‘Speak’ and co.

[Torco]

spanish decir is almost the same as say and dire, and we share a lot of the usual expressions with the francophones: es decir for c'est a dire and catalan es a dir, all used much the same, for example. our hablar encapsulates much of english talk and speak, por ejemplo uno habla ruso when one speaks russian, , pero los monos no pueden hablar the same as british or american monkeys can't talk. en castellano se cuentan historias same as one tells a story or l'on raconte des histoires, but we share contar with the verb to count. hablar supposed to be speaking, no object other than languages -or metaphors for languages, chino for jibberish for example, but this norm is eroding away: you can hear me hablaste que ibamos a salir con una amiga tuya, you spoke to me that we were going to go out with a female friend of yours, in informal settings, at least in latin america.

decir can take all sorts of speech objects, no se dicen garabatos ni se dicen mentiras. i don't think it ever takes other nouns...

contar I can't find of a way to give it an object that doesn't involve using a relativizer particle qué, or else that the object be a kind of speech: te cuento un secreto, te cuento una historia, o te cuento lo que mamá dijo: lo is weird, but it translates functionally, as here, to i tell you what mamma said... if i had to summarize them as in the OP I'd go

'decir' is transitive and focuses on the act of uttering, on the fact that whatever was said
'hablar' is -mostly- intransitive, and is rather simply the act of speech, both one and two directional: yo hablo contigo, y hablo frente a un público, o simplemente a veces hablo tho if we talk about something, lo hablamos
'contar' is ditrans, trans or intrans and is more about the trans...mission? if you said something and i didn't get it, no me lo contaste, o a lo más trataste de contármelo. i think it shares this with english, i don't think so with the french raconter

[zompist]

'contar' is ditrans, trans or intrans and is more about the trans...mission? if you said something and i didn't get it, no me lo contaste, o a lo más trataste de contármelo. i think it shares this with english, i don't think so with the french raconter

Your English explanation seems at odds with the Spanish, which I'd translate "You didn't tell me... or maybe you just tried to tell me." That would be most appropriate if (say) you were supposed to tell me the boss was arriving, and thought you did, but you were too unclear or indirect. If it was (say) a noisy phone line instead, we'd say "I didn't get that" or "That didn't come through", but not "You didn't tell me."

(Interposing here because Brad doesn't read Spanish.)

[Torco]

ah, sorry. a more faithful, if unnatural translation is "you did not tell it to me, or at most you tried to tell it to me". a lo más is possibly a calque from at most, ntitai. yeah, it's not a natural way to describe the situation, but if after this communication over a bad landline you're asked if you told me that X, and you're not sure I understood X, would you then say "yeah, I told him" ? cause in spanish, i'm not sure i'd say that se lo conté if i wasn't under the impression you got it.

[bradrn]

1. Indirect speech in the sense of 'I said that ge goes.'? That works with bilang, cerita, menyatakan, ngomong.

OK, and direct speech?

2. Logical object is what I used for the kind of utterance that is described by the utterance verb. These can be introduced by embedded clauses or prepositional phrases.

Sorry, I’m still totally confused by this… I suspect an example might help, if you have any.

3. ngomong is informal, bicara is not informal (or less informal, though I wouldn't say it's formal).
4. In the speech that I heard, bilang and bicara are most frequent, followed by cerita. Next would be ngobrol and ngomong. I haven't heard mengatakan a lot but this might be due restriction to more formal registers like news reports. I think in Indonesian varieties of Java, ngobrol and ngomong are most common instead of bilang and bicara.

So formality is an important distinction here — I didn’t quite realise that at first.

'decir' is transitive and focuses on the act of uttering, on the fact that whatever was said
'hablar' is -mostly- intransitive, and is rather simply the act of speech, both one and two directional: yo hablo contigo, y hablo frente a un público, o simplemente a veces hablo tho if we talk about something, lo hablamos
'contar' is ditrans, trans or intrans and is more about the trans...mission? if you said something and i didn't get it, no me lo contaste, o a lo más trataste de contármelo. i think it shares this with english, i don't think so with the french raconter

This is nicely comprehensive, thanks! I find it interesting that hablar is taking over the domain of decir with indirect speech. In this situation, would you say there is a substantial difference between them or not?

[zompist]

if after this communication over a bad landline you're asked if you told me that X, and you're not sure I understood X, would you then say "yeah, I told him" ? cause in spanish, i'm not sure i'd say that se lo conté if i wasn't under the impression you got it.

We might be mutually confusing each other... but I think "tell", like "give", implies that I know it was a success. So if I'm not sure you heard me, I wouldn't say "I told you", it has to be something like "I thought I told you", "I tried to tell you", or "I said it but maybe you didn't hear me."

