Sargaĺk: Detransitivization

Much like other languages, Sargaĺk has some amount of detransitivization going on. It also has deditransitivization.

First, the canonical detransitivization procedure in Sargaĺk usually involves adding some morpheme to the verb. There are exceptions, however, where some stem changes occur instead:

tŕp'ə- - to spin something
tĺp'ə- - to spin (reflexive)

kar- - to carry something
kačń- - to hold up, to stand while burdened, to withstand

fakń- to bring something
fačń - to reach

Sargaĺk, like English, has verbs that are ergative and verbs that are accusative. Above, tŕp'ə-/tĺpə- is an example of an ergative verb. Another example, where both a stem change and an inflected form exist, can be seen here:

ŕma- - to raise
ĺma- - to rise
ŕman- - to rise

(c.f. adjectives ĺmi- 'ascending', ŕmi - high)

There are a number of transitivizing operations as well. Most ditransitive verbs get -an-, but some verbs do not get such a marker. These include typically ditransitive verbs such as

ops- - to give
id- - to show
vŕ- - to sell
p'rik- - to pass someone something
lonkə- - to tell
k'əda- - to throw someone something
p'əspə- - to teach someone something
t'ošni- - to confirm something to someone
vəšni- - to negate something to someone
partə- - to stand as someone's representative to someone
ĺvoʒa- - to betray someone to someone
kŕvoʒa - to betray someone to someone

The relation between intransitive, transitive and ditransitive verbs gets slightly complicated at times. Certain ditransitive verbs, when they lose their pegative subject, promote the direct object to subject, some promote the indirect object to subject. The non-promoted argument can be omitted. A few such verbs are these:

ops → opil promotes object to subject
id → idil promotes object to subject
vŕ → vril promotes object to subject
p'rik → p'rikil- promotes i.o. to subject
lonkə →lonkə (!) promotes object to subject
k'əda → k'ədil promotes object to subject
t'ošni → t'ošni (!) promotes i.o. to subject
vəšni → vəšni (!) promotes i.o.
partə → partil promotes object
lvoʒa → lvoʒil promotes i.o.
kŕvoʒa → kŕvoʒil promotes d.o.

As can be seen, -il- is the suffix that marks the omission of a pegative subject. Not all verbs can be made to lose their subject by the addition of -il-, however.

Other verbs lose the object whenever the marker -il- is on them. There's generally no detransitivization marking whenever an indirect object is omitted. The detransitivization promotes the i.o. to object if present, so one can have what looks like a d.o. present even after -li- is applied.

Verbs for which -il- omits the subject can have their direct object omitted by a slightly different strategy: the presence of -an-. -an- normally marks the presence of a pegative noun phrase, but when only two NPs (usually in the nominative) are present it signals the omission of a (usually direct) object, and that one NP is also the proper subject. Usually, the other NP is the one that -il- would promote to subject with that verb.