The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking

The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking

Typological Studies in Language (TSL) A companion series to the journal Studies in Language. Volumes in this series are functionally and typologically oriented, covering specific topics in language by collecting together data from a wide variety of languages and language typologies.

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Volume 84 The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking Edited by John Newman

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The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking Edited by

John Newman University of Alberta

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The linguistics of eating and drinking / edited by John Newman.        p. cm. (Typological Studies in Language, issn 0167-7373 ; v. 84) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1.  Grammar, Comparative and general--Verb. 2.  Grammar, Comparative and general-Morphosyntax. 3.  Semantics.  I. Newman, John, 1948P281.L54   2009 415--dc22 isbn 978 90 272 2998 4 (hb; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 9015 1 (eb)

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Table of contents

Preface A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’  John Newman

vii 1

How transitive are eat and drink verbs?  Åshild Næss

27

Quirky alternations of transitivity: The case of ingestive predicates  Mengistu Amberber

45

All people eat and drink: Does this mean that ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are universal human concepts? Anna Wierzbicka ‘Eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’: a generic verb and its semantics in Manambu Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

65 91

Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions Sally Rice

109

The semantic evolution of EAT-expressions: Ways and byways Peter Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

153

Literal and figurative uses of Japanese EAT and DRINK  Toshiko Yamaguchi

173

What (not) to eat or drink: Metaphor and metonymy of eating and drinking in Korean  Jae Jung Song

195

Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in Hausa Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

229

Amharic eat and drink verbs  John Newman & Daniel Aberra

253

 Table of contents

Author index

273

Language index

277

Subject index

279

Preface John Newman This volume arose out of a call for papers on linguistic aspects of verbs with meanings comparable to the primary senses of English eat and drink, i.e., verbs with meanings relating to the ingestion of food and drink. Contributors were invited to discuss both the form and function of such verbs in specific languages or universally. The only theoretical stipulation was that contributions be functional, cognitive, or typological in their orientation. This way of compiling a collection of papers is comparable to the approach taken in compiling two earlier edited volumes: The linguistics of giving (Newman 1997) and The linguistics of sitting, standing, and lying (Newman 2002). These two volumes, together with the current volume, may be seen as all contributing to a better understanding of the usage of predicates which encode frequent, human activities or states, predicates one may call “basic”. Activities such as eating and drinking are universal human activities which play a fundamental, life-sustaining role for humans. As such, one can expect that they would constitute important sources for metaphorical imagery, which indeed they do. The semantic characterization of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ predicates, even in their most “straightforward” literal uses, is complex reflecting the highly multifaceted nature of the activities themselves. The underlying complexity of these activities and how the entities participating in these activities are affected result in interesting clausal properties of these predicates, too, in addition to any metaphorical extensions. The chapter by Newman introduces the reader to a range of linguistic behaviors associated with ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs cross-linguistically. He distinguishes the many components that constitute eating and drinking processes, and how the two processes differ, in a purely pre-linguistic way, reflecting on the experiences themselves. These components enter into the full semantic characterization of ingestion predicates and can play an important role in motivating aspects of usage. Newman considers aspects of the literal ‘ingestion’ use of such predicates, including generic predicates which cover both ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ senses and the morphosyntax which can accompany ingestion predicates. He also considers figurative and grammaticalized extensions of these predicates, seeking out motivation for such extensions, where possible (and it is not always possible) in the pre-linguistic, experiential realities of eating and drinking. Næss focuses on cross-linguistic phenomena

 The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking

found in ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ clauses, which bear on the question of transitivity. She draws attention to the ways in which ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs are atypical as transitive predicates, based on a variety of types of evidence: the existence of intransitive alternants; the capacity for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs to appear with absolutive (as opposed to ergative) marking in certain languages; causativization patterns where ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ pattern like intransitives; and the use of oblique-case marking for the Patient in some languages. Næss invokes the idea of an “affected agent” to characterize the unusual duality of the semantics of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ predicates, i.e., the consumer is not only an agent of the activity, but is also invariably affected by the activity, through bodily sensations arising out of contact with the consumed entity. The “affected agent” semantics means that ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs do not have “maximally” distinct Agent and Patient arguments which constitute the prototype for transitive clause structure. The Amberber chapter explores details of causativization patterns in a number of languages which reveal how ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs may sometimes pattern like intransitive predicates in those languages (findings which also feature in Næss’ chapter). Amberber reviews data from Amharic, Malayalam, Berber, Tariana, and other languages. In Berber, for example, transitive verbs cannot normally be causativized by a causative prefix ss-. However, as noted earlier by Guerssel (1986), and cited by Amberber, there is a class of verbs which, though used transitively, behave exceptionally and allow ss- causativization. Guerssel (1986: 36) refers to the class as the “eat class” which includes the verbs ttc ‘eat’, sw ‘drink’, jjawn ‘be satiated with food’, and tted ‘suckle’. These and other facts about ingestion predicates in various languages lead Amberber to propose a “co-indexing” of Agent and Goal (i.e., “self ’s mouth”) in the Lexical Conceptual Structure representation of such predicates, building upon earlier ideas of Guerssel (1986) and Jackendoff (1990). The resulting representation feeds into a larger account of the transitivity and causativization facts with ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs. Wierzbicka applies the methodology of Natural Semantic Metatheory to ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs in English, Kalam, and certain Australian languages. Wierzbicka considers the proper semantic characterization of Kalam ñb which is used to cover the meanings of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ (crudely put). For Wierzbicka, it would be inaccurate to gloss this word with something like ‘eat/drink’ since Kalam ñb is claimed to be a unitary concept, not a disjunctive concept. Glossing it as ‘consume’ does not quite work either. Consume has a rather too abstract use to aptly capture the meaning of Kalam ñb (cf. the unnaturalness of I saw her consuming something). Wierzbicka relies on the so-called “natural semantic metalanguage” to help her explicate ñb and, for that matter, English drink and eat. Wierzbicka extends the discussion to two Australian languages, Warlpiri and Arrernte, again utilizing the metalanguage to help elucidate the meanings of ingestion predicates. The notion of ‘suck’ appears to play a significant role in the semantic characterization of



Preface 

ingestion predicates in these two Australian languages and may be relatable to traditional cultural practices: honey and nectar obtained by a sucking action are valued sources of nourishment. In any case, the concept of ‘suck’ is closely tied up with the semantics of the Warlpiri verb kuuny-nga-rni ‘suck, eat, drink’ and Arrernte antyeme ‘drink, suck’. Aikhenvald also discusses languages of Papua New Guinea and Australia. She discusses data from Manambu (Papua New Guinea) where we find one generic verbal predicate k6- which, rather like Kalam ñb, covers a range of meanings encompassing ‘eat’, ‘drink’, ‘suck’, ‘breast-feed’, and ‘smoke’. While Aikhenvald (unlike Wierzbicka) is content to gloss k6- as ‘consume’ in her examples, she claims to find evidence for ‘eat’ as a central, or as some linguists might say, prototypical sense. For example, she finds no examples of k6- occurring in derivatives with meanings of ‘drink’ or ‘smoke’, though it occurs in a number of derivatives referring to various kinds of food. She takes this as evidence in support of the ‘eat’ sense being central to k6-. She proposes that we should see languages as being on a continuum in terms of the specificity or genericness of their verbal predicates. In the semantic domain of ingestion, this amounts to recognizing a continuum from languages which highly differentiate such predicates in terms of manner of ingestion or type of food/drink consumed to those which have one predicate to cover the whole domain of ingestion. Manambu, she claims, occupies a mid-way position. Aikhenvald also includes fascinating detail about cultural practices which are conceptualized in terms of figurative ‘eating’. Rice discusses comparative data on ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs from the Athapaskan family of languages. Athapaskan languages utilize, to varying degrees, a classificatory verb system whereby verb stems classify a relational participant (usually the Theme or Patient) according to whether that participant is round/compact, flat/flexible, animate, a sticklike object, etc. Young and Morgan (1987: 251-263) report, for Navajo, 15 verbs stems of consumption, distinguishing, for example, -kaah ‘consume/drink from open container’ and -tˀaah ‘consume/drink from closed container’. The former would be used to describe drinking from a glass, the latter for drinking from a bottle. In a number of Athapaskan languages, the concepts of eating and drinking are expressed as variations of ‘controlled handling’ constructions, exploiting the rich classificatory system associated with such predicates. Thus, in Hupa, a morpheme sa- ‘into the mouth’ combines with the ‘handle particles’ verb stem to convey meanings like ‘eat seeds by the handful’, whereas the same sa- morpheme combines with the ‘handle filled container’ verb stem to give a meaning like ‘eat from a bowl/spoon’. The classificatory verb system relating to the handling of objects is thus “co-opted”, to use Rice’s term, to encode the concepts of eating and drinking in Hupa. Rice also comments on intriguing differences in the behaviors of ingestion predicates with respect to their use in singular, dual, and plural forms. For example, in Dene Su̜łiné, the more basic verbs ‘eat’ and

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The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking

‘drink’ occur in a complete paradigm of singular, dual, and plural forms, whereas the more particularized verbs ‘snack’ and devour’ do not. Finally, Rice reviews figurative uses of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ in Athapaskan languages, especially their use in metonymies, e.g., the word for ‘table’ construed through reference to the function of the object ‘on which people eat’ in Koyukon. Hook and Pardeshi discuss ‘eat’ constructions in Indo-Aryan languages. They compare, in particular, the behaviour of these verbs in Hindi-Urdu and Marathi and observe differing degrees to which these languages employ ‘eat’ in idiomatic uses (Marathi has about half as many ‘eat’ idioms as Hindi-Urdu, for example). They consider the historical influence of Persian (later and of shorter duration in the case of Marathi) to be a significant factor in accounting for the different degrees of ‘eat’ idiomaticity in modern-day Hindi-Urdu and Marathi. Hook and Pardeshi also consider the use of “vector verbs” with ‘eat’ in Hindi-Urdu. Vector verbs are grammaticalized uses of lexical verbs such as ‘give’, ‘take’, go’, ‘come’, ‘put’ etc. which now serve as “aspectual attitudinal” auxiliary verbs. Interestingly, the vector verbs used with ‘eat’ are based on ‘take’ and ‘go’, these being the vector verbs that generally occur with “centripetal” verbs oriented towards the agent (‘buy’, ‘take’, ‘grab’ etc.) or verbs involving internal and experiential processes (‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘understand’ etc.). Both the inherent directionality of the eating event, where food is brought to the mouth of the eater, and the affected agent status of the eater make ‘eat’ very consistent with both the classes of centripetal and experiential verbs. Yamaguchi reviews a number of linguistic aspects of Japanese ‘eat’ and ‘drink verbs, paying special attention to the earlier and present honorific status of each verb. For example, the verb taberu, neutral in its honorific status in modern Japanese, derives from an earlier taburu, a humble honorific counterpart to tabu ‘to receive’. The sense of ‘eat’ has come to be associated with this earlier taburu construction referring to the giving of something from a superior to an inferior (perhaps comparable to the slightly formal or even stilted use of English take as in “Do you take hot food?”). Yamaguchi finds that the figurative uses of Japanese ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs point to a bias towards negative, adverse states and suggests that this bias might reflect a broader cultural orientation. Interestingly, it is the historically older kuu/kurau ‘eat’ forms (marked as male, vulgar speech in their current literal uses) which exhibit more of the metaphorical, negatively nuanced usage than the historically more recent, and honorifically neutral, taberu ‘eat’. Song’s chapter discusses Korean ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs. Korean mek-, glossed as ‘eat’, can also be used as a superordinate term to encompass either ‘eat’ or ‘drink’ meanings (cf. a more restricted version of this in Japanese where a verb kurau (male, vulgar) ‘eat’ can be used for certain ‘drink’ contexts, as discussed by Yamaguchi). He relates the wider distribution of mek-, occurring with the full range of objects possible with ‘eat’ or ‘drink’ senses, to the greater propensity for mek-, as opposed to masi



Preface 

‘drink’, to undergo figurative extension. Song introduces a number of interesting socio-cultural observations in his attempts to motivate various idiomatic uses of Korean ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. So, for example, khong pap-ul mek- means literally ‘eat a bean meal’ but is used idiomatically to mean ‘be incarcerated’, an extension based on the practice of feeding prisoners bean-based meals. Both Yamaguchi and Song build on the categories of figurative extension of these predicates introduced in Newman (1997). Jaggar and Buba confront the dazzling range of figurative uses of Hausa (Chadic/Afroasiatic) ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs. They see the figurative extensions of ci ‘eat’ as exhibiting mainly “controlling, dominating” characteristics, while the extensions of shaa ‘drink’ exhibit mainly “undergoing” characteristics. When used in the ‘undergo’ sense, shaa also takes on a durative, atelic aspect. Thus we find a contrast between sun ci yaaƙìi ‘they won the war’ and sun shaa yaaƙìi ‘they have endured the war (for some time)’. The durative nature of shaa in such uses bears close comparison with the use of shaa as a ‘quantificational’ verb meaning (roughly) ‘do X frequently, regularly’. The authors relate the frequentative use of shaa to properties associated with the experiential realities of drinking (as opposed to eating), e.g., the unbounded nature of mass substances like water and the relatively unobstructed ingestion associated with drinking (cf. also the discussion of Hausa in Newman’s chapter). Hausa ci and shaa have been the subject of considerable interest (see the references in the chapter by Jaggar and Buba) on account of the multifarious sub-meanings and idiomatic uses and this chapter is an important addition to the literature on the subject, helping the linguist find order in the apparent chaotic nature of their uses. Newman and Aberra review the properties of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs in another African language, Amharic (Semitic). Both b6l- ‘eat’ and t’6t’‘drink’ verbs have a biconsonantal root structure, /bl/ and /t’t’/, as analyzed in the Semitic linguistic tradition, whereas most verbs in Amharic are triconsonantal. The biconsonantal root structure of b6l- and t’6t’- is indicative of highly frequent and “basic” verbs in the language. The authors summarize the morphosyntax found with these verbs, including the unusual causativization patterning alluded to above. As Jaggar and Buba do, so Newman and Aberra attempt to understand the apparent complexity of figurative usage in terms of a few key ideas. The authors categorize the figurative extensions into three main categories: internalization, destruction, and affected agent. These categories reflect components of the experiential realities of eating and drinking and it is the experiential realities which are seen as motivating the extensions in these categories. Verbs encoding concepts of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ offer a unique opportunity to observe the integrity of literal and figurative usage of a predicate. The factors that can play a crucial role in motivating the morphosyntax of these verbs, when used

 The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking

to refer to actual ingestion, are also factors which appear to play a crucial role in motivating figurative and grammaticalized extensions. The image of food being destroyed in the act of eating, for example, provides a strong cognitive basis for taking food-like objects to be the Patient in a transitive construction with ‘eat’ verbs, as well as motivating a slew of “destruction” idioms in the figurative extensions of ‘eat’ verbs. Drinking of a liquid invokes an image of relatively unobstructed intake of liquid, which itself undergoes no real physical change in the mouth. This image helps us to understand why Hausa has grammaticalized shaa ‘drink’, but not ci ‘eat’, to mean ‘do X frequently, regularly’ as well as helping us to understand why Hausa shaa, but not ci, is associated with durativity in its figurative extensions. The “affected agent” status of a person eating or drinking motivates a number of atypical transitive properties of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ clauses as well as figurative extensions in which the core of the meaning is more about an effect on the Agent rather than any destruction of the Patient, e.g., to eat up admiration.

References Guerssel, Mohamed. 1986. On Berber verbs of change: A study of transitivity alternations [Lexicon Project Working Papers no.9]. Cambridge MA: MIT, Lexicon Project, Center for Cognitive Science. Jackendoff, Ray. 1990. Semantic structure. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Newman, John. 1997. Eating and drinking as sources of metaphor in English. Cuadernos de Filología Inglesa. Special volume on Cognitive Linguistics 6(2): 213-231. Newman, John (Ed). 1997. The linguistics of giving. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Newman, John (Ed). 2002. The linguistics of sitting, standing, and lying. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Young, Robert W. & William Morgan, Sr. 1987. The Navajo language: A grammar and colloquial dictionary. Albuquerque NM: University of New Mexico Press.

A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ John Newman

University of Alberta This chapter provides an overview of the range of linguistic properties associated with ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs across languages and serves as an introduction to the whole volume. The chapter covers the lexicalization of these concepts and the syntax associated with ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ constructions. Figurative extensions of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ constructions are common, in some languages even prolific, and have their sources in the simultaneous but distinct aspects of the acts of eating and drinking: the sensation of the consumer while ingesting and the destruction or disappearance of the entity consumed. These dual aspects of ingestion are relevant, too, when it comes to motivating the atypical kinds of transitive constructions found with these verbs in some languages. Grammaticalizations of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, though not particularly common, do occur and are also reviewed here.

1.  Introduction In this chapter, I review a range of properties associated with verbs with meanings which approximate the ‘eat (food)’ and ‘drink (liquids)’ senses of English eat and drink. Clearly, languages will differ in their ways of encoding such concepts and one should not expect that there will be distinct words for these concepts as one finds in English. Just the same, eating food and drinking liquids represent universal practices amongst humans and one can reasonably inquire about the linguistic expression of these concepts in any language. While it is convenient to begin with some discussion of these senses as found with English eat and drink in Newman (1997), the remainder of the chapter is a cross-linguistic comparison of verbs which carry meanings like ‘eat (food)’ and ‘drink (liquids)’. The overview includes discussion of the lexicalization of such concepts, morphosyntactic properties of such verbs, and the polysemy, or polyfunctionality, of such verbs across languages, including grammaticalization. We begin, however, with a description of the central meanings of English eat and drink. 2.  Central meanings The central meanings of eat and drink relate to the intake of food and beverages into the mouth and digestive tract. In both cases, there is movement of some entity

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John Newman

into the mouth where one experiences the taste and texture of the entity. The two verbs involve quite different processes within the mouth, however. Eating typically involves crushing and chewing of food, with the teeth, tongue and the palate all helping to achieve this. The teeth in particular play a key role in the crushing of food, before the chewed-up food is passed down the throat. Drinking does not involve such vigorous action in the mouth and the teeth play no significant part, though there is still movement of the liquid facilitated by the tongue and palate through the mouth and down the throat. The verbs refer to basic needs of humans in so far as eating and drinking are the means to take in the sustenance the human body requires to survive. Apart from the physical necessity of eating and drinking, there is a further dimension to these acts which needs to be recognized, namely that eating and drinking are usually pleasurable experiences. Under normal circumstances, humans choose food and beverages which they will enjoy digesting. This can not always be controlled, but it is the clear bias in the way we eat and drink. Eating and drinking represent strong experiential models of sensual satisfaction. A further dimension relevant to these verbs is the fact that eating and drinking of certain substances can both lead to altered states of mind, intoxication, being “high” etc. The two verbs make a natural pair in terms of representing the two main ways we take in sustenance. I have summarized these informal and pre-theoretical observations about eating and drinking in Table 1. It is convenient to distinguish a number of categories which are relevant to a full appreciation of the experiential realities associated with these concepts, using English eat and drink as starting points for a fuller, cross-linguistic account. We distinguish the following descriptive categories which constitute part of the ‘complex matrices’ of English eat and drink, drawing upon ideas of Langacker (1987): the internal complexity of the predicate (how many participants and the type of interaction); the spatio-temporal profile (the evolution of the spatial configuration of the participants through time); the active zone (the particular parts of the entities which represent the actual locus of interaction); the force dynamics (the extent to which force, coercion etc. is applied); the typical social/cultural significance (relevant aspects of the social and cultural significance of eating and drinking). In this table, no attempt is made to describe the many extended meanings that ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs can have, including English. Later in this chapter, a variety of extended senses will be discussed from a cross-linguistic perspective. It is clear that there are many diverse cultural practices surrounding eating and drinking. There are places specifically designed for eating and drinking and places where eating and drinking are excluded. Hooper (1976: 234) notes, for example: “Eating is prohibited in rural Tahitian Protestant churches and even the presence of food in the building (a loaf of bread, say, in a shopping basket) is regarded as unseemly and polluting.”



