[Lingtyp] Lexical semantics of 'know/believe/think'-type verbs

[Broadwell,George Aaron]

Dear colleagues,


I'm trying to understand the semantics of a handful of verbs in Choctaw that seem to be used rather differently than their closest English translations:


  *   ahnih seems to equate to 'want, notice, find out, think, pay attention to'
  *   yimmih seems to equate to 'believe', but only with nominal objects ('believed Mary' or 'believed in Jesus') but not with clausal objects
  *   ikha_nah seems to equate to 'know (probably as the result of inquiry') and often to 'believe' with a clausal object.
  *   akostininchih is something like 'be certain of'

So far as I can tell, none of these "attitude verbs" seem to match very closely to their English equivalents. (At least, given an English sentence with an attitude verb, I am only partially successful in predicting which verb a Choctaw speaker will use!)

I would appreciate links to discussion of other languages with similar systems or an overall typology of different ways of dividing up this semantic domain.

Thanks,
Aaron Broadwell


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Aaron Broadwell, broadwell at ufl.edu<mailto:broadwell at ufl.edu>  [Pronouns: he/him/his]
Elling Eide Professor | University Term Professor (2018-2021)
Associate Chair,
Dept. of Anthropology, University of Florida
Turlington Hall, Room B364
PO Box 117305 Gainesville, FL 32611
352-294-7598
Copala Triqui dictionary: http://copalatriqui.webonary.org/
Timucua dictionary: http://timucua.webonary.org
San Dionisio Zapotec http://sandionisiozapotec.webonary.org<http://sandionisiozapotec.webonary.org/>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20200721/0739ac75/attachment.htm>