Publications
Publication details [#6246]
Jaggar, Philip J. and Malami Buba. 2009. Metaphorical extensions of 'eat' --> [OVERCOME] and 'drink' --> [UNDERGO] in Hausa In Newman, John. The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking (Typological Studies in language 84). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 229–251. 23 pp. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Publication type
Article in book
Publication language
English
Keywords
Place, Publisher
Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Abstract
The consumption verbs 'ci' (eat) and 'shaa' ()rink' in Hausa are rich sources of metaphorical extensions into a variety of cognate semantic domains (Gouffé 1966; Williams 1991). Prototypical ci 'eat' metaphors encode "overcoming/control" of a patient or theme by an animate/human agent (and part experiencer) functioning as subject, e.g., "mun cii sù ' (we beat (ate) them). Metaphorical transfers of shaa 'drink' usually have an "undergo" interpretation with a non-agential experiencer subject, e.g., 'sunàa shân wàhalàa' (they are suffering (drinking) trouble). Thus, the metaphorical overcome and undergo outputs are often maximally distinct in meaning, and these correlations are directly inherited from their differing physical/ontological properties: the 'eat' act entails a higher degree of subject agentivity/manipulation and object affectedness, and is higher in transitivity than the 'drink' act.
(Philip Jaggar and Malami Buba)