7.2. Transitive sentences with one noun phrase
Models
| 1) | ȻENÁṈETES TŦE SWIU¸LES. | ‘He/She/They helped the boy.’ |
| 2) | ȻENÁṈETES TŦE KÁ¸ṈI¸. | ‘He/She/They helped the girl.’ |
| 3) | ĆEĆÁTES TŦE NE MÁN. | ‘My father built it.’ |
| 4) | ĆEĆÁTES TŦE SOȽ. | ‘He/She/They built the road.’ |
| 5) | ȻENÁṈETES TŦE TÁNS TŦE SWIU¸LES. | ‘He/She/They helped the boy’s mother.’ |
‣ 1 Compare model sentences 1 and 2 here with models 1 and 2 in §7.1. They are the same, except in this pair, the noun phrase subject is missing. The ‑ES ending on the verb is interpreted as the ‘he/she/they’ subject pronoun.
‣ 2 This first pair of models here shows that when a transitive sentence has only one noun phrase, that noun phrase is the direct object. This is almost always true.
‣ 3 The next pair of sentences—models 3 and 4—show that sometimes the single noun phrase in a transitive sentence can be the subject if the meaning makes it clear. In model 3, ĆEĆÁTES TŦE NE MÁN, the noun phrase, TŦE NE MÁN, is interpreted as the subject because it makes more sense than it would as direct object—‘he/she/they built my father’ is just strange, so it has to be ‘my father’ is the subject. This follows from the Obvious Subject Rule (§7.1).
‣ 4 The final model sentence here, model 5, is a tricky one. Notice that the SENĆOŦEN here is identical to the SENĆOŦEN in the fourth model sentence of §7.1, but the meaning is different. In §7.1, ȻENIṈETES TŦE TÁNS TŦE SWIU¸LES is translated ‘the boy helped his mother;’ here ȻENIṈETES TŦE TÁNS TŦE SWIU¸LES is ‘he/she/they helped the boy’s mother.’
‣ 5 As it happens, sentences like ȻENÁṈETES TŦE TÁNS TŦE SWIU¸LES are ambiguous—they have two meanings. In one meaning (§7.1), TŦE TÁNS and TŦE SWIU¸LES are interpreted as two separate noun phrases—subject and object. In this section, the other interpretation is shown—TŦE TÁNS TŦE SWIU¸LES is interpreted as a single complex noun phrase meaning ‘the boy’s mother’.
‣ 6 Every language has ambiguous sentences. Think about the English sentence ‘He likes old men and women,’ where ‘old’ can modify just ‘men’ or both ‘men and women.’ And every language has ways of avoiding the confusion that such sentences might make. In English, we can make that meaning clear by saying ‘He likes old men and old women’ or ‘He likes women and old men.’
‣ 7 SENĆOŦEN has a couple of ways of getting around the ambiguity of ȻENIṈETES TŦE TÁNS TŦE SWIU¸LES. Both of these ways involve using the ¸E preposition.
‣ 8 One way to avoid the ambiguity is to change the possessive part. It is possible to say ȻENÁṈETES TŦE TÁN ¸E TŦE SWIU¸LES, which is literally, ‘He/she/they helped the mother of the boy,’ which means the same thing as ‘He/she/they helped the boy’s mother.’
‣ 9 The other way to avoid the ambiguity is to make the sentence intransitive by using the passive: ȻENÁṈETEṈ TŦE TÁNS ¸E TŦE SWIU¸LES ‘His mother was helped by the boy.’ The next chapter will look a little more at the preposition and the passive.
 | SÁ¸ET SEN SE¸ TŦE NE SNEW̱EȽ. | ‘I’m going to lift my canoe.’ |
 | ȻENÁṈETEṈ E SE¸ SW̱ ¸E TŦE NE MÁN? | ‘Will my father help you?’ |
| SÁ¸ETES E SE¸ TŦE N¸ MÁN TŦE NE SNEW̱EȽ. | ‘Will your father lift my canoe?’ |
| EWE. NE MÁN I¸ ESE I¸ NEȻE. | ‘No. My father and me and you.’ |