[Lingtyp] "become"

[Denis Creissels]

Dear David,

There is an obvious semantic relationship between ‘become’ and one of the
possible meanings of ‘make’, since  ‘X makes/transforms Y into Z’ or ‘X
makes Z out of Y = X CAUS [Y becomes Z], which explains why some languages
use a detransitivized  form of ‘make’ with the meaning ‘become’ (for example
French ‘se faire’ lit. ‘make himself’, as in ‘Il s’est fait prêtre’ = ‘He
became -lit. made himself- a priest’), and others have a labile verb
expressing ‘make, transform’ when used transitively, and ‘become’ when used
intransitively (for example, Mandinka ké, or Soninke ñá)

Best wishes,
Denis

-----Message d'origine-----
De : Lingtyp [mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] De la part
de David Gil
Envoyé : vendredi 3 juillet 2015 15:59
À : LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Objet : [Lingtyp] "become"

Greetings, typologists, from the New Guinea Bird's Head.

Does anybody know of any cross-linguistic studies examining the 
historical sources and etymologies of words or affixes that mean "become"?

Alternatively, is anybody familiar with cases in which a word meaning 
"become" has its origin in a word meaning "make"/"do"?

Thanks,

David

-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550333
Email:gil at eva.mpg.de
Webpage:http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/

_______________________________________________
Lingtyp mailing list
Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp


---
L'absence de virus dans ce courrier électronique a été vérifiée par le logiciel antivirus Avast.
http://www.avast.com