Transitive Verb Form Puns

my dictionary lists the verb videre as a transitive verb. however, caesar's famous "veni vidi vici" doesn't have a direct object for veni. is the object simply implied, or is videre not exclusively transitive? thanks

How do you form transitive and intransitive verbs? I know 始める and 始まる and that's about it. Do you change the i/e to a in iru-eru verbs? Like could you say 食ばる？ (Im assuming not because I had to manually type it in).

Do only specific verbs have them?

Is it unique for every verb?

Though English has both transitive and intransitive verbs with no systematic way to know for sure at first glance whether they're as such, most (if not all?) verbs in English that are both transitive and intransitive appear to take the same form for either. As such, both the transitive and intransitive forms of to burn are identical.

However, in languages such as Korean and Esperanto, one can convert transitive verbs to intransitive verbs (and vice versa I believe) that have different forms, and as such, the sentences I burnt the meat. and The meat burnt. would translate slightly differently.

In Korean, they would become 내가 고기를 태웠어 and 고기가 탔어 respectively, with the verb form changing as required.

And in Esperanto, they would become Mi bruligis la viandon and La viando brulis respectively.

So are there any verbs in English that do this as well, with different forms depending on its transitivity?

i am not used to french syntax so... i want to be sure if you can actually use conjunctions or even subordinate clauses as the object (complement). i had seen a transitive direct verb (croire) being followed by "que". Unless i am trolling hard and que is actually a relative pronoun lol

Ŝajne kreas bezonon por du subjektoj, ĉu ne? Ke "skuas min" signifas igas min skuata tiam skuigas min signifus igi min skui ... Do, ĉu bone? Skuigas min je la botelo aŭ, alivorte, igas min skui la botelon.

Just now I thought about a certain use of Esperanto grammar. As shown in the title of this post. I'd like to know please, although I must admit to errors with which words are transitive and which aren't, some comments on advanced grammar is welcome.

Sure you can sometimes tell from the example phrases and sentences they provide, but it's not always clear and they often use really esoteric examples in literary/Classical Chinese.

Fuck.

If I understand correctly, transitive verbs take objective pronouns and intransitive verbs take subjective ones.

So,

Idiots vote for whomever. [Idiots vote for him]

But,

Whoever votes is an idiot. [He who votes is an idiot]

This gets more complicated, however, when we have a case like the following:

He is the candidate whom we have voted for. [We voted for him]

He is the candidate who we wish would win. [We wish he would win]

Give this work to whoever looks idle. [He looks idle]

In the last case, The Elements of Style suggests that it should be whoever, as whoever is the subject of the intransitive phrase looks idle.

There is still some confusion around this idea for me. How come do we not consider the pronoun from the primary part of the sentence as the deterministic factor?

In other terms, why is

(Give this work to) he who looks idle

the deterministic logic rather than

Give this work to him (who looks idle)

Hi! I am trying to better understand how transitive and intransitive verb pairs are formed in Japanese. Between various explanations I've seen on this subreddit and my own studies, I've come to notice that transitive and intransitive pairs tend to either exist in える/ある or Ichidan/Godan pairs.

I'm wondering if there is any explanation for why this is? Is it generative? Can I take any arbitrary える verb an assume that there is a matching ある pair and vice versa? Does anyone know where I can go to learn more about this?

Thank you.

really struggling with this one lmao

Like this:

Canem ambulo.

I’m walking the dog.

Or is there some other verb I should use?

I am very confused. I only recently learned about the concept of transitivity in Russian. Transitive verbs are of course verbs like "Спат" or "сидеть". These are verbs that cannot really act on an object. You can hit someone but you can't sleep someone.

So, why do these verbs have forms with the suffix that makes things intransitive "ся".

I understand that the suffix has many different meanings. But, I thought that intransitive verbs had the capabilities to do all of those things.

I looked on Wiktionary and викисловарь for an answer. The only thing I could come up with is that they are impersonal apparently. Which I think means it can be used when creating a passive sentence.

Does being an intransitive verb not grant all of the abilities of the "ся" suffix? What do I need to learn to be able to understand this?

Thank you.

In Japanese, there are a number of pairs of verbs used that differ on transitivity, or the number of objects a verb can carry.

In English, the sentences "The ball broke" and "I broke the computer" are both valid.

In Japanese however, these two sentences require two different (but related) verbs.

kowasu, to break X

kowareru, to break

Watashi wa pasokon wo kowashimashita = I broke the computer

Pasokon wa kowaremashita = The computer broke

How did these come to be? Was there any particular construction it absorbed or did they just happen?

I am working on a conlang that uses logographic characters and which has no tense. It also has no helping verbs. It does have aspect particles that follow the verb.

• Dynamic
• Stative
• Perfective
• Habitual

Examples:

1. Habitual: She walks everyday. -> She foot-habitual everyday.
2. Transitive/Dynamic/Imperfective: She walks the dog. -> She foot-dynamic the dog.
3. Transitive/Dynamic/Perfective: She has walked the dog -> She foot-dynamic-perfective the dog.
4. Intransitive/Dynamic/Imperfective: She walks. -> She foot-dynamic.
5. Intransitive/Dynamic/Perfective: She has walked. -> She foot-dynamic-perfective.
6. Intransitive/Stative/Imperfective: She is thinking about the dog. -> She be-braining-stative about the dog.
7. Intransitive/Stative/Perfective: She has thought about the dog. -> She has-brained-stative-perfective about the dog.

