[Lingtyp] languages lacking a verb for 'give'

Thu Jan 27 16:16:27 UTC 2022

Daniel,

I'm not sure I follow. Presumably we'd be relying on the translations of the *arguments*, not of the verbs, when figuring out the semantic roles of each verbal object. So, in examples of the sort that you, Eline, and I (maybe others) have provided, we see something like:

"boy take apple, give girl"

... to mean something like "the boy gives the girl an apple". I share your unease about considering the second verb in such cases to be "give" in the English sense. But I don't think there's any issue in figuring out which NP is semantically the theme and which NP is semantically the recipient. We could ignore the glosses of the verbs, and the semantic roles of the participants would still be clear:

verb1 apple, verb2 girl

Provided we know that "apple" and "girl" are both the objects of the verbs they follow, then we could say that the object of verb1 is a Theme, and the object of verb2 is a Recipient. I think what Matthew and I are both interested in finding is something like:

boy verb1 apple, girl verb2 apple

... something like "the boy proffered the apple; the girl took the apple".

Best,
Russell

Russell Barlow
Postdoctoral Researcher
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
russell_barlow at eva.mpg.de

> On 01/27/2022 4:41 PM Daniel Ross <djross3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Matthew,
> 
> Relying on translation equivalents in this case is not clear. If the verb "give" exclusively appears in SVCs (as is claimed for some languages), then it's only half of the lexical meaning of English give. We could translate it as something else, e.g. some active equivalent of 'receive' (several verbs like 'supply (the army)' or 'load (the truck)' can be used in this way, although they're flexible including ditransitive usage like 'give' at least with prepositional arguments).
> 
> Russell, I have the same uncertainty about your question: how do we know what a "Theme" argument is, without relying on translation? In many languages with SVCs of this type, there is no case marking (in fact, SVCs are said by some to function as case markers), so I don't know what other evidence there would be aside from the translation of the verb itself, which only in the construction as a whole means 'give'.
> 
> I assume that the etymology of the verbs in these constructions is not 'give': that is, it's not the case that an original, full lexical verb 'give' taking three arguments was reduced to taking two arguments and expanded into this construction, but that some other verb grammaticalized into that function. There's been a lot written about these kinds of usage, but I'm not sure about the best sources to recommend for that specific etymological question. I do think it would be relevant to the original question, though.
> 
> Daniel
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 7:03 AM Matthew Dryer <dryer at buffalo.edu mailto:dryer at buffalo.edu > wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Daniel,
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > This does not seem to be what my colleague is looking for since the second verb still arguably means ‘give’.
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Matthew
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > From: Daniel Ross <djross3 at gmail.com mailto:djross3 at gmail.com >
> > Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 11:27 PM
> > To: Matthew Dryer <dryer at buffalo.edu mailto:dryer at buffalo.edu >
> > Cc: "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org " <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org >
> > Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] languages lacking a verb for 'give'
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Dear Matthew,
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > This is a common pattern for languages with serial verb constructions, along the lines of "take book give him", etc. There has been a lot written about the lack of argument structure in these languages (some claiming that three arguments are not possible in some languages), and that SVCs can supplement that argument structure (and possibly a small inventory of verbs, according to some sources). I'm not as confident in some of the more extreme claims about this, but it is clear that this pattern is widespread among many of these languages (I know I've seen explicit claims for West Africa and creoles, and probably elsewhere). At the same time, it is not clear that these languages, strictly speaking, lack a lexical verb "give", since one of the verbs in this construction can be translated as such, although it is used with another verb (often 'take') to supplement it for the full argument structure. Other patterns are found too, and probably various other lexical verbs are used in a function like 'give', so it becomes a question of lexical translation. (This more generally is related to patterns of verbs in SVCs developing into prepositions.)
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > I'm sorry I don't immediately have any specific languages/references in mind, but let me know if you'd like me to try to find some. I know that Sebba 1987 discusses this in some detail, and here's one example:
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > ɔde sekaŋ no mãã me
> > he-take knife the give-PAST me
> > 'S/he gave me the knife' [originally from Christaller 1875: 118]
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Sebba, Mark. 1987. The syntax of serial verbs: an investigation into serialisation in Sranan and other languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cll.2 https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1075%2Fcll.2&data=04%7C01%7Cdryer%40buffalo.edu%7Cc44862af146441dbdbf808d9e14d210e%7C96464a8af8ed40b199e25f6b50a20250%7C0%7C0%7C637788544416223276%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=SHIWY7LV%2B4KJ5mQ9%2FaNUhpSLtDvNn2s3udyusfGdNE0%3D&reserved=0
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > (Tangential note: SVCs like this are generally considered monoclausal, by a variety of metrics, so I wouldn't call this "two analytic clauses", although the effect is the same. My dissertation thoroughly reviews the issue of monoclausality: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5546425 https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.5281%2Fzenodo.5546425&data=04%7C01%7Cdryer%40buffalo.edu%7Cc44862af146441dbdbf808d9e14d210e%7C96464a8af8ed40b199e25f6b50a20250%7C0%7C0%7C637788544416223276%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=SO5DRkCQvGojEx0eGLfyTDzhiZDKioxLvXqGU8bmwoE%3D&reserved=0 -- but I don't discuss this specific question about 'give'.)
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Finally, one extra comment, which is probably not what your colleague is after, is that there are some languages where the lexical verb 'give' is (at least in some cases) a zero root or null morpheme, i.e. indicated by lack of phonological content plus other inflectional morphology. This is discussed for some PNG languages here:
> > 
> > https://www.academia.edu/40037774/Comrie_B_and_R_Zamponi_2019_Verb_root_ellipsis_In_Morphological_perspectives_papers_in_honour_of_Greville_G_Corbett_ed_by_M_Baerman_O_Bond_and_A_Hippisley_Edinburgh_Edinburgh_University_Press_pp_233_280 https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.academia.edu%2F40037774%2FComrie_B_and_R_Zamponi_2019_Verb_root_ellipsis_In_Morphological_perspectives_papers_in_honour_of_Greville_G_Corbett_ed_by_M_Baerman_O_Bond_and_A_Hippisley_Edinburgh_Edinburgh_University_Press_pp_233_280&data=04%7C01%7Cdryer%40buffalo.edu%7Cc44862af146441dbdbf808d9e14d210e%7C96464a8af8ed40b199e25f6b50a20250%7C0%7C0%7C637788544416223276%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=ONKTzIsx0gdsULoAdNVs81gRBFDA78i60cX2OLeHQJc%3D&reserved=0
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Daniel
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 7:43 PM Matthew Dryer <dryer at buffalo.edu mailto:dryer at buffalo.edu > wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > 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
> > > 
> > >  
> > > 
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> > > 
> > 
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