# Case system in some non-IE nominative-accusative languages



## Nino83

Hello everyone. 

I was wondering if in some non-IE nominative-accusative languages, for example in Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese, there is a general correspondence between transitive and intransitive verbs and if the verbs having the same meaning take, more or less, the same cases. 

For example, in IE languages we have these two verbs: 
eat (transitive) and give ("accusative" for the object which is given and "dative" for the person whom we give something to). 

I make three examples (in English, Japanese and Finnish, correct me if I made some mistake): 
I eat an apple (accusative); I give an apple (accusative) to Lisa (dative)/I give Lisa an apple  
Watashi wa ringo (w)o (accusative) taberu; Watashi wa Lisa ni (dative) ringo (w)o (accusative) kureru 
Syön omena (accusative); Annan Liisa*lle* (allative)  omena (accusative) 

From those examples it seems that generally the verb "to eat" takes the accusative (we eat something, it's a direct action) and the verb "to give" takes the accusative and the dative (we give something to someone). 

I'd like to ask who speaks one of those languages (or any non-IE nominative-accusative language) if they find, in general, some corrispondence in case system and in cases that most verbs take (for example between English and Finnish, English and Japanese and so on). 

Thank you


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## fdb

This depends largely on what you mean by “in general”. Arabic has only three cases (nominative, genitive, accusative). In general the indirect object is represented by the preposition li with genitive. But the verb “to give” actually takes two accusative objects. Thus, in your examples:

ʼākulu tuffāḥatan (acc.)      
ʼuʻṭī  Fāṭimata (acc.) tuffāḥatan (acc.)


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## Nino83

fdb said:


> This depends largely by what you mean by “in general”.



Hi fdb, and thanks for the example. 

For "general" I mean that if in one language the function of the dative is done by the allative, for example, and if the verb "to say" takes the allative, then it takes the "same" case both in English and in Finnish. 

Sanoin sen häne*lle* = I said it *to him 


*


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## berndf

The question isn't very "general" then. Using the allative to mark the indirect object is to my knowledge a Finnish peculiarity. Hungarian, e.g., has different markings for dative and allative. In IE languages allative or directive semantics is generally expressed by the accusative.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> In IE languages the allative or directive semantics is generally expressed by the accusative.



I'm not sure about it. For example, in Romance languages we say "a Giovanni/Juan, à Jean, ao João" and "vado a Roma/je vais à Paris/voy a Madrid/vou a Lisboa" (in Vulgar Latin it was "ad Paulum"). The same in English ("I go to London"). 

But this is not really important. 
What I'd like to know is if most verbs which take the direct object (transitive) in English take, in general, the direct object (transitive) in Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese (and Arabic and other nominative-accusative languages) or if a Japanese/Finnish/Hungarian who studies English has to change his way of thinking very often. 

I said it *to* him (dative)
Sanoin sen häne*lle* (allative)
Watashi wa kare *ni* sore o itta (dative) 

For example, it seems that also the verb "to say" takes the accusative and the dative (allative in Finnish) in these languages (correct me if I made some mistake in translation).


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> I'm not sure about it. For example, in Romance languages we say "a Giovanni/Juan, à Jean, ao João" and "vado a Roma/je vais à Paris/voy a Madrid/vou a Lisboa" (in Vulgar Latin it was "ad Paulum"). The same in English ("I go to London").


_Ad_ *is* an accusative governing preposition (_ad Paul*um*_) and not so by chance. The difference is really important for accusative/ablative prepositions (accusative/dative in Germanic language) like _in _where ablative (dative in Germanic; ablative in Latin and dative in Germanic having absorbed the original locative case) expresses locative and accusative expresses allative/directive semantics.


Nino83 said:


> But this is not really important.


OK.


Nino83 said:


> What I'd like to know is if most verbs which take the direct object (transitive) in English take, in general, the direct object (transitive) in Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese (and Arabic and other nominative-accusative languages) or if a Japanese/Finnish/Hungarian who studies English have to change its way of thinking very often.
> 
> I said it *to* him (dative)
> Sanoin sen häne*lle* (allative)
> Watashi wa kare *ni* sore o itta (dative)
> 
> For example, it seems that also the verb "to say" takes the accusative and the dative (allative in Finnish) in these languages (correct me if I made some mistake in translation).


In Semitic language the correspondence is generally quite straight forward, as fdb explained: Accusative (some have, like English, lost the accusative marker but accusative semantics is still present) for the direct object and the preposition _l-_ (roughly equivalent to the English _to_) to express dative semantics. Double-accusative verbs are, fdb correct me, if I am wrong, in Semitic as rare as in IE (e.g. German _jemanden etwas lehren_).


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> In Semitic language the correspondence is generally quite straight forward, as fdb explained: Accusative (some have, like English, lost the accusative marker but accusative semantics is still present) for the direct object and the preposition _l-_ (roughly equivalent to the English _to_) to express dative semantics.



Thank you, Bernd. 
I wait for someone who speaks or studies Ugro-Finnic languages (like Gavril, for example) or Japanese to answer. 
If the answer will be "yes, most verbs take the same type of object (direct/indirect)", we could say that there are similar grammatical constructions between verbs which have the same meanings in most nominative-accusative languages.


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## francisgranada

Hungarian:

Egy almá*t* (accusative) eszem - I eat an apple
Lizá*nak* (dative) adok egy almá*t* (accusative) - I give an apple to Lisa
Mondtam *nek*i (dative) - I said (to) him
Mondtam *nek*i (dative) valami*t* (accusative) - I said (to) him something

Rómá*ba* (illative) megyek - I go to Rome
Lizá*hoz* (allative) megyek - I go to Lisa

(The allative in case of "I go to Rome" - _Rómá*hoz* megyek_ would mean something like "I go near Rome, but I don't enter the town", but it is not typical with towns as there are other ways to express this idea better).


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> ...  What I'd like to know is if most verbs which take the direct object (transitive) in English take, in general, the direct object (transitive) in Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese (and Arabic and other nominative-accusative languages)


In Hungarian yes, i.e. the accusative marker *-t*. As there are no prepositions in Hungarian that might govern various cases, the accusative serves exclusively for marking the direct object.  


> ... or if a Japanese/Finnish/Hungarian who studies English has to change his way of thinking very often.


As to Hungarian, I think no. Neither with the accusative nor with the dative (-*nak*/*nek*) which is a non-locative case in Hungarian and it corresponds well to the English prep. "to" in "I give to Mary", but not to the "to" in "I go to Rome". In other words, "I go to Rome" is spontaneously not a dative construction for a Hungarian but rather a locative-like one.


