Cross-linguistic patterns in the lexicalisation of bring and take
This study investigates the linguistic expression of bring and take events and more generally of
the semantic domain of directed caused accompanied motion (‘directed CAM’) across a sample of eight languages of the Pacific and
the Americas. Unlike English, the majority of languages in our sample do not lexicalise directed CAM events by simple verbs, but
rather encode the defining meaning components – caused motion, accompaniment, and directedness – in morphosyntactically complex
constructions. The study shows a high degree of crosslinguistic diversity, even among closely related languages. Meaning
components are contributed to directed CAM expressions by a mix of lexical semantics, morphosyntax, and pragmatic means. The study
proposes a text-based, semantic typology of directed CAM events by drawing on corpus data from endangered languages.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Data and methodology
- 3.Meaning components of directed CAM events
- 3.1Deictic and non-deictic directedness
- 3.2Manner
- 3.2.1Manner of caused motion
- 3.2.2Manner of motion
- 3.3Features of the theme object
- 4.Patterns in the lexicalisation of directed CAM events
- 4.1Directed CAM
- 4.1.1CAM in a deictically specific direction
- 4.1.2Manner of caused accompanied motion in a direction
- 4.2Caused motion from a direction
- 4.3Caused accompanied motion
- 4.4Accompaniment
- 4.5Caused motion
- 4.6Motion
- 4.6.1Directed motion
- 4.6.2Manner of motion
- 5.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Notes
-
References
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