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Past perfect of sterben: haben or sein? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| josepablo Tetraglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 3935 days ago 123 posts - 141 votes  Speaks: German, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Turkish | Message 9 of 13 16 January 2014 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||
I think it is quite correct to use the accusative. But not as direct object, but as adverbial clause of manner: How did they die? Slowly, painfully. I'd rather use the genitive for "reason why?": Sie sind Hungers gestorben. [In French you would have to use the genitive case though: Ils sont morts d'une mort lente et douloureuse.] 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5243 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 10 of 13 16 January 2014 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||
Well, I find it ugly, but it will be the standard in the future, of course (influence of English, genitive loses power.) In this specific case I even suppose it is a translation from English, isn't it, MarcoLeal? Edited by lingoleng on 16 January 2014 at 7:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MarcoLeal Groupie Portugal Joined 4779 days ago 58 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 11 of 13 16 January 2014 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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@lingoleng - I agree that it sounds better with the genitive and the book I mentioned is indeed translated from English but the construction with the accusative also seems to be valid. For instance, if you look up sterben in de.thefreedictionary.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to the "Uebersetzungen" section you'll find examples like einen schnellen/leichten Tod sterben.
Anyway I think I've found an article that settles this question more or less satisfyingly, at least for me. You'll find it here. It turns out that Tod is a so called cognate object. From Wikipedia: In linguistics, a cognate object (or cognate accusative) is a verb's object that is etymologically related to the verb. More specifically, the verb is one that is ordinarily intransitive (lacking any object), and the cognate object is simply the verb's noun form. For example, in the sentence He slept a troubled sleep, sleep is the cognate object of the verb slept. The article I linked to is long and I haven't read it thoroughly but it seems that sterben is simply and oddball. Other verbs with COs like lachen or schlafen already use haben as an auxiliary in the Perfekt even when used without an object so when you use them with an object nothing changes. Sterben, on the other hand, can apparently be passivised as shown in this example (found in the article, page 13): 1000 Tode wurden von ihm gestorben. which is what you would expect of a transitive verb but still does not use haben as auxiliary verb in the Perfekt, as in the following (also from the article, page 13): Kamerherr Brigge ist einen schweren Tod gestorben. I guess this sentence sums it up: KO Beispiele wie einen grausamen Tod sterben, fuer die Passivkonstruktionen belegt sind, die aber ein sein-Auxiliar fordern, befinden sich auf der Transitivitaetsskala naeher am Pol der prototypischen Konstruktionen mit sein-Auxiliar-Verben als die KO-Konstruktionen mit haben-Auxiliar: Der sein-Auxiliar-Pol ist durch Eigenschaften wie Telizitaet, Mutativitaet, Zustandswechsel gekennzeichnet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5243 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 12 of 13 16 January 2014 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, in the old days people called that figura etymologica. (But it is a more valid description in English, where die and death are indeed cognates, than in German, where sterben and Tod are not really etymologically related.) Edited by lingoleng on 16 January 2014 at 8:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5711 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 13 of 13 17 January 2014 at 6:44am | IP Logged | ||
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They certainly have a point. Sterben can happen only once, and while the other examples emphasize that it is this very time that a certain action is done a certain way, and so can be used with haben, sterben is still finite and using haben would push the meaning of the verb to a different point of focus, make it sound like you can die more than once, or that you have any kind of conscious control over the way it is happening. That is what I meant before, it is not your action of dying which influences your death, but the sentence is a description of the kind of death you have.
The other examples all show a certain degree of volition and possible influence of the ... agens over the ... cognate object. As for ambitransitivity, I learnt that word only to describe the words they seem to call unaccusative these days. By the way, I would use "ein Fahrrad fahren" only in the sense of "having made the experience of driving a bike/driving this particular bike", otherwise I'd say "mit dem Fahrrad fahren". Edited by Bao on 17 January 2014 at 6:45am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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