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## Flaminius

Japanese:

Watashi-wa ringo-*õ* (accusative) taberu - I eat apple* (unmarked nouns do not have the number)
Risa-*ni* (dative) ringo-*õ* (accusative) watasu* - I give an apple to Lisa (_Kureru_ necessarily takes as the IO the first person or the focused figure in speech)
Kare-*ni* (dative) itta - I said (to) him
Kare-*ni* (dative) XYZ-*to* (quotative; subordination) / XYZ-*õ* (accusative) itta - I said (to) him "XYZ!" / that XYZ is great / something

Rōma-*ni* / -*e* (dative / illative) iku - I go to Rome
Risa-no-tokoro-*ni* / -*e* (dative / illative) iku - I go to Lisa

You cannot directly "go to" someone, but to someone's "place." The noun for place is a periphrasis, not  to be taken literally.  

The predicate of a copular sentence takes a different case from that of the subject.  Called predicative, the usual predicate markers are locative markers such as _de_ and _ni_.  A Japanese copular sentence (for "A is B") would literally means; A exists in B.


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## berndf

Flaminius said:


> Rōma-*ni* / -*e* (dative / illative) iku - I go to Rome


What is the difference between these two sentences?


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## Nino83

Thank you Francis, Flaminius. 

The "locative" matter was introduced by Bernd (I've wanted to remark, in the answer, that it is not a Finnish peculiarity to have a similar construction for the illative and the dative case. That's all. In some languages are similar, Finnish and Japanese included, in other languages they are different. But this is another topic  ) 

So, when you (Francis, Flaminius) started studying English, you didn't find so much difference, isn't it? 
I.e, when a verb is transitive in Hungarian and Japanese, it is transitive in English too (the same for intransitive verbs). 
Do you remember some exception? 



berndf said:


> What is the difference between these two sentences?



As far as I know with the "ni" you highlight the destination (you go *to Rome*) while with the "e" you highlight the movement (you *go *to Rome).


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> So, when you (Francis, Flaminius) started studying English, you didn't find so much difference ...?


Not at all, because the concept of direct/indirect object and the  transitiveness have the same practical meaning both in Hungarian and English, but also e.g. in Slovak (my second language) or Italian, even if their formal "realization" is different in these languages.     


> I.e, when a verb is transitive in Hungarian and Japanese, it is transitive in English too (the same for intransitive verbs).


Yes, at least in case of the _stragrande_ majority of verbs. 





> Do you remember some exception?


At the moment no examples come to my mind, even if such verbs surely exist. However, I think we could explain the difference even in such cases without any difficulty, i.e. without having "to  change our way of thinking". 

For curiosity, in Hungarian many (perhaps almost all the) "normally" intransitive verbs can be used also as transitives in certain cases. For example: álmát alussza (_lit._ he sleeps his dream), a hegyeket járja (_lit._ he walks the mountains), leüli a büntetését (_lit._ he sits down his penalty [in prison]), állja a támadást (_lit._ he stands the attack/offense), etc ....


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## Hakro

Nino83 said:


> Syön omena*n* (accusative); Annan Liisa*lle* (allative)  omena*n* (accusative)


In Finnsh the accusative has no special form except for personal pronouns. For other words accusative may look like either nominative or genitive.

In your example accusative should look like genitive, but if the object is in plural it always looks like nominative:


> Syön omena*t* (accusative); Annan Liisalle omena*t* (accusative)


If the verb is in imperative form or in passive form, even singular object looks like nominative:


> Imperative: Syö omena! (accusative): Anna Liisalle omena! (accusative)
> Passive: Syödään omena (accusative); Annetaan Liisalle omena (accusative)


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## Nino83

Thank you Hakro, for the answer. 

When you started studying English, do you remember if the new English verbs you studied were, normally, of the same type (transitive/intransitive) of the corresponding Finnish verb? 

For example, do you remember some case where you had to be used to a transitive English verb that in Finnish was intransitive and vice versa? 
Or have you found some correspondence between English and Finnish verbs? 



francisgranada said:


> At the moment no examples come to my mind, even if such verbs surely exist.



Thank you, Francis  
This answer is indicative of the fact that there are very few exceptions.


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## Hakro

Nino83 said:


> When you started studying English, do you remember if the new English verbs you studied were, normally, of the same type (transitive/intransitive) of the corresponding Finnish verb?


I can't remember; I started "studying" English by reading English automobile magazines with an English-Finnish dictionary when I was ten or twelve years old; grammar details were not the main point. 

Some five years later when I started studying English at school and the grammar became more important, one of the strange things was the dative that wasn't any different from accusative or nominative: "I give Lisa an apple." Still today I prefer saying "I give an apple to Lisa". At least then I know that I'm not giving Lisa to an apple.


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## Nino83

Hakro said:


> one of the strange things was the dative that wasn't any different from accusative or nominative: "I give Lisa an apple." Still today I prefer saying "I give an apple to Lisa". At least then I know that I'm not giving Lisa to an apple.



Thank you. 

So, it seems that when a verb is transitive in English it is, normally, transitive at least in these non-IE languages (Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese) too. 
For example: "to eat" is transitive in these languages, "to give" and "to say" *are ditransitive** take an direct object and an indirect object (which often is in the dative case, or in the allative case) and "to go" is intransitive. 

It seems that the transitivity of those verbs having the same meaning in these languages is a quality that goes beyond the boundaries of the linguistic families. 

*"to give" and "to say" are not "ditransitive" in IE languages. 
See the following comments.


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## berndf

Say and give are not ditransitive in IE languages. Give is ditransitive in Arabic. Modern English grammarians often don't make the distinction between ditransitive verbs and verbs with direct an indirect objects because the difference has faded after the loss of the case system. But in comparative grammar one should avoid that confusion because in languages that have retained case markings there a big difference between these two categories of verbs.


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## myšlenka

Nino83 said:


> So, it seems that when a verb is transitive in English it is, normally, transitive at least in these non-IE languages (Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese) too.
> For example: "to eat" is transitive in these languages, "to give" and "to say" are ditransitive (they take an direct object and an indirect object, which often is in the dative case, or in the allative case) and "to go" is intransitive.
> 
> It seems that the transitivity of those verbs having the same meaning in these languages is a quality that goes beyond the boundaries of the linguistic families.


I am not sure I understand the topic of this thread, but are you asking if there are non-IE languages where a verb like _to eat_ is not transitive? I have a hard time conceiving of such a language.


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## Johnnyjohn

myšlenka said:


> I am not sure I understand the topic of this thread, but are you asking if there are non-IE languages where a verb like _to eat_ is not transitive? I have a hard time conceiving of such a language.



Well there are native american languages like the Algonquin ones where a verb that is transitive must have an implied object, a sentence like "I eat" would imply "I eat something", to just say "I eat" in general, a derived verb form must me memorized.


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## Johnnyjohn

myšlenka said:


> I am not sure I understand the topic of this thread, but are you asking if there are non-IE languages where a verb like _to eat_ is not transitive? I have a hard time conceiving of such a language.



Well there are native american languages like the Algonquin ones where a verb that is transitive must have an implied object, a sentence like "I eat" would imply "I am eating something", to just say "I eat in general", a derived verb form must be used.