My problem is in forming passive sentences where the object takes the subjects place:

• The dog is being walked (by someone). -> The dog foot-dynamic.
  • (But this is the same as the dog walks.)
• The dog has been walked (by someone). -> The dog foot-dynamic-perfective.
  • (But this is the same as the dog has walked.)
• The house is burning. -> The house be-firing-stative.
  • Are stative verbs always passive?
• The house is burnt. -> The house be-fired-stative-perfective.
  • Is this really the resultative aspect?

I was thinking about adding an agent particle to the subject of the transitive sentences. This would make it an Ergative/Absolutive conlang.

I then thought that if I added the agent particle to the intransitive dynamic subjects then I would be able to tell the difference between the dynamic passive and the dynamic non-passive sentences:

• The dog-agent foot-dynamic. (The dog walks.)
• The dog foot-dynamic. (The dog is being walked.)

I think the above would make my conlang have Active Alignment but not sure.

Would mental stative verbs then also require an agent marker? I'm not sure this is correct:

• She-agent be-braining-stative of the dog. (She is thinking of the dog.)
• She be-braining-stative about. (She is being thought about.)

I want to be able to move the object to the subject position to form passives so what passive marking choices do I have?

1. Add a passive particle after or before the verb (trying to unburden the verb with additional particles.
2. Add a object marker to the object (trying to avoid this).
3. Add a mandatory subject

I recently created a video which lists 20 transitive and intransitive verbs pairs (with examples included). I hope this video can help those who are trying to learn / memorise transitive and intransitive verbs. You can check out the video here: https://youtu.be/q6gzOXv-M_w

Rortodjo is a VSO language and has noun classes associated with a set of vowels. Supernatural nouns use [a] and others, naturals use [i] and others, and artificials use [u] and others.

Vowel harmony is, so far, enforced throughout the word. "Ra" (sand) + "-ru" (suffix indicating "place of") = Rara (sand place). I then thought it would make sense for the vowels in verbs to encode S/O information and use consonantal roots stems.

"Move" might be "m_r" and something like "the person moves" would be "mir xiq" (moves person) and "the rock moves" would be "mur ksu" (moves rock).

My problem then is with transitive verbs. I have a few directions and I'm not sure which way is best or even if any of these ideas are naturalistic at all.

Option 1: Transitive root stems have two syllables and they are split in half. Something like "see" is "z_d_", so "the person sees the rock" could be "zi xiq du ksu".

Option 2: The verb only takes the vowels associated with the subject and there is some other object marker. Maybe a duplicated back half of the verb, so it's "zidi xiq du ksu"

Option 3: Just have my verbs not enforce vowel harmony and use whatever vowels reflect the subject and object. "zidu xiq ksu"

Any input on the naturalism of any of these ideas or whether they even make sense at all would be greatly appreciated.

Any tips? I always confuse them 😂

I.e. in English (I believe) if someone asks you 'how are you' the correct answer is 'good' but someone saying 'how are you doing' takes 'well'. Assuming this is correct, does sum take bene or bonus?

Hi there, just wondering if する verbs are transitive or not. From some 検索する (lol) I couldn't find any definitive answers. I get the impression that most are but there are a significant amount of exceptions? I was just pondering 勉強する and I'm not sure which that would be? I've been trying to learn the trans/instrans. of verbs as I memorise them but have been stuck on this lately. I've been using Tanoshii Japanese as a Jap-Eng dictionary; are there certain dictionaries that tell you this?

Thanks.

I'm struggling to differentiate あく and ひらく, as well as 閉める、閉まる、閉じる、and 開ける

I check on Jisho.org for examples, and they are all similar (To Open is the example used for both, and they are listed as being both transitive and intransitive verbs)

あく would be Someone actually opening up a book, door, window, etc., (he opened the window/彼は窓を開いた”　 as well as a store (for the day, as in "The store opens at 9am/店は9時を開きます"

ひらく would be something opening on it's own? "The door opened/ドアを開いた" or a store opening for the first time?

I'm so confused! lol

Hello everyone,

I have been focusing on transitivity as of late. I came across this article that I found to be very helpful. I hope that it well help you out as well !

https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-grammar/intransitive-verbs-vs-transitive-verbs/

Edit(09.21.2020):

I didn't expect this post to get so much attention or reach this many people. I'm glad that so many people found it useful ! Thanks for all the upvotes and rewards. This motivates me to want to help even more.

If I come across any other useful resources, I will be sure to post them here !

[Please forgive the flair, I hope that's the correct one in this case]

A native English speaker had commented to me that my use of the verb 'to call' as intransitive ('can I call?' instead 'can I call you?') is incorrect, or at least, sounds off to a native speaker and that as an editor, they would flag it as an issue.

I see that the verb appears as both transitive and intransitive in the dictionary, and that Anna H. Live, writing on the discontinuous verb in English {1}, calls it 'optionally transitive', but that could refer to the act of crying out.

How does one find out? Is it perhaps a regional difference in use?

{1} Anna H. Live (1965) The Discontinuous Verb in English, Word, 21:3, 428-451, DOI: 10.1080/00437956.1965.11435439

Is there any tool for quickly looking up the intransitive/transitive equivalent of a verb, if they exist at all?

Jisho and most other dictionaries will list a verb as either intransitive or transitive, but so far I don't see any easy way of finding the other pair.

Anyone know of such tool?

Hi everyone, I recently made a video sharing 20 useful transitive and intransitive verb pairs. Thought it might be easier to learn by introducing them together as a pair. I’ve also included a short segment on what transitive and intransitive verbs are and also included examples for each verb. How this video can help learners learn transitive and intransitive verbs better! Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/q6gzOXv-M_w