She gave the child rice for the parents.

[Imralu]

She gave the child rice.
She gave the child rice for the parents.

---

This might not be that interesting in a lot of languages, but Swahili does something strange. Trivalent verbs such as "give" count the indirect object as the true object and simply plop the direct object later in the sentence without any marking. Bivalent verbs can be raised to trivalent with the applicative suffix. Adding the applicative suffix to a trivalent verb gives a quadrivalent verb, with one true object and the rest of the participants dropped later. (What I'm counting as a true object is the only one that can be marked as an object on the verb and also the only one that can become the subject through passivisation.)

Swahili:

Alimpa mtoto wali.
She gave the child rice.

Code: Select all

a-li-m-p-a          mtoto       wali
CL1-PST-CL1-give-Ö  child(CL1)  boiled.rice(CL11)
she/he-gave-him/her child       boiled-rice

Aliwapea wazazi mtoto wali.
She gave the child rice for the parents.

Code: Select all

a-li-wa-p-e-a            wazazi       mtoto       wali
CL1-PST-CL2-give-APPL-Ö  parents(CL2) child(CL1)  boiled.rice(CL11)
she/he-gave-for-them     parents      child       boiled-rice

[eldin raigmore]

She gave the child rice.
She gave the child rice for the parents.

---

This might not be that interesting in a lot of languages, but Swahili does something strange. Trivalent verbs such as "give" count the indirect object as the true object and simply plop the direct object later in the sentence without any marking. Bivalent verbs can be raised to trivalent with the applicative suffix. Adding the applicative suffix to a trivalent verb gives a quadrivalent verb, with one true object and the rest of the participants dropped later. (What I'm counting as a true object is the only one that can be marked as an object on the verb and also the only one that can become the subject through passivisation.)

Swahili:

Alimpa mtoto wali.
She gave the child rice.

Code: Select all

a-li-m-p-a          mtoto       wali
CL1-PST-CL1-give-Ö  child(CL1)  boiled.rice(CL11)
she/he-gave-him/her child       boiled-rice

Aliwapea wazazi mtoto wali.
She gave the child rice for the parents.

Code: Select all

a-li-wa-p-e-a            wazazi       mtoto       wali
CL1-PST-CL2-give-APPL-Ö  parents(CL2) child(CL1)  boiled.rice(CL11)
she/he-gave-for-them     parents      child       boiled-rice

So, how do they tell whether
s/he gave the child boiled rice for the parents,
or
s/he gave the child parents for the boiled rice?

Just common sense?
Or does the order of the class-morphemes straighten it all out?

Either way, how can you gloss the latter English clause into Swahili?
How about:
"S/he gave boiled rice the child for the parents"
"S/he gave boiled rice the parents for the child"
"S/he gave the child boiled rice for the parents"
"S/he gave the child the parents for boiled rice"
"S/he gave the parents boiled rice for the child"
"S/he gave the parents the child for boiled rice".

I'm particularly interested in the ones where the boiled rice can be either the recipient or the beneficiary. (Since those probably would not be thought of as "making sense".)

[Imralu]

So, how do they tell whether
s/he gave the child boiled rice for the parents,
or
s/he gave the child parents for the boiled rice?

Just common sense?
Or does the order of the class-morphemes straighten it all out?

The object morpheme in the verb plus word order.

I'll simplify the glosses, with numbers referring only to noun class. I'll do all of these examples assuming the "for" phrase is a beneficiary, rather than meaning "in exchange for" or "in order to give to".

The latter of these choices would probably be best said as something like Aliwapa wazazi wali wampe mtoto (huo). 1-PST-2-give (2)parents (11)rice 2-1-give-SBJV (1)child (DEM.11) "S/he gave the parents rice so that they could give (it) to the child."

So, without further ado, here are the sentences, with red highlighting to draw your attention to the object agreement.

• Aliwapea wazazi mtoto wali.
  1-PST-2-give.for (2)parents (1)child (11)rice
  "S/he gave the child boiled rice for the parents"
  
  Aliwapea wazazi wali mtoto.
  1-PST-2-give.for (2)parents (11)rice (1)child
  "S/he gave boiled rice the child for the parents"
  
  Alimpea mtoto wazazi wali.
  1-PST-1-give.for (1)child (2)parents (11)rice
  "S/he gave the parents boiled rice for the child"
  
  Alimpea mtoto wali wazazi.
  1-PST-1-give.for (1)child (11)rice (2)parents
  "S/he gave boiled rice the parents for the child"
  