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## Nino83

myšlenka said:


> I am not sure I understand the topic of this thread, but are you asking if there are non-IE languages where a verb like _to eat_ is not transitive? I have a hard time conceiving of such a language.



The topic is about *some* non-IE languages (I listed them. Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese. Bernd and fdb introduced semitic languages too). 

The question is rather simple. I'm asking people who speak or know these languages if, in general, verbs that are transitive in English are transitive in Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese, Arabic too and if verbs that are intransitive in English are intransitive in Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese, Arabic too. 

Francis and Hakro said that they don't remember cases where they had to get used to an English transitive verb which was intransitive in their languages and vice versa. 
Flaminius hasn't replied yet but, for what I'm seeing, also in Japanese the corresponding verbs are of the same type (transitive/intransitive). 



berndf said:


> Say and give are not ditransitive in IE languages.



Verbs that are able to take two objects, a direct object and an indirect object, are called "ditransitive", or less commonly "bitransitive". 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitive_verb 

Where is the mistake?


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Verbs that are able to take two objects, a direct object and an indirect object, are called "ditransitive", or less commonly "bitransitive".
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitive_verb
> 
> Where is the mistake?


If you continue reading my post you will find it explained.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> Modern English grammarians often don't make the distinction between ditransitive verbs and verbs with direct an indirect objects because the difference has faded after the loss of the case system.



What is the diference between a ditransitive verb and a verb which takes a direct and an indirect object? 
If I don't know what you mean I can't get it.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> What is the diference between a ditransitive verb and a verb which takes a direct and an indirect object?
> If I don't know what you mean I can't get it.


In English the difference has all but disappeared. You can say
_The book was given to him._
and
_He was given the book._

In other languages this is not possible. Only the direct object can be the subject of the passive voice. An truly ditransitive verb is learn. It had two direct objects and both can be the subject of the past participle that has passive semantics for transitive verbs. You can say the _given present_ but not the _given person_ (meaning the person to whom something was given). But you can say the _learned subject _and the_ learned person_. Since in English the difference is not understandable any more, the two uses of _learned _are now lexically distinguished (_learned _= /lɜːnd/ and _learned _= /lɜːnɪd/). In German, e.g., this is different.

_Das Buch wurde ihm gegeben._
_Er wurde das Buch gegeben._

But
_Das Fach wurde gelehrt_ (_the subject was taught_).
_Er wurde das Fach gelehrt_ (_he was taught the subject_).


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## myšlenka

Nino83 said:


> The question is rather simple. I'm asking people who speak or know these languages if, in general, verbs that are transitive in English are transitive in Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese, Arabic too and if verbs that are intransitive in English are intransitive in Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese, Arabic too.
> 
> Francis and Hakro said that they don't remember cases where they had to get used to an English transitive verb which was intransitive in their languages and vice versa.
> Flaminius hasn't replied yet but, for what I'm seeing, also in Japanese the corresponding verbs are of the same type (transitive/intransitive).


 My guess is that you will find _very_ few examples, if any at all, where they diverge. Transitivity is tightly connected to semantics. Languages may vary as to how this is encoded syntactically, but it's impossible for me to conceive of a language where the number of participants in an eating situation for instance is less than two.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> In English the difference has all but disappeared. You can say
> _The book was given to him._
> and
> _He was given the book._
> 
> In other languages this is not possible.



Ah, ok! 
I'm going to replace "ditransitive" with "direct object + indirect object". 



myšlenka said:


> My guess is that you will find _very_ few examples, if any at all, where they diverge. *Transitivity is tightly connected to semantics.*



Thank you. This is the question!


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## Nino83

Another interesting thing is that causative clauses have a very similar structure both in Japanese and Romance languages. 

Watashi ha *musume o* kaimono ni ikasemashita. 
Watashi ha *musume ni* supeingo o benkyousasemashita. 
Ho fatto andare *mia figlia* a fare shopping (l'ho fatta andare a fare shopping). 
Ho fatto studiare *a mia figlia* lo spagnolo (le ho fatto studiare spagnolo). 
I made my daughter go shopping. 
I made my daughter study Spanish. 

In the first case the subordinate clause has a subject and an intransitive verb, i.e there is no direct object, so the subject of the subordinate clause is marked with the *accusative* case. 
In the second case the subordinate clause has a subject, a transitive verb and a direct object so, the subject of the subordinate clause is marked with the *dative* case and the direct object of the subordinate clause with the *accusative* case. 
In English the fixed word order does the work.


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> Another interesting thing is that causative clauses have a very similar structure both in Japanese and Romance languages.


In Hungarian it's a bit different as instead of the dative the instrumental/comitative is used. I'll give some other examples, as those in your previous post would not sound very idiomatic in Hungarian.

_Intransitive_:
Megetettem a fiama*t* - I made my son eat 
Iskolába járatom a fiama*t* - I make my son go to school
(fiama*t* [my son] - is in accusative)

_Transitive_:
Megetettem az almá*t* a fiam*mal* - I made my son eat the apple 
(fiam*mal* [my son] - is in instrumental/comitative; almá*t* [apple] - is in accusative)

As if it were _"ho fatto mangiare la mela con mio figlio" _in Italian.The difference is given, perhaps, also by the different construction: in Italian we have _fare + verb_, while in Hungarian the proper verb is conjugated in _causative _mood (e.g. enni = mangiare, etetni = far mangiare; járni=andare, járatni=far andare; írni=scrivere, iratni=far scrivere, etc ...).


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> In Hungarian it's a bit different as instead of the dative the instrumental/comitative is used.



Thank you for the example. 

In this page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causative#Syntax there is a table: 
- Turkish, Japanese: dative 
- Hungarian: instrumental 
- Finnish: addessive 

Among Romance languages, Portuguese is an exception: 
 Fê-la ir à escola. (He made her go to school) 
 Fê-la estudar espanhol. (He made her study Spanish) 
Portuguese has, like English, a more rigid word order in this case.


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## Gavril

Nino83 said:


> - Finnish: addessive



Hmm, I am not sure that this is correct, or at least it doesn't seem generalizable to all causative verbs.

Most  causative verbs that I can think of in Finnish simply take one of the  two direct object cases (total or partial): for example, the verbs _saada_ "to receive"/"to make (someone do something)" and _pakottaa_ "to force" take the total object case:

_Kirja sai hänet pohtimaan työtään_
"The book made him think about his work"

_He pakottivat hänet rakentamaan veneen._
"They forced him to build a boat."

Other verbs, such as _innostaa_ "to encourage, inspire", take the partial object case:
_
Tämä innosti minua opiskelemaan suomen kieltä._
"This inspired me to study Finnish."

The only verb I can find right now that takes the adessive case is _teettää_ "to have (something) done", which is the derived causative of _tehdä_ "to do":

_Teetin työn hänellä_"I had the work done by him" ~ "I had him do the work"

There are other causative verbs derived from transitive verbs, such as _painattaa_ (< _painaa _"to press, print"), _monistuttaa_ (< _monistaa_  "to copy") and so on, but I am not sure how frequently these verbs are  used in contexts that specify the person/people who were made to perform  the action, so it is unclear what case form (if there is a single  consistent one) is used for this role. 

