[Lexicog] Another lexical gap

[Kenneth C. Hill]

It's interesting that the Spanish term consuegros, which literally means
co-parents-in-law, does not refer to the relationship between the married
couple and their collective parents but rather to the two sets of parents
in their relation to each other. My consuegros are the parents of my
child's spouse, not the set of my parents plus my spouse's parents.
Consuegros used in a collective sense refers to both sets of parents, but
not from the point of view of the married couple. I believe it is this
latter sense that DeCamp was referring to as the lexical gap. This is as I
understand it; perhaps someone who knows Spanish better can refine this.

--Ken

--- Rudolph C Troike <rtroike at u.arizona.edu> wrote:

>
> The discussion of the lack of a term in English for a parent bereft of a
> child reminds me that my late colleague David DeCamp used to say that he
> knew of no language that had a single term for the two sets of parents
> of a married couple (i.e., co-parents-in-law). Obviously from this
> explication, English has the morphological and lexical resources to
> construct an interpretable term, but there is no common term in use for
> the joint estate.
>
> 	Rudy Troike
>
>
>



		
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