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

[Kofi Yakpo]

Dear Tianhua,

The Kwa languages of West Africa (Ewe, Akan, Ga) and other Non-Kwa
languages (e.g. Yoruba, Susu) that I am familiar with as well as the
English-lexifier Creoles of West Africa with Kwa substrates and adstrates
have what I term "associative objects", i.e. syntactic objects denoting
some entity typically associated with the situation denoted by the verb
in participant roles typically filled by adjuncts (usually associative
objects can also be paraphrased as prepositional phrases).

In my grammar of Pichi <https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/85>, p.
339-343, I list about 30 verbs that take associative objects. Such
associative objects are probably quite widespread in predominantly
isolating languages (like Kwa and Sinitic).

Best,
Kofi
————
Dr Kofi Yakpo • Associate Professor • University of Hong Kong
<http://arts.hku.hk/>
Undergraduate Coordinator • Linguistics Programme
<http://www.linguistics.hku.hk/>
Resident Scholar • Chi Sun College
<http://www.chisuncollege.hku.hk/the-college/>
Web: scholars hub <http://hub.hku.hk/cris/rp/rp01715> • academia.edu
<https://hku-hk.academia.edu/KofiYakpo> • researchgate
<https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kofi_Yakpo>

Open access to postprints at Zenodo
<https://zenodo.org/search?page=1&size=20&q=yakpo&sort=-publication_date>
Recent publications:
A Grammar of Pichi <http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/85>
English World-Wide: Inheritance, contact, convergence
<https://benjamins.com/catalog/eww.00028.yak>
Areal convergence in creole negation
<https://benjamins.com/catalog/coll.55.05yak>

On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 7:14 PM Joo, Ian <joo at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
>
> 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> 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.’
>
>
>
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