For example, I just Googled some conjugated forms of _painattaa_ and _monistuttaa_,  and none of the examples I've found so far clearly specify the "causee"  of the action: the focus more commonly seems to be on the causer of the action and the object(s) of  the caused action.


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## arielipi

But berndf, in Semitic you have the roots, verbs just work differently..
any verb can be about the direct or indirect depending on the binyan.


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## francisgranada

Gavril said:


> _Kirja sai hänet pohtimaan työtään_
> "The book made him think about his work"
> 
> _He pakottivat hänet rakentamaan veneen._
> "They forced him to build a boat."
> _
> Tämä innosti minua opiskelemaan suomen kieltä._
> "This inspired me to study Finnish."


In the above examples also in Hungarian the accusative would be used for both for _him, me_ and _work boat, Finnish_. But the corresponding verbs are not causative verbs in Hungarian, at least not from the grammatical point of view. Are the Finnish verbs in your examples formally causatives?

P.S. There is a difference between "to force someone to do something" and "to make someone do something", both semantically and formally (at least in Hungarian).


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## hadronic

arielipi said:


> But berndf, in Semitic you have the roots, verbs just work differently..
> any verb can be about the direct or indirect depending on the binyan.



You're getting confused. Verb morphology is irrelevant here.

In reference to the double-accusative, I know only of 2 verbs like that in Hebrew: sha'al et mishehu et mashehu (ask someone something), and limed et mishehu et mashehu (teach someone somehing).


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## Gavril

francisgranada said:


> In the above examples also in Hungarian the accusative would be used for both for _him, me_ and _work boat, Finnish_. But the corresponding verbs are not causative verbs in Hungarian, at least not from the grammatical point of view. Are the Finnish vebs in your examples formally causitives?



_saada _"to obtain"_ /_ "to make (someone do something)" is a root verb, i.e. it is not derivable (as far as we can tell) from any simpler stem.

_pakottaa _contains the suffix -_tta_-, which is often used to form causatives (as in _paina*tta*a_ "to have (something) printed", _tee*ttä*ä_ "to have (something) done"), and it is possible that this same suffix appears in _innostaa_ (combined with a different suffix).

However, I am not sure that you can call _pakottaa_ or _innostaa_ formally causative verbs, because they seem to be derived from nouns (_pakko_ "necessity, compulsion", _into_ "enthusiasm, fervor") rather than from other verbs.

But in any event, the page that Nino linked to in #30 (whose statement about Finnish I disagreed with) didn't seem to be restricting its statement to formally causative verbs, because it uses examples containing French _faire_ ("Je ferai courir Jean"), which forms "analytic" causatives with the infinitives of other verbs, just as the aforementioned Finnish verbs do.

EDIT: I see now that the page was only referring to morphological causatives in Finnish (_teettää_, _painattaa_, etc.), not analytic ones, so maybe its statement about the use of the adessive with these verbs is accurate after all (need to research this further).


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## francisgranada

Gavril said:


> However, I am not sure that you can call _pakottaa_ or _innostaa_ formally causative verbs, because they seem to be derived from nouns (_pakko_ "necessity, compulsion", _into_ "enthusiasm, fervor") rather than from other verbs ... _pakottaa _contains the suffix -_tta_-.


Yes, that's what I've been thinking about.The verb "he/she forces" in Hungarian would be _kényszerí*t* _which also derives from a noun (_kényszer_), and the formant -_*t*_- has a different function here. (The suffix _-t-/-tt-_ combined with other phonemes serves also in Hungarian for creating causative verbs from other verbs). 

So in case we use not "true" (or grammaticalized causative) verbs (or constructions), then different cases may be required depending on the verb used. E.g. (perhaps not the best examples, only for illustration ...): _ihletni _(to inspire) - accusative, _hagyni _(to let) - accusative, _(meg)tiltani_ (to prohibit) - dative, etc ...


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> This may be true also for other languages, e.g. for Italian: gli faccio studiare (_dative_), but "lo lascio studiare" (_accusative_).  (Ciao Nino, correggimi se mi sbaglio ...)



Yes, there is a little mistake  
"Studiare" can be both transitive and intransitive. 
""Francesco studia" (intransitive) > "Lo fanno/lasciano studiare "  "Gli fanno/lasciano studiare" 
"Francesco studia matematica" (transitive) > "Lo fanno/lasciano studiare matematica"  "Gli fanno/lasciano studiare la matematica"  
With intransitive verbs the "causee" takes the accusative, with transitive verbs + direct object the "causee" takes the dative (like in Japanese, where it is called double o constraint).


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## francisgranada

Grazie, Nino. I was thinking about the _transitive _usage of the verb _studiare_, even if I haven't given the "full" example (mea culpa). However, I have mixed these two aspects, so my example is wrong ...   

Can't you give an Italian example where a "causative-like" or "pseudo-causative" verb leads to a different grammatical case/construction (when comparing with _fare +verb_)?


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> Can't you give an Italian example where a "causative-like" or "pseudo-causative" verb leads to a different grammatical case/construction (when comparing with _fare +verb_)?



In Italian we define causative verbs only "fare/lasciare", because they take an infinitive clause of the type "verb + accusative + infinitive of intransitive verbs" or "verb + dative + infinitive of transitive verbs + accusative" (for example "lo fanno studiare" and "gli fanno studiare qualcosa"). 

There are other verbs which we can call "pseudo-causative" because they have a different structure: "verb + accusative + *preposition* + infinitive", like 
"lo hanno costretto/forzato *a* studiare" and "lo hanno costretto/forzato *a* studiare inglese" or "verb + dative + *preposition* + infinitive", like "gli hanno ordinato/intimato *di* studiare" and "gli hanno ordinato *di* studiare matematica".
As you can see, in these cases the structure is equal for both transitive and intransitive verbs, i.e these structures are fixed. 
As far as I know, also in English these structures are not considered "causative" ("force somebody to do something" and "order somebody to do something").


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## Gavril

Nino83 said:


> As far as I know, also in English these structures are not considered "causative" ("force somebody to do something" and "order somebody to do something").



I have never heard of the term _causative_ being restricted only to the verbs that can be used without _*to*_ (the only such verbs I can think of right now are _let, make, have _and_ help_). Perhaps this is done, but if so, it would lead to the (IMHO) strange conclusion that the verb _to cause_ is not causative. 

Also, I can't think of any useful generalization (apart from the presence or absence of _to_) that would be achieved by saying that _force, cause, urge_ and so on are not causative verbs: for example, we do not have anything analogous to the contrast between _lo_/_gli_ that you just described.


