Verbs of Transfer and Exchange in Cherani Trade Speech

In Cherani Trade Speech, verbs of transfer and exchange primarily report
the relationships between the people involved, not between a person and
an object that is being transferred.
In sentences that can be glossed

Tlefrin gave-to Netannin the fish
and
Degaev sold-to Netannin the fish [for] 3 Imperial marks

The fish can take an optional case marker, just as the money can.
Netannin, who is the direct object of sold-to or gave-to, does not take
a case marker unless he moves very far away in the sentence or gets
tangled up in a relative clause.

There are marked verb forms that allow you to say 'Tlefrin gave the
fish' or  'Degaev sold the fish' (where the fish becomes the direct
object), but in everyday speech people are more likely to say 'Tlefrin
gave-to someone the fish' or 'Tlefrin gave-to [case mark] the fish'.

Case markers are prepositional. (Sort of. Actually they agglutinate to
or decline the specifier in a noun phrase.)

They may mark direction of flow relative to the direct object (or a real
prepostion may do that), or the second and 3rd objects may swap
position when you talk about buying versus selling. I'm not sure about
that yet.

And I'm not what the case or cases of transferred goods should be
called.

(With all the prepositions and preposition compounds available in
English, you would think there would be one that is appropriate to
translate the case marker on 'the fish' in the sentences given, but I
can't think of one.)
--
Elyse Grasso

Reply