[Lingtyp] Grammatcalization of 'road/way/path'.

[André Müller]

Dear Dmitri,

In Jinghpaw (Tibeto-Burman; Myanmar) the word *lam* [lam] ‘road, path, way’
is often used as an action or state nominalizer, e.g.:

- *hkam kaja lam* [kʰɐm kəʥa lɐm] ‘health’ (lit. healthy good way)
- *myit hkrum lam* [mjɪ̀t kʰɹʊ́m lɐm] ‘agreement’ (lit. mind meet way)
- *shat nnan sha ai lam* [ɕɐ̀t ǹ̩nɐn ɕá ʔaj lɐm] ‘thanksgiving’ (lit.
rice new eat NMLZ way)
- *shawng lam* [ɕɔŋ lam] ‘future’ (lit. front way)
- *simsa lam* [sɪ̀msɐ́ʔ lam] ‘peace’ (lit. ??? way)

The names of folk stories also often end with *lam*, so it can also mean
something like "The story of ..." or more generally "How/why ... happened".

This nominalization usage seems has been calqued into Lhaovo
(Tibeto-Burman; Myanmar) as well with the word *khyo* [kʰjò] ‘road, way’:
- *pha, jhi" khyo* [pʰàʔ ʨí kʰjò] ‘education’ (lit. knowledge way; the
first part is borrowed from Jinghpaw *hpa-ji* [pʰɐ̀ʔʥí] ‘knowledge’)

There might be mutual influence with Shan (Tai-Kadai; Myanmar), mentioned
by Mathias Jenny above, but I cannot really say which language influenced
which in this case.

Best wishes,
— André Müller
(University of Zurich)

Am Do., 14. Jan. 2021 um 20:10 Uhr schrieb Dmitri Sitchinava <
mitrius at gmail.com>:

> Dear typologists.
>
> Me and my colleague are interested in grammaticalization patterns with
> nouns meaning 'road/way/path'.
>
> In Svorou (1994) various examples of grammaticalization into spatial grams
> are provided, but examples beyond the spatial domain are probably even more
> interesting.
> The pattern 'way/matter' is also well-known, but to give you a few more
> examples: English intensifier *way* too, French *être en voie de* and
> Swedish *på väg att* (~to be about to), German *wegen* 'because of'. The
> famous *way*-construction (*to V one's way*) is also worth mentioning.
>
> We would appreciate it if you could help us to collect more data so that
> we could get a more diverse sample and would not miss some potentially
> interesting patterns.
>
> Best
> Dmitri
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