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## Nino83

Gavril said:


> I have never heard of the term _causative_ being restricted only to the verbs that can be used without _*to*_



Maybe what I read is biased, but in Romance languages it is so 



> la costruzione causativa è composta da due frasi accostate senza connettivi (in 1 ciascuna di esse è racchiusa tra parentesi quadre): nella prima il predicato è una forma del verbo fare (o lasciare: vedi sotto) al modo finito, nella seconda il predicato è l’infinito di un verbo qualsivoglia. Per alcuni tratti, la costruzione causativa ha affinità con la costruzione retta da un verbo di percezione (vedere, sentire, guardare, ecc.: Guasti 1993)



http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/costruzione-causativa_(Enciclopedia_dell'Italiano)/ 

(the correspoding English verbs are "let, make, have, hear, see" that take the bare infinitive). 

Anyway, it seems that English has a broader concept, i.e there are more types of causative verbs: 
http://www.unive.it/media/allegato/...tto/0607_lingua_inglese_3/Causative_verbs.pdf 

This is why we're talking about it. 
So in Italian we name causative verb "fare" (and "lasciare"), in Hungarian if I've got it, strictly speaking the concept of "causative" is related to the "causative conjugation", and it is probable in Japanese too.


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## Gavril

To get back to the original topic of non-IE languages, this reminds me that the Finnish verb _antaa_ "give" / "let" has a different structure than any of the other causative verbs I've mentioned so far:

_Annoin hänen nukkua tavallista pidempään. _"I let him sleep longer than usual"

_He antoivat minun käyttää tietokonetta._ "They let me use the computer"

In this case, _hänen_ and _minun_ are genitive singular forms, and _nukkua_ / _käyttää_  ("sleep" / "use") are the "basic" infinitive forms of their verbs,  rather than the secondary infinitives seen in the earlier examples (_Sai hänet ajattelemaan_, etc.).

_hänen_ / _minun_  in these sentences are not the direct objects of the verb meaning  "let", but are joined more closely to the infinitives, in what could  possibly be described as a non-finite subordinate clause (_hänen nukkua_, _minun käyttää tietokonetta_).

The verb _käskeä_ "to order, command" can use this structure as well (_Hän käski minun pysyä paikallani_ "He told me to stay put"), but the structure with -_maan_ is also possible (_Hän käski minua pysymään paikallani_). The latter structure seems to be more common with causative verbs overall, at least in the modern language.


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## Johnnyjohn

berndf said:


> In English the difference has all but disappeared. You can say
> _The book was given to him._
> and
> _He was given the book._
> 
> In other languages this is not possible. Only the direct object can be the subject of the passive voice. An truly ditransitive verb is learn. It had two direct objects and both can be the subject of the past participle that has passive semantics for transitive verbs. You can say the _given present_ but not the _given person_ (meaning the person to whom something was given). But you can say the _learned subject _and the_ learned person_. Since in English the difference is not understandable any more, the two uses of _learned _are now lexically distinguished (_learned _= /lɜːnd/ and _learned _= /lɜːnɪd/). In German, e.g., this is different.
> 
> _Das Buch wurde ihm gegeben._
> _Er wurde das Buch gegeben._
> 
> But
> _Das Fach wurde gelehrt_ (_the subject was taught_).
> _Er wurde das Fach gelehrt_ (_he was taught the subject_).



Your points are correct but the example of English may not be entirely, the word "learn-id" derives from the old english verb laeren which means to teach, while "learnd" is from the word "leornian" which means to gain knowledge, the transitive use of learn was permitted before the 20th century probably due to both words not being confused despite being homonyms from sound shifts but is no longer so as you said.

http://imp.lss.wisc.edu/~jrvalent/AIS/Grammar/InflMorphology/verbTransitivity.html
Anyway, in Ojibwe, animacy throws further complications into the picture! There are 4 combination and thus 4 ways a verb may take shape compared to just two. We have intransitives for animate and inanimate, transitive for animate objects or inanimate objects! Animacy is a semi predictable gender, its not random as in IE languages but not completely semantic.


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## Sempervirens

Ciao, Nino! Permettimi di fare una piccola correzione alle tue frasi in giapponese.

Watashi  *wa *Lisa *kara *ringo *wo *morau.   Oppure.    Lisa *ga *watashi *ni *ringo *wo *kureru.
私*は*　　　　　リザ*から*　リンゴ*を*　もらう。　　　　　　　　リザ*が*　私*に*　　　　リンゴ*を*　くれる。

P.S Se per i tuoi studi la cosa può aiutarti; in giapponese, che io sappia, non ci sono i cosiddetti verbi labili. Il confronto è difficile. Qui i cosiddetti universali linguistici fanno qualche grinza. La comparazione è problematica. Dagli esempi che ti ho mostrato già puoi renderti conto.   Possiamo azzardare qualche confronto con le lingue intorno casa, ma quando ci si allontana geograficamente le cose cambiano.  

S.V


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## Nino83

Sempervirens said:


> Watashi  *wa *Lisa *kara *ringo *wo *morau.   Oppure.    Lisa *ga *watashi *ni *ringo *wo *kureru.
> 私*は*　　　　　リザ*から*　リンゴ*を*　もらう。　　　　　　　　リザ*が*　私*に*　　　　リンゴ*を*　くれる。



Ciao Semper.  
Ho sbagliato verbo ("kureru" è da soto a uchi). 

Riformulo con: "Watashi wa Lisa ni ringo o ageru." 
Se non sbaglio "morau" è "ricevere" e la frase si può scrivere anche così: "Watashi wa Lisa ni ringo wo morau". 
http://sakuramagazine.com/giapponese-lezione-38-dare-e-ricevere-agerukurerumorau/


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## berndf

Johnnyjohn said:


> Your points are correct but the example of English may not be entirely, the word "learn-id" derives from the old english verb laeren which means to teach, while "learnd" is from the word "leornian" which means to gain knowledge, the transitive use of learn was permitted before the 20th century probably due to both words not being confused despite being homonyms from sound shifts but is no longer so as you said.


The lexical and phonetic distinction between the participle _learned _and the adjective _learned _existed already when the participle _learned _could still mean _taught_ (_the subject was learned the student by the teacher_).


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## Sempervirens

Bravo! Vedo che stai facendo progressi. Sai, ritornando sul tema proposto da te, con i verbi che possono essere coniugati, per esempio in italiano, è possibile usare la stessa forma alla terza persona sia per un verbo transitivo che intransitivo. La stessa cosa non succede in giapponese. Se noi possiamo dire che _"la lezione *comincia *alle 12,00"_ , allora possiamo dire che _"qualcuno *comincia *la lezione alle 12,00"_.  Ecco, nel caso specifico, in giapponese le flessioni dei verbi sono distinti. 始*まる*, 始*める*. 
È superfluo dirti che in italiano, con gli ausiliari avere e essere possiamo nei verbi composti dividere in categorie queste tipologie di verbi. La lezione *è* cominciat*a* alle 12,00, nel primo caso, e, Qualcuno *ha *cominciato la lezione, nel secondo.
Ciao!


