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The original purpose of "dative" verbs | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4950 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 1 of 32 26 August 2012 at 1:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Why were verbs like "help" and others marked in this way, in Proto-Indo-European (I assume since the same verbs seem to be dative across indo-european language families)?
The evidence shows modern European languages have "transitivized" a lot of formerly dative verbs. Look at the verb "to help" itself. In German, it is still fully dative: "Ich helfe ihnen". In Spanish, it is partially transitivized, though in my dialect it is not, it remains dative: "Yo les ayudo" (dative, indirect object) "Yo los ayudo" (accusative, direct object) In French, it seems it has been more fully transitivized: "Je les aide". in English it is fully transitive: "I help them". German used to have many more dative verbs, and still has quite a few in fact, but that amount is certainly reduced. Spanish has some but probably less than German, and French less than Spanish. English has completely lost (from what I read) this feature. It should be pointed out that turning dative verbs to accusative (transitive) verbs does not mean a language loses all intransitive verbs, "to go" is still intransitive in English, as it can't take a direct object proper. So, in other words, it appears all dative verbs are technically intransitive, but not all intransitive verbs are "dative" verbs ("gehen" in German is not considered dative, just intransitive). What was the purpose of verbs taking dative instead of accusative? Also, it seems that changing dative verbs to accusative (or genitive verbs, for example German used to have many but virtually al of them have been changed to non-genitive), is not as difficult as changing an intransitive verb to transitive. No European language I'm aware has been able to make verbs like "to arrive", "to go", "to stand", etc be able to take direct objects. This seems self-evident, it is just the nature of those verbs. But many "dative" verbs didn't have such self-evident nature, and thus were able to be changed to accusative. So, anyone want to tackle this? :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 32 26 August 2012 at 3:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, in Danish you can say about a person you have been pressured to leave a compony or a political position" "han er blevet gået" (literally "he has been gone", meaning "they have made him go"). But that's a detail. In general I see two groups of sentences with a dative (or indirect) object, namely those who have both a direct (accusative) and an indirect object (dative): "je lui promis un obituaire", and those who instead of a substantival direct object have for instance an infinitive "je lui promis d'écrire son obituaire", and this last construction could be the main road to transitivation of a verb because the expressed or implied direct object isn't a substantive and therefore can't be in the accusative.
PS: notice the expression "to stand his ground" in English, where there is a clear object of some kind. It is not totally excluded to make an intransitive verb active, but the process may start as a joke or a pun, and for a time the phenomenon may be restricted to one fixed expression. Edited by Iversen on 28 August 2012 at 8:28pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 3 of 32 26 August 2012 at 8:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You can't compare it directly.
Different languages have different REKCIJA GLAGOLA/REGÊNCIA VERBAL/REGIMEN VERBAL. For example, 1) in Serbian the verb LAGATI (To lie, to tell lies) takes accusative (direct object): Nemoj da me lažeš! (Do not tell me lies). In Croatian, the same verb takes dative (indirect object): Nemoj mi lagati (Do not lie to me!). Similar with SMETATI (to disturb): On me smeta (Serbian; accusative) = On mi smeta (Croatian; dative) = He's disturbing me 2) Many verbs are dative verbs in continental Portuguese, but are accusative verbs in Brazilian Portuguese, so they can be used in the passive voice: Muita gente assistiu ao concerto de Plácido Domingo. (continental Portuguese and old-fashioned Brazilian Portuguese; assistir a = dative) Muita gente assistiu o concerto de Plácido Domingo (Brazilian Portuguese; direct object) O concerto de Plácido Domingo foi assistido por muita gente (Brazilian Portuguese; passive voice of the verb assistir) Many people attended the concert of Plácido Domingo. In Portugal, Muitos shows foram assistidos (Many shows were attended/seen), Muitas perguntas foram respondidas (Many questions were answered) are ungrammatical since, they can't use assistir and responder with the direct object, RINGRAZIARE (=to thank) takes a direct object in Italian, but AGRADECER (=to thank) takes an indirect object in Portuguese; Nonetheless, in spoken Brazilian Portuguese you can hear both ''Agradeço a você'' and ''Agradeço você'', We may call this it a ''weak dative'' in Brazilian Portuguese. 