death

[Frans Plank]

Dear Dr. Shewmon,

I have no direct answer to your query about 'death' words, but I'd like to
draw your attention to a paper forthcoming in LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY 7-2
(2003), to come out later this month, which suggests that the event in
question can be conceptualized differently in different languages/cultures:

Robert Botne
'To die' across languages: Toward a typology of achievement verbs


Abstract

This paper constitutes an essay in comparative lexical semantics and
typology, comparing DIE verbs in eighteen languages. Crosslinguistically,
DIE verbs, although referring to the same human event, differ in their
inherent temporal (i.e., aspectual) phase structure. Primary DIE verbs,
representative of Vendler's class of achievement verbs, provide not only an
instructive case study of a single lexical verb, but also an excellent
exemplar of the class type. It is proposed that the four types of DIE verbs
identified - acute achievement, inceptive, resultative, and transitional -
also constitute the potential range of all achievement verbs.


Here is Dr. Botne's correspondence address:
Department of Linguistics, Indiana University, Memorial Hall 322, 1021 E.
3rd Street, Bloomington, IN 47405; e-mail: botner at indiana.edu

sincerely
Frans Plank