Re: USAGE: Teaching Children

>> Dan Morrison wrote:
>>      -How would your languages say something like "she teaches languages to
>> children"? Most of mine would probably use a double accusative, or maybe
> put "
>> children" in the dative and "languages" in the accusative. This would then
>> mean that "she teaches children" would also use the dative for "children".
>>
>
In Skerre, they would use causative verb 'cause to learn' for 'to teach.'
This easily solves the case problem as a secondary object like the children
is always in the dative in a causative construction.   So the above sentence
becomes:
        U    tal    xa    tiar  0      ehenska    je    cacakar
        IMPF she    CAUS  learn ABS    languages  DAT   children.
        'She causes children to learn languages."

However, when there is only a single object, the marker is the same as the
above with the second object removed.

         U    tal    xa    tiar  je   cacakar
        IMPF she    CAUS  learn  DAT children
        'She teaches children'

        U    tal    xa    tiar    0    ehenska.
        IMPF she    CAUS  learn   ABS  languages.
        'She teaches languages.'

In fiddling with these sentences, I 'discovered' this difference in the last
two sentences.  It seems to work, but is this type of alternation realistic?

-Doug