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Non accusative verbs

de Genjix, 2010-septembro-22

Mesaĝoj: 30

Lingvo: English

Genjix (Montri la profilon) 2010-septembro-22 09:56:25

I'm reading another book and it says in addition to esti not using the -n, neither does:

resti
fariĝi
iĝi

1) Are these rules still in effect? The book is really old.
2) Why these eclectic mix of verbs?

Ĝia beko fariĝis grandega
It's beak became enormous

tommjames (Montri la profilon) 2010-septembro-22 10:04:14

1) Are these rules still in effect? The book is really old. 2) Why these eclectic mix of verbs?
These are not so much rules, as a consequence of the fact that these verbs are intransitive. If it makes no sense to include an object on a verb then it doesn't use the "n" ending, because that is the purpose of the ending. There is nothing eclectic about this. Some verbs take an object, others don't. This will usually be evident from the verb's meaning.

A brief list of some other common intransitive verbs is here.

And yes, the verbs you cite are still intransitive today.

jan aleksan (Montri la profilon) 2010-septembro-22 10:39:25

In other words, these verbs doesn't correspond to an action done to an object (I eat the APPLE), but a state or a state change: in english it is: to be, to seem, to shine, to become, etcetc

Genjix (Montri la profilon) 2010-septembro-22 13:37:38

But isn't it the point that intransitive verbs take no object? Those verbs I listed have an object.

tommjames (Montri la profilon) 2010-septembro-22 13:40:29

But isn't it the point that intransitive verbs take no object?
Correct.
Those verbs I listed have an object.
Resti, fariĝi, and iĝi don't take objects.

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2010-septembro-22 14:00:00

Genjix:..in addition to esti not using the -n, neither does:
resti
fariĝi
iĝi
Why these eclectic mix of verbs?
None of them involve doing something to some other object (which would take the '-n'). Consider yourself. You can drink a cup of tea, and the cup is an object outside yourself on which you act. So Vi povas trinki tason da teo. But if you are well (vi estas sana), or you stay that way (vi restas sana) or return to health (vi resaniĝas) or you become a scientist (vi fariĝas sciencisto), you are not acting on something outside yourself.
Clearer now?

tommjames (Montri la profilon) 2010-septembro-22 14:09:20

Genjix:Those verbs I listed have an object.
Miland:But if you are well (vi estas sana), or you stay that way (vi restas sana) or return to health (vi resaniĝas) or you become a scientist (vi fariĝas sciencisto), you are not acting on something outside yourself.
Perhaps Genjix was thinking that in these phrases words like "sciencisto" and "sana" constitute an object. If that is the case I can supplement my last post by giving the grammatical name for these words which is "nominal predicative" and "adjectivial predicative" respectively (what PMEG terms "perverba priskribo"). These are just descriptions of the subject by way of the verb, rather than objects of the verb.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-septembro-22 14:42:38

I like that PMEG term "perverba priskribo". The idea of using a verb to describe something is much easier to understand, for someone unfamiliar with grammatical terms, than a complicated-sounding expression like "nominal predicative"

Genjix, English works in a very similar way. It's just less obvious because we don't normally mark objects grammatically (except some pronouns), so it isn't immediately visible if a word is an object.

For example "sleep" is intransitive (doesn't take an object). You sleep. But you can't sleep a thing. You can't say, I sleep a bed, I sleep a child, etc.

One advantage of Esperanto is that it's easy to make an intransitive verb transitive, and vice versa, but in English, it requires a lot of extra words.

So if I say "I sleep", that's "Mi dormas". If I want to say "I made the child sleep" or "I put the child to bed", I need several words in English ("made to sleep", "put to bed", etc), to make this verb transitive; but in Esperanto, I just use the -ig- ending. "Mi dormigas la infanon" (lit. cause the child to sleep)

Genjix (Montri la profilon) 2010-septembro-22 20:33:07

I get it! So estas is not just a random odd case after all!!

I like it when things fit.

Genjix (Montri la profilon) 2010-septembro-22 20:36:56

jan aleksan:In other words, these verbs doesn't correspond to an action done to an object (I eat the APPLE), but a state or a state change: in english it is: to be, to seem, to shine, to become, etcetc
tommjames:
Genjix:Those verbs I listed have an object.
Miland:But if you are well (vi estas sana), or you stay that way (vi restas sana) or return to health (vi resaniĝas) or you become a scientist (vi fariĝas sciencisto), you are not acting on something outside yourself.
Perhaps Genjix was thinking that in these phrases words like "sciencisto" and "sana" constitute an object. ... These are just descriptions of the subject by way of the verb, rather than objects of the verb.
These posts made it click for others interested. Thanks to everybody else too.

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