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’

Table 1.  Components of the central meanings of eat and drink internal complexity

eat and drink are dynamic, involving actions by a person which affect some other entity, but where the person also typically experiences a range of sensations

spatial-temporal profile

eat drink

active zone

eat drink

force dynamics

eat

typical social/cultural significance

food is taken into mouth and moves through the digestive tract liquid is taken into mouth and moves through the digestive tract mouth, teeth, tongue, palate mouth, tongue, palate

forceful crushing and biting of food, controlled by person drink no change to liquid in the mouth, controlled by person eating and drinking are vital to humans, are usually enjoyed, and are the basis for many social occasions; both can be the means to inducing altered physical and psychological states (e.g., drunkenness)

3.  Lexicalizations Eating and drinking have some properties in common, as observed above: they both involve the intake of something through the mouth and into the digestive tract; they are both vital to humans; and they are both usually enjoyed. Furthermore, these acts often occur as part of the same larger event, such as having a meal. All these considerations are probably relevant to the fact that one finds words which have the superordinate sense of ‘ingest, consume’, covering either eating or drinking. The English verbs consume and ingest are, of course, examples of this, but they belong to a more learned or more academic register of English than eat and drink, and so are not entirely appropriate translations (cf. Wierzbicka, this volume). Examples where a ‘consume’ verb covering both eating and drinking is an everyday word are Suchou ti 4, Zulu dla, Rumu nana, and Yir-Yoront pay (cf. Alpher 1991: 421–422), as well as the many examples discussed by Wierzbicka and Aikhenvald in this volume. In a number of languages, the verb translating as ‘eat’ has an extremely wide variety of meanings (cf. the chapters by Wierzbicka, Aikhenvald, and Jaggar and Buba in this volume). The African languages Akan, Hausa, Ewe, and Zulu are such languages. One thorough description of the meanings of such a verb is that given by

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John Newman

Christaller (1881 [1933]) for Akan di. Christaller lists 26 major semantic categories for its uses and a total of 110 subcategories. To accommodate this range, Christaller defines di as meaning ‘to take (in the hands); to handle; to use, make use of, employ’. Welmers (1973: 477), with reference to the same verb, gives it the general meaning ‘partake of or participate in’. At the same time, Welmers (1973: 477) says that “just about any speaker of Akan will tell you [di] means ‘eat’”. These two semantic characterizations by Welmers illustrate Langacker’s (1987) concepts of schematic meaning and prototype. A schematic meaning refers to one node of the semantic network of a lexical items which expresses a meaning fully contained in others, e.g., ‘partake of or participate in’ might be a schematic meaning with respect to Akan di. A prototypical meaning, on the other hand, is one which is experienced as representative of the whole category and which is the immediate source for semantic extensions, e.g., ‘eat’ would be the prototypical meaning of Akan di. Regardless of whether or not one can identify a single schematic meaning or one or more prototypical meanings for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs in a language, the polysemy associated with either of these verbs can be substantial and can present quite a challenge when it comes to deciding on how many distinct senses to recognize. Not surprisingly, in light of their typically extensive polysemy, ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs have been a focus of studies which deal with questions of monosemy vs. polysemy (see Gouffé 1966; Monsen 1972; Williams 1991; and Jaggar and Buba, this volume). Words for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ may derive from more than one morpheme. In the Australian language Mayali, the verb ‘to eat’ is a monomorphemic form ngu, in the “ordinary” language. In the “mother-in-law” variety of the language, Gun-gurrng, the verb ‘to eat’ (and ‘drink’) is yak-wa, consisting of yak ‘without, nothing’ and wa ‘to follow’, so literally ‘to nothing-follow” (N. Evans, p.c.). In Mayali ordinary language, ‘drink’ is also a bimorphemic bo-ngu, derived from bo ‘liquid’ and ngu ‘eat’ (N. Evans, p.c.). Rice (this volume) reports on the use of an incoporated ‘into the mouth’ morpheme sa- with various Athapaskan classificatory verb stems to express ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ meanings. 4.  Syntax with central meanings It is possible to have distinct transitive and intransitive verbs for eating and drinking (see Newman and Rice (2006) for some discussion of transitive and intransitive usage of the English verbs). Kiribatese has distinct forms for transitive and intransitive ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, illustrated in (1), based on Groves, Groves and Jacobs (1985). (1) a. kana ‘eat’ transitive versus am’arake ‘to eat’ intransitive b. nima ‘drink’ transitive versus mooi ‘drink’ intransitive



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’

Transitive verbs in Lango (Noonan 1992: 125), shown in (2), typically have alternative and formally related intransitive forms which can be either “activity naming” or “secondary argument” using Noonan’s terms. (2) a. àcámò 1sg.eattr.perf ‘I ate stew.’

d7́k stew (Noonan 1992: 128)

b. àcámò 1sg.eattr.perf ‘I ate it.’

(Noonan 1992: 128)

c. àc7́mò 1sg.eatintr.perf ‘I ate.’

(Noonan 1992: 128)

In (2a) and (2b), the transitive ‘eat’ is used, while in (2c) it is intransitive ‘eat’ which is used. Notice that the transitive form in (2b) can be used without any nominal object. This happens when the food has been mentioned already or is understood from context and so translates best as ‘I ate it’, distinct from the intransitive use in (2c) which is translated simply as ‘I ate’. The “activity naming” forms take a doer as the subject, but do not allow any syntactic object. These forms are used when reference to the thing affected is irrelevant to discourse. “Secondary argument” forms take the thing affected as the subject and make no reference to a doer. The ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs exist in both transitive and “activity naming” intransitive forms, but lack a “secondary argument” form. Thus, we find càmmò ‘eat (tr.)’ and cὲm ‘eat (intr.)’, màttò ‘drink (tr.) and ḿtô ‘drink (intr.)’ (cf. Noonan 1992: 125). The occurrence of both transitive and intransitive ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ in the world’s languages, or even within the one language, suggests that eating and drinking can be easily conceptualized in either of two ways. On the one hand, eating and drinking can be viewed as an interaction between a person (one entity) and the food or drink (a second, distinct entity). This is the conceptualization underlying the transitive usage of the verbs ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. On the other hand, there are aspects to eating and drinking which facilitate an intransitive encoding of these predicates. Eating and drinking can be viewed as processes in which the consumer is essentially experiencing the sensation of taste, satiation, pleasure or displeasure, etc. Although an entity such as food or drink is certainly present in the larger semantic frame, it is the consumer’s experience of the event which might be profiled more by intransitive ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs. ‘Eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs are, then, not so much about ingestion as they are about bodily sensation (cf. Næss’ idea of an “affected agent” with ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, this volume). When one makes the consumer, as an experiencer, the focus (or the “profiled” component of meaning, using Langacker’s 1987 term), then the amount, quality, nature, and even presence of the

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John Newman

food itself becomes less relevant. In this way, ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs align with ‘walk’ and ‘run’ verbs. ‘Walk’ and ‘run’ verbs include the notion of a supporting surface in their larger semantic characterization (at least in their typical meanings), but this supporting surface is easily backgrounded or assumed, with the result that ‘walk’ and ‘run’ are typically encoded as intransitive predicates. The fact that ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ can occur as either transitive or intransitive predicates in the world’s languages already suggests that these verbs are not exactly typical transitive predicates. It turns out that this property of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs, i.e., their use as intransitive predicates alongside their transitive usage, is but one of a number of facts about these verbs, cross-linguistically, which mark them as atypical transitives. Amberber (2002) draws attention to the peculiar property of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs in a number of languages with respect to patterns of causativization. Amberber describes a recurring pattern of causativization whereby ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs pattern in ways which are identical to how intransitive verbs form causatives, even when the ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs are used in a transparently transitive manner (with overt direct object). Both ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs exceptionally permit morphological causatives in Hausa, for example, when this possibility would normally only apply to base intransitives (cf. Jaggar and Buba, this volume, footnote 2). Næss (this volume) reviews a broad spectrum of properties of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs (attributable to the “affected agent” nature of the consumer) which point to these verbs being atypical, rather than typical, transitives. Furthermore, comparing ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, there is reason to consider ‘eat’ as the more transitive of the two, even though both are relatively atypical transitive verbs cross-linguistically. Wierzbicka (1982: 774–776) already has drawn attention to how “unlimited” substances which are drunk, like water, cannot be totally destroyed, whereas substances which are eaten, like a sandwich, are typically “discrete, limited” and can be totally affected as part of the eating act. This distinction, according to Wierzbicka, has consequences for the acceptability of the deverbals eat vs. drink in the frame have an X in English. This construction appears to refer to events which focus on the agent and his/her experience and is incompatible with events in which the patient is strongly affected. The construction is therefore compatible with drink, i.e., have a drink, but incompatible with eat, hence *have an eat. The difference that Wierzbicka alludes to is the affectedness of o parameter in Hopper and Thompson (1980: 252) and would point to ‘eat’ being more transitive, in the Hopper and Thomson sense, than ‘eat’. Other facts suggest that Hopper and Thompson’s punctual parameter also distinguishes ‘eat’ as the more transitive verb, compared with ‘drink’ (cf. the discussion of extension of ‘eat’ to perfectivity marking in Section 5 and the assignment of the feature [+ punctual] to some metaphorical uses of Hausa ci ‘eat’ in Jaggar and Buba, this volume). With the intransitive verb uses of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, a nominal referring to the food or drink can still appear as part of the construction, integrated as an oblique,



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’

as in English chew on a bone, sip at a drink etc. The Kiribatese intransitive forms can appear with a second argument introduced by an “interposed n”, as illustrated in (3b). The interposed n is not present in the case of true transitives. Groves, Groves and Jacobs (1985: 74) call this second argument a “pseudo object”. (3) a. E kana te ika. 3sg eat.tr art fish ‘He/she/it ate the fish.’

(Groves et al 1985: 77)

b. Ko am’arake n te ben? 2sg eat.intr link art coconut ‘Did you eat coconut?’

(Groves et al 1985: 74)

The “interposed n” might be equated with the preposition n ‘at, in, on’ (Groves et al 1985: 65) or the possessive indicator n. A common use of ‘eat’ verbs is to help form an expression for ‘eat a meal, dine’ through a combination with a word for some staple food, as in Mandarin chfàn ‘have a meal’ (
5.  Extensions based on the perfectivity of ‘eat’ ‘Eat’, rather than ‘drink’ involves a change in the state of the food being eaten, from a whole to small crushed pieces. As such, the ‘eat’ verb is strongly perfective in nature. ‘Drink’, on the other hand, does not involve the same kind of effect on the liquid being drunk. Eventually liquid which is drunk does undergo change in its movement through the digestive tract, but within the mouth and throat, which I take to be the active zone of ‘drink’, there is no such transformation of liquid. This difference, already alluded to above, has ramifications for the potential of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ to extend to other meanings. One difference in this respect is that ‘eat’, but not ‘drink’, provides an appropriate image for the completion of a change, just as ‘drink’ provides a source for continuity and repetitiveness (see the remarks about Hausa shaa ‘drink’ in Sections 6.7). Chepang (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal) je? ‘eat’ is a case in point. The verb appears to be the source for the verbal suffix -je?, which, as part of its meaning, conveys “a sense of completion or finality with regard to a

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John Newman

situation” (Caughley 1982: 97). At the same time, the suffix indicates satisfaction and pleasure towards a situation, a meaning which is prevalent with both ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ and which is discussed further in Section 6.4. The use of the suffix -je? is illustrated in (4). (4) a. lw ʔal-jeʔ ʔuya right go-eat.suffix therefore ‘Right, go then (for good).’

(Caughley 1982: 97)

b. lw noh-jeʔ jeʔ-jeʔ right take-eat.suffix eat-eat.suffix ‘Take it then and eat it up!’

(Caughley 1982: 97)

In (4a), there is no reference whatsoever to eating as part of the overall meaning and the -jeʔ suffix is only glossed as ‘eat’ to indicate its etymological source (as is done elsewhere in this book). In (4b) the double sequence of jeʔ-jeʔ represents a sequence of full verb ‘eat’ followed by its identical suffixal form. A similar kind of polysemy would appear to exist in Kachin. Caughley (1982: 113) suggests that Kachin maʔ, which is used to mean ‘to use up’ and to indicate finality, is also cognate with Chepang mak- ‘consume, devour’. 6.  Extensions based on internalization Some metaphorical extensions of eating and drinking words are motivated by properties of the consumer in the process. The agent in eating and drinking serves as a strong image of “internalization”, i.e., incorporating something into one’s personal or private sphere. Firstly, there is the intake of food and drink from outside the body into the mouth. This stage involves a clear transition from being visible and outside the body to being no longer visible and inside the body. Secondly, there is the swallowing aspect which moves food and drink from being in the mouth, where it can be moved and controlled by the tongue (and still easily spat out of the body), to being in the intestines and eventually the stomach, where it is controlled by involuntary reflexes and processes beyond our conscious control, and requiring a more difficult and sometimes painful act to bring the food out of the mouth again. Note, also, that these two aspects are common to both eating and drinking. These two aspects are the basis for conceptualizing various kinds of events which one might classify as “internalization”. (5) a. k’oda-u zәyt t’әt’ t’-a hide-m.def oil drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘The hide absorbed oil.’/‘The hide was soaked with oil.’

(Amharic)



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’

b. zhè kuài dì bù ch shu this plot land not eat water ‘This plot of land absorbs little water.’

(Mandarin)

c. i chen-un mwulkam-i cal mek-hi-nta this cloth-top dye-nom well eat-pass-ind ‘The cloth dyes well.’ or literally ‘As for the cloth, the dye is eaten well.’  (Korean)

The taking in of something more abstract (words) is illustrated in the Korean example in (6a). Here, ‘eat’ is extended to refer to the act of listening and following verbal advice and it seems appropriate to include this under the general category of internalization. A comparable extension is the Mandarin expression in (6b). (6) a. chelswu-nun emma mal-i an mek-hi-n-ta Chelsoo-top mother word-nom neg eat-pass-pres-ind ‘Chelsoo does not listen to what mother says.’ (Korean, p.c. Jae Jong Song) b. ch-ruaˇn bù ch-yìng eat-soft not eat-hard ‘be open to persuasion, but not to coercion’

(Mandarin)

6.1  Extensions based on the sensation of the consumer Other aspects of eating and drinking relating to the agent’s role are: the hunger/ thirst element; the work done in masticating, swallowing, digestion; the nourishment; and the enjoyable gustation accompanying the basic acts. In the set of extensions to be discussed in the following sub-sections, it is the role of the eater/drinker which motivates the extension, rather than the effect on the thing eaten. In these cases, one can construe the meaning as an internalization like the meanings just discussed. The meanings discussed below, however, also involve sensory experience (either pleasant or unpleasant) and for this reason I have separated them out from mere internalization. These meanings are typically found with human, or at least animate, referents. 6.2  Pleasant inhaling, smoking etc. Verbs of eating and drinking may be extended to the intake of something physical, but not food or drink, into the body. A common extension of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs involves their use in expressions for smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco etc. Enga, for example, uses nengé ‘eat’ in the expression mútí nengé ‘smoke

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 John Newman

tobacco/cigarette’ (Lang 1975: 178), while in Lango it is the verb ‘drink’ which is so used (Noonan 1992: 314). ‘Drink’ is also used for taking of medicine in some languages, e.g., Puluwat wún ‘to drink, smoke, take medicine’ (Elbert 1972: 210). In Mandarin it is ch ‘eat’, not he‒ ‘drink’, which is the verb used in the ‘take medicine’ expression ch yào. Note that Classical Chinese ch meant either ‘eat’ or ‘drink’ and its use in these expression could be related to the earlier ‘drink’ sense. In (7), it is air which is inhaled:

(7) I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun.  (Housman 1896/1939: 72, Poem #XLVIII)

(7) refers to the enjoyment of breathing in air in the context of a poetic description of savouring life and the enjoyment of breathing also is metonymic for the enjoyment of life. Drinking liquid involves a more or less continuous flow of liquid into the body and in (7) drink has the nuance of taking in air in a plentiful, uninterrupted (and enjoyable) way. Similarly, Hausa shaa iskàa, literally ‘drink wind’, means ‘go for a stroll’ (Abraham 1962: 793; Jaggar and Buba, this volume, p. 243), though other purported meanings of this particular combination claimed in Abraham (1962: 793) are dubious (personal communication, Philip Jaggar). 6.3  Emotional/intellectual satisfaction A less concrete type of internalization involves taking in external stimuli which add to and support one’s emotional or intellectual state, as in (8).

(8) She was uncritically idolised by an army of fans, male and female. She ate up the adoration. . .  (Marie Claire magazine, Feb. 1996: 176, on the actress Lana Turner):

Images of eating and drinking appear frequently in the poetry of Emily Dickinson used in ways like this. Patterson (1979:  31), referring to the “several hundred occurrences” of “oral symbolism”, observes that “as a rule her oral symbols apply to affection or, more exactly, to romantic love”. In (9), it is learning, books, knowledge etc. which is the object of her affection: (9) a. He ate and drank the precious Words His Spirit grew robust – (Poem no. 1587, Johnson 1890: 658) b. Strong Draughts of Their Refreshing Minds To drink – enables Mine Through Desert or the Wilderness As bore it Sealed Wine –(Poem no. 711, Johnson 1890: 349–350)

Despite some occasional uses of ‘eat’ as in (9) to refer to emotional, sensual etc. satisfaction, it is ‘drink’ which is more frequent in this figurative usage in English.



