
> The difference between transitive and not can be transformed
> into a difference between stative and active! {Sop} works the same way.
> {jISop} "I eat" or "I am an eater."
That's true, but stative does not imply intransitive. Consider
{Ha'DIbaH vISop} `I eat meat' (`I am a meat-eater', `I am not a
vegetarian'), which is also stative.
> These newly identified meanings are a bit strange-sounding, but
> there's no reason I can think of to dismiss them.
No, there is no reason at all to dismiss them. Note, however, that
you can't make every English transitive verb intransitive in this way.
To take a textbook example, _I eat_ is well-formed, but *_I devour_ isn't.
> Perhaps all the other verbs with intransitive translations are
> better classified as stative with an appropriate rewording of the english.
How about {qet} `run'? It's a non-stative intransitive verb.
--'Iwvan