Melaḣ baku nyne.

[So Haleza Grise]

I noticed this fun example sentence in the Kebreni grammar:

[Melaḣ baukte] nyne ḣilu ḣente mabu.

Is there a reason why the benefactive is not used here? Would Melaḣ baukte nyne ḣeli mabu have the same or a different sense?

[zompist]

The sample sentence in the grammar is just expressed neutrally-- it would be appropriate when I don't really care if the girl likes my dog or not. The benefactive would convey that it's a good thing, or I'm pleased, that she likes it.

(If you're thinking that the Kebreni would make much heavier use of the benefactive and antibenefactive than the sample sentences indicate, you're quite right. It's a way to add an emotional tinge to almost any sentence. If Eddy spoke Kebreni, every sentence would be in the antibenefactive.)

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

I may add that even on Earth, languages that have a benefactive and/or malefactive do tend to use them a lot. However, not in academic writing.

French has a rarely seen in litterature benefactive clitic, derived from indirect clitics. I would rarely use it when writing a text. But when speaking, I and people around me use it a lot. (I must say however that ever since I started learning Japanese, I have been even more into it, not being afraid of its non-IE-ishness.)

Japanese, a language with so many emotional markers that even Quebec's sacres seem like nothing, use both benefactive and malefactive so much that if you never use it, you are marked as a foreigner forever. (And then, you must learn to integrate Japanese's two-way politeness into it. Painful.) But if you read scientific litterature or textual examples, unless specifically built to teach the forms, you will rarely see them.