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ 

The American Heritage Dictionary, for example, includes the sense of ‘take in through the senses, enjoy’ for drink, but there is no similar sense given for eat. ‘Eat’ is extended to this meaning in the Dickinson poem cited in (9), but its use in conjunction with drink probably facilitates this particular extension. The examples with Mandarin ch ‘eat’ shown in (10) also illustrate the extension to pleasant emotional experience. (10) a. ch ‘eat’ + ha&ohuà ‘good words’ = ‘to savor praise’ b. ch ‘eat’ + xia#ng ‘fragrance; popular’ = ‘to be very popular’ c. ch ‘eat’ + de (connective) ka#i ‘open; public’ = ‘be popular’

Closely related to the extension to the emotional domain is the extension to the sexual domain. We see this in (11), which is naturally understood as meaning that the man wanted to engage in sex with the woman. Notice how the use of the up particle in eat me up is effective in emphasizing the completeness and fullness of the sexual interaction, making it akin to the sense of devour which, of course, has a conventionalized sexual usage. (11) He gave me a look – all the men did, but this was different – a look like he wanted to eat me up. A hungry look. (De Ferrari 1990: 222, talking about a man who had fallen in love with the woman)

There is quite a variety of idiomatic ‘eat’ expressions in languages referring to enjoyment or satisfaction. Zulu dla ‘eat’, for example, is extended to ‘enjoy, delight in’ as in ukudla amaxoxo ‘to enjoy a chat’ (Doke et al. 1990: 151). Swadesh (1946: 336) reports that ‘to kiss’ is literally ‘to eat mouth’ in Chitimacha. 6.4  Chepang emotive ‘eat’ suffix The Chepang verbal suffix -je?, discussed above in connection with perfective meaning, is used to indicate ‘satisfaction and pleasure in respect to [the whole] situation’ (Caughley 1982: 97). Caughley calls it a “situational emotive” and suggests that it is an extension of je? ‘eat’. A separate suffix -ja, which may be related to je? ‘eat’ or may have a distinct etymology (Caughley 1982: 98), is used with noun phrases to express affection for the referent. Examples of this are given in (12). In (12b), both the nominal suffix -ja and the verbal suffix -je? appear in a sentence where the morphemes are used ironically to express dissatisfaction and dislike (Caughley 1982: 97). (12) a. ?ow? wa?-ko? co? jyal-je?-?aka-y? that bird-gen child flee-eat-past-pl ‘The young birds escaped (luckily).’

(Caughley 1982: 97)

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b. ŋa-kay-ja ne?-je?-?a-ta-ŋ? I-goal-emotive bite-eat.suffix-past-goal-1excl ‘It has bitten me!’ (Caughley 1982: 97)

6.5  To experience unpleasantness In Enga, nengé ‘eat’ functions as a “classificatory verb” in combination with various predicates describing inner states. The main semantic category of constructions with nengé involve combinations to indicate an experience of something painful or unpleasant, as shown in (13). Examples of Amharic uses of ‘eat’ to refer to the experience of unpleasantness are given in (14). (13) a. ingí nengé ‘growl (of stomach)’ b. mámbu tángo nengé ‘bite lips; seem to do something wrong together’ c. kií nengé ‘be cold’ d. mómo nengé ‘rot’ e. popo nengé ‘be difficult’ f. taá ikí nengé ‘be stingy’ g. tándá nengé ‘afflict’ h. tómbá nengé ‘be disagreeable, be angry’ i. tómbó nengé ‘be belligerent’ j. yaíná nengé ‘be sick’ (Lang 1975: 178) (14) a. asar-e-n a-bәll-a-ňň misery-my-acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘He treated me cruelly.’

(Amharic)

b. mәkәra-ye-n a-bәll-a-ňň hardship-my-acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘He gave me a hard time.’

(Amharic)

c.

ar-e-n a-bәll-a-ňň feces-my-acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘He beat me badly.’/‘He defeated me.’/‘He made me suffer.’ 

(Amharic)

English expressions such as eat humble pie is comparable though it involves an additional metonymy relating to the literal sense of the object noun. Wadley & Derr (1990) discuss the concept of ‘eating sins’ in an Indian (Hindu) community. Although there appear to be many complexities to the philosophy of life and morality as practised in this community, the main point relevant here is how one’s actions, including mental acts such as desire, or karma, lead to retribution at a later time. Depending on whether the original actions were morally good or sinful, then the retribution will be good or bad. The metaphor used with this view of life is that one’s actions bear fruits (phal) and the



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ 

retribution is then a matter of eating these fruits. In the cases discussed at some length by Wadley and Derr, evil actions on the part of one group of the community in previous years were believed to lead to a tragedy (a fire in which a number of people were killed). The people who suffered in this tragedy were ‘eating the sins’ of the past. 6.6  Adversative passive In Hausa, ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs may be used with verbal nouns as objects with the understood agent of the verbal noun being someone other than the sentential subject. Such uses could be translated as a passive in English, as illustrated in (15). (15) yaa ci/shaa duukàa he.past eat/drink beat.vbnoun ‘He was severely beaten.’

(Abraham 1962: 137,794)

Abraham (1962) includes these uses of ci and shaa under the general sense of ‘undergo’ (in the case of shaa) or ‘undergo severely’ (in the case of ci). The related entries for these meanings of the verbs in Abraham’s dictionary suggest that the sense of ‘endure, suffer’ is a key feature of these uses, typified by the choice of the verbal noun duukàa based on dòokaa ‘beat up, thrash, hit’. While (15) could be analyzed as a kind of (agentless) adversative passive construction, semantically the use of ‘eat’ or ‘drink’ in such examples is not substantially different from the uses of these verbs with (non-derived) nouns referring to endurance of suffering (see Jaggar and Buba, this volume, for more discussion). Jaggar and Buba also point out that Hausa speakers who allow both ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs in this construction indicate that there is an emphasis on the durative nature of the activity with shaa ‘drink’. Haspelmath (1990: 64, fn 9) reports similar (restricted) phenomena in Sinhalese and Modern Greek with the verb ‘eat’ used in conjunction with deverbal or verb-like objects, translating as (adversative) passives in English. Again the sense is just like the ‘suffer’ senses discussed in the preceding section, where the objects are simple nouns referring to something unpleasant. Haspelmath (1990: 41) also cites the use of Korean meg- ‘eat’ as an adversative passive marker, suffixed to a verb, though Song (this volume) disputes Haspelmath’s analysis. Song (this volume) emphasizes that yok in (16) is a noun, not a verb and, again, we are dealing with the sense of someone enduring something painful where the “something” is expressed as a noun. (16) ku salam-un nam-uy il-lo yok-ul mek-ess-ta the man-top others-gen business-because.of criticism-acc eat-pst-ind ‘The man received criticism because of someone else (’s fault).’

 John Newman

Haspelmath also cites the case of the passive markers in Kharia and Juang which have the same form as the morpheme ‘eat’ in those languages. Pinnow (1966: 112, 113), though apparently the source for Haspelmath’s data from these languages, casts some doubt on whether the ‘eat’ morpheme is relevant to the development of the passive markers. 6.7  Hausa frequentative As noted above, there are figurative uses of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs relating to emotional or intellectual enjoyment, satisfaction etc. In such uses, the verbs can easily connote a sense of exhilaration on the part of the experiencer as well as an abundance of whatever it is that is being experienced. Consider again the two examples below: (17) I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun. (Housman 1896/1939: 72, Poem #XLVIII) (18) She was uncritically idolised by an army of fans, male and female. She ate up the adoration . . . (Marie Claire magazine, Feb. 1996: 176, on the actress Lana Turner).

In (18), the reference to drink the air conveys amongst other things the sense of taking in something beneficial. In addition, drink connotes an unimpeded process and the air, without any restrictive qualification, refers to something available all around us in abundance. The resulting meaning suggests the taking in, at least potentially, of a large volume of air. In fact, the three verb phrases in the line – pace the earth, drink the air, and feel the sun – all share a component of meaning relating to the doing of something unfettered, unlimited, free of impediment. One would expect the sense of ‘drink’ to extend more easily to this kind of image compared with ‘eat’, owing to the fact that the act of drinking does not involve any of the chewing and biting which is an integral part of eating. Nevertheless, the eat up example in (19) illustrates a use of eat which is understood here to refer to the taking in of something extensive, here, the flattery given by adoring fans. These observations may be relevant to a better understanding of the use of Hausa shaa ‘drink’ with a more grammaticalized meaning of ‘(do) often, frequently’. The ‘frequentative’ or ‘quantificational’ use of shaa is illustrated in (19). All the examples in (19) are taken from Jaggar and Buba (this volume). (19) a. yaa shaa zuwàa nân 3msg.perf drink coming here ‘He comes here regularly.’ (lit. ‘He has drunk coming here.’)



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ 

b. mun shaa kallon talàbijìn 1pl.perf drink watching.of TV ‘We’ve watched a lot of TV (… and seen enough).’ c. naa shaa jîi 1sg.perf drink hearing ‘I’ve heard (it) so many times.’ d. naa shaa gayàa makà 1sg.perf drink tell 2m.sg.io ‘I’ve told you so many times.’

Although the form of shaa in this use is identical to that in its full verb use, it requires a verbal noun (rather than, say, an infinitive) in a particular kind of complement structure, a feature which Jaggar (1977: 60) regards as characteristic of Hausa auxiliaries. Hausa shaa ‘drink’ is very productive as a source for figurative extensions, including extensions with a sense like ‘savour, enjoy’ as in shaa ‘drink’ + daaɗ ii ‘pleasantness’ = ‘feel happy’. Shaa ‘drink’ + iskàa ‘wind, air’ is also possible and like its English counterpart refers to taking the air, going for a walk. The connotation of something being experienced over a relatively extended period of time is often present, too, with other extensions of shaa with direct objects such as shown below, again with examples from Jaggar and Buba (this volume). (20) a. sun shaa yaaƙìi 3pl.perf drink war ‘They have endured the war (for some time).’ b. naa shaa karòo dà suu 1sg.perf drink collision with 3pl ‘I’ve bumped into them now and again.’

The frequentative use of shaa, then, might be relatable to the sense of abundance and fullness found in other extensions of the same verb and ultimately motivated by the “unboundedness” inherent in drinking. 7.  Extensions based on the destruction of food We now turn our attention to extensions which are motivated by the effect of eating/drinking on the food/drink consumed, i.e., the thematic patient in the eating/drinking process. The role of food/drink in eating/drinking gives rise to quite a different set of extensions, compared with the agent-oriented extensions discussed in Section 6. The most striking feature concerning food/drink is that

 John Newman

it disappears from sight and is taken into an inaccessible part of the body. This is true of both food and drink. In the case of food, there is the further important fact, noted in Section 2, that the food is subject to mastication, involving chewing and biting, whereas with drink, this is not the case. Hence, verbs relating to eating (rather than drinking) are especially appropriate as sources for images of destruction. This is quite different from the “internalization” extensions of Section 6. The eater/drinker’s role is to take something into the body; the effect on the food is the rather violent processing and transformation of food into digestible particles. This difference underlies the separation of meanings into those of Sections 6 and 7. 7.1  Physical destruction An extension of ‘eat’ to ‘physical destruction, injuring, overpowering’ sense is common. It is possible in English (at least for some speakers) to say We ate them!, referring to a victory over another team in a sporting event. English eat into is used to refer to a corrosive chemical or physical event, as in The acid ate into the metal. In the example in (21) a gorge is conceptualized agentively, destroying mountainside and thereby creating more gorge. (21) . . . she found herself in the high little town called Adeje, from which the long Barranco del Infierno, the gorge called Hell’s Valley, ate into the mountainside.  (Cherkawska 1990: 166)

In English, it is the combination of eat and into which is commonly used for this meaning. The central meaning of into involves a path from outside some delimited area through to the inside of the area. In the eat into combination, this image of a path into something helps to create the meaning of the gradual, incrementally destructive effect of some entity acting upon another. Some languages can extend the simple verb ‘eat’ to this kind of meaning without having to rely on additional morphemes. Zulu transitive dla ‘eat’, for example, can be extended to ‘eat into, rust, corrode, wear into’ without any prepositional equivalent of ‘into’ (Doke et al 1990: 151). The idea of destruction is evident in the uses of the simple transitive Rumu nana ‘consume, eat, drink’ in combinations such as yo nana (literally ‘village eat’) ‘to raid a village’ and yu nana (literally ‘ridge/island eat’) ‘to hunt over an island’. Amharic has many conventional extensions of ‘eat’ with this kind of meaning, as illustrated in (22). With some of these extensions, as in (22a) and (22b), there is also an element of enjoyment or savouring of the event and so these expressions could also be categorized in the “emotional satisfaction” category discussed above.



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ 

(22) a. bәll-ahu-t eat.perf-1sg.m.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘I defeated him.’ 

(Amharic)

b. bәll-ahu eat.perf-1sg.m.sbj ‘I won.’

(Amharic)

c. īsat bәll-a-at fire eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.f.obj ‘The fire burnt her.’

(Amharic)

In Enga and some other Papuan languages, ‘eat’ is used as the necessary classificatory verb in combination with various verbs, in particular with the verb ‘steal’. In this construction it is used as an alternative to nyí ‘take’, as illustrated in (23) (Lang 1975: 188). I take this to be an extension of ‘eat’ based on the idea of elimination of the object (from the possession of its rightful owner) and of taking something into the possession of the thief. It thus builds upon both pespectives of the (ingesting) eater and the (destroyed) food roles. (23) a. páke ne-ngé steal eat-hab ‘to steal’

(Lang 1975: 103)

b. páke nyí-ngi steal take-hab ‘to steal’

(Lang 1975: 103)

Hooper (1976) discusses at length a Tahitian phrase ‘amu toto (literally ‘eat blood’) which refers to incest. Toto ‘blood’ is symbolic for kinship and one’s kin is made up of those who, in some sense, share toto. The verb ‘amu ‘eat’ is extended here to refer to a negative, morally apprehensible way of interacting with kin. Hooper (1976: 241) understands the use of ‘eat’ in this phrase to refer to how incest (at least among the comparatively poor rural Tahitians) uses up the resources of kin, for whom marriage outside of one’s kin group is held to be more advantageous in terms of rights and economic benefits than marriage within the group. The extension is therefore similar to the ‘waste money, embezzle money’ phrases discussed above.

7.2  Psychological torment Psychological torment, distress, stress etc. may also be conceptualized in terms of eating, again reflecting the destructive effect that eating has on food consumed. The examples in (24) illustrate this extension. The idea of torment, stress etc. is

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typically a continuous process or state, rather than instantaneous, and the continuous effect is achieved by the use of lexical items, verb particles, modifiers etc. Thus, the use of away at… in eat away at, as in (24a), adds the sense of a continuous, progressive aspect; in (26b), the modifying phrase like a persistent toothache etc. explicitly makes the process a long, continuous one. (24) a. I’ve seen love do that to a woman, eat away at the heart of her until she’s no more than skin and bone. (De Ferrari 1990: 157) b. The pain of it ate into her like a persistent toothache that no dentist could cure. (Cherkawska 1990: 8)

Examples from Amharic in (25) a. bәll-a-ňň eat.pst.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘He made me sick.’/‘I worry about him.’

(Amharic)

b. sәw-yәw anjәt-e-n bәll-a-ňň man-that.def intestine-my-acc eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘I feel sorry for that man.’ (Amharic)

8.  Extensions based on sensation and destruction 8.1  Eat one’s words Sometimes, we find metaphorical uses of eating/drinking verbs which build upon both agent-oriented and patient-oriented aspects of eating/drinking. To illustrate this, consider the idiomatic expressions to eat one’s words “to retract what one has said” and to eat one’s heart out “to suffer a particular kind of emotional pain as when one is denied a pleasure and must witness someone else enjoying that kind of pleasure”. To eat one’s words clearly involves the “destruction” sense discussed above in Section 7, building upon the effect of eating on the thematic patient. It is not that any concrete object is literally destroyed, of course, but rather it is the claims, allegations etc. which have previously been made which are cancelled out. Words in this expression is metonymic for the larger linguistic entities which are being withdrawn. At the same time, there is the image of an eater having to eat what has previously come out his/her mouth. The act of withdrawing one’s claims is thus conceptualized through an unpleasant image of an eater eating something vile, akin to eating one’s vomit. Clearly, from the agent’s perspective, something very unpleasant is being experienced. Thus the one expression combines the sense of destruction of the thing affected and the sense of a person having to consume



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ 

something unpalatable. The full effect of the expression is achieved through the combination of both these aspects. We see a similar intermingling of semantic effects in to eat one’s heart out. Semantically, this is a very complex expression in the way the parts contribute to the overall meaning. For the present purposes, it is enough just to note how both agent-oriented and patient-oriented extensions of ‘eat’ are present. The agent orientation in the metaphorical extension of ‘eat’ relates to how the person suffers through having to eat something unpleasant. The patient orientation relates to the image of the destruction of the heart, which is here metonymic for one’s feelings, passion etc. Again, the overall meaning builds upon the effect on the agent eating something unpleasant and the effect of the locus of emotions being destroyed. Eat your bum might be analyzed in a similar way. 8.2  Sexual intercourse Eating can be a source concept for sexual intercourse, as in Hausa (ci ‘eat; have sexual intercourse’) and Zulu (dla ‘eat; have sexual intercourse’). In Rumu, for example, nana ‘consume, eat, drink’ is used with tu ‘guts’ to form tu nana ‘to have sexual intercourse’. Also, we have already encountered sexual connotations in the use of English ‘eat’, repeated below: (26) He gave me a look – all the men did, but this was different – a look like he wanted to eat me up. A hungry look. (De Ferrari 1990: 222, talking about a man who had fallen in love with the woman)

A question arises as to which components of the act of eating are relevant to this extension. Sexual intercourse is a pleasurable experience in its prototypical form and hence we may analyze this extension as another example of the ‘pleasurable experience’ category of extensions. At the same time, there is a physical interaction with typical holding, clasping, penetration etc. These aspects relate more to the idea of the eater having a strong effect, physically, on the food being eaten. This component in the experiential reality of eating is, as we have seen above, a rich source of ‘eat’ extensions across languages, ranging from more aggressive meanings like ‘conquer, destroy’ to more subtle meanings like ‘have an effect upon’. Sexual intercourse is sometimes metaphorized in images relating to strong physical effects (e.g., screw, poke) and the chewing and digestion of food could be seen as another such image. Yir-Yoront is instructive here. Alpher (1991: 421–422) lists the meanings of YirYoronnt pay in the following order: ‘(1) bite; (2) eat; (3) drink, suckle; (4) bite (figuratively), pinch (5) sting (of stinging insects); (6) copulate with’. Note that pay means ‘bite’ alongside ‘eat’, and other meanings such as ‘pinch’ and ‘sting’ relate to the destructive element in biting and eating rather than the sensual satisfaction associated with

 John Newman

eating. The Yir-Yoront pattern of polysemy with pay gives credence to the destructive element of eating as being a potentially relevant basis for the extension of ‘eat’ to ‘copulate with’. Note also that it is Hausa ci  ‘eat’ which extends to ‘have sexual intercourse with’, not shaa ‘drink’ (according to Abraham 1962). This is significant because it points to some component of eating which is relevant to this extension, as opposed to some component of drinking. As noted earlier, a major point of difference between eating and drinking is that in the former there is a clear element of destruction (of the food) which is lacking in the latter. Hausa shaa is a productive source of extensions and in a number of cases either ci or shaa is possible, e.g., yaa ci/shaa duukàa ‘he was severely beaten’. The fact that ci, but not shaa extends to ‘have sexual intercourse with’ suggests that the it is primarily the idea of impact on the patient, that is the object affectedness, that is the motivation for this extension. As in the previous section, so here, we should accept a multiplicity of motivations relevant to this extension of ‘eat’.

