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<div dir="auto"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman">Dear Matthew,</span><br>
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<span style="font-family:Times New Roman">if you look at my database of 66 lects, there are a few lects without a morpheme for ‘give’.</span><br>
<a href="https://github.com/lexibank/joophonosemantic/blob/master/raw/raw.tsv" target="_blank">https://github.com/lexibank/joophonosemantic/blob/master/raw/raw.tsv</a><br>
Note that, this means that the lects have no morpheme for ‘give’, and they could have a polymorphemic word for ‘give’.</div>
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Regards,
<div dir="auto">Ian</div>
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<div name="messageReplySection">On 27 Jan 2022, 4:03 PM +0100, Matthew Dryer <dryer@buffalo.edu>, wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Daniel,</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">This does not seem to be what my colleague is looking for since the second verb still arguably means ‘give’.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Matthew</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">From:</span></b>
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">Daniel Ross <djross3@gmail.com><br>
<b>Date:</b> Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 11:27 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Matthew Dryer <dryer@buffalo.edu><br>
<b>Cc:</b> "lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] languages lacking a verb for 'give'</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Dear Matthew,</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">This is a common pattern for languages with serial verb constructions, along the lines of "take book give him", etc. There has been a lot written about the lack of argument structure in these languages (some claiming that three arguments
are not possible in some languages), and that SVCs can supplement that argument structure (and possibly a small inventory of verbs, according to some sources). I'm not as confident in some of the more extreme claims about this, but it is clear that this pattern
is widespread among many of these languages (I know I've seen explicit claims for West Africa and creoles, and probably elsewhere). At the same time, it is not clear that these languages, strictly speaking, lack a lexical verb "give", since one of the verbs
in this construction can be translated as such, although it is used with another verb (often 'take') to supplement it for the full argument structure. Other patterns are found too, and probably various other lexical verbs are used in a function like 'give',
so it becomes a question of lexical translation. (This more generally is related to patterns of verbs in SVCs developing into prepositions.)</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">I'm sorry I don't immediately have any specific languages/references in mind, but let me know if you'd like me to try to find some. I know that Sebba 1987 discusses this in some detail, and here's one example:</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">ɔde sekaŋ no mãã me<br>
he-take knife the give-PAST me<br>
'S/he gave me the knife' [originally from Christaller 1875: 118]</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Sebba, Mark. 1987. The syntax of serial verbs: an investigation into serialisation in Sranan and other languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
<a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1075%2Fcll.2&data=04%7C01%7Cdryer%40buffalo.edu%7Cc44862af146441dbdbf808d9e14d210e%7C96464a8af8ed40b199e25f6b50a20250%7C0%7C0%7C637788544416223276%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=SHIWY7LV%2B4KJ5mQ9%2FaNUhpSLtDvNn2s3udyusfGdNE0%3D&reserved=0">
https://doi.org/10.1075/cll.2</a></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">(Tangential note: SVCs like this are generally considered <i>
monoclausal</i>, by a variety of metrics, so I wouldn't call this "two analytic clauses", although the effect is the same. My dissertation thoroughly reviews the issue of monoclausality:
<a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.5281%2Fzenodo.5546425&data=04%7C01%7Cdryer%40buffalo.edu%7Cc44862af146441dbdbf808d9e14d210e%7C96464a8af8ed40b199e25f6b50a20250%7C0%7C0%7C637788544416223276%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=SO5DRkCQvGojEx0eGLfyTDzhiZDKioxLvXqGU8bmwoE%3D&reserved=0">
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5546425</a> -- but I don't discuss this specific question about 'give'.)</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Finally, one extra comment, which is probably not what your colleague is after, is that there are some languages where the lexical verb 'give' is (at least in some cases) a zero root or null morpheme, i.e. indicated by lack of phonological
content plus other inflectional morphology. This is discussed for some PNG languages here:</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.academia.edu%2F40037774%2FComrie_B_and_R_Zamponi_2019_Verb_root_ellipsis_In_Morphological_perspectives_papers_in_honour_of_Greville_G_Corbett_ed_by_M_Baerman_O_Bond_and_A_Hippisley_Edinburgh_Edinburgh_University_Press_pp_233_280&data=04%7C01%7Cdryer%40buffalo.edu%7Cc44862af146441dbdbf808d9e14d210e%7C96464a8af8ed40b199e25f6b50a20250%7C0%7C0%7C637788544416223276%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=ONKTzIsx0gdsULoAdNVs81gRBFDA78i60cX2OLeHQJc%3D&reserved=0">https://www.academia.edu/40037774/Comrie_B_and_R_Zamponi_2019_Verb_root_ellipsis_In_Morphological_perspectives_papers_in_honour_of_Greville_G_Corbett_ed_by_M_Baerman_O_Bond_and_A_Hippisley_Edinburgh_Edinburgh_University_Press_pp_233_280</a></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Daniel</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 7:43 PM Matthew Dryer <<a href="mailto:dryer@buffalo.edu">dryer@buffalo.edu</a>> wrote:</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><a name="m_9006019862080693940__GoBack" id="m_9006019862080693940__GoBack"></a>I am sending this query on behalf of a colleague.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">He wants to know
<span style="color:black">whether anyone knows of a language that lacks a "give" type verb and would express something like "I gave him the book" instead as something like "I presented the book (to him) and he took it". That is, is there a language that can
only express a give-type concept with two more analytic clauses?</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto">Matthew Dryer</p>
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