Helmbrecht Paper - Status of wa-

[Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC]

Bob wrote:
> So to me, the fact that many of us find that a
translation of wa- as 'something' or 'stuff' generally
works, is irrelevant or even misleading.  'I ate
something' and 'I ate stuff' are still transitive
sentences.  To speakers, they may be totally
intransitive.  How do we know which?

...  But even in English (or better, in Montague grammar) the expression
"eat-something" or "eat-stuff" is intransitive.  You can't eat-stuff an
apple.  A transitive verb plus an object makes an intransitive expression.
In this sense what we've been calling indefinite object and detransitivizer
or valence reducer are in fact the same.  How do we know whether something
is actually intransitive?  See whether it can take an(other) object.  But I
do agree that all the complex ins and outs of the various usages of wa-
shouldn't be glossed over or trivialized, and that translation equivalents
aren't necessarily relevant.
Catherine