9.  ‘Eat’ and ‘drink’ as salient human concepts The cross-linguistic overview of properties of ’ ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ has focused on properties shared among languages and fails to give a picture of how an ‘eat’ or ‘drink’ verb is used in any one language. A number of chapters in this volume provide profiles of this kind. It is evident that either or both of these verbs can play a very extensive role in the formation of figurative and idiomatic expressions in some languages. I have referred to Akan di ‘eat’ in Section 3 already and how Christaller (1933 [1881]) recognized 26 major semantic categories for its uses and a total of 110 subcategories. Even for English eat, the online Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., 1989, with March 2007 Draft Additions) recognizes 19 major semantic categories and a total of 58 subcategories, albeit including some now archaic usages. Of course, lexicographers appeal to different criteria for sub-categorizing usage and one cannot make too much of actual numbers of senses or uses. Nevertheless, these numbers for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ give some sense of how productive these verbs are in terms of their figurative usage. It is not uncommon to find similarly extensive entries for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ in dictionaries of the world’s languages. This is by no means unusual for such “basic” verbs since it is the basic verbs which present themselves as natural sources for figurative, metaphorical extensions. As a specific example of one language in which these verbs play a prominent role in figurative usage, we may consider Hausa. In Hausa, the verbs ci ‘eat’ and shaa ‘drink’ appear to be particularly productive in figurative usage. For ci ‘eat’ alone, one Hausa dictionary (Abraham 1962:  136–138) identifies more than 20



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ 

distinct sub-meanings/uses and some of these sub-meanings in turn have further extensive sub-categorizations. So, for example, sub-meaning 26 in Abraham’s dictionary consists of “proverbs”, subcategorized into (a)–(z), with the (z) category alone subcategorized into 22 further subcategories! While one might question the basis for some of Abraham’s semantic distinctions (see the discussions about the differentiations of senses in the Hausa verb in Gouffé 1966; Monsen 1972; and Williams 1991) and not all of the metaphorical uses he cites are acceptable today (cf. Jaggar & Buba, this volume), one must in any case acknowledge that ci has an extremely wide range of meanings. I have repeated some of Jaggar and Buba’s examples below, with my own semantic labels attached, to give a sense of how widespread the use of ci ‘eat’ is in Hausa. (27) dynamic process a. kàasuwaa tanàa cîi market 3f.sg.imperf eating ‘The market is in full swing.’ (lit. ‘ … is eating’) b. fìtilàa tanàa cîi lamp 3f.sg.imperf eating ‘The lamp is burning (eating).’ (28) destroy, consume a. wutaa taa cînyee gidaa fire 3f.sg.perf eat up house ‘The fire destroyed the house.’ b. wannàn shirìn zâi ci kuɗ ii dà yawàa this plan.the fut.3m.sg eat money with much ‘This plan will eat up/consume lots of money.’ (29) inundate ruwaa sun ci gàrii water 3pl.perf eat town ‘Water has flooded the town.’ (30) conquer mun cii sù 1pl.perf eat 3pl ‘We really beat (ate) them.’ (31) bodily harm a. ciiwòo yanàa cîinaa illness 3m.sg.imperf eating.of.1sg ‘The illness is eating (at) me.’

 John Newman

b. kòogii yaa cii shì river 3m.sg.perf eat 3msg ‘He drowned.’ (lit. ‘The river ate him.’) (32) emotional harm zân ci kwalàr ̃kà fut.1sg eat collar.of.2m.sg ‘You’ll regret it.’ (lit. ‘I’ll eat (i.e., grab) your collar.’) (33) convince a. mun ciwoo kânsù 1pl.perf eat head.of.3pl ‘We won them over.’  (lit. ‘We ate their head.’) (34) (positive or negative) experience a. yaa ci duuniyàa 3sg.m.perf eat world ‘He’d seen it all and done it all.’  (lit. ‘He has eaten the world.’) b. naa ci wùyaa/wàhalàa 1sg.perf eat trouble/difficulty ‘I suffered trouble/difficulty.’ (35) sexual intercourse Muusaa yaa ci yaarinyàr ̃ Musa 3sg.m.perf eat girl.the ‘Musa had sex with the girl.’ (36) absorb zanèe yaa ci baabaa cloth 3sg.m.perf eat indigo dye ‘The cloth has taken (eaten) the indigo dye/is well dyed.’

Regardless of just how a linguist or lexicographer might decide to sub-group these meanings into more inclusive categories, or derive them from one or more central semantic prototypes, the productivity of ci ‘eat’ deserves recognition. Productivity, of course, is relative and one would need to investigate the extent of figurative usage of many verbs in Hausa to establish that ci is truly more productive than other verbs, or most other verbs, in this respect. Nevertheless, the facts for ci and shaa as given in dictionaries of Hausa, and the fact that both Hausa ci and shaa have been chosen as the basis for more theoretical studies of polysemy are strongly suggestive of these verbs showing unusually rich polysemy. It is this kind of productivity in another African language, Akan, which presumably led Welmers to conclude:



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ 

I have attempted to sum up its [the Akan ‘eat’ verb’s] uses under the general word for ‘eat’, but with other objects it refers among other things to using up or wasting money, taking a day off, having sexual relations with someone, accepting a bribe, inheriting goods, winning a victory, defeating an opponent, playing a game, holding an office, enduring suffering, making a bargain, living in some specified way, and so on at considerable length. A language has not been well studied until the nature of such semantic ranges, if not an exhaustive list of all recordable collocations, has been noted. [Welmers 1973: 477, my italics]

10.  Conclusion In this overview, I have tried to give some sense of how richly rewarding the linguistic study of the concepts of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ can be. These concepts have not received a great deal of attention in the linguistics literature to date. Partly, this situation is a result of the relative neglect of the lexicon as a focus of interest in mainstream linguistics (though not in the sub-field of cognitive linguistics), in favour of syntax. There are important syntactic or morphosyntactic properties associated with ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs in languages, particularly the unusual behaviour of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs in terms of their transitivity (cf. Amberber 2002 and Næss, this volume). But this behavior is relatively subtle and, I fear, has not come to the attention of many syntacticians. Furthermore, the lexical items corresponding to ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are not particularly prone to grammaticalization in the world’s languages, despite occasional instances where one could make claims for such (see above). Consequently, one does not usually have to deal with morphemes deriving from ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ in more syntactically oriented studies, unlike, say, ‘give’, ‘take’, ‘sit’, ‘stand’, and ‘lie’, all of which can play an important role in morphosyntax through their grammaticalized functions. A further consideration relevant to understanding the lack of attention given to concepts like ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, and one related to the neglect of the lexicon, is the marginal place of more figurative language, e.g., metaphorical usage, idioms, poetic language, in mainstream linguistics. Indeed, for many linguistics, such language is virtually outside of the field of linguistic study. It is only when one adopts a more inclusive view about the object of linguistic study that many of the observations reported on here come to the fore. ‘Eat’ and ‘drink’, though such commonplace concepts, are not monolithic concepts; rather, they are peculiarly complex in their multi-facetedness. Each of these concepts is comprised of components which can motivate aspects of their linguistic behavior, whether it be morphosyntactic or semantic beahviour. The biting and chewing activity associated with eating, for example, motivates the common transitivity of ‘eat’ verbs as well as the common semantic extension of ‘eat’ to

 John Newman

meanings like ‘destroy’ and ‘conquer’. The sensation of taste, typically an enjoyable experience, on the part of the consumer as part of the act of eating motivates some atypical behaviours of ‘eat’ verbs in terms of the morphosyntax one might be led to expect with transitive verbs, most of which do not involve agents in this way. This same aspect of eating, i.e., the sensory affectedness of the consumer, motivates semantic extensions of ‘eat’ to meanings like ‘experience’, ‘enjoy’, and ‘suffer’. Similar observations could be made about ‘drink’. In other words, I maintain that the raw, experiential reality associated with the acts of eating and drinking has a role to play in helping linguists to better understand why it is that ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs behave the way they do across languages. Not all of the cross-linguistic linguistic facts relating to these concepts can be reduced to the experiential realities, of course, but a number of facts can be so motivated. Even for Hausa where we have a superficially bewildering array of uses of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, it is possible to motivate many of the relevant facts. Jaggar & Buba (this volume) sum up their own findings about the figurative extensions with the observation: “In prototypical cases we have demonstrated that the meaning transfers are directly and naturally grounded in physiological realities.” In other words, the linguistic study of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ concepts across languages is best served by an approach which allows for experiential, extra-linguistic realities to motivate aspects of linguistic behavior.

Abbreviations acc = accusative; art = article; caus = causative; def = definite; excl = exclusive; f = feminine; fut = future; gen = genitive; hab = habitual; imperf = imperfective; ind = indicative; io = indirect objcet; intr = intransitive; link = linker; m = masculine; neg = negative; nom = nominative; obj = object; pass = passive; perf = perfective; pl = plural; pres = present; sbj = subject; top = topic; tr = transitive; vbnoun = verbal noun.

References Abraham, R.C. 1962. Dictionary of the Hausa language, 2nd Edn. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Alpher, Barry. 1991. Yir-Yoront lexicon. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Amberber, Mengistu. This volume & [2002]. Quirky alternations of transitivity: The case of ingestive predicates. Originally published in Language universals and variation, Mengistu Amberber & Peter Collins (Eds), 2002, 1–19. Westport CT: Praeger. Caughley, Ross C. 1982. The syntax and morphology of the verb in Chepang. Canberra: Australian National University. Cherkawska, Catherine. 1990. The golden apple. London: Century.



A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ 

Christaller, Johann G. 1881[1933]. Asante-Fante dictionary, 2nd Edn. Basel: Basel Evangelical Missionary Society. De Ferrari, Gabriella. 1990. A cloud on sand. New York NY: Alfred A. Knopf. Doke, Clement M., Daniel McKinnon Malcolm, Jonathan Mandlenkosi A. Sikakana & Benedict Wallet Vilakazi. 1990. English-Zulu Zulu-English dictionary. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Elbert, Samuel H. 1972. Puluwat dictionary. Canberra: Australian National University. Gouffé, Claude. 1966. ‘Manger’ et ‘boire’ en haoussa. Revue de l’École Nationale des Langues Orientales 3: 77–111. Groves, Terab’ata R., Gordon W.  Groves & Roderick A.  Jacobs. 1985. Kiribatese. An outline description. Canberra: Australian National University. Haspelmath, Martin. 1990. The grammaticization of passive morphology. Studies in Language 14(1): 25–72. Hooper, Antony. 1976. ‘Eating blood’: Tahitian concepts of incest. The Journal of the Polynesian Society 85: 227–242. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56: 251–299. Housman, Alfred Edward. 1896[1939]. The collected poems of A.E. Housman. London: Jonathan Cape. Jaggar, Philip J. 1977. The nature and function of auxiliary verbs in Hausa. In Studies in Chadic linguistics, Paul Newman & Roxana Ma Newman (Eds), 57–87. Leiden: AfrikaStudiecentrum. Jaggar, Philip J. & Malami Buba. This volume. Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in Hausa. Johnson, Thomas H. 1890[1960]. The complete poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston MA: Little, Brown & Company. Lang, Adrianne. 1975. The semantics of classificatory verbs in Enga and other Papua New Guinea languages. Canberra: Australian National University. Langacker, Ronald W.L. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol.1: Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Monsen, Randall Bruce. 1972. Semantic preliminaries to lexicography. A study of the Hausa verb. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University. Newman, John. 1997. Eating and drinking as sources of metaphor in English. Cuadernos de Filología Inglesa, special issue on Cognitive Linguistics 6(2): 213–231. Newman, John & Sally Rice. 2006. Transitivity schemas of English EAT and DRINK in the BNC. In Corpora in Cognitive Linguistics. Corpus-based approaches to syntax and lexis, Stefan T. Gries & Anatol Stefanowitsch (Eds), 225–260. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Noonan, Michael. 1992. A grammar of Lango. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Patterson, Rebecca. 1979. Emily Dickinson’s imagery. Amherst MA: The University of Massachusetts Press. Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1966. A comparative study of the verb in the Munda languages. In Studies in comparative Austroasiatic linguistics, Norman H.  Zide (Ed), 96–193. The Hague: Mouton. Song, Jae Jung. This volume. What (not) to eat: Metaphor and metonymy of eating and drinking in Korean. Swadesh, Morris. 1946. Chitimacha. In Linguistic structures of Native America, Harry Hoijer (Ed), 312–36. New York NY: The Viking Fund.

 John Newman Wadley, Susan S. & Bruce W. Derr. 1990. Eating sins in Karimpur. India through Hindu categories, McKim Marriott (Ed), 131–48. New Delhi and Newbury Park, California: Sage. Welmers, William E. 1973. African language structures. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1982. Why can you have a drink when you can’t *have an eat? Language 58(4): 753–799. Wierzbicka, Anna. This volume. All people eat and drink. Does this mean that ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are universal human concepts? Williams, Kemp. 1991. Radial structuring in the Hausa lexicon. A prototype analysis of Hausa ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. Lingua 85: 321–340.

How transitive are eat and drink verbs? Åshild Næss

University of Oslo This paper examines the transitivity properties of eat and drink verbs crosslinguistically, and shows that they tend not to pattern with prototypical transitive verbs, but show various properties characteristic of intransitives. This is explained in terms of the transitivity model developed in Næss (2007), where a prototypical transitive clause is defined as a clause showing maximal semantic distinction between the agent and patient in terms of their role in the event. A core semantic characteristic of eat and drink verbs is having an affected agent: eating and drinking are acts performed by an agent in order to achieve an effect on himself. Since affected agents are not maximally semantically distinct from patients, eat and drink verbs are not prototypically transitive.

1.  Introduction Verbs meaning ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are often taken to be among the most prototypical transitive verbs in a language; for example, Andrews (1985: 68) cites eat along with kill and smash as an example of a “primary transitive verb”. This is obviously because eat and drink verbs conform to the generally accepted understanding of what constitutes a transitive verb, namely a verb taking a volitional agent and an affected patient argument; it is almost impossible to construe the acts of eating and drinking as being performed involuntarily, and things eaten or drunk are affected to a very high degree. Nevertheless, crosslinguistic data shows that eat and drink verbs in fact show a variety of properties characteristic of intransitive verbs in a wide range of languages. this tendency for eat and drink verbs to deviate from the transitive prototype suggests not only that such verbs have been too little studied, but also that the rough definition of a prototypical transitive verb given above is not entirely accurate. this paper will propose that the property which makes eat and drink verbs less than prototypical transitive verbs is the fact of their having an affected agent participant. I will propose that it is a crucial property of a fully transitive construction that its participants be maximally semantically distinct in terms of the roles they play in the event (Næss 2007); an affected agent is not maximally

 Åshild Næss

distinct from an equally affected patient, and consequently, eat and drink verbs are not prototypical transitive verbs. 2.  Crosslinguistic data eat and drink verbs occur in a wide range of formally intransitive constructions crosslinguistically. the overview presented in this section is based on a survey mainly including verbs meaning ‘eat’, for the simple reason that this is the verb most frequently explicitly mentioned in published sources. in general, however, verbs meaning ‘drink’ show the same kind of behaviour. 2.1  Intransitive alternants One of the most common ways for eat and drink verbs to show “intransitive behaviour” is simply having an intransitive as well as a transitive use. In English and many other languages, the same lexeme can be used in both transitive and intransitive constructions: 

(1) english (indo-european, germanic)

a. He is eating the apple/an apple/apples. b. He is eating.

(2) amele (trans-new guinea, madang; roberts 1987: 68)

a. Uqa sab je-i-a 3sg food eat-3sg-past ‘He ate food.’ b. Uqa je-i-a 3sg eat-3sg-past ‘He ate.’

It should be noted that in some languages, any transitive verb may occur without an overt object, and in such languages eat and drink verbs are unexceptional as far as the ability to alternate between a transitive and an intransitive syntactic frame is concerned. However, for English and a great many other languages, the patterning illustrated in (1–2) is only possible for a small subset of verbs, which as a result are variously referred to as “pseudo-intransitive”, “labile”, or “ambitransitive”. The crucial point is that most verbs in English do not show the type of behaviour seen for eat in (1): one can say He is breaking a bottle/the bottle/bottles but not *He is breaking (on an agentive reading of he). Not all of the verbs showing this alternation in English are verbs of ingestion (see Næss 2007: 123ff for a thorough discussion of ‘indefinite object deletion’ in general); but eat nevertheless differs from most other transitive verbs in English in allowing it. This is a pattern found in a wide range of



How transitive are eat and drink verbs? 

languages: if only a subset of two-participant verbs may occur in either a transitive or an intransitive frame, ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are generally among them. A somewhat similar phenomenon occurs in languages which have two distinct lexemes meaning ‘eat’, where one is transitive and the other intransitive, as for example Godoberi ami ‘eat TR’ vs. ikã ‘eat INTR’ (Kibrik 1996: 117), Chamorro kanno’ ‘eat TR’ vs. chocho ‘eat INTR’ (Topping 1973: 78–79), or Mosetén jeb- ‘eat TR’ vs. saeksi- ‘eat INTR’ (Sakel 2003: 143, 149); cf also Newman (this volume). Indeed, there are languages which have no underived transitive verb meaning ‘eat’ at all. For example, in the Mayan language Yukatek, the verb han ‘eat’ is intransitive, and can only be used with an object if it is transitivised with an overt applicative suffix: 

(3) yukatek (Mayan; Krämer & Wunderlich 1999: 447):

a. K=a hàan-al incompl=2 eat-ipfv ‘You are eating.’ b. K=a háan-t-ik incompl=2 eat-appl-ipfv ‘You are eating it.’

2.2  Labile verbs Another way for eat and drink verbs to alternate between transitive and intransitive uses is found in some languages with ergative morphosyntax. in samoan (austronesian, polynesian), the verb ‘ai ‘eat’ is labelled a ‘labile’ verb in Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992: 108). All transitive verbs in Samoan may be used with only a single overt argument, which appears in the unmarked absolutive case. For most two-participant verbs in the language, when they are used in this way, the single, absolutive argument necessarily refers to the patient:  (4) samoan (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992: 100): Sā sasa le tama past hit art child ‘The child was hit; someone hit the child.’ (*The child hit someone.)

However, the class of labile verbs, which includes ‘ai ‘eat’ and inu ‘drink’, can be used with a single absolutive argument referring to the agent: (5) Sā ‘ai le teine past eat art girl ‘The girl ate’ OR ‘The girl was eaten.’

This pattern is in many ways similar to that found in English (example 1), where the object of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ can simply be omitted and the verb used in an intransitive frame with the agent as the sole argument.

 Åshild Næss

A similar pattern is found in Greenlandic, which is also an ergative language, but which unlike Samoan is head-marking and polysynthetic. For most transitive verbs in Greenlandic, “at least in the older language” (Sadock 1980), using them with a single overt argument gives a “passive-like interpretation”; in other words, the single argument is interpreted as the patient, and the verb agrees with this patientive argument:

(6) greenlandic (eskimo-aleut, eskimo; sadock 1980: 305):

a. Piniartoq toquppaa hunter.abs kill.ind.3sg/3sg ‘He killed the hunter.’ b. Piniartoq toquppoq hunter.abs kill.ind.3sg ‘The hunter was killed.’

There are, however, some verbs which can be used intransitively agreeing with the agent; in such cases an oblique object may optionally be present, but it is not crossreferenced on the verb. A typical example of such a verb is ‘eat’:  (7) a. Neqi nerivara meat.abs eat.ind.1sg/3sg ‘I ate the meat.’ b. (Neqi-mik) n  erivunga meat-ins eat.ind.1sg ‘I ate (meat).’

