[Lingtyp] 回复: languages where 'able, can' and 'until, up to' are polysemous/homophonous

[LÜ Shanshan]

Dear Ellen,

In Caijia, a non-classified Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Southwestern China, the morpheme ‘until, to’ (may be derived from the verb ‘reach, arrive’) is used as a post-VP CAN modal. For example,


(1)   ji²¹    koŋ⁵⁵       to⁵⁵ mi²¹

one   day           to     darkness

‘from day to night’



(2)   ɔ²¹     la²¹   tsa³³to²¹    po⁵⁵, je²¹   ta⁵⁵-kʰɯ⁵⁵ɣɯ²¹ to⁵⁵.
this   big  stone      CLF 3SG lift-rise.come  can
‘This big stone, he can lift (it).’

Hope this may help.

All my best
Shanshan Lu

发送自 Windows 10 版邮件<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986>应用

发件人: Smith-Dennis, Ellen<mailto:E.Smith-Dennis at warwick.ac.uk>
发送时间: 2021年1月5日 20:12
收件人: list, typology<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
主题: [Lingtyp] languages where 'able, can' and 'until, up to' are polysemous/homophonous

Happy New Year all!

Could you help?

I'm looking for languages where the word for 'able, can' is polysemous/homophonous with 'until, up to, for (X amount of time)'. This is the case in Papapana (Austronesian, Papua New Guinea) and Tok Pisin (pidgin/creole, PNG) so I'm especially (but not only!) interested in languages of the Pacific region.

Many thanks in advance,
Ellen
E.Smith-Dennis at warwick.ac.uk

Dr. Ellen Smith-Dennis, FHEA
Assistant Professor
Widening Participation/Schools Liaison Officer
Centre for Applied Linguistics, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL
Email: E.Smith-Dennis at warwick.ac.uk OR E.L.Smith at uon.edu.au
Tel: (+44) (0)24 76 575912 (internal: 75912)

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20210107/bb80a95d/attachment.htm>