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    6.1.3 Pseudo-transitives with a complementive predication of AP
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    Pseudo-transitives conflate two cases: resultatives and verbs with a reflexive. Resultatives involve verbs, in which the action described by the verb is causally involved in establishing the relation between the AP and its argument in direct object position. An example of such a verb is luke ‘draw, pull’. But this verb can also be accompanied by a reflexive, which functions as a dummy direct object.

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    Below two intransitive examples are given of the same verb.

    1
    Do Ploanken luke skeeuw.
    the shelf pull skewed
    The shelves warp.
    2
    Skeeuw lekene Ploanken.
    skewed pulled shelves
    Warped shelves.

    In the last example, the past participle functions in an attributive structure, and it is marked with default adjectival agreement, that is, with a schwa. This verb can also be used in a transitive structure.

    3
    Hie lukt de Ploanken skeeuw.
    he pulls the shelves skewed
    He warps the shelves.
    4
    Hie hät sin näie Woain kuut joaged.
    he had his new car broken driven
    He went at high speed and destroyed his new car.

    The examples are idiomatic. However, the most prominent subgroup of resultatives is reflexive resultatives, that is, cases which are formally transitive but semantically intransitive. Consider the example below:

    5
    Hie rakt sik deermäd nit toufree.
    he gives REF it.with not satisfied
    He is not satisfied with that.

    The object argument is the reflexive sik ‘self’, which is obligatorily bound by the subject. Formally, the structure is transitive, because there are two syntactic arguments, a subject and an object. Semantically, the structure is intransitive because the object must be a reflexive bound by the subject. A similar example is the following, which is closely related semantically to the example discussed above.

    6
    Truch ju Wäitigaid häd sik ju Dore ferleken.
    through the wetness had REF the door mis.drawn
    As a result of the wetness, the door had become warped.

    The reflexive may be placed before its antecedent, as in the example above, a phenomenon also found in Low Germand and High German. The reflexive may also be found with some of the copular verbs discussed earlier:

    7
    Dät Göitjen hoaldt sik goud.
    the clothing keeps REF good
    The clothing is durable.

    There are a few cases of pseudo-transitives in which the AP has lost its literal meaning and receives a high degree reading. An example is the following, where the AP dood ‘dead’ mainly expresses a high degree reading and not its literal meaning:

    8
    Mäd sukke Säkke kon man sik deer dood bie sliepje.
    with such sacks could one REF it dead at carry
    Carrying such bags, one could kill oneself.

    A clear resultative case featuring a reflexive is the following:

    9
    Iek häbe mie wurich ätter dät Bouk soacht.
    I have REF weay after the book searched
    I wearied myself looking for the book.

    Here the predication mie wurig is the result of the action described in the remainder of the sentence. The argument of the AP is realised as a direct object, and this object must be a reflexive bound by the subject of the sentence. Finally, a special type of predication is restricted to colours, as in the following example:

    Kume may be viewed as a transitive involving not two arguments, but an argument and a location. In this example, the PP doesn’t denote a location but a colour, and the verb is used to describe that its argument is close to that colour, but does not quite have it. So it is a predicative construction. Interestingly, this same construction, featuring a PP with a nominalised colour, is also found in West Frisian. West Frisian tends to feature the verb skine ‘shine’ in such examples, and the colour is nominalised by means of a derivational suffix.

    10
    Dät Klood kumt uut dät Jele.
    the dress comes out the yellow
    The dress is yellowish.
    References
      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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