2.3  Causativisation Many languages which have a morphological causative restrict the use of this causative to formally intransitive verbs. However, it is not unusual for languages to relax this restriction to allow causativisation of just a small set of transitive verbs. These are usually verbs referring to acts of ingestion or consumption (Næss 2007:  63–64, Amberber, this volume); Dixon (2000:  56) notes that “if a morphological causative is used with only a few transitive verbs, these are likely to include ‘eat’ and ‘drink’”. Languages where ‘eat’, ‘drink’ and a few other verbs (often including verbs like ‘smoke’, ‘lick’, ‘know’, and verbs of perception) are among the set of transitive verbs which exceptionally may take morphological causativisation include Amharic (Afro-Asiatic), Palauan (Austronesian), Kolami (Dravidian), Sinhala (Indo-European) and Maricopa (Hokan); for more examples see Dixon (2000), Amberber (this volume), Jaggar and Buba (this volume).



How transitive are eat and drink verbs? 

In all these languages, then, ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ function like intransitive verbs for the purposes of causativisation. It is not the case, however, that these languages may causativise eat and drink verbs only when these verbs are used intransitively. Rather, unlike other transitive verbs in these languages, they can form causatives on the basis of a formally transitive clause: 

(8) berber (austro-asiatic, berber; guerssel 1986 cited in amberber, this volume):

a. Y-ttcu wqqzin aysum 3m.sg-eat dog:cst meat ‘The dog ate the meat.’ b. Y-ss-ttc wryaz aysum i-wqqzin 3m.sg-caus-eat: pfv man:cst meat dat-dog:cst ‘The man fed meat to the dog.’ c. *Y-ss-wt wmddakkwl-inw mucc aryaz 3m.sg-caus-hit friend:cst-my cat man ‘My friend made the man hit the cat.’

Sinhala allows causativisation of transitive verbs other than eat and drink-type verbs, but these take a different encoding of their causee argument; it is marked either with the postposition lawaa or with the dative case plus postposition kiyәla. By contrast, no postposition is used for the causee of causativised ‘eat’:

(9) sinhala (indo-european, indic; gair 1970: 67):

a. Gonaa piduru kanәwa bull straw eat.npt.act ‘The bull eats straw.’ b. Lamea gonaatә piduru kawәnәwa boy bull.dat straw feed.npt.act ‘The boy feeds the bull straw.’ c. Mamә gunәpaalә lawaa/gunәpaalәtә kiyәla gas kæppuna I Gunapala lawaa/Gunapala.dat kiyәla trees cut.caus.past ‘I got Gunapala to cut the trees.’

2.4  Case-marking patterns A number of languages encode eat and drink verbs with case-marking patterns differing from those found with other two-participant verbs. In the unclassified language Movima of Bolivia, the verb kay ‘eat’ takes an oblique rather than a direct object: (10) movima (haude 2006: 282) Jayna kay~kay ni-kis cho~choS-a=kis ney So’im dsc md~eat obl-art.pl.a red~br.nut-lv=art.pl.a here So’im ‘Then [the macaws] eat the nuts of those So’im trees.’

 Åshild Næss

The reduplication glossed ‘middle’ on kay ‘eat’ is characteristic of a set of verbs labelled “middle verb roots”, which show middle-type semantics and formal characteristics of both monovalent and bivalent roots (Haude 2006: 345). The semantic similarities between middle constructions and eat and drink verbs will be discussed in section 3 below. The Brazilian language Bororo similarly uses an oblique marker for the patient argument of okoage ‘eat’;1 the same marker is used for nonaffected participants such as the O argument of verbs of perception and speech, “range” arguments of verbs of motion (‘walk along the road’) etc., but not on affected objects of core transitive verbs: (11) bororo (macro-gê, bororo; crowell 1979: 23, 29–30) a. E-re karo bowᵼ.je

3pl-neutral fish 3sg.cut ‘They cut the fish.’ b. Imedᵼ. jorᵼ.dᵼ.-re karo-ji man see-neutral fish-obl ‘The man saw the fish.’ c. Okoage-re karo-ji 3sg.eat-neutral fish-obl ‘He ate fish.’

For additional examples see Næss (2007: 69). In the Australian language Kalkatungu (Blake 1979), the verb ar. i ‘eat, drink’ like other transitive verbs takes ergative-absolutive case-marking; but it is very frequently found in a derived “antipassive” construction with absolutive-dative marking. According to Blake (1979: 28), this construction is used “where the reference is to an indefinite p or to indulgence in rather than completion of an activity”; it is obligatory when the verb takes the imperfective suffix and is very common with the habitual suffix. (12) kalkatungu (Australian, Pama-Nyungan; Blake 1979: 37): Ar. i-li-min�a-Ø maa-ci eat-antip-ipfv-i food-dat ‘I am eating tucker.’

However, not all circumstances in which ar. i occurs in the antipassive are covered by this explanation; in (13), for example, the translation implies a definite object, and the verb is in the past tense:

.  Bororo also has a fully transitive lexeme ko ‘eat’.



How transitive are eat and drink verbs? 

(13) kalkatungu (Blake 1979: 47): Ati-ntuu ai maanti-n�a wakari-t� uu meat-caus i sate-past fish-caus ‘I’m full because I ate the fish.’

ar. i-li-ɲin eat-antip-past

The Tibeto-Burman language Chepang has an object marker -kay which is used for objects considered to be “intentionally affected”, but not for objects which are “only incidentally affected” or “not the prime target of the action” (Caughley 1982: 65). As an example of the latter, Caughley (1982) provides a clause with ‘eat’:  (14) chepang (sino-tibetan, tibeto-burman; caughley 1982: 65): Ni-ci-?i ?amh je?-na-?-c-u we-du-ag food eat-npt-1excl-du-ag ‘We two eat food.’

3.  The affected agent The final example of the previous section may seem somewhat surprising. Characterising the object of ‘eat’ as “only incidentally affected” or “not the prime target of the action” seems somewhat unorthodox; after all, an act of eating appears to be very much targeted at its object, and this object is certainly affected to a very high degree – indeed, to the point of being consumed and digested. However, many linguists have noted that eat and drink verbs are characterised by having an effect on their agent. For instance, Saksena (1982: 61) notes that the agentive participants of certain verbs, among them ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, “are also the recipients of the verb activity and constitute the target toward which this activity is directed”; in other words, we eat and drink not primarily for the purpose of achieving some effect on the things eaten or drunk, but to achieve an effect on ourselves. Wierzbicka (1982) accounts for constructions of the type have a drink essentially by arguing that they describe actions undertaken by an agent for the sole purpose of achieving an effect on himself. Nedjalkov & Jaxontov (1988) include “verbs meaning ‘to eat’, ‘to drink’” in the class of verbs forming “possessive resultative constructions”, which apply in cases where “the result of the action affects the underlying subject rather than the immediate patient of the action” (Nedjalkov & Jaxontov 1988: 9). Haspelmath (1994) similarly notes that verbs whose agent argument is “saliently affected” may form “active resultative participles”, meaning that the resultative participles describe an effect achieved on the agent rather than the patient argument. Among such affected-agent verbs Haspelmath counts ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ as well as ‘learn’, ‘see’, ‘put on’ and ‘wear’ (Haspelmath 1994: 161). Newman (1997: 216–224) explores how the affectedness of the agent is a major source of metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ and related terms in English.

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eat and drink verbs are often associated with morphology indicating affectedness of the subject/agent. the middle-type morphology on ‘eat’ in movima in example (10) is one example. another is the use of reflexive morphology on ‘eat’ verbs, where no literal reflexive meaning is intended. for instance, in dyirbal, dyagay ‘eat’ takes a reflexive suffix when used intransitively: (15) dyirbal (Australian, Pama-Nyungan; Dixon 1972: 90; glosses from comrie 1978: 358): a. Balam wudyu bagul yaa-gu dyaga-ɲu abs fruit m.erg man-erg eat-tns ‘The man eats fruit.’ b. Bayi yara dyagay-mari-ɲu m.abs man eat-refl-tns ‘The man eats.’

The reflexive here is clearly not intended to convey a literal reflexive meaning (i.e., the sentence is not taken to mean ‘the man eats himself ’), but rather indicates that the effect of the act on the agent is central to the meaning of the sentence. Conversely, there are also languages where verbs meaning ‘eat’ have been grammaticalised into a marker of affectedness or adversativity on the part of the agent (see also Hook & Pardeshi, this volume): (16)

korean (Isolate; Jee-Hong Kim p.c.): ku-ka sonkkarak-ul callu-a mok-ot-ta he-nom finger-acc cut-conn eat-past-decl ‘He accidentally cut (one of) his fingers.’

(17) turkish (Turkic, Altaic; Gerjan van Schaaik p.c.): Yalnızca yirmi sopa ye-di only twenty stick eat-past ‘(S)he had 20 strokes of the cane.’ (18) sinhala (Indo-European, Indic; Keenan 1985: 259): Kikili lamajagan maerun kae:va chicken child.ins death eat ‘The chicken was killed by the child.’

For more examples, see Næss (2007: 75–77) as well as Newman (this volume). eat and drink verbs, then, are characterised semantically by having an affected agent participant. Crucially, it is the effect on the agent which is the primary goal of an act of eating or drinking; the effect on the patient is, from the agent’s perspective, of secondary importance. In Caughley’s words, the patient of an act of eating or drinking is indeed ‘not the prime target of the action’, and ‘only incidentally affected’, in that the effect that the agent primarily seeks to achieve



How transitive are eat and drink verbs? 

through an act of eating or drinking is an effect on himself – the elimination of hunger or thirst. This explains why in many languages, the patient argument of eat and drink verbs can be backgrounded or, in many cases, omitted altogether. the patient is of relatively little relevance; indeed, both the causer and the primary effect of an event of eating or drinking can be specified through mention of the agent alone. omitting or backgrounding the object can be seen as a strategy for emphasising the effect of the act on the agent, by de-emphasising that on the patient. this would seem to be a plausible explanation for the use of the antipassive in the kalkatungu example in (13); the sentence is about the effect on the agent as a result of eating the fish, and the effect on the fish itself is of relatively little importance. Interestingly, this point can also explain a much-discussed peculiarity of eat and drink verbs in english, which indeed also occurs in many other languages: when the verbs eat and drink are used without an object, they acquire some very specific meaning components which are not found when the same verbs are used transitively. Intransitive eat is typically taken to mean ‘eat a meal’ (I’ve eaten already), while objectless drink has as almost its only possible reading ‘drink alcohol’ (John drinks). Næss (2007:  134–141) argues that the phenomenon known as “indefinite object deletion” (IOD), i.e., the use of apparently transitive verbs without an overt object, is not, as has often been argued, an idiosyncratic property of individual verb lexemes, but rather a generalised detransitivisation strategy which for semantic reasons is more readily available for some verbs than others. IOD does not readily apply to prototypical transitive verbs like kill or smash (though, given the right conditions, even such verbs may in fact occur without an object); but is frequent with verbs or constructions which, for a variety of reasons, are low in semantic transitivity (see below). In this respect, IOD patterns much like the phenomenon known as antipassivisation, where a direct object is demoted to oblique status; but no derivational morphology is involved in IOD, and the object is deleted altogether rather than just demoted. As noted above, the omissibility of the object with eat and drink verbs is related to the affected-agent semantics of these verbs, and omitting the object has the effect of highlighting the effect of the action on the agent. The typical effect which one seeks to achieve through the act of eating is that of becoming full rather than hungry; and the amount of food usually required to achieve this is what we generally refer to as “a meal”. That is, an objectless statement with eat is taken to refer to an act of eating until one is full – in other words, eating a meal. The semantics of the indefinite object deletion construction is the same for drink, though here it interacts with the verb’s affected-agent semantics in a slighly different way. Note that the most frequently-cited use of objectless drink is in

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generic-habitual sentences (He drinks), a use which is almost entirely excluded for English eat (??John eats). Generic statements with eat and drink verbs are open to specialised interpretations simply because their default reading – ‘X habitually performs the act of eating/drinking’ is pragmatically odd. Eating and drinking are the two most fundamental acts of human existence, and habitually performing them is a basic prerequisite for sustaining life. Saying of someone that He eats (or, indeed, He drinks, on the reading ‘drink fluids in general’) is therefore a redundant statement, as humans or animates which do not eat or drink simply do not exist. Note that the generic use of eat becomes much less odd when predicated of an inanimate entity, as for example in an advertisement for a lifelike doll: She eats, she cries, she sleeps! In other words, a sentence like John drinks, on the reading ‘John habitually imbibes liquids’, is pragmatically unnatural because is it close to tautological. Nevertheless, there is nothing in English grammar which precludes the construction of such a sentence. Drink is an affected-agent verb highly suited to appear in lowtransitivity contexts such as an objectless generic construction. Recall also that indefinite object deletion with affected-agent verbs serves to highlight the effect of the act on the agent, by backgrounding that of the patient. No culturally salient act of drinking has such an obvious and clearly observable effect on its agent as that of drinking alcohol. Note that it is the intention of achieving a particular effect, and subsequently the habit of being in a particular state, namely intoxication, that we attribute to people when we use drink without an overt object; a statement like John drinks clearly implies that John drinks for the purpose of getting drunk, and that he does so frequently – not that he occasionally sips a glass of wine with his dinner because he enjoys the taste. In short, the reading ‘drink alcohol’ arises for objectless drink firstly because the default generic reading is unnatural; secondly, because the consumption of alcohol is a socially and culturally salient activity in the Western world, and increasingly in the rest of the world – Newman & Rice (2006: 239) take the ‘alcohol’ reading of intransitive ‘drink’ to reflect “the prominence of alcohol consumption as a topic of discourse”, and note that even in transitive uses, ‘drink’ commonly appears with objects referring to alcoholic beverages (Newman & Rice 2006: 247–248); and finally, because the semantics of the indefinite object deletion construction highlights the effect on the agent which is a central aspect of drinking alcohol, as opposed to drinking most other types of liquid. While no such culturally salient variety of eating appears to be readily available to provide a plausible reading for generic objectless eat in English, it is interesting to note that in Quiché Maya, tix ‘eat’ in the “absolutive voice” – a kind of antipassive construction with no overt object  – has the specific reading ‘eat people, be carnivorous’ (Mondloch 1981: 189).



How transitive are eat and drink verbs? 

4.  Affected agents and the transitive prototype The notion of affectedness of the agent goes a long way towards explaining a number of the unusual distributional properties of eat and drink verbs. however, within a broader theoretical approach, one would also wish to explain in more general terms why affected-agent semantics should be seen to correlate with formally intransitive constructions; in other words, why does affectedness of the agent apparently make a verb less than prototypically transitive? This is the case not only for eat and drink verbs, but is also seen in other types of construction involving an affected agent. middle constructions have been mentioned above; there are also constructions like (19) in german, where the dative is used on an adversely affected participant which may also be an agent, and (20) in lak, where the double-absolutive construction in (20b) indicates that the act of selling the house had some effect upon the present state of the agent, for example that he is now homeless, or that he has acquired a lot of money as a result of the sale. (19) german (indo-european, germanic; kittilä 2002: 133) Mir ist der Teller zerbrochen I.dat be.pres.3sg nom plate break.ptcp ‘The plate broke on me/I was adversely affected by the plate’s breaking.’ (20) lak (nakh-daghestanian, daghestanian; kazenin 1998: 112): a. ga-nal q‒at‒a bax-l-ej bu-r he-erg house.abs 3cl.sell-dur-cvb.pres 3cl.aux-3sg ‘He has sold the house.’ b. ga q‒at‒a bax-l-ej u-r he.abs house.abs 3cl.sell-dur-cvb.pres 1cl.aux-3sg ‘He has sold the house.’

Affected-agent constructions, then, tend to deviate from the prototypical transitive construction crosslinguistically. The notion of a prototype carries with it some quite specific theoretical implications. A prototype definition is one which assigns membership to a category in terms of similarity to a central exemplar; an item is judged a more or less good member of a category depending on its degree of similarity of the category prototype. The properties which characterise a prototype are typically those which define a category in clear contrast to other categories in the same domain. Rosch (1978: 37) notes that “the more prototypical of a category a member is rated, the more attributes it has in common with other members of the category and the fewer attributes in common with members of contrasting categories.” In other words, a prototypical member of a category not only maximally resembles other

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members of that category, but is also maximally distinct from members of other, contrasting categories: it will have all and only the defining properties of the category in question, and few or none of the defining properties of other categories. Rosch suggests that this is a basic principle of human categorisation. It is likely to be explainable in terms of cognitive economy: The purpose of categorisation is to make efficient generalisations across a large number of entities perceived to share certain crucial similarities; therefore “[t]o categorize a stimulus means to consider it, for the purposes of that categorization, not only equivalent to other stimuli in the same category but also different from stimuli not in that category” (Rosch 1978: 28). This notion of the maximal distinctness of categories is relevant to the notion of transitivity on a couple of different levels. Firstly, it means that the transitive prototype itself should be considered to be maximally distinct from its main contrasting category, the intransitive prototype. This principle is noted by Kemmer (1993), who speaks of the distinguishability of participants as a fundamental criterion for transitivity: If the participants of a two-participant event are not clearly distinguishable from each other, either in terms of pure physical distinctness or in terms of the role they play in the event, then the event in question is “more like prototypical one-participant events, which involve a single indivisible participant” (Kemmer 1993: 213). Therefore, such events are more likely to be encoded formally as intransitive, with a single syntactically prominent argument. For instance, in a reflexive construction, though it may be encoded with two separate arguments, they refer to the same physical entity (John hit himself); reciprocals have two physically distinct participants, but they each play both an agentive and a patientive role in the event (John and Mary hit each other) and so have a low degree of conceptual distinguishability. Consequently, they are susceptible to being encoded in formally intransitive constructions crosslinguistically. The reciprocal example points to a second way in which the notion of maximal distinction is relevant to the transitive prototype. For an event to show a high degree of participant distinguishability, it is not enough that it have two physically distinct participants; it must have two participants playing clearly distinct roles in the event, i.e., one single agentive and one single patientive participant. As a consequence, Næss (2007) proposes that the categories “Agent” and “Patient” must be defined as being maximally semantically distinct: a crucial part of the definition of “Agent” should be that it does not show the defining properties of Patients, and vice versa. Accordingly, if a patient is defined as an affected participant, a prototypical agent must be specifically defined as not affected. The “intransitive behaviour” of eat and drink verbs follows naturally from this principle: by this definition verbs and constructions with affected agents are not prototypically transitive, because their participants are not maximally semantically distinct. the presence of the property of affectedness on both the agentive



How transitive are eat and drink verbs? 

and the patientive participant reduces the conceptual distinguishability of the participants: an agent bearing the “patientive” property of affectedness is not a prototypical agent, and therefore a clause involving such an agent is not a prototypical transitive clause. Kemmer’s notion of participant distinguishability is clearly distinct from the property of individuation, which refers to the distinctness of a participant from the general background (Kemmer 1993: 66). The main properties taken to be of relevant to the degree of individuation of a participant are definiteness and animacy: The use of a definite noun phrase singles out the referent as identifiable in the context and thus confers on it a higher degree of individuation than an indefinite NP, which downplays the specific identity of the entity in question. Animate – and especially human – entities are more likely to be construed as independent individuals than inanimates. Næss (2007: 23) proposes that it may be useful for an understanding of the transitive prototype to incorporate both the notion of individuation and Kemmer’s concept of participant distinguishability into a single, more general notion of distinctness of participants, including both the distinctness of each participant from the general background (individuation) and the distinctness of the participants from each other, in terms of their physical and semantic characteristics.2 The frequent oblique encoding or downright omissibility of the objects of eat and drink verbs can then be understood as a consequence of such objects being relatively low in distinctness, as the affectedness which is their defining semantic characteristic is of secondary prominence relative to the affectedness of the agent. Such an analysis allows for a more general understanding of object demotion or omission in terms of object distinctness; typically, antipassivisation or object omission occurs with objects which are generic, less directly affected, indefinite or nonreferential (Cooreman 1994: 67, Palmer 1994: 181–185, Næss 2007: 141). The notion of distinctness of participants provides the basis for a functional analysis of the transitive prototype in terms of iconicity: A transitive clause is, by definition, a construction with two, distinct, independent syntactic arguments, and it is prototypically used to refer to a situation which is construed as involving two distinct, independent participants. The various properties commonly assumed to make up the semantic transitive prototype (e.g., Hopper & Thompson 1980) can be understood as ultimately operating on the distinctness of participants. For example, the imperfective aspect presents the event as ongoing and so does not include

.  A precursor to this notion of argument distinctness as relevant for transitivity can be found in Langacker & Munro (1975) and Langacker (1976).