(Likewise, "I gave him the card" implies that I do know he got it. If I don't know I'd report it as e.g. "I left him the card".)

[Torco]

@zomp: on second though, I think I do share your intuition of ambiguity vs. ambient noise vis a vis contar and tell.

I find it interesting that hablar is taking over the domain of decir with indirect speech. In this situation, would you say there is a substantial difference between them or not?

mmmmm... i think so, yes. imagine we're at the place where you pay after getting your car fixed, talking to the cashier: if i say el mecánico dijo que era a mitad de precio, the mechanic he-said it was half price, it feels like the guy explicitly promised to do the job for half. but if I say el mecánico habló que era mitad de precio, it feels more tentative, like he mentioned he *might* give us 50% off, perhaps on some condition or other... saying hablar que in place of decir que feels like i'm not cashing in a promise, but rather mentioning the possibility, and it feels more participative? like accounting for the fact speech is emergent? i.e. "things are said" when people talk. with feelings, though, I can't say anything reliably, I can only speak about central chilean. (hehe geddit?)

[Linguoboy]

This German blog entry does a decent job of outlining the basic usage differences: https://blogs.transparent.com/german/sp ... ifference/.

Some notes:

• Ratschen (as the spelling ratschn would suggest) must be a Bavarian/Austrian colloquialism, since I don't recall ever hearing it in the Southwest. There the most common informal term is schwätzen. Schwätzen can be translated not only as "talk" but also--in some circumstances--"speak", e.g. Schwätzt er kein Schwäbisch? "He doesn't speak Swabian?" You can find more regional equivalents here: https://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/runde-7/f08b/.
• The chief difference between sprechen and reden is one of register, which can influence the meaning. For instance, Ich möchte Sie sprechen suggests a formal consultation and is generally translated "I would like to see you" (transitive use of sprechen being particularly elevated).
• In case it wasn't obvious, erzählen is cognate with tell. (The er- prefix generally expresses successful completion, though in this case it simply distinguishes the verb from zählen "to count"; viz. English count vs recount.)

I'm sure Hans-Werner will have more.

[Creyeditor]

1. Indirect speech in the sense of 'I said that ge goes.'? That works with bilang, cerita, menyatakan, ngomong.

OK, and direct speech?

Usually uses a nominally construction with kata 'word'. Something like Katanya .... 'His words (were/are) ...' and then the direct speech. Or first the direct speech and then katanya. This can also be used for indirect speech. Bilang is also common for direct speech and I think I have seen cerita, mengatakan, and ngomong used with direct speech in children's books.

2. Logical object is what I used for the kind of utterance that is described by the utterance verb. These can be introduced by embedded clauses or prepositional phrases.

Okay, I don't have time for gloss tags but here are two examples.

Dia cerita dongeng-dongeng.
3SG tell fairytale~PL
'He tells/told/is telling fairytales. '

Dia cerita tentang perang.
3SG tell about war
'He tells (stories) about the war.'

Only the first has a grammatical object because the second one is introduced by a preposition tentang 'about'. Nevertheless both fit the same semantic role (something like UTTERANCE), which is why I call both logical objects.

---

Also, a construction that is found in this domain is kasih tahu lit. give know. This is used if you tell someone a piece of information. It takes the recipient as its grammatical object and you can add direct or indirect speech. I think it presupposes that what you tell is supposed to be true unlike cerita.

[bradrn]

I find it interesting that hablar is taking over the domain of decir with indirect speech. In this situation, would you say there is a substantial difference between them or not?

mmmmm... i think so, yes. imagine we're at the place where you pay after getting your car fixed, talking to the cashier: if i say el mecánico dijo que era a mitad de precio, the mechanic he-said it was half price, it feels like the guy explicitly promised to do the job for half. but if I say el mecánico habló que era mitad de precio, it feels more tentative, like he mentioned he *might* give us 50% off, perhaps on some condition or other... saying hablar que in place of decir que feels like i'm not cashing in a promise, but rather mentioning the possibility, and it feels more participative? like accounting for the fact speech is emergent? i.e. "things are said" when people talk. with feelings, though, I can't say anything reliably, I can only speak about central chilean. (hehe geddit?)

Thanks!

This German blog entry does a decent job of outlining the basic usage differences: https://blogs.transparent.com/german/sp ... ifference/.

And thanks also!

One thing I’d like to clarify: it sounds like sagen and erzählen have some overlap (Ich sage die Wahrheit / Erzähl mir keine Märchen) — are they interchangeable here, and if not, what is the difference?

1. Indirect speech in the sense of 'I said that ge goes.'? That works with bilang, cerita, menyatakan, ngomong.

OK, and direct speech?