  Ali(u)pea wali wazazi mtoto.
  1-PST-11-give.for (11)rice (2)parents (1)child
  "S/he gave the parents the child for boiled rice"
  
  Ali(u)pea wali mtoto wazazi.
  1-PST-11-give.for (11)rice (1)child (2)parents
  "S/he gave the child the parents for boiled rice"

In the above cases, where -u-, the class 11 object concord, appears in the verb, it can probably be left out and would only be included for emphasis or to indicate specificity or focus of the rice. With animate objects, the object concord is much more common - some authors say obligatory, but I've seen many examples that speak against that and I think it's probably about specificity or focus ... there doesn't seem to be much agreement among linguists about when it is needed and when not, but in any case, it's common for animate objects and less common for inanimates.

Raising the valency of a verb involves putting the extra argument closest to the verb and treating it as The Object, giving it the chance to be marked in the verb and leaving any other arguments to sit unmarked afterwards. Swahili kind of likes to have random nouns sitting around without marking what they're doing explicitly. What often look like place or time phrases are often simply nouns for places or times without any marking, with context and sentence structure generally making it clear that, for example, Tanzania means "in Tanzania" in one sentence. This is complicated by topic fronting and the fact that there are apparently sentences with the fronted object first, subject after the verb and the verb's subject slot apparently agreeing with the subject, making sentences that look like they're saying things like "Dinner cooked the guests" ... but they're apparently not. Anyway, they're very rare and I'd rather pretend I hadn't seen that, so ... *whistles cheerfully*

So, basically, as far as I've worked out, the rules for the syntax of sentences like the above are like this:

• Bivalent Verb + Applicative (-i-, -e-, -li-, -le-) = Trivalent Verb:
  
  -ua "kill" = AGENT + VERB + PATIENT
  -ulia "kill for/in" = AGENT + VERB + BENEFACTOR/LOCATION + PATIENT
  
  Trivalent Verb + Applicative (-i-, -e-, -li-, -le-) = Quadrivalent Verb:
  
  -pa "give" = AGENT + VERB + RECIPIENT + PATIENT
  -pea "give for" + AGENT + VERB + BENEFACTOR + RECIPIENT + PATIENT

At each step, the added argument stands closest to the verb and is the only one able to be marked within it, and also the only one able to be raised to the object by passivisation. Here are the passive forms of these verbs with their subjects in red. You'll notice that these are the same roles as the "true object" (in red) in the active verbs. Passive verbs are always intransitive and cannot take anything in their object slot, even though the word directly after may look like a kind of object.

• -uawa "be killed" = PATIENT + VERB (+ na AGENT)
  -uliwa "be killed for/in" = BENEFACTOR/LOCATION + VERB + PATIENT + na AGENT
  
  -pewa "be given" = RECIPIENT + VERB + PATIENT (+ na AGENT)
  -pewa "be given for"* = BENEFACTOR + VERB + RECIPIENT + PATIENT (+ na AGENT)

* Through quirk of phonology, the passive and applicative passive forms of some verbs, such as -pa > -pewa / -pea > -pewa is the same. I really doubt this final form is actually ever used but I think it's theoretically correct. If we swap the verb "give" with "pay", we'd have four seperate forms: -lipa "pay", -lipia "pay for", -lipwa "be paid", -lipiwa "be paid for" but at the moment not sure of the structure of how even -lipa works, so getting that far into it is beyond me right now. The applicative doesn't really specify what role exactly is being added and there's a lot of flexibility, and the concept of the verb "pay" is quite complex anyway, with the money, the thing bought, and a benefactor ... and English can mark two of those roles with "for" so ... ah, I'll look at that another time.

[eldin raigmore]

.... (all that neat stuff) ...

Thank you!

I have read an analysis which may be different; namely, Swahili doesn't have any trivalent verbs.
Applicativization just replaces the erstwhile object with something new; it doesn't raise the valency.
So "D gave T to G" or "D gave G T", if glossed into Swahili, would have subject "D", object "G", and an oblique "T".
With benefactive applicativization one would gloss "D gave G T for B" as "D gave-app B G T" with subject "D", object "B", and obliques "G" and "T".

I don't think it's a coincidence that the map that shows where the languages with applicativization are, and the map that shows where the dechticaetiative languages are, seem to be showing the same geographical areas for both applicatives and dechticaetiatives.