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any effects on the object in its construal of the event (in the words of Chung & Timberlake (1985), the effect is “outside the event frame”); an object not presented as affected has a lower degree of distinctness from the agent than one which is clearly affected. An event which is negated does not have any effects, and for that matter is not instigated by a controlling agent, and therefore has a low degree of participant distiguishability – there are no characteristic properties which clearly distinguish agent from patient in a negated event. The less clearly distinct the participants in an event are perceived as being, the less likely a speaker is to use a construction with two independent syntactic arguments to refer to them. This can be explained by what Givón (1985) calls “the iconicity meta-principle”: “All other things being equal, a coded experience is easier to store, retrieve and communicate if the code is maximally isomorphic to the experience” (Givón 1985: 188, emphasis in original). In other words, only if one wishes to make explicit reference to the distinct and independent identity of both participants in a two-participant event is it appropriate to use a fully transitive clause; if one participant is less important or less salient in the context, some kind of formally intransitive construction is likely to be used.

5.  Conclusion The semantic property characteristic of eat and drink verbs is in fact one which is crosslinguistically seen to reduce the overall transitivity of verbs or constructions: they refer to acts which affect their agents, and indeed where the effect on the agent, as opposed to that on the patient, is the agent’s main motivation for acting. affected-agent verbs are in general less transitive than verbs with nonaffected agents, because they involve a lower degree of participant distinctness: with the property of affectedness present on both the agent and the patient, the semantic distinguishability of the two participants is reduced, and the construction is therefore semantically closer to an event with a single participant. as a result, such events are likely to be encoded in formally intransitive constructions. Typically, these constructions involve the demotion or omission of the patient argument, because the effect on this participant is relatively irrelevant from the agent’s point of view, the crucial effect being that on the agent. Of course, this does not mean that eat and drink verbs will be formally intransitive in all languages. the notion of a prototype involves a judgement of similarity whereby individual items are considered similar to the category prototype by a greater or lesser degree; and languages differ in how similar a construction must be to the transitive prototype in order to be encoded in a transitive clause. An example is verbs of experience, many of which are encoded in formally



How transitive are eat and drink verbs? 

transitive clauses in English (I like him; I saw it), whereas many other languages use other types of construction such as dative-subject or extended-intransitive constructions for such verbs. Clearly, there will be languages where affected-agent verbs are considered similar enough to prototypical transitive verbs that they are formally encoded in the same way. From a crosslinguistic perspective, however, it is clear that eat and drink verbs are not prototypical transitive verbs.

Abbreviations a = absential; ag = agent; abs = absolutive; acc = accusative; act = active; antip = antipassive; appl = applicative; art = article; aux = auxiliary; br = bound root; caus = causative; cl = classifier; conn = connective; cvb = converb; dat = dative; decl = declarative; dsc = discontinuative; du = dual; dur = durative; erg = ergative; excl = exclusive; incompl = incompletive aspect; ind = indicative; ins = instrumental; intr = intransitive; ipfv = imperfective; lv = linking vowel; m = masculine; md = middle; nom = nominative; npt = nonpast; obl = oblique; pfv = perfective; pl = plural; pres = present; ptcp = participle; red = reduplication; refl = reflexive; sg = singular; tns = tense marker; tr = transitive.

References Amberber, Mengistu. This volume and [2002]. Quirky alternations of transitivity: The case of ingestive predicates. Originally published in Language universals and variation, Mengistu Amberber & Peter Collins (Eds), 2002, 1–19. Westport CT: Praeger. Andrews, Avery. 1985. The major functions of the noun phrase. Language typology and syntactic description, Vol I: Clause structure, Timothy Shopen (Ed), 62–154. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blake, Barry J. 1979. A Kalkatungu grammar. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Caughley, Ross Charles. 1982. The syntax and morphology of the verb in Chepang. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Chung, Sandra & Alan Timberlake. 1985. Tense, aspect, and mood. Language typology and syntactic description. Vol III: Grammatical categories and the lexicon, Timothy Shopen (Ed), 202–258. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Comrie, Bernard. 1978. Ergativity. Syntactic typology, Winifred P. Lehmann (Ed), 329–374. Sussex: Harvester Press. Cooreman, Ann. 1994. A functional typology of antipassives. Voice: form and function, Barbara Fox & Paul J. Hopper (Eds), 49–88. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Crowell, Thomas Harris. 1979. A grammar of Bororo. Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University. Dixon, R.M.W. 1972. The Dyirbal language of North Queensland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 Åshild Næss Dixon, R.M.W. 2000. A typology of causatives: form, syntax and meaning. Changing valency: Case studies in transitivity, R.M.W. Dixon & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (Eds), 30–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gair, James W. 1970. Colloquial Sinhalese clause structures. The Hague: Mouton. Givón, T. 1985. Iconicity, isomorphism, and non-arbitrary coding in syntax. Iconicity in syntax, John Haiman (Ed), 187–219. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Guerssel, M. 1986. On Berber verbs of change: A study of transitivity alternations. Lexicon project Working Papers no. 9, Lexicon Project, Center for Cognitive Science, MIT. Haspelmath, Martin. 1994. Passive participles across languages. Voice: form and function, Barbara Fox & Paul J. Hopper (Eds), 151–177. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Haude, Katharina. 2006. A grammar of Movima. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nijmegen. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56, 251–299. Jaggar, Philip J. & Malami Buba. This volume. Metaphorical extensions of ʻeatʼ ⇒ [overcome] and ʻdrinkʼ ⇒ [undergo] in Hausa. Kazenin, Konstantin. 1998. On patient demotion in Lak. Typology of verbal categories: Papers presented to Vladimir Nedjalkov on the occasion of his 70th birthday, Leonid Kulikov & Heinz Vater (Eds), 95–116. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Keenan, Edward L. 1985. Passive in the world’s languages. Language typology and syntactic description. Vol I: Clause structure, Timothy Shopen (Ed), 243–281. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kemmer, Suzanne. 1993. The middle voice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kibrik, Alexandr E. (Ed.) 1996. Godoberi. Munich: Lincom. Kittilä, Seppo. 2002. Transitivity: Towards a comprehensive typology. Turku: Åbo Akademis Tryckeri. Krämer, Martin & Dieter Wunderlich. 1999. Transitivity alternations in Yucatec, and the correlation between aspect and argument roles. Linguistics 37(3), 431–479. Langacker, Ronald W. 1976. Non-distinct arguments in Uto-Aztecan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Langacker, Ronald W. & Pamela Munro. 1975. Passives and their meaning. Language 51(4), 789–830. Mondloch, James Lorin. 1981. Voice in Quiche-Maya. Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Albany. Mosel, Ulrike & Even Hovdhaugen. 1992. Samoan reference grammar. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. Næss, Åshild. 2007. Prototypical transitivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. & Sergej J.  Jaxontov. 1988. The typology of resultative constructions. Typology of causative constructions, Vladimir P.  Nedjalkov (Ed), 3–62. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Newman, John. 1997. Eating and drinking as sources of metaphor in English. Cuadernos de Filologia Inglesa 6(2), 213–231. Newman, John. This volume. A cross-linguistic overview of ʻeatʼ and ʻdrinkʼ. Newman, John & Sally Rice. 2006. Transitivity schemas of English eat and drink in the bnc. corpora in cognitive linguistics: corpus-based approaches to syntax and lexis, Stefan Th. Gries & Anatol Stefanowitsch (Eds), 225–260. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Palmer, F.R. 1994. Grammatical relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



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Roberts, John R. 1987. Amele. London: Croom Helm. Rosch, Eleanor. 1978. Principles of categorization. Cognition and categorization, Eleanor Rosch & Barbara B. Lloyd (Eds), 27–48. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Sadock, Jerrold M. 1980. Noun incorporation in Greenlandic: a case of synthetic word formation. Language 56(2), 300–319. Sakel, Jeanette. 2003. A grammar of Mosetén. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nijmegen Saksena, Anuradha. 1982. Topics in the analysis of causatives with an account of Hindi paradigms. Berkeley: University of California Press. Topping, Donald M. 1973. Chamorro reference grammar. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1982. Why can you have a drink when you can’t *have an eat? Language 58(4), 753–799.

Quirky alternations of transitivity The case of ingestive predicates* Mengistu Amberber

University of New South Wales This chapter shows that the cross-linguistically robust transitivity pattern exhibited by verbs of ingestion (eat, drink, swallow, taste, etc.) can be accounted for by appealing to a rich Lexical Conceptual Structure (LCS). The key claim is that ingestive predicates are ditransitive at the level of Conceptual Structure with an Agent, Theme/Patient and Goal arguments. We argue that the crucial property of ingestive predicates that is responsible for some of their marked transitivity behaviour is that the Agent and Goal arguments are co-indexed at the level of LCS. In particular, when the Agent argument fails to project (sanctioned by the co-indexation property), the verb may exhibit morphosyntactic behaviour that is normally associated with typical intransitive predicates.

1.  Introduction In a number of languages, verbs of ingestion – including verbs roughly equivalent to the English verbs eat, drink, swallow, taste, suckle – exhibit marked transitivity behaviour. In languages where a causativising morpheme is otherwise restricted to attach to intransitive verbs it can exceptionally appear with transitive ingestive *“Quirky alternations of transitivity: The case of ingestive predicates”, by Mengistu Amberber, is a reprint of pages 1–19 of Linguistic universals and variation, edited by Mengistu Amberber and Peter Collins (Praeger Publishers, Wesport, CT). Copyright © 2002 Mengistu Amberber and Peter Collins. Reproduced with permission of Greenwood Publishing Group. Inc., Wesport, CT. The research reported in this paper is partly supported by a Special Research Grant of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of New South Wales. A shorter version of this paper was presented at the University of Sydney, and at the 75th annual conference of the Linguistics Society of America. I would like to thank the audiences at these meetings – in particular Jane Simpson and George Aaron – for their critical comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Martin Hasplemath for pointing out to me the interesting fact related to ingestives and resultative participles. Thanks are also due to Les Bruce and Bernard Comrie for responding to my queries regarding the transitivity of ingestive predicates and to an anonymous reviewer for critical comments and helpful suggestions. Of course, I am responsible for any remaining shortcomings.

 Mengistu Amberber

verbs. It is unlikely that this phenomenon is due to an accidental property of individual languages given that it occurs in many genetically and typologically unrelated languages. This chapter will show that the marked transitivity pattern exhibited by ingestive predicates can be accounted for by appealing to a rich Lexical Conceptual Structure (LCS). The paper argues that contrary to appearance, ingestive predicates such as the English eat are ditransitive with an Agent, Theme/ Patient and Goal argument. The crucial property of ingestive predicates that is responsible for their marked transitivity pattern is that the Agent and Goal arguments are co-indexed at the level of LCS and thus normally only one argument (the Agent) is mapped onto the surface syntax. Due to the co-indexation of the Agent and Goal arguments, it is possible to suppress the Agent argument – as it is recoverable from the Goal – thus allowing the introduction of another Agent via morphological causativisation. It is known that many languages employ a morphological strategy to encode transitivity alternations (cf. Comrie & Polinsky 1993). A transitive verb may be derived by attaching an affix onto an intransitive stem. Likewise, transitive stems can be detransitivised via affixation, thus deriving intransitive constructions such as the anticausative, middle, passive, or antipassive among others. The class of verbs that may be affected by causativisation or detransitivisation may differ from language to language. For instance, in many languages the passive derivation typically applies to dynamic transitive verbs (e.g., cut -> be cut) but not to intransitive verbs (walk -> *be walked). However, in a number of languages intransitive verbs can be passivised (giving a construction known as impersonal passive (or “pseudo-passive”) as in Dutch (cf. Kirsner 1976)). Analogous variation can be found in the case of causativisation. In some languages, the causative morpheme is attached only to an intransitive stem to derive a transitive verb, whereas in other languages the causative morpheme may attach to both intransitive and transitive stems – in the latter case deriving a ditransitive verb (cf. Haspelmath 1993). From a broad typological perspective, it appears that there are two types of languages with respect to the distribution of causative morphemes. Languages with a single causativising morpheme (Type A) and languages with two (perhaps more) causativising morphemes (Type B). Type A languages can be further subclassified in terms of whether the causative morpheme can attach to only intransitives (Type A1) or to both intransitive and transitives (Type A2). In Type B languages, we find one causative morpheme exclusively for causativising intransitive verbs and another causative morpheme that can causativise both intransitive and transitive verbs (deriving a “double” causative in the latter case). The classification is summarised in (1) below with some examples of representative languages.



Quirky alternations of transitivity 

(1) Causative Type Language Type A: a single caus Type A1: caus + √Intr Berber Type A2: caus + √Intr/Tr Malayalam Type B: two caus (caus1 + √Intr; caus2 + √Intr/Tr) Amharic

When languages have two or more causativising morphemes, their distribution is often circumscribed: one causative morpheme attaches only to intransitive verbs whereas the other causative morpheme attaches to both intransitive and transitive verbs.1 For example, Amharic has two productive morphological causative prefixes: a- and as-. The causative a- attaches to intransitive verbs as in (2), whereas the causative as- can attach to both intransitive and transitive verbs as in (3):2 (2) a. k’omә ‘stand (intr)’ a-k’omә ‘stand (tr)’ b. k’әllәt’ә ‘melt (intr)’ a-k’әll’t’ә ‘melt (tr)’ c. k’wәrrәt’ә ‘cut’ *a-k’wәrrәt’ә (3) a. mәt’t’a ‘come’ as-mәt’t’a ‘make x come’ b. k’wәrrәt’ә ‘cut’ as-k’wәrrәt’ә ‘make x cut y’

The fact that the causative a- cannot attach to transitive verbs can be seen in the ill-formed derivation in (2c). Therefore, in Amharic the distribution of the two causative affixes is predictable. While the causative affix as- can attach to either a transitive or an intransitive stem, the causative affix a- can attach to intransitive stems only. However, further investigation reveals that there is one exception to this generalisation. Some verbs exhibit an unexpected causativisation pattern: they can take the causative affix a- despite the fact that they are already transitive. For example, consider the verb bәlla ‘eat’. This verb is transitive as it occurs with two arguments – Agent and Patient. As would be expected for any other transitive verb, this verb can be causativised by the causative prefix as-, deriving the factive meaning ‘cause someone to eat’ as in (4): (4) aster lәmma-n dabbo as-bәlla-c&c&-iw A. L.-acc bread caus-eat.pf.-3f-3mo ‘Aster made Lemma eat some bread.’

.  It is interesting to note that cross-linguistically a causative affix that can attach to a transitive verb can also attach to an intransitive verb, whereas the reverse is not true. There is no language in which a causative morpheme attaches only to transitive verbs (see also Hetzron 1976: 374). .  Actually, the causative prefix a- attaches only to stative (or unaccusative) intransitives such as k’әllәt’ә ‘melt (intr)’. This prefix cannot attach to activity (or unergative) intransitives such as c&’әffәrә ‘dance’. In this paper, I will ignore this distinction as it is not relevant to the main argument (but see Amberber 1996, 2000).

 Mengistu Amberber

Now given that the verb which means ‘to eat’ in (4) is transitive and that transitives do not take the causative prefix a-, we would not expect the verb bәlla ‘eat’ to occur with a- and yet this is precisely what we find in (5): (5) aster lәmma-n dabbo a-bәlla-c&c&-iw A. L.-acc bread caus-eat.pf.-3f-3mo ‘Aster fed Lemma some bread.’

The verbs that behave like bәlla ‘eat’ are very few. There are about 10 or so verbs and they are listed in (6) below (see also Demoz 1964; Leslau 1995):  (6) a. bәlla ‘eat’ a-bәlla b. t’әt’t’a ‘drink’ a- t’әt’t’a c. lasә ‘lick’ a-lasә d. t’әbba ‘suck’ a-t’әbba e. k’әmmәsә ‘taste’ a-k’әmmәsә f. lәk’k’әmә ‘pick up’ a-lәk’k’әmә g. gwәrrәsә ‘take a mouthful’ a-gwәrrәsә h. wat’ә ‘swallow’ a-wat’ә i. k’amә ‘eat large mouthfuls a-k’amә of grain’ j. gat’ә ‘graze’ a-gat’ә

‘feed’ ‘give to drink’ ‘give to lick’ ‘to suckle’ ‘give to taste’ ‘graze’ ‘give a mouthful’ ‘give to swallow’ ‘give large mouthfuls of grain’ ‘let graze’

A closer look at the meaning of the class of verbs that exhibit the unexpected causativisation pattern reveals that they share a common semantic core. Indeed, Demoz (1964) classifies them under a single heading “ingestive” as the event expressed by the verbs has something to do with taking food or edible substance. A number of interesting questions arise regarding ingestive verbs including the following: (a) Is there any cross-linguistic evidence to support the assumption that the verbs in question form a distinct lexical semantic class? (b) What are the lexical semantic properties of the ingestive verbs that warrant their quirky causativisation behaviour? These and related questions are addressed in the present paper. The rest of the paper is organised as follows. In Section 2 some cross-linguistic evidence regarding the class of ingestive verbs and other similar verbs that exhibit a marked causativisation pattern is presented. In Section 3, the ambitransitive nature of ingestives is discussed. In Section 4 a lexical-semantic analysis of the ingestive predicates is proposed mainly on the basis of the Amharic data. 2.  Ingestives in a cross-linguistic perspective Ingestive predicates seem to exhibit marked behaviour in a number of genetically and typologically diverse languages including Malayalam (Mohanan 1983: 105–106),



Quirky alternations of transitivity 

Berber (Guerssel 1986: 36ff), Tariana (Aikhenvald 2000), Jarawara (Dixon 2000), and Chichewa (Baker 1988: 461). In the Dravidian language Malayalam (Mohanan 1983), there is a productive causativisation process that derives causative predicates both from intransitives and transitives. However, intransitives and transitives differ in the syntactic realisation of the causee. In the causativisation of intransitive verbs, the causee (the original subject) becomes a primary object marked by accusative case, whereas in the causativisation of transitive verbs, the causee occurs in an instrumental phrase. Thus, consider the following contrast (from Mohanan 1983: 58–59): (7) a. kut`t`i karaññu child-n cried ‘The child cried.’ b. acchan kut`t`iye karay-icc-u Father-n child-a cry-cause-past ‘The father made the child cry.’ (8) a. kut`t`i aanaye n5ul`l`i child-n elephant-a pinched ‘The child pinched the elephant.’ b. amma kut`t`iye-kkonte aanaye n5ul`l`-icc-u mother-n child-with elephant-a pinch-cause-past ‘The mother made the child pinch the elephant’.

