Chapter published in:
Give Constructions across LanguagesEdited by Myriam Bouveret
[Constructional Approaches to Language 29] 2021
► pp. 97–120
Chapter 4
The French ditransitive transfer construction and the
complementarity between the meta-predicates give, take, keep,
leave
The hypothesis of a grammatical enantiosemy
Dominique Legallois | Clesthia, Sorbonne Nouvelle University-Paris
3
We revisit in this chapter the status and meaning of the French
Ditransitive Transfer Construction. We show that the construction
allows four interpretations that can be accounted for by the
antonymous Meta-Predicates give, take, leave and
keep. But how can the same construction be at the
origin of contrary and even contradictory interpretations? The
answer, in our opinion, lies in a particularity of the lexicon that
is seldom taken into account in semantics and lexicology, namely
enantiosemy, a property by which a lexical unit
has two opposite meanings. Thus, we formulate the hypothesis that
the Ditransitive Transfer scheme itself is an enantiosemic
construction.
Keywords: enantiosemy, Ditransitive Transfer Construction, meta-predicat, contrary relation, contradictory relation
Article outline
- 1.The problem
- 2.Lexical dative and non lexical dative
- 2.1Datives of equivalence
- 2.2Lexical attributive datives
- 2.3Non-lexical attributive datives
- 2.4Lexical partitive datives or epistemic datives
- 2.5Non-lexical partitive dative
- 2.6Distinction between lexical dative and non-lexical dative
- 3.
Constructional approach and meta-predicates
- 3.1Scenario 1: give
- 3.2Scenario 2: take
- 3.3Scenario 3: keep
- 3.4Scenario 4: leave
- 3.5Discussion
- 4.The enantiosemic hypothesis
- 4.1Lexical enantiosemy: Very brief historical overview
- 4.2Lexcial enantiosemy: Some examples
- 4.3Undifferentiated meaning
- 4.5Consequences
- 4.5.1Cognitive status of the ambivalent construction
- 4.5.2Grammatical construction and ambivalence
- Conclusion
-
Notes -
References
Published online: 10 March 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.29.04leg
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.29.04leg
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