[tlhIngan Hol] {-vaD} "for the benefit of"

[SCOTT RANDEL]

Thank you for the lengthy explanation. Your response has settled my mind on some of these issues. 

Also, I swear that one of these days, I will stop using {juH} to mean "house"! Really, I will.

>     On 11/05/2021 2:55 AM De'vID <de.vid.jonpin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     On Fri, 5 Nov 2021 at 04:44, Scott D. Randel <amavocet at comcast.net mailto:amavocet at comcast.net > wrote:
> 
>         > > 
> >         Also, the text you presented is not what I would call a definition. It is an explanation of the definition, which is given in TKD as “for, intended for.”
> > 
> >     > 
>     At this point, I'm not sure what would satisfy your request. AFAIK, {-vaD} is not *defined* anywhere as "for the benefit of". It's *explained* using the word "beneficiary", and sometimes people have paraphrased the definition as "for the benefit of". 
> 
>     For example, {-Daq} is "defined" as just "locative" in TKD, but people have no problem paraphrasing it as "on, at, in". Or {-meH}, which is just "defined" as "for", is sometimes explained (or defined) as "for the purpose of" to distinguish it from the {-vaD} kind of "for". People do rephrase the definitions in TKD, because they're not exact, and sometimes defining or explaining them in another way is more clear.
> 
> 
>         > > 
> >         I think that “for the benefit of” describes grammatical “benefit”, not benefit to the “recipient.” It says that the “noun” is the beneficiary, not that “someone” is the beneficiary.
> > 
> >          
> > 
> >         What if I say {juHDajvaD yIHmey vInob} (I apologize if that sentence is poorly formed; I am a lowly Level 1)? Giving a Klingon tribbles for his house provides no benefit for the Klingon or his house.
> > 
> >     > 
>     This is explained in TKD section 6.8 "Indirect Objects": "While the object of the verb is the recipient of the action, the indirect object may be considered the beneficiary. In a Klingon sentence, the indirect object precedes the object and is suffixed with the Type 5 noun suffix {-vaD} 'for, intended for.' The suffix may be attached to either a noun or a pronoun."
> 
>     The first example even uses the verb {nob}: {yaSvaD taj nobpu' qama'} "The prisoner gave the officer the knife". The recipient is the beneficiary of the giving, or in other words, the recipient "benefits" from the giving in the sense intended here, even if the given object is undesirable, like tribbles.
> 
>     {juHDajvaD yIHmey vInob} is exactly how you would say "I give tribbles to his/her home". The home is the recipient, or beneficiary, of the giving. This is what people mean when they say {-vaD} is "for the benefit of", not that the giving confers a benefit (some kind of advantage, gain, or positive outcome).
> 
>     (btw, {juH} refers to a home. If you mean "House" in the sense of a family/tribal/political unit, that's {tuq}. But that's tangential to the point of your example.)
> 
>     -- 
>     De'vID
> 
>     _______________________________________________
>     tlhIngan-Hol mailing list
>     tlhIngan-Hol at lists.kli.org
>     http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org
> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/attachments/20211105/c39ba664/attachment-0015.htm>