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The original purpose of "dative" verbs | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6938 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 9 of 32 26 August 2012 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Iversen and Josquin offer some hints on why objects that could be thought of as accusative aren't so.
See this article which approaches it by dividing verbs into "give-type" (cause possession only), "throw-type" (activity that causes motion and possession), and "send-type" (causes motion and possession). ...and here's an explanation about Latin verbs that take dative alluding to the verbs' intransitivity being behind the use of dative. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6938 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 10 of 32 26 August 2012 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Just for fun, I thought a bit about this for the Finno-Ugric languages in which I'm more comfortable and noted that the marking of the object can also defy a succint explanation (back to the idea of keeping an open mind when learning a new language and not to make ultimately faulty generalizations) There are a few structural parallels with what's used in some of the familiar I-E languages.
E.g. in Finnish: - Luen kirjaa / Olen lukemassa kirjaa "I'm reading a book" (partitive) - Luen kirjan "I'll read (and finish) a book" (genitive) - Lue kirja! "Read a/the book!" (nominative) N.B. This is partially "screwed up" by the fact that Finnish doesn't have a tidy equation of direct object with "accusative" anymore and as you can see can mark the direct object with one of 3 cases depending on other criteria. Only certain pronouns consistently exhibit such an equation of accusative and direct object. - Rakastan sinua "I love you" (partitive) - Katson elokuvaa / Olen katsomassa elokuvaa "I'm watching a movie" (partitive) - Katsoin elokuvan "I watched a movie" (genitive) - Kadehdin sinua / Iversentä "I envy you / Iversen" (partitive) - Autan sinua / Iversentä "I'm helping you / Iversen" (partitive) - Kutsun sinut / Iversenin "I invite you / Iversen" (accusative for the pronoun, genitive for "Iversen") - Kutsun sinua / Iversentä "I summon you / Iversen" (partitive in both instances) - Pidän sinusta / Iversenistä "I like you / Iversen" (elative - this might throw someone for a loop but only if he/she thinks of "affection for someone" as a stereotypically transitive verb taking "accusative" on the model of English "to like", German "mögen", Latin "amare", Slovak "ľúbiť" or even Hungarian "szeretni") - Soitan sinulle / Iversenille "I'll telephone you / Iversen" (allative in both instances; this case corresponds roughly to what some western I-E-speaking folk would think of dative as it bears a meaning of motion toward the exterior of something or someone (~ "(on)to sg/sb", "to swhere") and is used here to mark an indirect object. There's no case called "dative" in Finnish but using the allative clears up any potential problem caused by the absence of an explicitly marked case that outsiders may have grown used to calling "dative") - Annan kirjan sinulle / Iversenille "I'll give the book to you / to Iversen" (genitive for "book", allative for the recipients) E.g. in Hungarian - (Egy) könyvet olvasok "I'm reading a book" (accusative) - Elolvasok (egy) könyvet "I'll read (and finish) a book" (accusative) - Olvass el egy könyvet! "Read (and finish) a book!" (accusative) - Szeretlek [téged] "I love you" (téged is accusative but is often omitted as the -lek ending for szeret- is often deemed sufficient to signal whom is loved) - Filmet nézek "I'm watching a movie" (accusative) - Irigyellek [téged] az állásodért "I envy you for your job" (téged is accusative but is often omitted as the -lek ending for irigyel- is often deemed sufficient to signal whom is envied. The reason for envy is in causal-final.) - Irigyelem [tőled] az állásodat "I envy from you your job ~ I envy you for your job" (tőled is the ablative for the 2nd person singular pronoun but the reason for envy is in accusative. Given the context of the sentence, the ablative form can be omitted since the object of envy is clear and sometimes the distinction between what is envied and the associated person is blurred (i.e. I am envious of sb's job which could be intended as my also being envious of that person)) - Segítek neked "I'm helping you" (dative) - Meghívlak téged "I'll invite you" (téged is accusative but is often omitted as the -lak ending for meghív- is often deemed sufficient to signal whom is invited) - Szólok neked "I'm notifying you / letting you know" (dative) - Telefonálok neked "I'm telephoning you" (dative) - Adom neked a könyvet "I'm giving the book to you" (dative for "you", accusative for "book") E.g. in Northern Saami - Logan girjji "I'm reading a book", "I read a book", "I'll read a book", "I'll be reading a book" (accusative/genitive) - Loga girjji! "Read a/the book!" (accusative/genitive) - Mun ráhkistan du "I love you" (accusative/genitive) - Mun geahčan filmma "I watch a movie", "I'm watching a movie", "I'll watch a movie", "I'll be watching a movie" (accusative/genitive) - Mun gáđaštan du "I envy you" (accusative/genitive) - Veahkehan du "I'll help you" (accusative/genitive) - Mun bovden du munnje "I invite you to my place" (accusative/genitive for invitee, illative for destination) - Mun liikon dutnje "I like you" (illative - this might throw someone for a loop but only if he/she thinks of "affection for someone" as a stereotypically