Among some lingisticians it's controversial or unclear whether certain well-known languages, English among them, actually have three different grammatical relations (viz. Subject, Direct Object, and Indirect Object) or merely two (Subject and Object).
It seems to be even less clear that the African languages that have applicative voice and are sometimes called "dechticaetiative" actually have three different grammatical-or-syntactic functions-or-relations. Even more linguisticians seem to think that it makes more sense to analyze these languages as having only two -- Subject and Object -- rather than three -- Subject, Primary (or dechticaetiative -- am I using that right?) Object, and Secondary (or secundative) Object.
They think that in the "give" clauses in these languages, the Recipient is the only Object, and the Theme is an oblique argument rather than a core term.

I don't know which point-of-view is superior, if either is.
I do not know the arguments for one interpretation or the other; nor do I know whether they apply to all of these languages with equal convincingness. Maybe one side is more convincing for some of the languages, and the other side is more convincing for some others of them. At any rate, since I haven't seen most of the reasoning&evidence, and haven't understood most of what I have seen, I haven't been convinced either way by any of it. I'm not even sure the analyses are really different, rather than only terminologically different. Fortunately no-one cares what I think.

There are other natlangs with a hard limit of two grammatical relations spoken in other parts of the world. You might check out how what would be called ditransitive clauses if spoken in English, are constructed in Nishnaabemwin.

And if anyone on the board mentioned someone giving someone something for someone in Nishnaabemwin, I'd want to see all twenty-four permutations of that, too.

[Parlox]

She gave the child rice for the parents
Laçen lu len afat’u’len wac nene eûn ç̂avĉa naŝu la paolen’s
She PAST INDIC give-PAST-INDIC the-ACCU-M child rice for the-NOM-F PLUR parent-PLUR

[eldin raigmore]

In which natlangs or conlangs can you say each of the following sentences in just one or two clauses each?
1. Albert convinced Bob to make Charlie give Dasher to Elizabeth for Francis.
2. Albert made Bob convince Charlie to give Dasher to Elizabeth for Francis.

I'm especially looking at morphological double-causatives with benefactive applicativization all applied to a ditransitive verb.

---

Sticking this here in Imralu's thread might be thread-jacking at worst, or topic-drifting at not quite as bad; but if I just started my own thread I don't know how I'd connect this thread to it.
If a mod wants to do something about that, they are welcome to.
If anyone (particularly Imralu) doesn't like this post here, I hope they'll ask a mod about it.

[Imralu]

I'm not even sure the analyses are really different, rather than only terminologically different.

I'm with you on that and I think actually, that's basically what I read too but I just didn't do a very good job of explaining it. That's more or less what I was trying to get at with the somewhat ominous "The Object".

This paper is interesting: Die Grammatischen Rollen des Objekts in Swahili. I went looking for the link and realised I had forgotten it's in German. Hope you can understand German.

dechticaetiative

Thanks! A word I'd forgotten.

In regards to your previous post: I really don't mind a bit of thread jacking, but I think the sentences you gave are definitely worth their own thread. To link it to this thread, if you really want to, all you'd need to do is write something like

Code: Select all

Feeling inspired by [url=http://www.cbbforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6221]this thread[/url], I wanted to see how languages handle ...

[Iyionaku]

Yélian

Yidaset petar pès îyi.
[ɕɨˈdaːsət ˈpetad̟ pɛs ˈiːɕi]
PST-give-3SG rice DAT child
She gave the child rice.

Can mepeʻin yidaset petar pès îyi.
[kɐn məˈpeːʔɨn ɕɨˈdaːsət ˈpetad̟ pɛs ˈiːɕi]
for parent-PL PST-give-3SG rice DAT child
For the parents, she gave the child rice.

In Yélian, it's not possible to have both a pès part and a can part within a simple clause. That is because if they function as dative case markers, can and pès can be used almost interchangably and hence this would make the decoding process more difficult. They are not interchangable if they function as prepositions "with" and "towards", respectively, which is why the benefactive adverbial "for the parents" must be fronted.

Caelian

Tat assol pyattur sitüsti.
[tʰat aˈʒɔl pʲaˈtʰuɾ ʒitʰyʃˈtʰi]
3SG.FEM.NOM child.DAT rice.ACC PST-give.3SG>3SG
She gave the child rice.

Tat assol pyattur sitüsti mipahekyen.
[tʰat aˈʒɔl pʲaˈtʰuɾ ʒitʰyʃˈtʰi mipʰahɛˈkʲɛn]
3SG.FEM.NOM child.DAT rice.ACC PST-give.3SG>3SG parent.PL.BEN
She gave the child rice for the parents.

