I’ve been thinking about ergative verbs, like ‘sail’, ‘sink’, ’ ‘open’, ‘close’ which can be used as intransitive, and transitive verbs.
If you open/close the door, the door opens/closes. And if you sail the boat out the harbor or sink it to the bottom, it sails out of the harbor and sinks to the bottom.
But what about ‘sit up’? You can sit someone up and they can sit up, but what about a baby? The mother sits the baby up, and the baby sits up? I don’t think so. Babies can’t sit up. Or raise themselves into a sitting position.
And what about the doors which open when you approach? Do you open the door, when the door opens? I don’t think so. The door opens by itself.
What about the door which is wired up to open when you touch a panel in a prominent position on it? You’re not just approaching it. You’re putting your hand on it.
In Japanese, many (most?) verbs have distinct forms for in/transitive verbs.
"The door opened and the president came in" and
"The president opened the door and came in"The word corresponding to ‘open’ isn’t the same in the 2 sentences in Japanese. They are ‘two different etymologically related, but morphemically distinct verbs’ as someone said.
"The ghost went out and the door closed" and
"The ghost went out and closed the door"Again in Japanese, ‘close’ is ‘two different etymologically related, but morphemically distinct verbs’
Perhaps the president opened the door, or perhaps someone else, or the wind, did. Or it opened by itself, eg a faulty or automatic door.
Perhaps the ghost closed the door, or perhaps someone else, or the wind, did. Or it closed by itself, eg a magic or automatic door.
Japanese apparently has only 2 verbs used intransitively and transitively in the same form.
Confusingly, they are ‘open’ and ‘close’. The ‘open/close’ in ‘open/close your eyes/book’ are different than the ‘open/close’ in ‘open/close a door’.
And English appears to have only 2 intransitive/transitive verb pairs like the Japanese verbs for ‘open’, and the many other Japanese verbs that are similar but different in intransitive/transitive use.
But I’m on the look out for more of these pairs.
Can anyone guess what the 2 English verb pairs are: one of each being intransitive, the other being transitive?
There are 2 English verb pairs like ‘akeru’ (ntr.) and ‘aku’ (tr.) in Japanese (or is it the other way around?). The verbs in the pair are ‘etymologically related, but morphemically distinct verbs’. One is intransitive, one is transitive.
The answer is not ‘die’ and ‘kill’. ‘die’ is intransitive, ‘kill’ is transitive and if I kill you, you die, but they are not etymologically related.
They are semantically related.
Clue to my challenge: the members of the pair exhibit differences in use in dialects and between AmE and BrE, as nouns and verbs.
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