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Transitive and intransitive verbs

de smonkey, 2012-junio-27

Mesaĝoj: 25

Lingvo: English

johmue (Montri la profilon) 2012-junio-27 10:34:40

tommjames:
Actually this would be "akvumi" rather than "akvi".
It can be either.

PMEG:AKV → akvi = provizi per akvo, verŝi akvon (sur ion)
In the everyday language it is "akvumi". At least in my experience. Would be interesting to do a DeepDict query on that.

Chainy (Montri la profilon) 2012-junio-27 11:11:16

johmue:
tommjames:
Actually this would be "akvumi" rather than "akvi".
It can be either.

PMEG:AKV → akvi = provizi per akvo, verŝi akvon (sur ion)
In the everyday language it is "akvumi". At least in my experience. Would be interesting to do a DeepDict query on that.
PMEG: Superfluaj UM

tommjames (Montri la profilon) 2012-junio-27 12:01:38

In the everyday language it is "akvumi". At least in my experience.
*shrug* It was only an example to illustrate a point about transitivity. In any case, there's nothing wrong with akvi, and I've seen it used often.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-junio-27 12:28:02

A quick search of the Tekstaro shows that akvumi is the preferred form. Akvi barely registers.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2012-junio-27 12:59:25

It's something, and we have to memorize it for each verb.
Even in English you have to know which verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively, or only in one form, and, sometimes, what the separate meaning is when both uses are allowed.

As Hebda points out die can't be used for kill. In the case of jump, you can jump somebody's bones - but does this mean saltigi. Of course you can walk a mile. But to walk a test is little to do with promeni.

Then it's hop over a wall, not hop a wall. Though you can jump a step.

And you have to learn which nouns can be verbs and which can't. This is a real arbitrary nightmare.

Table, to table; cycle to cycle; chair, to chair; train, to train, pipe, to pipe etc.

Mustelvulpo (Montri la profilon) 2012-junio-27 13:02:09

I wish there was an easy answer for you. Some verbs are obviously transitive- manĝi, bati, vidi, etc.- if you're eating, hitting or seeing, you must be eating, hitting or seeing something. Others are obviously intransitive- marŝi, kuri, stari, etc.

Unfortunately, the transitivity of other verbs- boli, komenci, ĉesi, etc. is not so obvious and must be learned and remembered. For me, one of the most helpful guides to transitivity and use of the -ig and iĝ suffixes, as well as creating verbs from roots that are more typically used as nouns, appeared in David Jordan's Being Colloquial in Esperanto. It's a book I'd recommend for all English speakers studying Esperanto.

Mustelvulpo (Montri la profilon) 2012-junio-27 13:14:26

hebda999:yes, you're right - English has no transivity at all:

I die, I die you
I jump, I jump you
Be careful with that. In many cases English verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively- I walk / I walk the dog. But for die, the transitive would be "I kill you" and for jump, you'd have to say "I make you jump" or "I cause you to jump." "I jump you" carries the meaning of "I jump over you" or "I attack you by surprise." Ever more proof that English is not a good choice for an international language!

xdzt (Montri la profilon) 2012-junio-27 13:27:40

Mustelvulpo:For me, one of the most helpful guides to transitivity and use of the -ig and iĝ suffixes, as well as creating verbs from roots that are more typically used as nouns, appeared in David Jordan's Being Colloquial in Esperanto. It's a book I'd recommend for all English speakers studying Esperanto.
It's worth pointing out that David Jordan appears to have put his book online.

hebda999 (Montri la profilon) 2012-junio-27 14:06:15

Mustelvulpo:
hebda999:yes, you're right - English has no transivity at all:

I die, I die you
I jump, I jump you
Be careful with that. In many cases English verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively- I walk / I walk the dog. But for die, the transitive would be "I kill you" and for jump, you'd have to say "I make you jump" or "I cause you to jump." "I jump you" carries the meaning of "I jump over you" or "I attack you by surprise." Ever more proof that English is not a good choice for an international language!
Hey man. That example was given just to show that English HAS transitivity, can't you see that?
Reductio ad absurdum. No need to explain what I already know. Thanks.

tommjames (Montri la profilon) 2012-junio-27 14:20:09

All this "extra learning burden" thing boils down to is you can't assume that words like 'boli' function the same way in Esperanto as their nearest equivalents do in your own language. Boli is actually a very good example of a verb whose transitivity you don't need to pay a second's thought to if you will just learn what the word means, instead of going "oh it's the same as 'boil' so I can use it the same way I do in English".

If you make the latter assumption you will experience problems. If, on the other hand, you recognize that it's ridiculous to even think you could make such assumptions and get away with it, you will probably just learn that 'boli' means "to be in a very hot bubbling state" and thus conclude, correctly, that the verb is intransitive.

Anyway let's not forget smonkey's question was about verbs that derive from nouns. Here there are a few things to be aware of, which are detailed here in PMEG:

Verbs from nouns which denote a tool or instrument usually show the using of that tool: broso = brush, brosi = to brush. So here's one that can probably take an object. "Brosu vian hararon". Also there's aŭto = car, aŭti = to drive a car. Since the thing we are driving (the car) is already bound up in the very meaning of the verb, this one seems less capable of having an object, so we can conclude aŭti is intransitive. Then we look up aŭti in Reta Vortaro and surprise surprise, it's marked as "(ntr)".

@smonkey There are other examples in that page at PMEG. I'm guessing you'll find it easy to enough to determine if they can have an object, after reading the meaning.

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