Usually uses a nominally construction with kata 'word'. Something like Katanya .... 'His words (were/are) ...' and then the direct speech. Or first the direct speech and then katanya. This can also be used for indirect speech.

Oh, so the usual construction doesn’t need a verb at all — interesting, thanks!

(Wiktionary says that kata can also be a verb, but of course here it’s quite clearly nominal.)

Dia cerita dongeng-dongeng.
3SG tell fairytale~PL
'He tells/told/is telling fairytales. '

Dia cerita tentang perang.
3SG tell about war
'He tells (stories) about the war.'

Only the first has a grammatical object because the second one is introduced by a preposition tentang 'about'. Nevertheless both fit the same semantic role (something like UTTERANCE), which is why I call both logical objects.

Ah, I see, thanks.

[Creyeditor]

@bradrn: Yes, kata can also be a root of verb words, e.g. the causative/applicative form mengatakan 'to say'. There is also a middle voice form berkata, which I have seen in written Indonesian. I am not sure about the semantics though, except that it occurs with direct and indirect speech.

[bradrn]

OK, I think we’ve gotten to the point where I can do some amateur lexical typology…

Firstly, a hypothesis: in languages where transitivity is important, the two most basic speech verbs will be distinguished primarily by transitivity: e.g. English ‘speak’ vs ‘say’, Indonesian bilang vs bicara. By contrast, in languages where transitivity is unimportant, the basic speech verb will cover both ‘speak’ and ‘say’: e.g. Mandarin shuō. Of course the statement of this hypothesis needs a lot more work before it is testable, but I think the basic idea is sound.

Speech verbs differ significantly in their arguments. The subject of speech verbs is almost invariably the person who speaks. (Exception: English allows written texts as subjects.) The object of transitive verbs (or extended intransitive ones) is more varied, including at least the following:

• Recipient
• Kind of speech (e.g. joke, story)
• Topic (i.e. what was spoken about)
• Language
• Indirect/reported speech

(A paper I‘m trying to read has a much more fine-grained list, but I’m not sure how many of their distinctions are valid outside English.)

Additionally, speech verbs in many languages have a quotative function, where they can introduce direct speech: but quotatives can be other parts of speech too (e.g. Indonesian katanya, or English ‘like’).

A large portion of the variation between languages comes from how verbs group these objects together. I don’t yet have any hypotheses about which objects get treated the same or differently, apart from observing that languages often seem to get treated a different way. (e.g. in English, they regularly appear with ‘speak’, which otherwise is intransitive in colloquial speech.) If I were to spend more time collecting data, I would probably be able to make a semantic map.

Aside from all this, there are also differences in focus between verbs. Different verbs can focus on the speech act itself (like ‘speak’, bicara, hablar, parler), the broader discourse (‘talk’, tán(?), ngobrol), or the act of transmission (‘tell’, contar). With these last verbs, there seems to be an implication that the communication was successful, at least from the speaker’s perspective. Conversely, the listener can also imply that the speaker was more or less explicit (decir vs hablar).

I think this exhausts what can be concluded from what people have provided so far. Have I missed anything?

[willm]

I don't think I was clear--all the verbs I mentioned in Mandarin are (obligatorily, I think) transitive. The four verbs take different kinds of objects, but shuō, for example, requires huà "speech, words" as an object if it's not followed by a direct or indirect quotation. These verb-object compounds with semantically bleached objects are sometimes considered a part of speech in Mandarin, at least in pedagogy, but they are separable, so I've never really believed that.

It does occur to me now, though, that some of the verbs can be reduplicated and then used intransitively--at least tán can.

Transitivity seems to me to be important in Mandarin... I've made a point of trying to mark down whether verbs are transitive as I've learned vocabulary, which has been kind of a pain because dictionaries don't usually note it, so I usually have to figure it out from example sentences. But if I asked whether a verb was transitive or intransitive, the Chinese teachers I've had who had more of a background in linguistics were always able to tell me. Have you read a work that claimed that transitivity was unimportant in Mandarin? I'd be curious to read it, if so.

Edit: I think you're right that tán refers to the broader discourse.

[bradrn]

I don't think I was clear--all the verbs I mentioned in Mandarin are (obligatorily, I think) transitive.

Ah, interesting.

These verb-object compounds with semantically bleached objects are sometimes considered a part of speech in Mandarin, at least in pedagogy, but they are separable, so I've never really believed that.

I think the key criterion here is whether the verb-object combination has its own argument structure — if they can take another direct object, that may justify an analysis as a specific kind of compound.

