[Lingtyp] Query: 'eat', 'drink' and similar verbs

[Joo, Ian]

Dear Tianhua,

seems like a fairly common metonymy. A similar case I can think of right now is in English where you say “We’ll eat Italian tonight” to mean “We’ll eat Italian food tonight”.

Regards,
Ian

On 13. Jan 2020, at 12:09, Tianhua Luo <tianhualuo at zju.edu.cn<mailto:tianhualuo at zju.edu.cn>> wrote:


Dear colleagues,


I have a question on 'eat', 'drink' and similar verbs.


In Mandarin Chinese 'eat' and 'drink' can followed with bare form nouns expressing locative or instrumental meaning, e.g., chi shitang (eat cafeteria) 'eat IN the cafeteria' and he da bei (drink big glass) ‘drink WITH big glasses’ (see below for more examples).


Are there any other languages that employ similar structures?  I’m interested in all reports of languages outside of China in this respect.


Many thanks,


Tianhua Luo

Dept. of Chinese, Zhejiang University, China


---



Mandarin Chinese ‘eat’ and ‘drink’

1. ‘Eat’

(1)


ni


chi


pingguo




2SG


eat


apple




‘Please eat an apple.’



(2)


women


chi


shitang




1PL


eat


cafeteria




‘We eat in the cafeteria.’



(3)


zhongguoren


chi


kuaizi,


xifangren


chi


chazi.




Chinese


eat


chopstick


westerner


eat


fork




‘Chinese eat with chopsticks and the westerners eat with forks.’



(4)


xiao


huoguo


chi


xinqing,


da


huoguo


chi


renao.




small


hotpot


eat


mood


big


hotpot


eat


noise




‘One have small hotpot for ease and big ones for lively atmosphere.’



2. ‘Drink’

(5)


keren


he


cha




guest


drink


tea




‘The guest is drinking tea.’



(6)


zhongguoren


he


da


bei.




Chinese


drink


big


glass




‘Chinese drink alcohol with big glasses.’



(7)


yi-ge


ren


he


fangsong,


liang-ge


ren


he


qingdiao.




one-CL


man


drink


ease


two-CL


man


drink


atmosphere




‘One drinks alone for ease and two people drink for nice atmosphere.’



(8)


xiao


bei


he


baijiu,


da


bei


he


pijiu.




small


glass


drink


alcohol


big


glass


drink


beer




‘The small glasses are used for alcohol and the big glasses are for beer.’



(9)


baijiu


he


xiao


bei,


pijiu


he


da


bei.




alcohol


drink


small


glass


beer


drink


big


glass




‘Alcohol should brink by small glasses and beer by big ones.’



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

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20200113/82caf96f/attachment.htm>