|
 |
The original purpose of "dative" verbs | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 17 of 32 27 August 2012 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | ||
This is probably the best summary for free on Finnish direct objects. If you want some rather detailed explanations for partitive in Finnish, check out this article. This abstract briefly examines direct objects marked with nominative in Finnish (and Old Russian) while this paper explores the partitive-accusative division in Balto-Finnic languages (mainly Estonian and Finnish examples). Lastly this paper explores briefly the inflection for objects in several Finno-Ugric languages (i.e. not just Estonian and Finnish). There's actually quite a lot available for free on the topic just by running a search in Google with combinations of the keywords "direct object", "telicity", "aspect", "Finnic", "Saami", "Finno-Ugric", "definite conjugation" *** I suppose that a rough analogy of partitive for a direct object in an Indo-European language could be found in French as it refers to the degree to which the direct object is affected by the action. E.g. Je bois du lait vs. Je bois le lait "I drink (some) milk"/"I'm drinking (some) milk" vs. "I drink (all of the) milk"/"I'll drink (up the) milk" A Finn could translate these respectively as: Juon maitoa (partitive) vs. Juon maidon (synchronically genitive singular, diachronically a reflex of accusative singular -m - see below) When it comes to direct objects, Finnish, Estonian and other Balto-Finnic languages mark telicity in declension. In general terms it means that the direct object's endings signal something about the verb's aspect (including duration) or the degree to which the verb affects the direct object. This is unlike the Slavonic languages or Hungarian, where the verb's aspect is signalled by some modification to the verb be it something internal (e.g. Polish: zapraszać (imperfective) ~ zaprosić (perfective) "to invite") or adding a prefix (e.g. Hungarian: olvasni "to read [in general]" ~ elolvasni "to read sg to completion"). Based on what I've learned so far for Northern Saami, direct objects don't seem to mark for telicity as in the Balto-Finnic languages but such distinctions for telicity seem to rely more on context, or using adverbs or different verbs (I guess that it's also related to Northern Saami lacking explicit case marking for partitive). Using the partitive on a direct object then suggests to the Finn (or Estonian) that the verb's action could be ongoing or incomplete, or that not all of the direct object is affected. The connotation of continuation has been used to explain why direct objects of verbs referring to emotion are often in partitive as in the sentence Rakastan sinua "I love you". If a direct object however clears the "partitive filter", then the direct object will be marked by what is synchronically genitive or nominative. Finnish long ago used the suffix -m as the accusative singular, however Finns seemed to have started to produce the final -m as -n thus making accusative look and sound like genitive thus explaining the description of a non-partitive suffix for direct objects as "genitive". As to use of nominative for other direct objects, I'm not sure but refer to that abstract whose link is above for some hints. For the Saamic languages, the accusative singular suffix was also -m at one time, but just as in Finnish most Saami started to produce the suffix as -n thus again coinciding with genitive singular. Even later though, this final -n of the merged accusative-genitive faded away because the extensive consonant gradation of Saamic as triggered in inflection often made it sufficiently clear to Saami if the form was nominative or genitive/accusative to the point where it seemed redundant to use the merged genitive/accusative ending -n (as far as I know only Southern Saami still uses -m for accusative thus maintaining the case's independence. Lule Saami uses -v as a reflex of the earlier -m/-n which also maintains the accusative singular's independence. All of the other Saamic languages have it such that accusative singular forms have almost totally (if not totally) merged with genitive singular ones. Just as in Finnish, labelling Northern Saami direct objects as "genitive" (or "accusative/genitive" as I've done) is synchronic). Hungarian differs from Finnic and Saamic since it seems rather closer to the "Standard Average European" treatment of direct object being accusative, notwithstanding its own treatment or "quirks". Nevertheless, there are still what could pass off as "unintuitive" connections in these languages just as there are in Indo-European languages which as Medulin notes are just part of the languages' pattern of case governance for verbs (rection) and so they evade succint comparison, generalization or rationalization. In any case the outsider just needs to learn them as they are since the reasons may indeed be obscure, uncertain or downright speculative to the point of being distractions to the average learner (e.g. use elative (~ "out of") for Finnish object of "to like", illative (~ "(in)to") for Northern Saami object of "to like", dative (~ "to") for Hungarian object of "to help"). I think that considering verbs' degree of transitivity could help rationalize some of the "rections" but not all of them. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 18 of 32 27 August 2012 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | ||
In German, valency is strictly hierarchic. Almost all verbs take accusative for their first object argument, and dative for the second one. But the verbs in question take dative for their first object, without there being an obvious case of dropping an argument known to the listener. I read about these being a remnant of an ergative subsytem in Germanic verbs, but I can't find the source. And I don't really comprehend alignment yet. Edited by Bao on 27 August 2012 at 8:25pm 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 19 of 32 27 August 2012 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||
