Benefactive Reflexives

[are2 at buffalo.edu]

I'm with Bob.  (But I quit caffeine in the mornings and I'm not sure I
think all day now.)  Example:
gigthiza-a! 'Get yourself some!'  'Take some for yourself!'
gigthizha-a! 'Wash yourself/your own'
as in NoNbe tHe gigthizha-a! 'Wash your hands!'

translated in Siouan orthog:
gigdhiza-a!
gigdhizha-a!  NaNbe tHe gigdhizha-a!

Same form, one gets a 'for yourself' reading and one gets a 'yourself'
reading.  I think the difference is in the translation into English,
and this can be seen by the fact that in my lousy dialect you can
say 'take yourself some' relatively felicitously or 'take some for
yourself.'  So, I'm not sure that there's really a difference in
Omaha.   But I'm equally not sure that I'm understanding the idea
either (maybe I just need clarification).
-Ardis

Suus, benefactive, reflexive, a rose by any other name, I still don't
get it.

Quoting "R. Rankin" <rankin at ku.edu>:

> > In Assiniboine I have one clear context-free example of such a
> form:
> > kiknaN'ka    'to put away/save for oneself'  from e'knaNka 'put'
>
> I guess I'm still having trouble contrasting the two possibilities.
> In Dakotan,
> would 'to put away/save ones own' be formally different?  I'm still
> wondering if
> the distinction between 'to X for oneself' and 'to X ones own' is a
> purely
> English one.  I'm looking for formal evidence, and we already know
> that the
> dative/benefactive and the possessive in Siouan can by and large be
> inflected
> with the same prefix -- well, at least in most of Dhegiha.  So why
> are the
> reflexive versions of these two somehow different?  Sorry, but I'm
> having
> trouble getting my head around this.  Maybe not enough coffee this
> morning.
>
> Bob
>
>
>