Edited by Lotte Hogeweg, Helen de Hoop and Andrej L. Malchukov
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 148] 2009
► pp. 131–154
This paper describes the grammatical uses of the Burmese motion verbs la ‘come’ and thwà ‘go’. The verbal markers -la ‘come’ and thwà ‘go’ fulfil different functionsaccording to (1) the semantics of the verb they modify, (2) the way in whichevents are represented in the clause/sentence, and (3) the context of occurrencein which -la ‘come’, and thwà ‘go’ appear. With motion verbs, they expressdirectionality of motion of the participants in the speech act. With non-motionverbs, they function as inchoative markers, i.e. as markers of a change in theentity’s state. In addition, thwà ‘go’ is used in clauses/sentences to mark the decreasedsalience of the Agent and the correspondent increased salience of the Undergoer.This function of thwà ‘go’ will be compared with the function of -lai ‘follow’, derived from the motion verb lai ‘follow’, which is used to mark a high degree oftransitivity of the clause.