transitive verb taking "accusative" on the model of English "to like", German "mögen", Latin "amare", Slovak "ľubiť" or even Hungarian "szeretni". Illative can correspond roughly to what some western I-E-speaking folk would think of dative as it bears a meaning of motion toward something (~ "into sg/sb", "to swhere") and is used here to mark an indirect object. There's no case called "dative" in Northern Saami but using the illative clears up any potential problem caused by the absence of an explicitly marked case that outsiders may have grown used to calling "dative". In a crude but literal way, the sentence means "I like into you" (Cf. "I'm into you")) - Mun riŋgen dutnje "I'll telephone you" (illative - this might throw someone for a loop but only if he/she thinks of "to telephone/to ring" as a stereotypically transitive verb taking "accusative" on the model of English "to call" or German "anrufen" or "dative" on the model of Slovak "zavolať" or Hungarian "telefonálni". In a crude but literal way, the sentence means "I telephone/call into you" (Cf. "I'll put a call to sb")) - Mun attán dutnje girjji "I'll give the book to you" (accusative/genitive for "book", illative for the recipient) Based on this limited sample, the Finnish treatment would probably be oddest for those accustomed to "accusative" equalling direct object but Hungarian and Northern Saami aren't hugely more "intuitive" here (cf. Northern Saami's use of illative for the object of "to like", Hungarian's use of different cases for the objects of "to envy") To bring it back into Indo-European, consider the following Polish and Slovak sentences. Polish: - Zapraszamy Monikę do Krakowa "We invite Monika to Kraków" (accusative for "Monika", genitive for "Kraków" because preposition do "(in)to" requires genitive) - Zadzwonimy do Moniki. "We'll telephone/call Monika" (genitive for "Monika" because preposition do "(in)to" requires genitive) - Napisz do mnie list! "Write a letter to me!" (genitive for "I" because preposition do "(in)to" requires genitive, accusative for "letter" as the direct object of the writing (even though accusative singular for masculine inanimate nouns looks the same as if they were still in nominative singular) - Chłopaki, rozumiem was. "Lads, I understand you" (accusative for "you" as the object of understanding) Slovak: - Pozývame Moniku do Košíc "We invite Monika to Košice" (accusative for "Monika", genitive for "Košice" because preposition do "(in)to" requires genitive) - Zavoláme Monike. "We'll telephone Monika" (dative for "Monika" because the verb governs dative when meaning "to call by telephone" unlike the Polish counterpart which comes with a preposition that requires genitive) - Napiš mi list! "Write a letter to me!" (dative for "I" because the verb puts the indirect object in dative (not surprising depending on your linguistic background) and accusative for "letter" as the verb puts the direct object in accusative (even though accusative singular for masculine inanimate nouns looks the same as if they were still in nominative singular)) - Chalani, rozumiem vám. "Lads, I understand you" (dative for "you" as the object of understanding) Notice the differences between the Polish and Slovak sentences (especially how the object of telephone calls and understanding take different cases) and in my case I just had to learn them as such. I remember that for a while though I was sometimes using the Slovak governance in Polish and so would say rather odd things for Polish ears such as *Zadzwonię ci jak wrócę instead of Zadzwonię do ciebie jak wrócę ("I'll call you when I'll come back") or *Nie rozumiem im instead of Nie rozumiem ich ("I don't understand them") *** In the end it's all quite arbitrary, and perhaps better not to think too hard about it since it's complicated (if not fascinating and worthy of academic study) and could take an inordinate amount of time for the average learner to try to rationalize object-marking in synthetic nominative-accusative languages. Medulin is right in that you should just accept/learn the governance ("rection") of verbs/prepositions as you go along since the details differ from one language/dialect/idiolect/variant to the next. Even English exhibits differences in governance but because of English's analytical nature this is more clearly seen with prepositions (e.g. "I provided them with shelter" (British English) vs. "I provided them shelter" (acceptable in American English along with the British variant). See here for other examples. Edited by Chung on 28 August 2012 at 4:39am 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4481 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 11 of 32 26 August 2012 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
Almost any verb can take a dative argument. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4626 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 12 of 32 26 August 2012 at 10:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
I seriously doubt that. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6485 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 13 of 32 27 August 2012 at 4:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ultimately I believe that any construction has some rational explanation, and this includes the use of cases. But this explanation can be buried under tons of history, including changes of meaning, competition or impact from other constructions, maybe even passing fads, so in practice you will often just have to accept that things are like they are.
