Re: "Each Other"

Quoting Roger Mills <romilly@...>:

> Eddy Ohlms wrote:
>
> > Rob Haden wrote:
> >
> > > How do different languages (natural and artificial) handle the English
> > > expression "each other"?  It seems to me that it's very idiomatic.
> >
> > As with many languages, N!à expresses "They see eachother" and "They see
> > themselves" the same way: Pag!ak?imò.
The Klaishic* languages use different pronouns to disambiguate. In Tairezazh:

Senen teshk vers

vs

Senen teshk stens

where vér is the reciprocal pronoun and ste- the reflexive. Ste- lacks
nominative forms, so when it ought to be the object of a preposition (Klaishic
preposition evilly governing nom), you get a personal pronoun instead. Causes
ambiguity between, say, "they laughed at themselves" and "they laughed at them
(=some other people or things)". Telenzh has had an attack of sensibleness on
this point, so when the accusative largely was eaten alive by the nom, acc
_stes_, _stens_ expanded to cover also the nominative's functions, creating a
pretty much unique example of an apparent pl infix.

* First wrote "Klaischic". Obviously been in Germany too long!

                                                 Andreas