Re: Ditransitivity (again!)

Joe wrote:
> 'to' - a benefactive, but expressing some kind of movement
> 'to' - non-benefactive, signifying 'to which something is done'
> 'to'- allative, signifying direction of movement(completely unrelated)
> 'for', as far as I know, has only the one meaning.
Alas, poor old "for" has several:
--This gift is for Henry (destined to) ~I bought it for Henry ~I bought
Henry a gift
--Percy spoke for Henry (1. spoke in his place 2. spoke in his defense or
for his benefit/behalf, more likely "spoke up")
There is a certain amount of overlap, of course........
I think Latin used dative in the first case, _pro_ in the others.  Spanish
also has a very difficult distinction (for anglophones!) between para and
por. IIRC, you'd use para in the first case and for "spoke in his place",
but por in the case of "spoke on his behalf etc.".

ObConlang! Kash distinguishes these, but badly. The first case would use
dative case, the second two would use the prep. uçoñi (lit., its purpose).
I'm sure there is a distinction between e.g.
ama minayi ne yatraka ñaki 'Mina's father bought her a car'  VS
ama minayi yatraka ñaki uçoñi 'Mina's father bought a car for her' but
damned if I can figure it out......though I think the first means more "for
her benefit, perhaps as a gift" while the second is more "he merely put up
the money" or perhaps "because he was tired of her constantly borrowing his
car".........¡ay!