In the causative of a transitive verb, as in (8b), the causee must appear as an instrumental with the postposition konte ‘with’. The only exception to the above generalisation comes from a small class of transitive verbs that Mohanan also refers to as ingestive. Consider the following examples (Mohanan 1983: 105): (9) a. kut`t`i coorә t5in5n5u child-n rice-n ate ‘The child ate the rice.’ b. amma kut`t`iye coorә t5iitti mother-n child-a rice-n eat-cause-past ‘The mother fed the child rice.’

As (9b) shows, the causee of the verb t5in5n5 ‘eat’ behaves as the causee of an intransitive verb: it occurs with the accusative case instead of the instrumental adposition. Thus, even though the verb is transitive, its causativisation pattern is that of an intransitive verb. Mohanan does not offer any explanation for what he calls the “mystery of ingestive verbs” (Mohanan 1983: 106).

 Mengistu Amberber

It is interesting that the Malayalam ingestive class includes not only verbs of eating, such as t5in5nә ‘eat’, kut`ikk ‘drink’, but also verbs such as kaan` ‘see’, and pat`hikk ‘learn’. Mohanan (1983:  106) notes that in the Dravidian literature the term “ingestive” is used to encode the meaning of “taking something either literally or metaphorically”. According to Mohanan, this class of verbs exhibits similar behaviour in other Indian languages as well. Apparently, the existence of the ingestive class of verbs had been noted as far back as Panini in the study of Classical Sanskrit. The ingestive verbs also exhibit unexpected patterns of transitivity alternation in Berber, an Afroasiatic language (Guerssel 1986). Berber has a productive morphological process that derives causative verbs from intransitive verbs. Thus, according to Guerssel (1986), “active” (unergative) monadic verbs such as bedd ‘stand’ and “stative” (unaccusative) monadic verbs such as zyert ‘be long’ can be causativised by the causative prefix ss- (Guerssel 1986: 14–15): (10) a. y-bedd wrba 3ms-stand boy:cst ‘The boy stood up.’ b. y-ss-bedd wryaz arba 3ms-trans-stand man:cst ‘The man made the boy stand up.’

boy

(11) a. y-zyert wfuli 3ms-be long string:cst ‘The string is long.’ b. y-ss-zyert wrba fuli 3ms-trans-belong boy:cst string ‘The boy lengthened the string.’

On the other hand, causativisation cannot apply to typical transitive verbs such as wt ‘hit’ (Guerssel 1986: 18):  (12) *y-ss-wt wmddakkwl-inw mucc aryaz 3ms-cause-hit friend:cst-my cat man ‘My friend made the man hit the cat.’

The only exception to the generalisation that Berber transitive verbs cannot be causativised comes from a class of verbs that Guerssel (1986: 36) refers to as the eat class, which includes verbs such as ttc ‘eat’, sw ‘drink’, jjawn ‘be satiated with food’ and tted ‘suckle’. Consider the examples in (13)–(14): (13) a. y-ttcu wqqzin 3ms-eat dog:cst ‘The dog ate.’



b. y-ss-ttc wryaz 3ms-trans-eat man:cst ‘The man fed the dog.’

Quirky alternations of transitivity 

aqqzin dog

(14) a. y-ttcu wqqzin aysum 3ms-eat dog:cst meat ‘The dog ate the meat.’ b. y-ss-ttc wryaz 3ms-trans-eat:per man:cst ‘The man fed meat to the dog.’

aysum i-wqqzin meat dat-dog:cst

Notice that, like most other languages, the Berber verb ttc ‘eat’ can be used intransitively, as in (13a). However, the interesting example is (14b), where the transitive variant of the verb ttc ‘eat’ is causativised, in a marked departure from the causativisation pattern of Berber. In Tariana (North-Arawak), morphological causatives typically attach to intransitive verbs (Aikhenvald 2000: 154–155). In the following examples the affix -i(ta) is employed to derive transitive verbs from intransitives:  (15) a. -eku ‘run’ -eku-ita ‘make run’ b. -yena ‘pass’ -yeneta (
Although normally morphological causatives cannot be formed on the basis of transitive verbs, there are some exceptions. A few transitive verbs can take the morphological causative. According to Aikhenvald (2000: 157), the set of transitive verbs that can take the morphological causative include the verb -ira ‘drink’ and verbs that refer to “ritual” actions such as those listed in (16) – (19):  (16) a. -sita ‘smoke a traditional cigar’ b. -siteta ‘get one’s partner to smoke in the cigar-smoking ritual’ (17) a. -eme ‘sniff snuff ’ b. -emeta ‘get someone to sniff snuff ’ (18) a. -peru ‘lick tobacco from partner’s tongue in the cigar-smoking ritual’ b. -perita ‘get someone to lick tobacco from partner’s tongue’ (19) a. -ɲapa ‘bless’ b. -ɲapeta ‘get a shaman, or an older man, to bless someone’

Notice that, if one excludes the verb for ‘bless’ in (19), all the other verbs can be classified as ingestive, broadly defined to include verbs that refer to taking

 Mengistu Amberber

some substance via olfaction (to accommodate verbs such as ‘sniff ’). Aikhenvald (2000: 156) notes that in languages closely related to Tariana the morphological causative does not apply to transitive verbs, but again with the notable exception of the verbs for ‘drink’ (Baniwa -iza, Bare -dia, Warekena -kulua). In Jarawara (Dixon 2000: 28), the causative prefix na- “is used most often with intransitive verbs” as in (20):  (20) okaki owa na-jana 1sgposs+grandmother(f) 1sgo caus-grow up+f ‘My grandmother brought me up.’

According to Dixon (2000), the causative prefix is normally attached to intransitive verbs. However, it is “occasionally used with a transitive verb”. The only example given by Dixon refers to the ingestive meaning ‘to drink’ (Dixon 2000: 28): (21) a. inamatewe remejo fawa-ke child(f) medicine(f) drink-decf ‘The child(feminine) drinks the medicine.’ b. inamatewe mati na-fawa-ke remejo jaa child(f) 3sgposs+mother(f) caus-drink-decf medicine PeRI ‘Her mother made the child drink the medicine.’

It is interesting to note that in another Amazonian language, Urubu-Kaapor (TupíGuaraní, cf. Kakumasu 1986: 342) causatives are formed by attaching the prefix mu- to an intransitive verb (and also to some nouns). It appears that in UrubuKaapor the causative does not attach to a transitive verb. According to Kakumasu (1986:  342), the equivalent of ‘the mother caused the child to eat’ is expressed either by “paraphrasing in terms of commanding (…) or using a different verb, e.g., jopói ‘give food to’ (used of babies, pets, etc.)”: (22) a. e-’u ma’e aja tipe i-mai 2sg.imp-eat something thus frust 3-mother ‘His mother said in vain, “Eat something”.’ b. ihe rendyr riki ma’e so’o te’e jopói reko my sister emph some game freely 3+feed aux ‘My sister is feeding some kind of game (animal).’

In Apalai (Carib family, cf. Koehn & Koehn 1986: 50–51) some intransitive verbs can take two causative suffixes. The only example given by Koehn & Koehn (1986) involves the ingestive verb otuh ‘eat’. This verb can be transitivised by the causative suffix -ma: (23) a. poeto otuh-noko mana child eat-cont 3+be+pres ‘The child is eating.’



Quirky alternations of transitivity 

b. poeto otuh-ma-Vko mana child eat-caus-cont 3+be+pres ‘He is feeding the child.’

The verb so transitivised can further take a second causative suffix: (24) aimo otuh-ma-po-Vko mana boy eat-caus-caus-cont 3+be+pres ‘He is getting (someone) to feed the boy.’

Although the meaning that corresponds to the English feed seems to be a causative of the transitive eat, languages can lexicalise this meaning so that the verb can be predicated of only certain arguments. Thus, in Sre (Mon Khmer) the verb po means ‘to feed at the breast’ and is predicated of infants (cf. Manly 1972: 44). Interestingly, this verb is intransitive – along verbs such as dùn ‘to fall’, and lik ‘to come out’ – and can be causativised by the prefix tәn- and the derived meaning is ‘to suckle’: (25) a. po ‘to feed at the breast (of infants)’ b. tәn-po ‘to suckle’

It is therefore clear that in several languages some verbs appear to behave in a marked manner with respect to causativisation processes or some morphosyntactic operations. In Amharic, the causative affix a- normally takes intransitive verbs. However, this affix can exceptionally take transitive ingestive verbs. In Malayalam, the causee of a transitive verb is always realised as an instrumental. With the exception of ingestive verbs, there is no other transitive verb whose causee can appear in an accusative case. In Berber, transitive verbs cannot be causativised. The only exception to this comes from ingestive verbs. In Tariana, normally the morphological causative is based on intransitive verbs. In a few instances, however, the morphological causative can be based on transitive verbs. Most of the verbs that belong to this exceptional class of verbs refer to ingestion. Likewise, in Jarawara while the unmarked use of the causative morpheme is with intransitive verbs it can occasionally occur with some transitives such as the verb meaning ‘to drink’ – a typical ingestive predicate. The cross-linguistic facts suggest that there are three ways of deriving the causative of ingestive predicates (not surprisingly parallelling the three types of causativisation strategies – cf. Comrie 1989). (26) a. Lexical (suppletive forms are employed as in English) b. Morphological (a causative morpheme is employed even if it means relaxing the selectional restriction on the causative affix as in Amharic) c. Periphrastic (an independent verb – e.g., give – is employed as in UrubuKaapor)

 Mengistu Amberber

The cross-linguistic behaviour of ingestive verbs militates against analysing the verbs in question as quirks of individual languages. Thus, a more satisfactory reason should be provided by investigating the semantic property of the verbs. 3.  Ingestives and ambitransitivity 3.1  The implicit object One characteristic property of ingestive verbs in general is the fact that they can be both transitive, as in (27a) and intransitive, as in (27b): (27) a. John ate the sandwich. b. John ate.

The verb eat in (27a) occurs with its patient argument whereas in (27b) it occurs as a monadic predicate with only one argument. Such ambitransitivity is also found in Amharic:  (28) a. lәmma dabbo bәlla L. bread eat.pf.3m ‘Lemma ate some bread.’ b. lәmma bәlla L. eat.pf.3m ‘Lemma ate.’

Even though the (b) sentences in (27) and (28) appear to be intransitive, it is the intuition of speakers that there is an implicit object argument that is prototypically understood as something edible or more specifically as a meal. Thus, cross-linguistically ingestive verbs that occur without their patient argument are interpreted with an implicit object. Even in languages where intransitivity is marked by morphology, such verbs are semantically transitive. For example, in Menomini (Algonquian, cf. Bloomfield 1946) verbs are classified as intransitive and transitive. The verb meaning ‘to drink’ is morphologically intransitive. According to Bloomfield (1946: 94–95) such verbs make sense only in a syntactically transitive frame. He says “some intransitive verbs are used habitually with implied goals thus (…) menuah ‘he drinks (it)’ is intr.[ansitive] in form, but in general makes sense only with a pseudo-object: nepeew menuah ‘he drinks some water’” (emphasis in the original). In Onondaga (Iroquoian), the verb meaning ‘to eat’ can occur without the patient as in the sentence cihá í.weks ‘the dog eats’. According to Chafe (1970: 10) this sentence is ambiguous as “it might mean ‘the dog eats it’ as well.”



Quirky alternations of transitivity 

In languages that use a special marker for unspecified objects, a transitive verb does not have to occur with an object NP. For example, in Pipil (Uto-Aztecan) the prefix ta- on the verb indicates that the object is unspecified. According to Campbell (1985: 77) verbs with the prefix ta- “are translated with an object ‘something’ or ‘to be doing’ whatever the action of the verb is, without specifying what the object is”. Hence, it would not be surprising if in languages like Pipil verbs such as ‘to eat’ can occur without an object while maintaining their transitivity. Although the problem of ingestive verbs is noted in some studies no systematic analysis of the problem has been proposed. A notable exception is Guerssel (1986) who offered an account of the ingestive verbs in Berber. 3.2  The Lexical Structure of Ingestives Guerssel (1986: 6) assumes a framework that recognises a level of Lexcial Conceptual Structure (LCS) that represents the meaning of a verb, and a level of Lexical Structure (LS) that is “the lexical projection of the category verb”. The two representations are related by “a set of linking conventions that associate the variables in LCS to argument positions in LS”. The LCS and LS together are referred to as the Predicate Argument Structure (PAS) of a verb. In order to account for the problem of ingestive verbs, Guerssel (1986) begins with the assumption that the ingestive verbs have Agent and Patient semantic roles. He argues that the LCS of ttc ‘eat’ contains a clause that identifies the patient variable, as in (30):  (29) LCS of ttc ‘eat’ x EAT y, where y is typically FOOD

Guerssel proposes that the patient role in the LCS is not obligatorily linked to an argument position in the LS. Thus, depending on whether the patient argument is linked or not, there are two PAS representations for ttc ‘eat’ (Guerssel 1986: 37):  (30)



v′

v′

v

v

arg

x EAT y

x EAT

y

The PAS representations in (30a) and (30b) are that of the intransitive and transitive ‘eat’ respectively. Guerssel argues that the causativisation rule cannot apply to

 Mengistu Amberber

any transitive PAS, including (30b), but there is no reason why it cannot apply to (30a). The basic idea is that the eat verbs, by virtue of their lexical properties, have a patient role that is not linked into a position in LS. Due to these properties, the eat verbs can behave as intransitive for the purpose of causativisation. Guerssel argues that the crucial difference between the eat verbs and other transitive verbs such as hit is that the latter cannot have a PAS like (30a) and as a result cannot be causativised. Guerssel’s (1986) analysis regarding the grammatical function of the arguments in the causativised ‘eat’ (30b) is problematic. Notice that in Berber the Agent of the basic verb is realised as a dative argument. There is no reason why this argument is not realised as the object of the derived verb. In order to account for this problem, Guerssel (1986: 39) invokes the notion of “passive participant”: an argument that is a passive participant in a given activity is mapped onto the object position. Guerssel (1986) stipulates that in (30b), although the Agent argument of the lower verb is a passive participant relative to the external causer, the Patient argument of the lower verb is a “more” passive participant than the Agent argument and as a result it is the Patient that can be mapped onto object position. One problem with Guerssel’s notion of passive participant is that it is not independently determined but is rather evaluated relative to other arguments. Furthermore, it would be difficult to transfer the notion of a passive participant into the analysis of other languages, such as Amharic and Malayalam, where it is the causee (not the patient of the lower verb) that is mapped onto the object position. Thus, it would be desirable to derive the effect of passive participant from other independently motivated principles of grammar. In the next section, I will motivate an account of the ingestive verbs on the basis of a more articulated LCS. I will establish that the important property of ingestive verbs is not only the presence of an optional Theme/Patient argument but also the presence of a Goal argument that is co-referential with the Agent. 4.  Ingestives as three-place predicates To investigate the meaning of the verb ‘eat’ we need to look at the various components that are present in its LCS. Let us begin with the LCS of eat proposed in Jackendoff (1990). According to Jackendoff (1990: 253), the verb eat has a causative LCS with an Agent, an optional Theme/Patient and a Goal argument: (31) eat V [Event caus ([Thingi], [INCH ([Thing], [Path TO[IN[MOUTH-OF [Thing i ]]]])])]



Quirky alternations of transitivity 

The Path argument of into is normally conceived of as “self ’s mouth” which is co-indexed with the first argument of cause. Typically, the arguments of cause, inch and into – Agent, Theme/Patient, and Goal – are mapped onto the subject, object and indirect object positions respectively. However, when the Agent and Goal arguments are linked to the same NP, only the higher argument, that is, the Agent, is mapped onto the syntax. In other words, although the eat class of verbs appear to be transitive in the syntax, they are ditransitive in the LCS. Note that, crucially, when the Agent and Goal arguments are co-indexed, it is the higher of the two – within standard assumptions of the Thematic Hierarchy – namely the Agent, that is mapped onto syntax, giving the argument structure of the transitive verb bәlla ‘eat’, with an Agent and a Theme argument. In other words, the Goal argument, i.e., the argument of the functor path does not project into syntax:  (32) bәlla ‘eat’ [ xi causH (y) INCH zi PATH ] ↓ ø �Agent, Theme�

Let us assume that another cause is introduced. suppose that a- cannot attach to a verb that already has an internal cause. However, given the LCS of the verb bәlla ‘eat’ in (32), the possibility of allowing a new cause emerges. Suppose also that the original cause does not project. This option, which is otherwise unavailable with other causative verbs, is made possible by the coindexation of cause with path. In other words, cause can fail to project as it is semantically recoverable from path. Thus, the old cause will be displaced by the new cause. This will give the triadic argument structure of the verb a-bәlla ‘feed’, as modelled in (33): (33) a-bәlla ‘feed’ [w caus [ xi caus (y) INCH zi PATH]] ↓ ø �Agent, Theme, Goal�

Languages vary in how they realise the LCS in (33). In languages like Amharic, the introduction of the new cause is achieved by a morphological causative, the internal cause affix a-. The Tibeto-Burman language Meithei, is like Amharic in that a causative suffix is used to derive the causative of the verb ‘eat’. Thus, c&a@ ‘eat’ → c&ah @ әnbә ‘cause to eat’ (cf. Chelliah 1997: 110). In English, the LCS in (33) is

 Mengistu Amberber

realised by a suppletive form, the verb feed.3 In Chitimacha, according to Swadesh (1946: 318) the causative variant of the verbs meaning ‘to eat’ and ‘to drink’ are formed by suppletion: (34) a. gus&t- ‘to eat…’ b. ka.c&t- ‘to drink…’

noks&te ‘to feed…to…’ hakte- ‘to give… to…to drink’

The proposed analysis does not imply that all verbs of ingestion will behave in the same way. On the contrary, there will be language-particular lexical gaps. For instance, the verbs eat and drink are conceptually identical except for the specification of the Theme/Patient argument: in the former the Theme/Patient is typically a solid substance (cf. Levin 1993: 213ff), whereas in the latter it is some sort of liquid.4 In both cases, the Theme/Patient can be omitted: John drank beer vs John drank. Nevertheless, whilst an internal causative can be introduced into the LCS of eat, deriving the lexicalised verb feed, there is an idiosyncratic constraint, i.e., not all ingestive verbs allow the same kind of derivation. Thus, in English we find periphrastic forms with most verbs of ingestion such as give to drink. There is cross-linguistic variation with respect to the productivity of deriving a causative verb through the addition of an internal causative morphology. As we saw in Section 1, the set of ingestive verbs that take the internal causative a- in Amharic include verbs such as bәlla ‘eat’, tәt’t’a ‘drink’, k’әmmәsә ‘taste’, among others. Likewise, in Malayalam and Berber, ingestive verbs have causatives that are derived by a productive morphological process. However, recall that Malayalam (Mohanan 1983) differs from both Amharic and Berber in that the set of ingestives includes verbs of perception and mentation such as the verbs meaning ‘to see’ and ‘to learn’ – metaphorical extensions of the prototypical notion. Note that, even in Amharic, the term “ingestive” is used in a loose sense as it covers verbs of gustation like k’әmmәsә ‘taste’. It is interesting to note that in some languages, there is only one abstract verb that can be used with anything that is taken into the body. For instance, in Bengali the verb kha can be used as ‘eat’,

.  It should be noted here that the English verb feed, which we assume to be the lexicalised causative of eat, has a different range of usage from the verb eat. As noted in Fellbaum (1990), the verb feed supports a number of compounds such as bottlefeed, breastfeed, spoonfeed, which simply do not occur with the verb eat. This type of meaning extension is typical of lexicalisation; recall the famous debate regarding the relationship between kill and cause to die. .  This is a slight over-simplification. There are other differences between the English verbs eat and drink, which are not relevant for the present discussion. For instance, consider the difference between John had a drink vs. *John had an eat. See Wierzbicka (1982) for a discussion of some interesting differences between the two English verbs.