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## Nino83

Ciao Semper, si ho notato questa differenza (grazie anche al sito che ho linkato, che è veramente ben fatto). 
Che tu sappia, dalla tua esperienza, è frequente che il verbo transitivo della coppia sia ichidan e quello intransitivo godan, o a volte avviene anche il contrario?


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## Sempervirens

Nino83 said:


> Ciao Semper, si ho notato questa differenza (grazie anche al sito che ho linkato, che è veramente ben fatto).
> Che tu sappia, dalla tua esperienza, è frequente che il verbo transitivo della coppia sia ichidan e quello intransitivo godan, o a volte avviene anche il contrario?



Ri-ciao, Nino! A dirti la verità, così alla sprovvista come mi hai preso non saprei darti una risposta risoluta. C'è da dire che la classificazione in categorie, _ichidan, godan_ e altri irregolari ha le sue pecche.
 Abbiamo difatti verbi _godan _che hanno le sue brave terminazioni in -_eru _e -_iru_, simili a quelle dei verbi _ichidan. _La lista, forse incompleta, di tale verbi che è riportata sul libro della Grammatica di Giapponese moderno è la seguente: _kaeru, hairu, iru, kiru, shiru, hashiru, heru, shaberu, suberu, keru, nigiru, tsuneru_, che trovano nella lingua italiana più o meno questi corrispondenti verbi, ritornare, entrare, occorrere, tagliare, conoscere, correre, diminuire, ciarlare, scivolare, calciare, impugnare, pizzicare. 

S.V


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## arielipi

שאל מישהו זה לא כמו לשאול משהו.
Ask and borrow. במקרה יש להם אותו שורש...


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> ... in Hungarian if I've got it, strictly speaking the concept of "causative" is related to the "causative conjugation" ...


Yes, and from this point of view the verb _okozni_ (to cause) is not causative  in Hungarian.  However, the verb _okozni _can be conjugated in causative, the infinitive is _okoztatni _("to make someone cause ..."). 

Another feature is the possibility of a double causative:
Etetem a gyereket - I make the child eat (simple causative)
Etettetem a gyereket - "I make [someone] to make the child eat" (double causative)

(in theory a triple causative would be possible as well, but nobody would understand the meaning any more  )


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## Nino83

Gavril said:


> Hmm, I am not sure that this is correct, or at least it doesn't seem generalizable to all causative verbs.
> 
> Most  causative verbs that I can think of in Finnish simply take one of the  two direct object cases (total or partial): for example, the verbs _saada_ "to receive"/"to make (someone do something)" and _pakottaa_ "to force" take the total object case:
> 
> _Kirja sai hänet pohtimaan työtään_
> "The book made him think about his work"



Hi Gavril. 

This is because you used the analytical causative construction which, probably, is not the "formal" causative construction. 

The "formal" causative construction is called "curative construction". 

Transitive base verb + utta = rakentaa (to build) > rakennuttaa (to make someone build) 
Intransitive base verb + tta = tansia (to dance) > tansittaa (to make someone dance) 

1) Keisari (emperor N) pani (made) orjat (slaves Acc. pl.) rankentamaan (build Illative) temppelin (a temple Acc. s.) - analytical causative 
2) Keisari (emperor N) rakennutti (made someone build) orjlla (slaves Addessive pl.) temppelin (a temple Acc. s.) - curative causative 

3) Opettaja (the teacher N) tansitti (made someone dance) oppilaita (the pupils Partitive pl.) - the verb "to dance" is intransitive, the "causee" takes the Accusative 
4) Opettaja (the teacher N) laulatti (make someone sing) kuoroa (the choir Partitive) - "to sing" used intransitively 
5) Opettaja (the teacher N) laulatti (make someone sing) kuorolla (the choir Addessive) tuttuja sävelmiä (Partitive pl.) - "to sing" used transitively, the "causee" takes the Addessive 

In English: 
1) and 2) The emperor made the slaves build a temple 
3) The teacher made the pupils (accusative) dance 
4) The teacher made the choir (accusative) sing 
5) The teacher made the choir (addessive) sing familiar melodies (accusative) 

http://ir.nul.nagoya-u.ac.jp/jspui/bitstream/2237/13422/1/JSL6p17-28.pdf 



francisgranada said:


> Yes, and from this point of view the verb _okozni_ (to cause) is not causative  in Hungarian.  However, the verb _okozni _can be conjugated in causative, the infinitive is _okoztatni _("to make someone cause ...").
> 
> Another feature is the possibility of a double causative:



Thanks  Francis. 
In Italian, in order to make a double causative, the first must be explicit (ha fatto *in modo che* Massimo facesse studiare suo figlio/facesse studiare inglese a suo figlio). 

Grazie per la risposta, Semper. 

So, also in Finnish, in "curative" causative constructions the causee takes the accusative with intransitive verbs or when there is no direct object and another case (the addessive) with transitive verbs + direct objects. 

On this matter, Romance languages (except Portuguese), Finnish, Hungarian and Japanese have similar constructions.


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## Gavril

Nino83 said:


> Hi Gavril.
> 
> This is because you used the analytical causative construction which, probably, is not the "formal" causative construction.



I don't know if they cannot be considered "formal causatives", but you're correct in that the page you originally linked to was referring to "morphological causatives", rather than analytic ones. (I already made an edit to post #35 acknowledging this.)

Based on the paper you linked to, it looks as though there is indeed a convention of using the adessive for the "causee" of causatives derived from transitive verbs (_painattaa_, _poistattaa_, etc.). Whether the adessive is the only option (or the "default" option) in this case, I am still not sure (e.g. I can think of other constructions than the adessive in this context that seem to result in the same semantics). 

Morphological causatives such as _painattaa _commonly (perhaps predominantly) seem to be used to place more emphasis on the causer of the action, and on the object of the caused action, as opposed to the causee. Given this, it feels a bit surprising to me that the semantic role of causee would have such precisely-defined case assignment (I am not talking about causatives in general here, just this particular Finnish construction), but perhaps it is true nonetheless.


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## Nino83

Gavril said:


> Based on the paper you linked to, it looks as though there is indeed a convention of using the adessive for the "causee" of causative verbs derived from transitive verbs (_painattaa_, _poistattaa_, etc.). Whether the adessive is the only option (or the "default" option) in these cases, I am still not sure (e.g. I can think of other constructions than the adessive in this context that seem to result in the same semantics).



The autor of that paper says: 



> 2) Keisari (emperor N) rakennutti (made someone build) orjlla (slaves Addessive pl.) temppelin (a temple Acc. s.)
> 
> 6) Opettaja (the teacher N) tansitti (made someone dance) oppilaita (the pupils Partitive pl.)
> 
> 
> The different case marking of the causee argument can be explained by the difference in the number of the required arguments. The sentence 2) above apparently contains three arguments: the causer, the causee (= the agent) and the patient. In this case it is not the cause but the patient which is chosen as the object. This means that the causee argument cannot be marked in the case available for objects. On the other hand in the sentence 6) only two arguments, the causer and the causee, are needed to be present. Then the causee argument can be chosen as the object and be marked in the cases available for objects.
> 
> 7) Opettaja (the teacher N) laulatti (make someone sing) kuoroa (the choir Partitive)
> 8) Opettaja (the teacher N) laulatti (make someone sing) kuorolla (the choir Addessive) tuttuja sävelmiä (Partitive pl.)
> 
> Roughly speaking, these two sentences convey a similar meaning. However they are different in their number of required arguments. The sentence 8) apparently has three arguments, including the patience which is absent from the sentence 7). This is the reason why the causee argument is marked not in the partitive case but in the addessive case in the sentence 8). On the other hand, in the sentence 7) the causee serve as the object and therefore can be marked in the partitive case.