But dative objects often function as indirect objects, and this fact will automatically colour my perception of what a dative means in a certain sentence - even though the sentence doesn't seem to operate with a 'receiver' of an action in the synchronical point of view. For me grammar isn't meaningless. Even when I'm told that the same verb is constructed with the accusative in one language and with the dative in a closely related neighbour language, and that the meaning is the same in the two languages, I'll be feeling that there must be some kind of conceptual difference between the two constructions. It may be so subtle that you don't have to care about it, but when there is a difference at least my mind will also expect some consequences of that difference. Edited by Iversen on 27 August 2012 at 4:59am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4731 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 14 of 32 27 August 2012 at 8:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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Geez, Chung, that is one heck of an effort you put in that post. I will give it proper respect and read it tomorrow after some good sleep.
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| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6485 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 15 of 32 27 August 2012 at 10:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have now read Chung's long and informative post, and it seems to me that words like nominative and genitive become misleading rather than informative in the languages he describes. And the partitive - which I know as a grammatical term even though it isn't used as the name for a case in 'my' languages - seems to be used in a lot of different roles.
Maybe I'm naive, but in any language I would expect to find some logic or at least some 'model cases' which form the concept behind the uses of different cases. There may be cases with a number of sharply differentiated uses (like the Latin ablative, which covers the territory of at least three archaic cases) - but a language without any sstem at all would be hard to imagine. In the Indoeuropean languages of Europe there is a model-like construction where direct objects are in the accusative and indirect objects are in the dative. A competing system mostly for prepositions, but also to some extent verbs, is the one that puts durations and places to go in the accusative, while places to be are in the dative - the details can vary, but it is nevertheless some kind of a guideline. In Russian I have noticed the simple (and incomplete) rule that prepositions with just one case typically govern the genitive, while those who governs several cases mostly shun the genitive and govern something else, including the prepositional (an apt name because it only appears with a preposition, but also known as the 'locative'). Which all goes to show that a general principle can be formulated in other termes than those of an 'actant' (or role) model. And then there are verbs and verbs and prepositions which for some reason are associated with unexpected cases like the genitive or (in for instance Russian) with the instrumental. At times there is some hint of a comprehensible logic behind this, sometimes you can let some generalized main rule colour your ideas about the meaning of a certain verb or preposition, and in some cases you can't with your best will see any logic but just have to learn a word-based case-government rule. Of course the system used in the Romance and Germanic languages isn't the only possible. I have also read about the ergative languages, where the direct object ('the affected') with transitive verbs is put in the same case as the subject (the 'doer') of an intransitive verb. Again a system which is different, but there is some general logic in it, which you can use as a general framework while learning the exceptions. And then I just ask myself: what kind of conceptual system can a learner of the Finno-Ugrian languages use to get some basic sense of the roles of the cases? It is fairly clear that there is a 'direction' principle with the separate cases for movements towards and movements away from something (and if my memory doesn't deceive me: a case for things lying on top of other things). But is there any common denominator for the uses of the genitive, and are the nominative and accusative used in accordance with some other system than the one where the 'doer' is in the nominative and the 'affected entity' is in the accusative (or inversely in passive: the affected entity is in the nominative and the doer is missing or expressed through a prepositional phrase or the instrumental if there is such a case)? The remark that the allative + illative can share some of the roles of a dative is something I can understand - giving things 'to' somebody means that something either physically or in an abstract sense moves or points in that direction. However the most puzzling thing in Chung's examples is the varied uses of something called the partitive, a term which in the Western European languages is used about things there are a certain amount of. But just as 'nominative' and 'accusative' the word 'partitive' seems to have totally different meaning in the Finno-Ugrian languages. I don't expect Chung to give us a formula which can spare me the trouble of learning Finnish, Saami and Hungarian, but there might be some kind of common denominator behind the uses of for instance the partitive. Edited by Iversen on 27 August 2012 at 10:45am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4481 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 16 of 32 27 August 2012 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know how it works in German, but in Czech you use accusative for the direct object and dative if you do something to/for someone. četla knihu ACC (she was reading a book) četla dětem DAT (she was reading to children) četla dětem DAT pohádky ACC (she was reading fairy tales to children) Proč mi DAT to ACC děláš? (Why are you doing this to me?) Ukradli mi DAT auto ACC. ("My car was stolen", or more literally "they stole (the/a) car from me.") Zaleješ mi DAT kytky ACC? (will you water my plants?) otrávil psa ACC (he poisoned a dog) otrávil jí DAT psa ACC (he poisoned her dog) otrávil učitelce DAT psa ACC (he poisoned (a/the) teacher's dog) otrávil učitelku ACC(he poisoned (a/the) teacher) otrávil si psa (he poisoned his dog) (I don't know why , but it would probably mean accidentally) otrávil se (he poisoned himself) Edited by LaughingChimp on 27 August 2012 at 5:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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