Re: Basque bizarreries (was: Conland Digest etc.)

OK, looks already somehow clearer.

There are alas few examples in my old reprinted
grammar to help understanding the real meaning of the
cases, but I nevertheless found these one:

*aitatzat nahi dugu* = nous le voulons pour pere (we
want him as a father)

*aitarentzat ekharri ditut* = je les ai portes pour
mon pere (surdeclined = possessive genitive +
prolative; I carried them for my father)

The author says that the first one is an 'attribute
prolative' while the secund one is an 'interest
prolative'. I suppose he means semantically.

It's true that in French, the preposition 'pour' can
mean both of these possibilities (besides more of
them, like: in order to, in the destination of).
That's why I was wondering what 'pour' was that.

Well, seems that I've found my old Russian example
again: Ja rabotaju injenierom = I work as an engineer.
I guess Basques would say: by-me is worked
engineer-tzat ? (If that's the case, I would be very
proud to begin to think like a real Basque :-) )

--- Javier BF <uaxuctum@...> wrote:
> >>Prolative should be Destinative (but *instead of*
> >>looks rather different to me from *for the benefit
> >>of*; probably two concepts mixed here...).
> >
> >Not really. I think the idea is that of someone
> taking the place of
> someone
> >else to do something, giving that second person a
> favour, hence "instead
> >of" and "in the benefit of" can be easily related.
> Note though that the
> >Destinative has two forms: -tzat for the "instead
> of" meaning, and -
> entzat
> >for the "in the benefit of" meaning.
> >
> >However, if the Prolative and the Destinative are
> the same, I can't
> >understand how it can claim that the Prolative can
> be used only in the
> >indefinite. My book, taking "txori": bird, lists:
> "txori(ren)tzat":
> instead
> >of (a) bird(s), "txoria(ren)tzat": instead of the
> bird,
> and "txorientzat":
> >instead of the birds. The Destinative can *easily*
> be used with the
> >definite :) .
>
> "Prolative" for the -tzat case of Basque is actually
> a misnomer, although it seems that it has become the
> established name for it in Basque grammars.
>
> The meaning of the -tzat suffix is that of "for an
> angel" and "as a reporter" in the English sentences
> "He was mistaken for an angel" and "He works as a
> reporter". It is kind of an essive, in the sense
> that
> it denotes what someone/something is 'thought to be'
> or 'acts as'.
>
> The -entzat case is in fact a compound of -en +
> -tzat,
> i.e. the genitive followed by the 'prolative', and
> the
> name "Destinative" is in this case correct, because
> that's
> the actual semantic interpretation of -entzat. The
> logic
> behind this is that something that is "for the bird"
> (txoriarentzat) is to "be of the bird"
> (txori-a-[r]en-tzat).
>
> Cheers,
> Javier

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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