In German, it's different. In most cases, you can't simply add a dative object to a verb. Instead you have to use a different verb. Sie las ein Buch (acc.) (She was reading a book). Sie las den Kindern (dat.) etwas vor (She was reading to the children). Sie las den Kindern (dat.) Märchen (acc.) vor (She was reading fairy tales to the children). Here, you have to use "vorlesen" instead of "lesen", if you want to include a dative object. Warum tust du das (acc.)? (Why are you doing this?) Warum tust du mir (dat.) das (acc.) an? (Why are you doing this to me?) In this case, you use "antun" instead of "tun". Sie haben mir (dat.) mein Auto (acc.) gestohlen (They stole my car.) In this case, it works. Gießt du meine (poss.) Pflanzen (acc.)? (will you water my plants?) In German, you would use a possessive pronoun instead of a dative object. "Gießt du mir die Pflanzen?" is theoretically possible, but not very idiomatic. Er hat den Hund (acc.) des Lehrers (gen.) vergiftet (He poisoned the teacher's dog). In this case, German works like English. You would express possession by using a genitive attribute and not a dative object. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 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 20 of 32 27 August 2012 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I hate to deviate the topic, but the last two responses seem slightly contradictory to me. Bao said there is hierarchy in German verbs, first Wenfall then Wemfall, but Josquin stated many times you have to use another verb to add grammatical recipiency (indirect object), which would say most verbs don't allow hierarchy. In other words, from his examples it appears that base verbs (without prefixes) generally are not ditransitive and only accept accusatives.
Does this process work with inseparable prefixes too (i.e zahlen/bezahlen, brechen/zerbrechen), and is there literature that I can read about this feature? So far I've just learned when to use what verb by context and exposure, and it is painfully slow. This is the most enigmatic part of German grammar to me, when to use two verbs that seem to have very similar meanings, one with a prefix and one without, because there is really very little in terms of actual material that explains this. In order to not deviate the topic, please PM me if you think there a link or other material that could help me. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 21 of 32 27 August 2012 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||
|
For a little bit on German valency, try this, this or this.
Those were the first 3 interesting links that I found after typing in "German dative verbs valency" in Google. I'm sure that you can uncover more by running similar searches using other keywords in addition to what I used. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 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 22 of 32 27 August 2012 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Thank you, I didn't do search with "valency", mainly because the way Josquin describe verb usage was the first time I've seen such a feature described, at least here. At first glance it would explain many patterns I've noticed in German verb usage, but that until now could not pinpoint.
As for your expatiations on usage in languages you are studying, it was really very cool. I have a much stronger understanding of language than I did even a couple of weeks ago, I've read a couple of books and very technical articles, about aspect, about cases, and alignment. I now have a solid grasp on how all of these work, at least in theory. When I read your Finnish description of the partitive vs genetive to describe how an action is partly vs entirely affecting something (like you are watching a movie vs you completely watched the movie), I also was immediately reminded of the robust French partitive usage. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 23 of 32 27 August 2012 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | ||
|
No problem. I'm glad that at least someone other than Iversen got something out of my rambling :-P
This is the beauty though of studying languages that are divergent wherever these differences lie (e.g. typology, phonology, lexicon, pragmatics) as it refines your understanding of how we communicate and the distinctions that we can make when expressing ourselves. No doubt that as you study Mandarin, you're probably having to rewire your brain which based on your profile is heavily influenced by a handful of Romance and Germanic languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 24 of 32 27 August 2012 at 11:40pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Well Mandarin has nuanced verbal aspects that most IE languages I know lack (or require long-winded phrasing to express), it has two perfectives and imperfective particles, which now that I think of it reminds me of the Finnish partitive/genitive nuance, or the nuance in Spanish of the present perfect vs the prererite (a continunous/stative nuance which Portuguese and French have lost, Portuguese by making the present perfect a sort of perfective progressive, French by making the preterite obsolete). But nevertheless, these similarities are not perfectly translferable on a case by case basis.
My problem with the German verbs is just the actual vocabulary choice (lesen vs vorlesen "to read/to read out"), not the underlying grammar which I understand perfectly at this point. I just can't tell when a certain verb can be ditransitive ("antun") or not ("tun"). I already had learned that example from exposure, but that is a very slow way of learning this when you are not in country. So I was hoping maybe there was even a vague shortcut :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
