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    5.7 Transitive verbs of predication
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    Transitive verbs of predication include the verbs of having, of getting and of keeping.

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    The auxiliary of having is häbe ‘to have’. It combines with bare gerundial infinitives and with to-infinitives, as described in: 4.2. Object oriented to-infinitives with clause union. It also combines with unergative perfect participles to form the perfect tense of main verbs, see: 2. Unergative and unaccusative subjects and the auxiliary of the perfect. It occasionally combines with PP infinitives. An example is given below (all examples with PP infinitives are from Laker & Kramer 2022):

    1
    Wan me ze dan fien an ’t Stounden hiede.
    when one them then fine at the standing had
    When you had them nicely standing.

    The subject of the infinitive is lexicalised as an object in the middle field of the auxiliary of possession, so there is no control. The verb of having describes possession, whereas the verb of getting describes the coming into possession, so the transition from not possessing something to possessing it. The Saterland auxiliary for the coming into possession of something is kriege ‘get’. It combines with to-infinitives, as described in: Object oriented to-infinitives with clause union (4.2). In those cases, the object of the to-infinitive appears as an object in the middle field of the auxiliary of getting. The verb of coming into possession occasionally combines with PP infinitives. Two examples are given below:

    2
    Dan kreech die Koaster uus Wäänte an ’t Tauluken.
    then got the teacher our boys at the rope.pulling
    Then the teacher got our boys to (a game of) pulling a rope.
    3
    Krich him an ’t hazzewarjen, do lope him daach säker wäch.
    get him at the hare.herding those walk him yet sure away
    If you get him to herd hares, they will surely run away from him.

    In these examples, the subject of the infinitive appears as an object in the middle field of the verb of possession. The sentences have a causative interpretation, the PP infinitive denotes a verb of activity. So the verb of coming into possession behaves in one respect differently with a to-infinitive than with a PP infinitive. With a to-infinitive, the object of the auxiliary of coming into possession is interpreted as the subject or the object of the infinitive. In contrast, the PP infinitive requires that the object of the auxiliary of possesson is interpreted as the subject of the infinitive. It cannot have a passive interpretation. With a PP infinitive, there is no control, but the subject of the infinitive can be lexicalised as an object in the middle field of the auxiliary. There doesn’t seem to be a position of lexicalisation for an infinitival object in the syntax. Hence, an infinitival object can only be realised in the morphology, as an incorporated object, as happens to be the case in the last example above. The auxiliaries moakje ‘make’ and hoolde ‘keep’ are likewise auxiliaries which allow the subject of the infinitive to be realised as an object in their middle field. An example of each is given below:

    4
    Min Käärdel moaket et Teewoater an ’t Sjoden.
    my man makes the tea.water at the boiling
    My man boils water for tea.
    5
    Hoold dän Mon an ’t Balen.
    keep the man at the talking
    Keep the man talking.

    Both examples involve the lexicalisation of the infinitival subject in the object position of the auxiliary. The first example above involves a causative verb, the second example a verb of continuation.

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      About this article
      Author(s): Eric Hoekstra, Bouke Slofstra
      Category: Saterfrisian Syntax
      Version: 1.0, December 2023
      Version history:
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      1.0 Eric Hoekstra, Bouke Slofstra December 2023
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