In other words, the most important thing is the word order. 

In English and Portuguese there is a strict word order and the causee is placed between the causative verb and the (bare) infinitive. 
In Romance languages the causee is placed after the infinive (far fare qualcosa a qualcuno) and in Japanese, Finnish and Hungarian there is only one verb (in the causative conjugation) so you can't mark both the causee and the patient in the accusative case, because it would be impossible to know who is the causee and who is the patient. 

An example in Italian: 
Ho fatto salutare Anna (accusative, direct object, patient) a Marco (dative, indirect object, causee).


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## francisgranada

I think the choice of the grammatical case (accusative/dative/adessive/instrumental ...) depends to a high degree on the way how the causative is realized structurally/formaly. 

1. In case of an "auxiliary" verb the possible cases are given by that verb. E.g. the verbs _to make/fare/hacer _etc ... can govern both the accusative and dative in many languages (including Hungarian). Even more, two objects in the same case (_accusative_) do not cause any misunderstanding or contradiction, as there are two distinct verbs. E.g. in the phrase "I made my son eat the apple" _my son_ is spontaneousely felt/perceived to belong to the verb _made _while _apple _to the verb _eat_. 

2. In case of the causative conjugation (only one verb), two objects in the same grammatical case (supposedly _accusative_) would lead to an incomprehensible construction. (See also Nino83's explanation in his last post). 

The logic of the Hungarian construction is that one of the two objects is perceived as the _patient_ (> _accusative_) and the other as "_means_"  (> _instrumental_). I.e. grosso modo in the sense that "the subject causes something to be done/happen ... _by means of_ someone else". 

I am not familiar with the Finnish case system, however I find interesting that the _adessive_ makes sense also in Hungarian in this case, even if the meaning is different: 

Megetettem az almát a fiammal (instrumental) - I made my son eat the apple  
Megetettem az almát a fiamnál (adessive) - "I made the apple to be eaten at/near my son" (a very approximative translation ...)


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## Gavril

Nino83 said:


> The autor of that paper says:
> 
> 
> 
> In other words, the most important thing is the word order.



I don't see anything in the quote about word order (SOV, SVO, etc.) -- do you mean the verbal configuration (i.e., the number of arguments that the verb takes, and the case forms of these arguments)?



> In Romance languages the causee is placed after the infinive (far fare qualcosa a qualcuno) and in Japanese, Finnish and Hungarian there is only one verb (in the causative conjugation) so you can't mark both the causee and the patient in the accusative case, because it would be impossible to know who is the causee and who is the patient.



It's not impossible in principle to have two accusatives bearing different semantic roles with a single verb (e.g., English _I gave that man an apple_). However, causative constructions may be rarer (cross-linguistically) than simple dative constructions, which makes it more likely that the separate case marking (or different pre-/postpositions) would be employed to distinguish the semantic roles of causative verbs, rather than identical case marking but different word order (because the latter would be harder to get used to).

Regardless, what I was saying in the last post is that Finnish has other ways of marking the "causee" than the adessive. You can say, for example,_ Hän kirjoitutti käsikirjan uudelleen toimituksen toimesta "He had the editorial board rewrite the manual"_ (as opposed to adessive _toimituksella_). The _toimesta_ construction is most commonly used when the causee is an organization or collective, as opposed to an individual.


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## Nino83

Gavril said:


> I don't see anything in the quote about word order (SOV, SVO, etc.) -- do you mean the verbal configuration (i.e., the number of arguments that the verb takes, and the case forms of these arguments)?



I mean that in English you have "make + DO + bare infinitive + DO" so you can say "She made him do it" without any problem. 
The DO after "make" is the causee while the DO after the infinitive is the patient.
In Romance languages you have "fare + infinitive + DO + IO" or "fare + infinitive + IO + DO" (no fixed word order), i.e the causee and the patient are one beside the other, so you need to mark them with diferent cases, in order to distinguish them. It wouldn't be clear if one said "ha fatto salutare Anna Marco" (i.e "fare + infinitive + DO + DO). Who is saying goodbye to whom? Anna or Marco? 
The same in Japanese, Finnish (curative causative) and Hungarian. There is only one verb and two different arguments which are both after the verb, in Finnish, and before the verb, in Japanese.
Ken ga *Naomi o sono hon o* yomaseta > double accusative: who reads what?    
Ken ha fatto leggere *il libro Naomi *> double accusative: who reads what? 
Ken made *Naomi* read the *book* > in this case "Naomi" is the DO of "make" and "the book" of "read" 

In Japanese you can say both "Ken ga sono hon o Naomi ni yomaseta" and "Ken ga Naomi ni sono hon o yomaseta". 
In Italian there are both "Ken ha fatto leggere un libro a Naomi" and "Ken ha fatto leggere a Naomi un libro". 
In English the word order is fixed and replaces the function of the case/preposition. 
In fact you can only say "Ken made Naomi read the book" and "I gave that man an apple" but if you change the order you need a preposition (i.e a case marker), "I gave an apple to that man". 

If you don't have a fixed word order, the only way to differenciate the causee and the patient is marking them with different cases. 
The more or less rigid word order is important.


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## Sempervirens

Nino, visto che siamo sempre sull'argomento, anche se è vasto e complesso, ed ora si sta spostando sui verbi causativi e sulle costruzioni causative; vorrei segnalarti queste comparazioni di costrutti grammaticali in italiano e giapponese.

La mamma addormenta il bambino. お母さんは子供を寝かす。(addormentare= lett. 眠りに落ちる=far cadere nel sonno)

La mamma fa dormire il bambino. お母さんは子供を寝かせる。

La mamma lascia dormire il bambino. お母はさんは子供を眠らせる。

Il bambino dorme. 子供は寝ている。Il bambino ha sonno. 子供は眠い。Il bambino sonnecchia.　子供は眠そ。

P.S naturalmente eventuali correzioni di madrelingua sono ben accette. 

S.V


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## rayloom

berndf said:


> In Semitic language the correspondence is generally quite straight forward, as fdb explained: Accusative (some have, like English, lost the accusative marker but accusative semantics is still present) for the direct object and the preposition _l-_ (roughly equivalent to the English _to_) to express dative semantics. Double-accusative verbs are, fdb correct me, if I am wrong, in Semitic as rare as in IE (e.g. German _jemanden etwas lehren_).



