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transitivity

by Evildela, August 28, 2010

Messages: 10

Language: English

Evildela (User's profile) August 28, 2010, 12:21:27 PM

I'm learning mass amounts of verbs ATM, and I'm also trying to learn their transitivity at the same time. Now I know most verbs transitivity is easy to figure out, but there are many which can be tricky, like for instance "bati" to hit, now apparently is both transitive and intransitive according to some websites, but according to lernu its only transitive. Is there some kind of super online dictionary which can tell me for sure the transitivity of new the many new verbs I’m learning. Lernu doesn’t tell you the transitivity of all of them.

darkweasel (User's profile) August 28, 2010, 12:40:03 PM

Look, there's no real point in learning "transitivity". It's best to just learn the exact meaning of a word which you find, for example, in ReVo. The problem is that an English translation can be ambiguous (eg. English "to change" means both "to make something different" → ŝanĝi and "to become different" → ŝanĝiĝi). If the meaning allows for an object, logically, you're allowed to use the accusative with it.

In the case of bati, there can be no doubt that the meaning of this verb allows an object.

Evildela (User's profile) August 28, 2010, 12:48:54 PM

I'm a perfectionist, I like to know things rather then just guess. Well with bati you say its definitely transitive but whom am I to trust, when other websites say its both. >.< Grr going start grinding my teeth.

saasmath (User's profile) August 28, 2010, 12:52:04 PM

In this case, the Lernu.net vortaro is correct but incomplete on words like bati. You can get into problems with such words when they have multiple definitions -- you need to determine by context which defintion is valid (like in all languages). So, for example, to hit someone is transitive but your heart beat is intransitive.

You proabably need to select a larger dictionary to get a complete treatment. I like Montague Butler's English - Esperanto dictionary as being pretty complete and it helps to show word meanings with various affixes. PIV is probably the most complete mono-lingual dictionary in Esperanto, but is very expensive. And there are others both online and in print.
Evildela:I'm learning mass amounts of verbs ATM, and I'm also trying to learn their transitivity at the same time. Now I know most verbs transitivity is easy to figure out, but there are many which can be tricky, like for instance "bati" to hit, now apparently is both transitive and intransitive according to some websites, but according to lernu its only transitive. Is there some kind of super online dictionary which can tell me for sure the transitivity of new the many new verbs I’m learning. Lernu doesn’t tell you the transitivity of all of them.

darkweasel (User's profile) August 28, 2010, 1:10:13 PM

Evildela:I'm a perfectionist, I like to know things rather then just guess.
Unfortunately some courses teach transitivity as some arbitrary category of a verb, which is not the case.

If the meaning of a verb permits an object, it is never an error to use one. The marker "transitive" and "intransitive" is actually relatively superfluous in a monolingual dictionary.

If you use a bilingual dictionary, this dictionary shows you the meaning of a verb, and if the corresponding English verb is ambiguous regarding "transitivity", it needs to mark the transitivity so that people don't get it wrong.

Evildela:Well with bati you say its definitely transitive but whom am I to trust, when other websites say its both. >.< Grr going start grinding my teeth.
You're thinking of "transitivity" as something comparable to grammatical gender, which is not the case! All you have to learn is the meaning of a verb - but often an English verb has several meanings, as I've shown above with "to change". In this case the transitivity markers can be useful, but in others you'll use a verb correctly using your intuition after reading the definition.

You can find more about this topic in the following discussion in Esperanto: Transitivaj kaj netransitivaj, kiel distingi la verbojn?

ceigered (User's profile) August 28, 2010, 1:45:12 PM

I agree with what Darkweasel said. Anyway, most of the transitivity issues I've come across are due to being given the wrong definition in the first place, or English having a complicated issue with the definition. E.g. tell and say. In Esperanto, you just use "diri al (person you want the message conveyed to) (the intended message (e.g. la mesaĝon, or a "ke" phrase, e.g. "ke mi ne eblas ĉeesti ĉi tiun nokton bedaŭrinde").

So don't sweat learning the transitivity, learn the definition of the word or find the correct one if you've been given an ambiguous or plain wrong definition (which will tell you automatically if it is transitive or not).

tommjames (User's profile) August 28, 2010, 2:31:18 PM

There's a good article on the esperanto-usa website about this, here.

horsto (User's profile) August 28, 2010, 4:18:50 PM

tommjames:There's a good article on the esperanto-usa website about this, here.
Really a good article.

Miland (User's profile) August 28, 2010, 4:39:11 PM

Evildela:I'm also trying to learn their transitivity..
Here is a message (2008-10-13 18:35:37) that I wrote in a previous thread about this problem that may be helpful. You may like to memorise the transitivity (or intransitivity) of the verbs in these lists, and then you won't have to think about it too much.

datura (User's profile) August 28, 2010, 5:14:10 PM

As a shortcut, while you get the hang of the whole transitivity thing, you can look at this list of words here on lernu:

http://en.lernu.net/biblioteko/gazetoj/juna_amiko/...

Verbs that often take an object have a "-n" after them. The list includes many common verbs.

I have found a few verbs on the list that are inconsistent with the Vortaro here, but it can be a useful guide if you're not sure.

You already know, of course, that just because a verb is transitive doesn't mean that it requires an object noun.

Read the grammar sections on lernu, do the exercises (over and over again if you find it helpful), look for similar info elsewhere, and give yourself time for your brain to figure out the patterns.

Eventually, your brain will get the hang of it. You will either automatically remember which verbs take objects, and/or it will be intuitively obvious for most of the verbs you normally use.

(And all of this is good advice for me, since I only started learning in July.)

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