Re: Fabian's translation exercise

On Thu, 1 Apr 1999, Irina Rempt wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Apr 1999, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
>
> > ras   bachanza.nyi ras   dilogh, ras   nothaz.ini ras   dilogh.[2]
> > 3pLGH beat.HAB     3pLGH RFL     3pLGH kill.HAB   3pLGH RFL
> > they beat each other as a habit, they kill each other as a habit.
> >
> > ras   tau.qenkaz ras   dilogh hye  berkernan hye  belay.
> > 3pLGH NEG.hunt   3pLGH RFL    with bow [3]   with arrow [4]
> > The don't hunt each other with bow and with arrow
>
> The reflexive would seem to indicate "they beat themselves ... they
> kill themselves... they hunt themselves..."; "each other" requires a
> reciprocal pronoun; but in Denden it seems to be the same thing
> because the perpetrators and the victims are all members of the same
> group. Public enlightenment, please?
>
Well, the group is seen as an undivisible whole and it is clearly not
meant by the speaker (father) that the Goyanim include him or his
own people in the beating and the killing. Therefore the beating
and the killing happens to the group indicated by _ras_, and they
are doing it themselves... The division within the group between
element that do the killing and elements that are being killed is
not important.

Reflexives are a bit odd in Denden: they can either be expressed
by the reflexive pronount _dilogh_ or by a regular personal pronoun.

There's no difference in meaning between the next two sentences:

Perve basu dilogh
Perve wash REFL
Perve washes herself

Perve basu da
Perve wash 3sMGH
Perve washes herself - lit. Perve washes her.

This of course begs the question: how can Talme tell us about Yinli
that Perve is washing her?

Perve basu Yinli
Perve wash Yinli
Perve washes Yinli

is an obvious possibility, but

Yinli ka  Perve basu da
Yinli TOP Perve wash 3sMGH
As for Yinli, Perve washes her.

is possible, but:

Perve basu da
Perve washes her

is equally possible: in that case the context will have to decide.

(Actually, in these examples, I _did_ cheat a bit: there are
two verbs, _basu_ 'wash' and _basuse_ 'wash REFL', 'to bathe'.
The first can always be used, the second can be used in reflexive
sentences and when the washing is done in a basin big enough
to be submerged in. It's just that washing is the cleares example.)

As an encore a reflexive idiom:

kisame dilogh
nag    REFL

To nag yourself: to worry, to brood.