[Iyionaku]

Mandarin

她给了儿童米饭为父母。
Tā gěile értóng mǐfàn wèi fùmǔ.
3SG.FEM give-PERF child rice for parents
She gave the child rice for the parents.

[Salmoneus]

ALERT! ALERT!

...sorry. I just wanted to point out, the most problematic bit for translations here will probably the concept of "for". The sentence you gave has many possible meanings in English, which would probably have different translations in most languages, as "for" conflates many meanings some of which are themselves quite complicated.

I happened recently to be looking at a page on translating "for" into Irish. Irish apparently distinguishes about a dozen different prepositional meanings of "for", which it translates with expressions like "until head" (he was there for a week), "over head" (I was there for you), "out of chest" (thanks for the cabbage), "out of", "to", "on", "with", "with face", and so forth.




So taking your sentence, "she gave the child rice for the parents" this could very easily mean:

- "she gave the child rice in exchange for the parents" (who she wanted to buy)
- "she gave the child rice on behalf of the parents" (who would have given the rice but were called away)
- "she gave the child rice as a favour to the parents" (who didn't want their child to starve)
- "she gave the child rice that was well-suited to the parents" (she also gave the child a different sort of rice for the saki still)
- "she gave the child rice that was only appropriate to the parents" (carelessly, she also gave the child a game for over-12s and painkillers for the dogs).
- "she gave the child rice to complement the parents" (she also gave the child some mustard for the ham)
- "she gave the child rice to deal with the parents" (she also gave the child some paracetamol for the headache and an alibi for the police)
- "she gave the child rice to make up for the parents" (she also gave the child condolences for her loss and a toy dinosaur for losing the race)
- "she gave the child rice as a reward for having (/giving/finding/etc) the parents" (she also gave the child a spoon for winning the spelling contest)
- "she gave the child rice in thanks for the parents that the child had found for her" (she also gave praise to the gods for the good harvest)
- "she gave the child rice that was intended for the parents" (she also gave her a letter for her teacher)
- "she gave the child rice for the good of the parents" (she gave the child an education for the nation)

And probably some others too! I'm not sure what sense you originally intended, but most languages are likely to give at least some, if not all of these different translations.

[Iyionaku]

Hahaha, damn. I didn't even think about that remotely. I went with the most obvious choice: "targeting the parents; so that the child can give it to the parents". I'm glad that both my conlangs passed the "English cipher test"; it's not ambiguous in both of mine anymore. While Yélian uses a preposition that has an exclusive meaning of recipient (can), Caelian uses a benefactive case.

[Lambuzhao]

important ALERT! ALERT!

Indeed. can pack a whallop of different meanings in one little old word, eh?

I looked at these sentences earlier, brain-stormed how it work work in and instead pretty much came up with similar sorts of 'back-translations' into as you did, Sal.

***<<<kernel-stackpage error >>> ***

[Lao Kou]

important ALERT! ALERT!

Indeed. can pack a whallop of different meanings in one little old word, eh?

Mandarin

她给了儿童米饭为父母。
Tā gěile értóng mǐfàn wèi fùmǔ.
She gave the child rice for the parents.

Sorry, you got the non-authentic sentence stamp from a native speaker (who finds the other examples as ambiguous in a normal context as the rest of us).

(Do you really have to go batshit with all these discrete or overlapping meanings, which Salmoneus had the patience to lay out, in a nat- or conlang?)

[Lambuzhao]

(Do you really have to go batshit with all these discrete or overlapping meanings, which Salmoneus had the patience to lay out, in a nat- or conlang?)

If I wanted to do Spanish, I'd go at least 6.3cg guano.

But here goes/ ahí voy:



Le dio al niño el arroz por los padres.
3SG.DAT give<PST.3SG> PRP=DEF.M.SG child.SG DEF.M.SG rice PRP DEF.M.PL parents

b/c I don't want no summertime drama. I ain't got no time fuddat.

[Lao Kou]

Le dio al niño el arroz por los padres.

That's how I'd play it,

b/c I don't want no summertime drama. I ain't got no time fuddat.

Just hand me a cool tea as I recline on a recamier, and we'll have no problem.

[Lambuzhao]

Le dio al niño el arroz por los padres.

That's how I'd play it,

b/c I don't want no summertime drama. I ain't got no time fuddat.

Just hand me a cool tea as I recline on a recamier, and we'll have no problem.

I'm brewing mint-tea right now to cool for limonaná, or would you prefer Jabłko i mięta ???


See wut I mean, Verne? Freaky.

[Iyionaku]

important ALERT! ALERT!

