Re: Inherently Reflexive Verbs (was: mental masturbation)

On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Kristian Jensen wrote:

> I realize that some people would have come to the point where
> whenever they see the "mental masturbation" thread, they would
> simply delete - missing out on a potential conlang gem. So I'm
> forwarding my last post again to the list but with another subject
> title in case this happens to be a gem. I apologize for having to do
> that, but I feel I have to in order to give it a better chance of
> being noticed. Indeed, I'm curious what others have to say about
> inherently reflexive verbs.
>=20
Well, while the, um, conversation?, about mental masturbation was
going on, I've been wondering at how Denden would express the concept
of physical masturbation. The Charyans are not much into dedicated
abstraction or sublimation, as a people, so I skip the mental part=20
beforehand...

Since I don't have sources on masturbation (the Garalw=FCshir, that
curious handbook for young courtesans doesn't mention the subject,
and neither has Yindan much to say on the subject in his grammar
of Denden), I had to rely on my own ingenuity.

I early on determined that it would need to be inherently reflexive in
Denden, too. There's (to my knowledge) one other inherently reflexive
verb, or perhaps I'd better say 'idiom', in Denden, and that is _kisame
dilogh_, literally 'to nag oneself', 'piekeren' in Dutch, which my
dictionary translates as 'puzzle (over), worry, fret'.

To further explore the concept I was wondering whether the act of
masturbating would have anything to do with sex qua _ars amatoria_, to
a Charyan man or woman. On the whole, I don't think so - it's not
condemned as anti-social or unhealthy. If done in public one would
either draw spectators or get some offers to join in the fun, I think.
When done in private it's more like scratching an itch, or stretching
after waking up.

So, on the whole, _qenan dilogh_ 'to copulate [with] oneself', or
_yavai dilogh_ 'to love oneself, to make love to oneself', are not
appropriate. Yet the final result is often quite related, so I think that
_bajan dilogh_ or _bajanir dilogh_ will be correct, and I confidently
expect that if I ever find a text that deals with autostimulation,
those will be the terms found. (For the translation of _bajan_ I'd like
to refer people to the lexicon presented with the Denden version of the
song _lamay neranmen_.) As the action itself is seen very much as being
as transient as scratching, I don't think the verb will be concerned
with the nature of that action.

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt