Timeline for Intransitive forms of "fight" and "talk"
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 12, 2019 at 3:46 | comment | added | BobRodes | @user91073 The alternative interpretation that you offer isn't "worse," but it's certainly "wrong." So yes, your judgment is wrong. :) I'll repeat: "John and Mary are in love" has the exclusive meaning of being in love with each other, unless something else is specified. Now, "John fought" is a perfectly grammatical sentence. When a verb is intransitive (fight can be either transitive or intransitive), it doesn't take an object, so all that is needed for a complete sentence is a subject and verb. "I swim" is another complete sentence of the same type. | |
| Nov 11, 2019 at 0:05 | comment | added | user91073 | But there appears to be a difference between "to fight" and "to be in love". I think the sentence "John is in love" is grammatical, even though it has no object (cf. "John fought", which is I believe ungrammatical because the object is not present). This being so, I thought that the sentence "John and Mary are in love" in the absence of context can be interpreted as "John is in love (with someone) and Mary is in love (with someone)", and this interpretation does not seem to me "worse" than "John and Mary are in love with each other". But I'm not a native speaker so my judgements may be wrong. | |
| Nov 10, 2019 at 23:43 | comment | added | BobRodes | @user91073 Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to say. If you don't provide an alternative context, "with each other" is understood. That's also true of "John and Mary are in love." Unless you say something like "John and Mary are in love with money," then they are understood to be in love with each other. | |
| Nov 10, 2019 at 23:40 | comment | added | user91073 | But if there is no such question about Joe and Pete, and I say in the vacuum "Joe and Pete fought", then would it be right to say that since no context is provided, "fought" is interpreted as "fought with each other"? Or another example: John and Mary are in love. Does this mean, in the absence of context, that John and Mary are in love with each other, or can it mean that they are in love, but not with each other? | |
| Nov 10, 2019 at 23:30 | history | answered | BobRodes | CC BY-SA 4.0 |