Re: Inspirational languages

On 1/15/07, H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...> wrote:
> <ObConlang> Any other con/natlangs that have such fine distinctions in a
> verb based just on the case of the nouns, like учить/учиться?
> </ObConlang>
Not sure that it's particularly fine; it's a kind of bidirectional relationship.

I imagine other bidirectional relationships may show similar features,
e.g. leave/arrive, give/take/receive, lend/borrow.

FWIW, German has this with lend/borrow: while one can distinguish with
"leihen" = lend and "borgen" = borrow, some use "leihen" for both, in
which case (heh) the cases distinguish which way things are changing
hands:

   Ich leihe ihm das Buch: giver = nominative, recipient = dative,
object exchanged = accusative

   Ich leihe (mir) von ihm das Buch: giver = preposition + dative
(effectively: "originative"), recipient = nominative (and usually also
reflexive/dative), object exchanged = accusative

Though since this usually uses a reflexive construction, it's not
quite parallel -- more like saying that one can express "I am learning
Spanish" as "I am teaching myself Spanish".

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>