Re: USAGE: Teaching Children

On Fri, 28 Apr 2000, Doug Ball wrote:

> >> 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".
Neat question.

The language I'm working on now is very isolating.  So:

te mi nala: ta:tuta:tu i tu kuko:
she PL child give-give ACC the speak

Here "mi nala:" children is used adverbally to describe ta:tuta:tu.

te mi nala: ta:tuta:tu.
she PL child give-give

She teaches child-ly.
She teaches children.

This is *not* the same, of course, as

te mo nala: li ta:tuta:tu.
She in child way teach
She teaches childishly.

You could *also*, I suspect, get away with:

te ta:tuta:tu i mi nala:
She teaches ACC pl child
The same thing that keeps it from being too ambiguous in English keeps it
from being too ambiguous in whatever I'm going to name it.

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