[Lingtyp] languages lacking a verb for 'give'

[Stefan Schnell]

Dear all,

A further case that may be of interest here (though it does not exactly
match what Matthews‘ colleague is looking for) comes from the Oceanic
language Vera’a: there is a single “give-verb” *le* which is the only verb
found in sentences expressing GIVE events. Yet, it is compatible with
different constructional frames and a broader range of senses:

a.       SBJ(agent/recipient) *le *OBJ(theme)
                         ‘take, obtain’

b.       SBJ(agent) *le-*DIR(path) OBJ(theme)
                   ‘move (tr), shift’, ‘bring, take’

c.       SBJ(agent) *le*(-DIR(path)) OBJ(theme) OBL(recipient or goal):
‘give’, ‘bring, take’

There is no further sentence involved, hence no case of ‘I *pushed over*
the book and he took it’ or the like, yet not a prototypical “give” type
verb either.



Brief discussion can be found in the following:

Schnell, S. 2012. Referential hierarchies in three-participant
constructions in Vera’a. *Linguistic Discovery *10.3, 125-147.
10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.419 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.419>
(Section 3.2 (pp 130-1))

Schnell, S. to appear. Caused accompanied motion constructions in Vera’a.
In: A. Margetts, S. Riesberg, B. Hellwig (Eds.), *Caused accompanied
motion. Bringing and taking events in cross-linguistic perspective. *John
Benjamins. [Section 3.2 (pp 251-2); chapter preprint on RG]

This entire book may be of interest here.



Cheers,

Stefan

Am Do., 27. Jan. 2022 um 10:56 Uhr schrieb Paolo Ramat <paoram at unipv.it>:

> A marginal note: already Ch. Bally, *Linguist. franç. et linguist. génér.
> (§ 185) *mentioned verbs as* louer  *'to rent out, to lend' and 'to hire'
> or *hôte '*host' and 'guest'. Kronasser 1952 spoke for such cases of an
> 'ungegliederte Situationsverstellung' that can even be reconstructed via
> comparison between strictly comparable languages: see Gk.  baínō  'I go'
> vs. Lat*. ueni*ō ' 'I come'. Similarly, you find Germ. *geben *"to give" vs.
> OIr.* gaibim *'I take'. Such an originally undivided meaning  can be
> found in many languages, especially with verbs originally denoting
> 'exchange'.
>
> Many years ago (1972) I dealt with this point in an article published in
> "Studi Germanici" 10, p. 43-79 (see also "Indogerm. Forsch."76/1971:
> 174-202).
> Cheers,
> Paolo
>
>
> Prof. Dr. Paolo Ramat
> Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
> 'Academia Europaea'
> 'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
>
>
> piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
> ##39 0382 27027
> 347 044 98 44
>
>
> Il giorno gio 27 gen 2022 alle ore 09:56 Maia Ponsonnet <
> maia.ponsonnet at uwa.edu.au> ha scritto:
>
>> Hello,
>> Somewhat tangentially, you may want to look at some of the chapters in
>> this volume?
>> https://benjamins.com/catalog/cal.29
>> I can't remember a mention of the phenomenon you describe, but some of
>> the contributions may have clues?
>> Cheers and kind regards, Maïa
>>
>> Dr Maïa Ponsonnet
>> Adjunct Researcher, Discipline of Linguistics
>>
>> Building M257
>>
>> The University of Western Australia
>> 35 Stirling Hwy, Perth, WA (6009), Australia
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
>> Matthew Dryer <dryer at buffalo.edu>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, 27 January 2022 4:43 AM
>> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <
>> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>> *Subject:* [Lingtyp] languages lacking a verb for 'give'
>>
>>
>> I am sending this query on behalf of a colleague.
>>
>>
>>
>> He wants to know whether anyone knows of a language that lacks a "give"
>> type verb and would express something like "I gave him the book" instead as
>> something like "I presented the book (to him) and he took it". That is, is
>> there a language that can only express a give-type concept with two more
>> analytic clauses?
>>
>>
>>
>> Matthew Dryer
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> 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/20220127/043e6919/attachment.htm>