Agreed Erinaj. But I've started so I'll finish. Is that an American expression too.

sudanglo:But I don't see how it could be otherwise and any alternative structure for an international language would encounter the same issue.

Unless you omit the concepts altogether XD

sudanglo:

This must be learned separately; it can't be inferred from the meaning of its components.

I not sure I agree Todd.

The reason for most people using 'matenmanĝi' intransitively is the thinginess of matenmanĝo.

A couple of points:

1. "Thinginess" doesn't imply intransitivity. Obviously, martelo is quite thingy too.

2. That it seems natural to you and me that matenmanĝi or vespermanĝi should be used intransitively or as a phrasal verb is simply anglophone prejudice. Vespermanĝi is not inherently less "verby" than plain old manĝi. Another person, with a different set of expectations, will not find this natural.

It is wrong to see Esperanto's wordbuilding system as anything more than 'simpla kunmetado'.

Simpla kunmetado would leave the transitivity of the main root untouched. Changing it, in some cases but not others, makes it rather less simpla.

The meaning of any compound (and here Razlem a root plus a gramatika finaĵo is also a kunmetaĵo) is down to human intuition based on a knowledge of the world - not some complicated derivational rules.

That's generally true, or else the system wouldn't work. But again, if you wanted to know how to say "We dined on beef", and you already knew that the verb vespermanĝi means "to dine", you still wouldn't know enough to use it properly. You need to know that to say that you must use it as a phrasal verb, with a preposition. There's nothing in the meaning of the words to tell you this.

Why does matenmanĝo mean breakfast - because that's the obvious application of the word. Again why does matenmanĝi mean to have breakfast, because that's the obvious meaning.

And why isn't it equally obvious that Ni matenmanĝis ovojn means "We had eggs for breakfast", i.e., we breakfasted on eggs? What makes it obvious that breakfast is a thing that we have, as opposed to a thing that we do? The correct answer is: Nothing makes these things obvious, apart from expectations instilled by prior language habits.

As I said, Esperanto's system works well because there are relatively few cases like this. At least, I can't think of many. In most cases, such as doni, transdoni, disdoni, fordoni and the like, the verb is well behaved through the various changes. Voĉdoni is the exception, of course, but that really is a regrettable compound anyway, since it's idiomatic. Simpla kunmetado would tell you that it means "to express", i.e., give voice to something. Or maybe it would just mean to give, vocally, i.e., stating that you're giving. You'd have to be telepathic to know its actual meaning. But there are really only a handful of idiomatic compounds that I can think of, so no big deal.

Could one also use 'matenmanĝi' for "make breakfast"?

Kio vi faras? Mi matenmanĝi.

Forgive me if I butchered the grammar ._.

You butchered the grammar.

And you neglected the fact that "fari" means not only "to do", but "to make".

So if your grammar were correct, the question would read as the perfectly normal, "What are you doing? -- I'm eating breakfast"

"Thinginess does not imply transitivity"

Depends on the nature of the thing. An 'evento' is also a thing.

The relationship of verbs from substantive ideas to the thing is very diverse.

If you are so keen, Todd, to allow tagmanĝi to be transitive, how do you explain that 'lunĉi' is intransitive.

By the way, not just anglophone prejudice. can 'déjeuner' take a direct object?

erinja:You butchered the grammar.

Sorry, haha.

But what I'm trying to ask is if each verb form of a noun root has a set meaning- with my example of "bovaĵi" earlier, and with "xxxxmangxi" now.

sudanglo:"Thinginess does not imply transitivity"

Depends on the nature of the thing. An 'evento' is also a thing.

Exactly. If it depends on the nature of the thing, then "thingness" itself doesn't imply transitivity or, as you had it, intransitivity.

If you are so keen, Todd, to allow tagmanĝi to be transitive, how do you explain that 'lunĉi' is intransitive.

By the way, not just anglophone prejudice. can 'déjeuner' take a direct object?

I'm not trying to prove that tagmanĝi is transitive. I'm saying that there's nothing in the concept expressed by it that requires it to be intransitive. There's nothing in the concept of lunĉi that requires it to be intransitive either, but lunĉi is not a compound, and it is defined intransitively, so that's the end of it.

In the case of tagmanĝi and the others, we're dealing with a compound whose principal part is a transitive verb. If NPIV says it's intransitive, so be it. My point is simply that this classification is arbitrary, as arbitrary as the intransitivity of lunĉi. It doesn't flow from the meaning of the word.

Think about it. When the question of the transitivity of vespermanĝi came up, you and I agreed that it sounds odd to use it transitively? But what exactly is odd about it, apart from the fact that it doesn't line up with our anglophone (and wannabe francophone) expectations? Is there something confusing, or unclear, or ambiguous about Ni tagmanĝis sandviĉojn? Is there some doubt as to its meaning? Does it violate some rule of word formation?

What obscure metaphysical principle is involved in the claim that while manĝ- is inherently verby, vespermanĝ- is inherently nouny? Your position, apparently shared by the editors of NPIV, is that vespermanĝ- functions rather like a new root, with a grammatical "essence" different from that of its components. As a result, the Esperanto speaker who wants to say that we had sandwiches for lunch cannot make direct use of the transitivity that is already assigned to the root verb. He must stick some dubious preposition in there, or resort to some other locution entirely.

I don't dispute that you and the editors of NPIV see it this way, or that this is dominant usage. I simply don't see any reason why this particular dominant usage should be normative.

sudanglo:

By the way, not just anglophone prejudice. can 'déjeuner' take a direct object?

In french, no.

Transitivity. Feh. I swear, even after over five years of daily Esperanto exposure, it still gives me a headache.

IF I was a reformer (which I am not), I have to be honest: transitivity would be the first thing I'd tear out. I wasn't a fan of the accusative case when I started learning Esperanto, but it doesn't take much study to realize how useful it is. I thought the correlatives were all too similar to one another, but after a while I got used to them. Telling the difference between -ig and -iĝ was hard for a while, but I eventually picked it up.

But I still have the worst time remembering the transitivity of verbs. Everything else in Esperanto follows a pattern that I can see. Transitivity, on the other hand - and in those cases where the meaning of the root doesn't make it obvious - seems entirely arbitrary.

Say I come across a new verb which I don't already know (for example, GLABRI*). Can I stick an -ig on it? Yep - GLABRIGI is transitive. I know that, because it's part of a pattern. Can I stick an -iĝ on it? Yes I can. GLABRIĜI is intransitive, which I also know for a fact (even though I have no idea what GLABRI means), because that's part of another pattern. Do I know the transitivity of GLABRI, just by looking at the word? Not a chance. I can conjugate GLABRI in all tenses, stick prefixes and suffixes on it, turn it into an adjective, an adverb, whatever - all without having a clue as to what it means. But when it comes to transitivity, in addition to its meaning, I am required to memorize which way it swings as well, and according to no discernible pattern.

It's an annoying extra memory load whose value is extremely questionable. If every verb were simply transitive or intransitive depending on whether or not a direct object was supplied (or one of the transitivity-affecting suffixes was applied), I don't think I'd have a problem with that. It works in English just fine, and no negative repercussions to Esperanto come to mind.

It's a good thing I'm not reform-minded.

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* There is no such word, that I know of - I just made it up. It doesn't appear in the Lernu vortaro, at any rate. If it actually is a real word, pick another set of random letters. It's just an example, geez.