Re: Teonaht Verbs Finally Up

   Date:         Fri, 5 Mar 1999 00:17:50 -0800
   From: Sally Caves <scaves@...>

   tanddol li kyam aiba "from me this book" means you had it once, but
   have let go of it.
   tool li kyam aiba    "for me this book" means you'll have it in the
   future.

   These last two are delightfully ambiguous, because they also mean
   "This book is from me" (i.e., as a gift to you), and "this book is
   for me" (as a gift from someone else).
   Context makes it clear, I hope. Tand and to are used in verbs of
   giving as well as possessing, and I'll be eager to see what snares
   I run into.

Well, confusion between expressions for giving, having and taking are
not unusual. Just see what happened to some Indoeuropean verbs:
English 'have' is cognate with Latin 'capere' (= 'take' or 'catch').
English 'give' is cognate with Latin 'habere', (= 'have').

So having the confusion built in seems very natural to me.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)