"Hear" as "understand"

Esa Itkonen eitkonen at utu.fi
Thu Feb 4 12:27:11 UTC 2010


The examples that John Haiman gives in his (1980) grammar of Hua seem to exhibit the following 'division of labor': ko- ('to see', 'to know') vs. havi- ('to hear', 'to smell', 'to understand'). To be sure, this is second-hand knowledge.

Esa Itkonen

Homepage: http://users.utu.fi/eitkonen

----- Original Message -----
From: Nino Amiridze <nino.amiridze at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, February 1, 2010 9:40 pm
Subject: [FUNKNET] "Hear" as "understand"
To: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org, funknet at mailman.rice.edu


> Dear colleagues,
> 
> I was wondering whether you could help me in finding languages that
> use the verb 'hear' for 'understand', just like English uses 'see' for
> the same purpose (I see (=I understand)).
> 
> I would be grateful if you could give data and/or references, if there
> are investigations on the use of the 'see' vs. 'hear' verbs in
> figurative language.
> 
> Thank you very much.
> 
> Best regards,
> Nino Amiridze
> http://www.hum.uu.nl/medewerkers/n.amiridze/



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