In Arabic, double accusative G-stems are rare. However, forms II and IV of transitive verbs usually take two accusative objects.

'akala (ate) Zaydun tuffā7hatan
'akkala (made eat) Zaydun Mu7ammadan tuffā7atan

ra2ā (saw) Zaydun tuffā7atan 
'arā (show) Zaydun Mu7ammadan tuffā7atan


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## hadronic

Hebrew has, besides the synthetic so-called "factitive" verb form Hif'il, an analytic factitive construction that is neither of the two mentioned above, and that contradicts the potential "universal" feature you're trying to draw. Hebrew says :  garam + IO + verb + DO. 
So that "Ken made Naomi read a book" is "Ken gorem le-Naomi likro sefer"  (Ken caused to-Naomi to-read a-book). The action verb appears between both objects like in English, but commands an indirect object for the causee.


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## Nino83

hadronic said:


> Hebrew has, besides the synthetic so-called "factitive" verb form Hif'il, an analytic factitive construction that is neither of the two mentioned above, and that contradicts the potential "universal" feature you're trying to draw. Hebrew says :  garam + IO + verb + DO.



Hi, hadronic. 
I'm not saying that all languages have the same causative construction. 
Before all I was speaking about some non-IE languages (namely Finnish, Hungarian and Japanese), secondly I said that in languages with no strict fixed word order, the causee and the patient take different cases. 

Has Hebrew a rigid word order?


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## hadronic

Yes, the word order is rigid. 
Sorry for the misinterpretation, I wasn't meaning to say you were being wrong. I liked the idea you developed, and it makes a lot of sense. I'm the first to be sorry that Hebrew doesn't comply :/


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## arielipi

I disagree with you, Hebrew has a free word order.
אבא אכל תפוח
תפוח אכל אבא
תפוח אבא אכל
אכל אבא תפוח

All make sense


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## hadronic

We're talking about the factitive construction. 
Can you say : Ken garam likro sefer le-Naomi? or even Ken garam likro le-Naomi sefer?


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## arielipi

The second yes


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## hadronic

likro in the meaning of "to read", not "to call someone something"  (likro le-Naomi sefer could mean "to call Naomi a book"). I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. 
To avoid ambiguity, what about : Ken gorem leekhol le-Naomi uga ? Ken makes Naomi eat a cake.


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## Nino83

hadronic said:


> We're talking about the factitive construction.



But it's irrelevant. 
What I'm saying is that: 
1) if a language has a more or less free order in causative constructions (Romance languages, Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese) in order to distinguish the causee and the patient it's necessary to mark them with different cases 
2) if a language has a fixed word order in causative constructions (e.g English), it is not necessary to mark them with different cases 
3) if a language has a fixed word order in causative constructions (e.g Hebrew), the difference between causee and patient can be marked with both instruments, i.e both fixed word order and different cases. 

The fact is that if word order is flexible, you need different case marking.


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## hadronic

What are you saying that "we're talking about causative constructions"  is irrelevant?

I understand what you say, it's necessary but not sufficient. Free order implies marking, but fixed order could allow anything. 
Just that Hebrew is over-marked.


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## arielipi

hadronic said:


> likro in the meaning of "to read", not "to call someone something"  (likro le-Naomi sefer could mean "to call Naomi a book"). I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing.
> To avoid ambiguity, what about : Ken gorem leekhol le-Naomi uga ? Ken makes Naomi eat a cake.


Yes, it sounds a bit weird because we mainly speak in subject verb rest of the sentence order but it is ok. Think of it like this: Ken gorem, what is he making? Leechol.
who is he making? Le Naomi.
whenever you can ask these questions the weird order is free.


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## berndf

arielipi said:


> I disagree with you, Hebrew has a free word order.
> אבא אכל תפוח
> תפוח אכל אבא


Suppose apples had teeth. How would you know if dad ate an apple or if an apple ate dad?


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## hadronic

I guess one would answer with the biblical אבנים שחקו מים. It *is* ambiguous, but allowed.


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## arielipi

berndf said:


> Suppose apples had teeth. How would you know if dad ate an apple or if an apple ate dad?



It is marked by emphasis.
Edit: you could also add et. But not the other way around.
תפוח אכל את אבא
אבא אכל את תפוח לא תקין.
אבא אכל את התפוח.


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## Nino83

hadronic said:


> What are you saying that "we're talking about causative constructions"  is irrelevant?
> 
> I understand what you say, it's necessary but not sufficient. Free order implies marking, but fixed order could allow anything.
> Just that Hebrew is over-marked.



I think what I said in the comment #57 is enough clear: 



Nino83 said:


> If you don't have a fixed word order, *the only way* to differenciate the causee and the patient is marking them with different cases.
> The more or less rigid word order is important.



I never said that languages which have a fixed word order don't allow case marking or a different case marking. 



berndf said:


> Suppose apples had teeth. How would you know if dad ate an apple or if an apple ate dad?



It's obvious that I was speaking about situations where both the causee and the patient are human (like for example: "I made John thank Anne").


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## hadronic

Nino, I think we all agree, and I was precisely saying "ok now I understand, sorry". Isn't my last comment to your message : "I understand what you say, it's necessary but not sufficient. Free order implies marking, but fixed order could allow anything. Just that Hebrew is over-marked " exactly saying what you're saying?


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## Nino83

hadronic said:


> Just that Hebrew is over-marked " exactly saying what you're saying?



That's ok


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## J.F. de TROYES

berndf said:


> Give is ditransitive in Arabic. .




More exactly this verb and some others as to _teach _can take two accusatives or a direct object , but also an indirect one introduced by the preposition _li + indirect case_ and this latter is more and more used in MSA , as it's usual in the dialects.

If I take up fdb' example ( #2 ) : at the present time _ʼuʻṭī tuffāḥatan (acc.) li-Fāṭimati (gen.) (_ Give an apple to Fatima ) is the everyday wording rather than _ʼuʻṭī  Fāṭimata  tuffāḥatan_ . So I think it's the same as in English 
.

A ditransitive structure can be found in Chinese as well with 给 gěi  ( to give ) and other verbs with a similar meaning :
_Wǒ yào  sòng  wǒ qīzi  yí jiàn lǐwù _( _I wish  to give my wife a gift_ )
 
In this sentence_ wǒ qīzi_ ( my wife ) is not introduced by a preposition, but another wording would be possible with a preposition _bǎ _as a marker of the direct object : _Wǒ yào  bǎ  yí jiàn lǐwù  sòng  wǒ qīzi _ ( word for word : I wish _bǎ _a gift give my wife )


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## fdb

J.F. de TROYES said:


> _ʼuʻṭī tuffāḥatan (acc.) li-Fāṭimati (gen.) _



Fāṭima is diptotic. The genitive is Fāṭimata.


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## J.F. de TROYES

fdb said:


> Fāṭima is diptotic. The genitive is Fāṭimata.



Right. Thanks for the correction.


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