Who Ate The Pie?

When I began this blog I agreed with the Sanskrit poet who said the greatest wonder of language is its ability to make public what is in our hearts. Work on this blog, however, has made me consider a second candidate for wonder: the transitive clause. For those who slept through that grammar lesson, a transitive clause combines two things into a single action: e.g., The lion stalked the zebra; I ate the pie; The arc of history bends toward justice. Some animals can voice emotions, but no other animal or mathematical communication system can use verbs to unite subjects with objects.Equally remarkable is the fact that all natural languages allow for transitive clauses. There are languages that do not distinguish between male and female pronouns, and there are languages that pluralizetrees in a different way than they pluralizebooks, but every language gives its speakers a way to sayI ate the pie.Yet languages do not require that transitive clauses have the same structure.I in English is called the subject (S). It could also be called the agent or doer. Meanwhile,the pie is called the object (O) or direct object or patient. Finally, there is a verb (V),ate. The standard English structure of a transitive clause is SVO for [I] [ate] [the pie].Mathematically,   there are 5 other ways the clause could be structured:SOV – I the pie ate.OVS – The pie ate I.OSV – The pie I ate.VSO – Ate I the pie.VOS – Ate the pie I.Are any of these structures more natural than others?A rece...
Source: Babel's Dawn - Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Source Type: blogs