Indeed. can pack a whallop of different meanings in one little old word, eh?

Mandarin

她给了儿童米饭为父母。
Tā gěile értóng mǐfàn wèi fùmǔ.
She gave the child rice for the parents.

Sorry, you got the non-authentic sentence stamp from a native speaker (who finds the other examples as ambiguous in a normal context as the rest of us).

(Do you really have to go batshit with all these discrete or overlapping meanings, which Salmoneus had the patience to lay out, in a nat- or conlang?)

What's actually wrong with that sentence? 为? 给了? 儿童? Or does the problem lay deeper?

[Lao Kou]

Mandarin
她给了儿童米饭为父母。
She gave the child rice for the parents.

What's actually wrong with that sentence? 为? 给了? 儿童? Or does the problem lay deeper?

Just running with a gut response to what the sentence means bereft of context, one thought:

为了父母，他给儿童米饭。or
他为(了)父母给儿童米饭。

(In either case, the "for the parents" must get bumped somewhere up front.)

I personally prefer 小孩 to 儿童 here, just 'cause it feels more generic a little less age specific. But that's a matter of word choice, so don't worry about it.

[Iyionaku]

Ular


女人个儿人忒米给有她。
Yónngō kū rhánngō thò jũ lù jù tōn.
[jóŋˈŋō kū ɾǽŋˈŋō tʰɛ̀ jũ̀ lɨ̀ jù tōn]
woman PART child DAT rice give PST 3SG
She gave the child rice.

妈和爸为，儿人个忒米给有她。
Năfānwă nùng, rhánngō kūthò jũ lù jù tōn.
[næ̂́fɑ̄nwɑ̂̄ nɨ̀ŋ, ɾǽŋˈŋō kūtʰɛ̀ ũ̀ lɨ̀ jù tōn]
parent for, child DAT rice give PST 3SG
She gave the child rice for the parents.

The topic 女人 can be omitted if an adverbial is fronted, because in that case the adverbial 妈和爸为 is the topic. The sentinential particle 得 fulfills a similar function as 在 does in some Mandarin adverbials and can be omitted in the second sentence because it is preceded by a preposition. In the first one however, it is important to close the dative clause. Hence, in very formal language 妈和爸为，女人得儿人个忒米给有她 would have been possible, but this sounds a little stiff to most modern Ular speakers.

[Imralu]

So taking your sentence, "she gave the child rice for the parents" this could very easily mean:

- "she gave the child rice in exchange for the parents" (who she wanted to buy)
- "she gave the child rice on behalf of the parents" (who would have given the rice but were called away)
- "she gave the child rice as a favour to the parents" (who didn't want their child to starve)
- "she gave the child rice that was well-suited to the parents" (she also gave the child a different sort of rice for the saki still)
- "she gave the child rice that was only appropriate to the parents" (carelessly, she also gave the child a game for over-12s and painkillers for the dogs).
- "she gave the child rice to complement the parents" (she also gave the child some mustard for the ham)
- "she gave the child rice to deal with the parents" (she also gave the child some paracetamol for the headache and an alibi for the police)
- "she gave the child rice to make up for the parents" (she also gave the child condolences for her loss and a toy dinosaur for losing the race)
- "she gave the child rice as a reward for having (/giving/finding/etc) the parents" (she also gave the child a spoon for winning the spelling contest)
- "she gave the child rice in thanks for the parents that the child had found for her" (she also gave praise to the gods for the good harvest)
- "she gave the child rice that was intended for the parents" (she also gave her a letter for her teacher)
- "she gave the child rice for the good of the parents" (she gave the child an education for the nation)

And probably some others too! I'm not sure what sense you originally intended, but most languages are likely to give at least some, if not all of these different translations.

Yep. This is very often the case with translation challenges ... although perhaps not often to the extent of this one. The ones I marked in red are the ones I intended ... brighter red for higher fittingness.

Hahaha, damn. I didn't even think about that remotely. I went with the most obvious choice: "targeting the parents; so that the child can give it to the parents". I'm glad that both my conlangs passed the "English cipher test"; it's not ambiguous in both of mine anymore. While Yélian uses a preposition that has an exclusive meaning of recipient (can), Caelian uses a benefactive case.

AFAIK, in Swahili, that would be:

Alimpa mtoto wali awape wazazi.
a-li-m-p-a mtoto wali a-wa-p-e wazazi
1-PST-1-give-Ö child(1) rice(11) 1-2-give-SBJV parents(2)
S/he gave the child rice so that s/he gives (it) to the parents.