Professional paper
Discussion on verb’s transitivity and reflexivity in Croatian
Alen Milković
; Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
This paper deals with the category of transitivity in Croatian grammars. In some cases the object of transitive verb can be dropped and as consequence semantics of the verb changes. If an object is present, the sentence expresses what subject is doing in concrete situation. If object is not present, verb refers to subject’s occupation or it’s ability to perform some activity. Some abilities are easy to lose and therefore dropping the object means that subject is (still) able to perform certain activity. It seems that the object of some verbs is dropped if the verb denotes an ability which is easy to lose. Other abilities are not that easy to lose, so in those cases object must be present. If either subject or the object refers to an inanimate entity and is connected to reflexive verbs, there are two possible interpretations. On the syntactic level it is not obvious and it is not relevant that the cause of an activity is not integrated in meaning itself. On the semantic level it is relevant that the cause of an activitiy is part of the verb’s meaning, so the verb can be present in transitive form without an object.
Keywords
transitive verbs; intransitive verbs; reflective verbs; object; semantics; syntax
Hrčak ID:
50774
URI
Publication date:
14.4.2010.
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