'like'/'manner' as Purpose clause marker

[Anna Martowicz]

Dear Yvonne,

In my PhD thesis (?The origin and functioning of circumstantial clause  
linkers: a cross-linguistic study?, University of Edinburgh, 2011) I  
devoted one of the chapters to the analysis of polysemes/homonyms of  
purpose markers in my sample of 84 langauges. In addition to those  
items mentioned by Professor König for English and German I came  
across some other examples which you may find interesting:

- the Japanese marker yoo which also acts as a noun with the meaning  
of ?manner?/?likeliness?/?resemblance?

- the nominal suffix  -pe ?similarity? in Cubeo

- comparative adverb ? ro in Kanuri (which acts also as a complementizer)

- equative adverb gudi in Maale

- verb se ?be equal to?/?resemble?/?benefit?/?deserve? in Akan.

  Interestingly, I have also found (in grammars of unrelated  
languages) a couple of examples of  identical clause linking elements  
being used for ?purpose clauses? and ?manner clauses? (or even  
?comparison clauses?). I guess such binary purpose/manner readings may  
be to some extent observed for English too:

  She was screaming so that he could hear her

First reading: She was screaming in order for him to hear her

Second reading: She was screaming so (loud) that he could hear her.


I too would be interested to hear about some more polyfunctionalities  
of this kind.

Best wishes,
Anna Martowicz

-- 
Anna Martowicz, MA, PhD

Theoretical & Applied Linguistics/
Language Evolution & Computation Research Unit
University of Edinburgh

http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~s0681634/

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