'A robust dative is the one which is introduced with the preposition PARA (rather than A) in informal speech. With bitransitive/ditransitive verbs, the dative is alive and kicking: Mandei uma carta para a professora. I sent a letter to the (female) teacher. Abra para mim! = Open it to me! (here the verb ABRIR is still used bitransitively/ditransitively, but the accusative clitic is zero [it's called ''zero object'']) The verb AJUDAR (to help) in colloquial Brazilian Portuguese: Eu te/lhe ajudo (=I help you) we may call it dative Eu ajudo ele/ela/eles/elas/você(s) (=I help him/him/them/you) it's nominative accusative 3). In English the thing is complicated, since passive voice can be made even with dative verbs. He wrote me a letter. He wrote a letter to me. I was written a letter. A letter was written. ;) 4) Because of the fact that in Spanish A introduces both dative and personal accusative, you get weird combinations like: Te presento a Ana. which can be interpreted as both 1) I introduce you to Ana 2) I introduce Ana to you 5) Not long ago, only ESO ME RECUERDA MI INFANCIA was the only correct option, but now many people use A: ESO ME RECUERDA A MI INFANCIA. The dative is introduced. 6) In Brazilian Portuguese, with PAGAR (to pay) you can hear a) dative (A) in formal language: Pagar ao médico (Pay the doctor) b) accusative (zero) in spoken language: Pagar o médico (Pay the doctor) c) dative (PARA) in spoken language with bitransitive verbs: Pagar muita grana pro médico (To pay a lot of money to the doc) 7) In Croatian pomagati + dative = to be helping someone pomagati + accusative = to be helping someone financially, to sustain someone Edited by Medulin on 26 August 2012 at 9:05am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4700 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 4 of 32 26 August 2012 at 9:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm sorry, but what is a dative verb?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 5 of 32 26 August 2012 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
A verb which requires the following noun or pronoun to be in the dative case (Dativ, pád 3). For example pomáhat/pomoct komu, (po)děkovat komu. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 6 of 32 26 August 2012 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think the question why certain verbs take certain cases is rather pointless. The attribution of certain cases to certain verbs or prepositons is always more or less arbitrary. In case of the dative, its function is relatively clear: to denote the indirect object. But why on earth do some verbs take the dative for their direct objects like in: "Ich helfe Ihnen" (German) or "Ég hjálpa þér" (Icelandic)? I think the answer is, because "to help" also has a "hidden" direct object: I help you to do something. So, the "you" becomes the indirect object of the action.
Okay, that's "to help". But what's with: "Ég skipti peningum (dat.)" (I change money)? Or "Я желаю тебе всего хорошого (gen.)" (I wish you all the best). There is just no logical reason why these verbs take dative or genitive objects. They are just constructed in this way. The case becomes even more illogical with impersonal verbs, which are very common in Icelandic: "Mig (acc.) langar í ís" (I would like an ice-cream); "Mér (dat.) finnst gott að synda" (I like swimming). Here the logical subject of a sentence is in an object case, because the verb has to be constructed impersonally, a way of expressing thought that's also found in Russian or dated German expressions: "Mich (acc.) verlangt mit ihm zu sprechen" (I long to speak with him). So, I don't know if dative verbs can be reduced to a single function they had in Indo-European and which they have lost ever since. To me, it seems like the distribution of cases is not always logical and thus not always explainable. Edited by Josquin on 26 August 2012 at 2:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4700 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 7 of 32 26 August 2012 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Dative case marks the recipient, accusative marks the direct object. Word order has nothing to do with it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 8 of 32 26 August 2012 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't think that was @stelingo's point. A dative verb is a verb that takes an object in the dative case like "jemandem (dat.) helfen" or "помочь кому-то (dat.)". Nobody said anything about word order. Edited by Josquin on 26 August 2012 at 4:02pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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