Re: USAGE: Re : Re: USAGE: Teaching Children

At 11:45 04/28/2000 -0500, you wrote:
> >Dans un courrier daté du 28/04/00 15:48:16  , vous avez écrit :
> >
> >> Dan Morrison wrote:
> >>      -How would your languages say something like "she teaches
> languages to
> >> children"? Most of mine would probably use a double accusative, or maybe
> >put "
> >> children" in the dative and "languages" in the accusative. This would then
> >> mean that "she teaches children" would also use the dative for "children".
>
>In Tokana, this problem is solved for me by virtue of the fact that
>the word for "teach" is derived from the word for "give"--"maiuthma"
>("uthma" = give, "mai-" = pertaining to intellectual activities).  So the
>case roles of the different noun phrases are based on those for "give",
>absolutive for the thing being taught, and dative for the person being
>taught:
>
>    Na  maiuthma  sul  latei
>    she.Nom  teach  language.Abs  children.Dat
>    "She teaches languages to children"
>    "She teaches children languages"
>
>To say "She teaches children", merely add the 'antipassive' prefix to
>the verb.  I put 'antipassive' in scare quotes because the function of
>this morpheme is not to rearrange the grammatical functions of the
>sentence, but merely to 'surpress' the absolutive object:
>
>    Na  umaiuthma  latei
>    she.Nom  APass-teach  children.Dat
>    "She teaches (things) to children"
>    "She teaches children"
>
>Another way to say this would be to use the noun "kahuna" = teacher.
>"Ne kahuna lati" = "She (is) a teacher (of) children".
Kélen is fairly similar. .The relational 'se' covers all two-object
situations, so:

se-mish         ne tashóñ       mo ne elíñ      ho ja mattúthon
se-3p to 3p     languages       to children     by means of being a teacher

'se' still operates even when one object is suppressed:

se-mish         mo ne elíñ      ho ja mattúthon
se-3p to 3p     to children     by means of being a teacher
"She teaches [null] to children." or "She teaches children."

se-mish         ne tashóñ       ho ja mattúthon
se-3p to 3p     languages       by means of being a teacher
"She teaches languages [to 3p]"

She is a teacher of children would use the relational 'pa'
pa ma ja       mattúthon ne elíñ
pa 3p  a-sg.  teacher     pl. children

'mo' is a case marker for goal or dative and 'ho' is a case marker for
instrument.

Sylvia

--
Sylvia Sotomayor                                  sylvia1@ix.netcom.com
Kélen can be found at http://users.lmi.net/sylvia/Kelen/kelen.html

"In the beginning was the word. But by the time the second word was added
to it, there was trouble. For with it came syntax..."
John Simon, Paradigms Lost