Transitivity seems to me to be important in Mandarin... I've made a point of trying to mark down whether verbs are transitive as I've learned vocabulary, which has been kind of a pain because dictionaries don't usually note it, so I usually have to figure it out from example sentences. But if I asked whether a verb was transitive or intransitive, the Chinese teachers I've had who had more of a background in linguistics were always able to tell me. Have you read a work that claimed that transitivity was unimportant in Mandarin? I'd be curious to read it, if so.

Thanks for the correction! I haven’t actually read anything on this topic — it was more of a hunch, based on what little I know of Mandarin.

[willm]

I think the key criterion here is whether the verb-object combination has its own argument structure — if they can take another direct object, that may justify an analysis as a specific kind of compound.

They never take direct objects. I think I've read a claim before that the idea comes out of translation from European languages--learners expect there to be simple intransitive verbs equivalent to "talk" or "dance" or "walk" or "run", but these are all normally compounds of a transitive verb and a direct object: "speak words" or "jump a dance" or "walk the street" or "run steps" (without the articles and pluralization, of course).

Thanks for the correction! I haven’t actually read anything on this topic — it was more of a hunch, based on what little I know of Mandarin.

You're welcome!

[Torco]

They never take direct objects. I think I've read a claim before that the idea comes out of translation from European languages--learners expect there to be simple intransitive verbs equivalent to "talk" or "dance" or "walk" or "run", but these are all normally compounds of a transitive verb and a direct object: "speak words" or "jump a dance" or "walk the street" or "run steps" (without the articles and pluralization, of course).

bit off topic but man, that sure is a simpler more elegant way to think about it than what courses and so on tend to say.

[dɮ the phoneme]

Japanese has:

言う iu (transitive): The most basic speech verb, which is transitive and means "to say". Its argument generally takes the quotative. In fact it's much more general than just "to say"; it is also the typical verb used when giving the names of people/things

jon to iimasu
John QUOT say.POLITE
"(my) name is John"

takoyaki to iu tabemono
takoyaki QUOT say food
"the food called takoyaki"

In this role it also often occurs in the passive. Additionally, it often appears as basically a semantically empty part of a relativizer or complementizer construction:

wakai to iu riyuu de yurusareta
young QUOT say reason INSTR excuse.passive
"he was excused for the reason that he is young"

yaseru hitsuyou ga nai to iu no ha zannen da
lose_weight need NOM exist.NEG QUOT say C TOP too_bad COP
"it's too bad I don't need to lose weight"

話す hanasu (intransitive): "to talk". This one is pretty straightforward, and works just about the same as in English. I would say that it's focused on the act of conversation, as opposed to iu which focuses on what is being said. There is also the slightly more formal 会話する kaiwa suru "to converse" and the casual 喋る shaberu "to chat" which otherwise work more or less the same as hanasu.

教える oshieru (transitive): "to tell". This one is interesting because it's also the verb for "to teach". Here, the thing being told/taught can occur in either the quotative or the accusative; the recipient will be in the dative.

語る kataru (transitive): "to talk about". This one is much less common than the others, but it's something that English doesn't have a single verb for. The thing talked about is marked in the accusative. It can also mean "to narrate" or "to chant" and is often used in the context of telling stories; in fact the term 物語 monogatari "story, fable" comes from kataru.

[Arzena]

For Modern Standard Arabic

قال
qāla
'to say'
قال إن اسمه اسماعيل
qāla inna ismahu Ismaʕīl - 'He said his name was Ismail'
'to tell'
قلت لك إن البلد خطيرا جدا
qultu laka inna'l-balada xatˤīran jiddan - 'I told you that the country is very dangerous'


تكلم
takallama
'to speak (a language), to talk (with someone)
يتكلم لغة واحدة فقط
yatakallamu luɣatan wāh̬idatan faqatˤ - 'He speaks only one language'
لا أريد أن يتكلم معي
lā urīdu an yatakallam maʕī - 'I don't want him to talk with me'

كلّم
kallama
'to speak directly to someone, address; to call (on the telephone)'
كلمتها أمس ولكنها لم تقول شيء
kallamtuhā amsa walakinnahā lam taqūl ʃayʔan - 'I called her yesterday but she didn't say anything'

تحدث
tah̬addat̠a
'to speak (a discourse), (in a language)
تحدثوا باللغة الصينية
taħaddat̠ū billuɣati ssˤīniyya - 'They spoke in Chinese'
تحدثنا عن مواضيع مختلفة في المؤتمر
taħaddat̠nā ʕan mawādīʕin muxtalifatin fī-l-muʔtamari - 'We spoke about different subjects at the conference'
----

Of these verbs, tah̬addat̠a is not present in daily speech in contemporary Arabic languages. Vowel eductions and metathesis change takallama to itkallam even tklam in Moroccan Arabic (which even goes further and uses the verb hder for MSA تكلم)