Quirky alternations of transitivity 

‘drink’, ‘smoke’, or ‘graze’ depending on the identity of the Agent and/or Theme/ Patient argument (M. Onishi, p.c.).5 There is also cross-linguistic variation with respect to the case of the Goal argument. As the case assignment of the Goal argument depends on the case resources of individual languages, there may be some variation. In Malayalam the Goal argument receives accusative case, whereas in Berber, the Goal argument receives dative case. In languages like English, the goal argument can be expressed either as accusative or dative. Consider the examples in (35), from Carrier & Randall (1992): (35) a. They fed the baby (peas). b. They fed peas to the baby.

The sentence in (35a) resembles the dative shift structure that is familiar from the verb give. One important difference between the typical dative shift structure and (35a) is that in the former the Theme/Patient argument cannot be left implicit (They gave John * (a present)). This can be trivially traced back to the LCS of the verb give; namely, unlike the ingestives, the Theme/Patient argument cannot be implicit. I have said that the crucial property of ingestive verbs is that the Agent argument can be co-indexed with the Goal argument. If this assumption is correct, one may wonder whether there are non-ingestive verbs that exhibit the same lexical property (i.e., meet the requirement that the Agent and Goal be co-indexed) and behave in a marked way. Amharic has one such verb, namely lәbbәsә ‘dress’. Consider the examples in (36):  (36) a.

aster lɨbs lәbbәsә-c&c& A. dress dress.pf-3f ‘Aster dressed in a dress.’

b.

lәmma asteri-ɨn lɨbs a-lәbbәs-ati L. A.-acc dress/cloth caus-dress.pf.3m-3fo (lit. ‘Lemma dressed/clothed Aster a dress.’) ‘Lemma dressed/clothed Aster in a dress.’

.  In some languages, it is the manner of eating that seems to be expressed by different verbs. English appears to have a rich inventory of verbs of ingestion that specify the manner of eating. Thus, consider chew, chomp, crunch, gnaw, munch, nibble, pick, peck, sip, slurp, suck (examples from Levin 1993: 214). Some verbs are used to encode “the complete, and usually speedy, consumption of something” (Levin 1993: 215). Such verbs are bolt, gobble, gulp, guzzle, quaff, swallow, swig, wolf.

 Mengistu Amberber

I assume that the LCS for lәbbәsә ‘dress’ is as in (37) – which is only minimally different from that of the verb bәlla ‘eat’:  (37) dress V [Event cause ([Thingi], [INCH ([Thing], [Path TO [ON [BODY-OF [Thingi ]]]])])]

The LCS of dress is very much like eat except that in the former the Goal argument is not ‘self ’s mouth’ but rather ‘self ’s body’. As in the case of the ingestives, the Goal of the verb lәbbәsә ‘dress/put on/wear’ can be different from the Agent argument: X causes Y(clothing) to be on the body of Z. Not surprisingly  – within the context of the proposed analysis – the verb meaning ‘to dress’ or ‘to put on’ also forms a natural class with the ingestive verbs in languages like Hind-Urdu, which brings us to yet another unusual behaviour of ingestive verbs. It has been noted for some time now that ingestive verbs exhibit an unexpected morphosyntactic pattern with respect to the construction known as a resultative participle. Defining a resultative participle is not a straightforward matter – but generally most will agree with Haspelmath (1994: 159) that a resultative participle expresses “a state resulting from a previous event”. Typical examples include the abused child, or the wilted dandelion. In many languages the resultative participle is not possible with unergative verbs; thus the equivalents of the run boy or the danced man are ungrammatical. It appears that resultative participles have Passive orientation with transitive verbs but Active orientation with unaccusative or inactive intransitive verbs. What is interesting is that, as pointed out by Haspelmath (1994:  159–161), ingestive verbs often have (exceptionally) active orientation  – i.e., they behave as if they are intransitive. In Hindi-Urdu the class of transitive verbs that have active resultative participles includes verbs meaning ‘to eat’, ‘to drink’, ‘to see’, ‘to learn’, ‘to wear’, and ‘to put on’. Note that English has the lexicalised form drunken as well as the mental ingestion verb learned (Haspelmath, p.c.) – but the process appears to be productive in languages like Hindi-Urdu. According to Haspelmath (1994:  161) “what ‘drink’, ‘eat’, ‘learn’, ‘see’, and ‘put on’, ‘wear’ have in common is that the agent is saliently affected by the action”. I suspect that the enriched Lexical Conceptual Structure proposed for the ingestive verbs here may eventually be able to provide a unified account for the resultative facts we find in language like Hindi-Urdu. The fact that the Agent is saliently affected may be derived from the assumption that it is co-indexed with a Path argument – distinct from other transitive verbs.



Quirky alternations of transitivity 

5.  Conclusion Ingestive predicates exhibit marked transitivity patterns in many typologically and genetically diverse languages. In many languages an otherwise strict selectional restriction of causativising morphemes is relaxed just in case the verb in question belongs to the ingestive class. Thus, in Amharic the causative affix a- normally attaches to (unaccusative) intransitives to derive causative predicates. The exception where a- attaches to a transitive verb occurs with ingestive predicates, such as bәlla ‘eat’ -> a-bәlla ‘feed’. Intuitively, ingestive verbs appear to be semantically homogenous. The problem is: how can we account for the marked property of the  verbs within a restricted theory of argument structure? For example, in Amharic how can we account for the argument structure of this class of verbs without abandoning the otherwise robust generalisation that the internal causative morpheme attaches to intransitive predicates. A closer examination of the LCS of the ingestive predicates has revealed that the verbs are actually ditransitive and take an Agent, Theme/Patient and Goal (cf. Jackendoff 1990). Distinct from the ditransitivity of other verbs (e.g., give in English) the ditransitivity of ingestive predicates has one special property: the Agent (the first argument of caus) and the Goal (the argument of path) are linked to a single argument and thus syntactically realised by one argument (the Agent). I have argued that introducing an an Agent argument would be possible provided that the former Agent is not syntactically realised. This would be possible because the former Agent is conceptually linked with the Goal argument. The result is a construction where a Goal argument surfaces as the direct object of a ditransitive predicate yielding verbs such as a-bәlla in Amharic and feed in English. Thus, the marked behaviour of ingestive verbs with respect to transitivity alternation can be accounted for by assuming that the verbs’ LCS specifies a Goal argument that forms a chain with the Agent argument. By virtue of its co-indexation with a Goal argument, the Agent may not project in the syntax. This allows for the introduction of another causer argument thus deriving a special causative of transitive verbs.

Abbreviations The following abbreviations are used in the glosses of the Amharic sentences. For abbreviations in the glosses of examples from other languages the reader is referred to the original sources. 3 = 3rd person; acc = accusative; caus = causative; f = feminine; inch = inchoative; m = masculine; o = object; pf = perfect.

 Mengistu Amberber

References Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2000. Transitivity in Tariana. Changing valency: Case studies in transitivity, R.M.W.  Dixon & Alexandra Aikhenvald (Eds), 145–172. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Amberber, Mengistu. 1996. Transitivity alternation, event-types, and light verbs. Ph.D. dissertation, McGill University. Amberber, Mengistu. 2000. Valency-changing and valency-encoding devices in Amharic. In Changing valency: Case studies in transitivity, R.M.W.  Dixon & Alexandra Aikhenvald (Eds), 312–332. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baker, Mark. 1988. Incorporation: A theory of grammatical function changing. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Bloomfield, Leonard. 1946. Algonquian. In Linguistic structures of Native America, Harry Hoijer et al. (Eds), 85–129. New York NY: Johnson Reprint. Carrier, Jill & Janet Randall. 1992. The argument structure and syntactic structure of resultatives. Linguistic Inquiry 23: 173–234. Campbell, Lyle. 1985. The Pipil language of El Salvador. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Chafe, Wallace. 1970. A semantically based sketch of Onondaga. Baltimore MD: Waverly Press. Chelliah, Shobhana. 1997. A grammar of Meithei. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Comrie, Bernard. 1989. Language universals and linguistic typology, 2nd Edn. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press. Comrie, Bernard & Maria Polinsky. 1993. Causatives and transitivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Demoz, Abraham. 1964. The meaning of some derived verbal stems in Amharic. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA. Dixon, R.M.W. 2000. A-constructions and O-constructions in Jarawara. International Journal of American Linguistics 66(1): 22–56. Fellbaum, Christiane. 1990. English verbs as a semantic net. International Journal of Lexicography 3: 278–301. Guerssel, Mohamed. 1986. On Berber verbs of change: A study of transitivity alternations [Lexicon Project Working Papers no.9]. Cambridge MA: MIT, Lexicon Project, Center for Cognitive Science. Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb alternations. In Causatives and transitivity, Bernard Comrie & Maria Polinsky (Eds), 87–120. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Haspelmath, Martin. 1994. Passive participles across languages. In Voice: Form and function, Barbara Fox &aul J. Hopper (Eds), 151–177. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hetzron, Robert. 1976. On the Hungarian causative verb and its syntax. In The grammar of causative constructions, Masayoshi Shibatani (Ed), Syntax and Semantics 6, 87–120. New York NY: Academic Press. Jackendoff, Ray. 1990. Semantic structure. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Kakumasu, James. 1986. Urubu-Kaapor. In Handbook of Amazonian languages, Vol. 1, Desmond D. Derbyshire & Geoffrey K. Pullum (Eds), 326–403. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kirsner, Robert. 1976. On the subjectless ‘pseudo-passive’ in Standard Dutch and the semantics of background agents. In Subject and topic, Charles N. Li (ed), 385–415. New York NY: Academic Press.



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Koehn, Edward & Sally Koehn. 1986. Apalai. In Handbook of Amazonian languages, Vol.  1, Desmond D. Derbyshire & Geoffrey K. Pullum (Eds), 33–127. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Leslau, Wolf. 1995. Reference grammar of Amharic. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Levin, Beth. 1993. English verb classes and alternations. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press. Manly, Timothy. 1972. Outline of Sre structure. Honolulu HI: University of Hawaii Press. Mohanan, K.P. 1983. Move NP or Lexical Rules? Evidence from Malayalam causativization. In Papers in lexical-functional grammar, L. Levin et al. (Eds), 47–11. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1976. The grammar of causative constructions: A conspectus. In The grammar of causative constructions, Masayoshi Shibatani (Ed), Syntax and Semantics 6. 1–40. New York NY: Academic Press. Swadesh, Morris. 1946. Chitimacha. In Linguistic structures of Native America, Harry Hoijer et al., 312–336. New York NY: Johnson Reprint. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1982. Why can you have a drink when you can’t *have an eat. Language 58: 753–799.

All people eat and drink does this mean that ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are universal human concepts?* Anna Wierzbicka

The Australian National University Eating and drinking are, one might say, human universals. Or so it may seem to speakers of English, and other European languages. But what would a Kalam, or a Warlpiri linguist say about it, given that Kalam and Warlpiri have no word meaning ‘eat’ and no word meaning ‘drink’? No doubt, he/she would say that ñb(Kalam, roughly ‘eat/drink’) or ngarni (Warlpiri, roughly ‘eat/drink’) is a human universal. This paper argues that describing languages like Kalam and Warlpiri through the prism of the English words eat and drink is Eurocentric and it proposes to complement such an Eurocentric approach with a more neutral one, based on empirically established conceptual universals such as body, part, do, and inside (cf. Goddard & Wierzbicka eds 2002; Wierzbicka 2007)

1.  I ntroduction: universals of the human condition vs. universals of human thinking Eating and drinking are human universals: all people eat and drink, as all people live and die. But the apparent parallelism between, on the one hand, living and dying, and on the other, eating and drinking conceals a deep difference between the two pairs. As linguistic evidence suggests, living and dying are not only empirical universals of the human condition but also conceptual and linguistic universals of the human interpretation of that condition: all languages have words, or distinct word meanings, for ‘live’ and ‘die’, but not all have words, or distinct word meanings, for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. This means, in effect, that while all people, everywhere, conceive of human beings as beings that live and die, not all people conceive of them as beings that eat and drink. Furthermore, the twin ideas that people ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ can not even be expressed, in any straightforward way, in all languages of the world, whereas the twin ideas that people ‘live’ and ‘die’ can. *I am very grateful to Cliff Goddard for his help in developing the explications in this paper, and for other extremely helpful suggestions. I am also grateful to David Nash for his comments on the Warlpiri material and Helen Bromhead for her valuable input.

 Anna Wierzbicka

For example, as empirical cross-linguistic investigations carried out within the nsm framework (see section 2) indicate, sentences like “all people die” can be readily expressed in all languages, because all languages have words meaning ‘all’, ‘people’ and ‘die’, and in all languages these three meanings can be combined to create a sentence with a meaning identical to that of the English sentence. This is not the case, however, with sentences like “all people eat” and “all people drink”. Here, what is universal is, roughly speaking, that people often put some things or substances into their mouth, and that these things then move to other places inside their bodies. This rough scenario allows for a number of different conceptualizations, depending on facts such as the kind of substances introduced into the mouth, the way they are introduced into the mouth, and what happens to them in the mouth. When one studies the closest counterparts of the English concepts ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ in many different languages, in many different geographical and cultural areas, one discovers that there are really many different ways in which the “bodily intake of substances” can be conceptualized and categorized. The familiar English, and more generally, European division between ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ is by no means the only one. If we try to interpret the conceptualizations reflected in other languages through the prism of this one, we will be imposing on them an Anglocentric, or Eurocentric, perspective. Here as elsewhere, the key question is: how can one articulate the conceptualizations reflected in different languages from the insiders’, rather than outsiders’, point of view  – while making them accessible, at the same time, to the outsiders’ understanding? And here as elsewhere, the answer is that this can be done if instead of using English as our metalanguage we use a different metalanguage, one relying on shared human concepts rather than culture-specific English ones. This point, which is crucial, requires elaboration, and this will be provided in section 2. Here, let me conclude these preliminary remarks by articulating in simple, universal concepts the human universal alluded to earlier by means of the semi-technical and culture-specific English phrase bodily intake.

A human universal  [A] people often do something to things of some kinds with their mouth[M] for some time because they want things of these kinds to be inside their body people can’t live if they don’t do this

A similar universal could be proposed for animals – at least for those whose bodies are sufficiently similar to human bodies to have a part which could be seen by people as comparable to the human mouth. But when one thinks, for example,



All people eat and drink 

of the way dogs or cats “do something to things when they want these things to be inside their bodies”, one realizes that the human way of doing it is usually different: more often than not, people do something to things with their hands before they do something to them with their mouth (on the polysemy of eat and drink, see section 4). This leads us to another human universal:

A human universal  [B] people often do something to things of some kinds with their hands for some time because they want things of these kinds to be inside their body when they do it, they do something to it with their mouth[M] during this time

“Doing things to some things with one’s hands” is not strictly necessary for survival, so in this case I have not added the line “people can’t live if they don’t do this” (people can live without hands, but they can’t live without a mouth). There is, on the other hand, something else that people can’t live without: they often need to introduce into their body, through the mouth, water, or “something like water”. This leads us to the third human universal [C]:

A human universal  [C] some things are things like water people often do something to something like this with their mouth[M] because they want it to be inside their body people can’t live if they don’t do this

Having introduced these three human universals, formulated in a nonprejudicial, culture-independent way, we have set the scene for a non-prejudicial, culture-independent exploration of the ways in which these universal aspects of human life are conceptualized and lexicalized in different languages of the world. 2.  Metalanguage as a central problem for cross-linguistic semantics Most contemporary approaches to semantics in general and to cross-linguistic semantics in particular treat the issue of a suitable metalanguage as non-existent. The common practice is to use technical or semi-technical English as a metalanguage. The most distinctive feature of the NSM approach employed in this paper and in the other publications by the author and colleagues is that it takes seriously the idea advanced by seventeenth-century European philosophers like Descartes,

 Anna Wierzbicka

Arnauld, and above all Leibniz, that only a small repertoire of self-explanatory simple concepts can provide the bedrock of all human understanding. To quote Leibniz: “If nothing could be understood in itself nothing at all could ever be understood. Because what can only be understood via something else can be understood only to the extent to which that other thing can be understood, and so on; accordingly, we can say that we have understood something only when we have broken it down into parts which can be understood in themselves” (Leibniz 1903/1961: 430). The NSM approach to semantics has adopted this idea, and its practitioners have engaged, over more than three decades, in theoretical and empirical investigations, seeking to identify, by trial and error, a set of self-explanatory “semantic primes” which could free semantic analysis from infinite regress and lead to genuine understanding of the meanings encoded in lexicon and in grammar. To this end, NSM researchers have undertaken wide-ranging experimentation over many semantic domains, across many diverse languages. The purpose of this experimentation was to identify within the languages under investigation matching minimal sets of lexically embodied simple meanings in terms of which all other, more complex, meanings could be intelligibly explained and compared. The natural semantic metalanguage (NSM), built through extensive crosslinguistic investigations, is described in great detail in various publications, including Goddard (1998), Wierzbicka (1996), Goddard 2005; and especially Goddard & Wierzbicka (eds. 2002), which also contains six studies demonstrating that the posited semantic primes and their basic syntactic frames exist in a set of typologically and genetically diverse languages. The full NSM lexicon of universal semantic primes is set out, in summary form, in Table 1, using English exponents. A sizable bibliography is available at: www.une.edu.au/bcss/linguistics/nsm/ Empirical investigations carried out within the NSM framework suggest that similar tables can be drawn up for any language, and moreover, that the semantic primes listed in them share a set of combinatory properties. This means that every language has as its semantic core a language-like structure, with a mini-lexicon and a mini-grammar. Each such mini-language is in fact a surface realization of one and the same underlying system, both “natural” and formal (cf. Lehrman 2006). Crucially, this universal “mini-language” can be used effectively as a “natural semantic metalanguage” for exploring and comparing the ways of thinking and categorizing experience reflected in the languages of the world. In addition to semantic primes, many NSM explications rely also (in a limited way) on “semantic molecules”, especially in the area of concrete vocabulary. In particular, body part concepts often function as “semantic molecules” in the meaning of verbs of physical activity, such as walk (‘legs’, ‘feet’), lick (‘tongue’), bite (‘teeth’) and of course eat and drink (‘mouth’). In NSM explications, such molecules are marked with the symbol [m].



All people eat and drink 

Table 1.  Semantic primes – English exponents Substantives:

i, you, someone, something/thing, people, body kind, part Relational substantives: this, the same, other/else Determiners: Quantifiers: one, two, much/many, some, all good, bad Evaluators: big, small Descriptors: think, know, want, feel, see, hear Mental predicates: say, words, true Speech: do, happen, move, touch Actions, events, movement, contact: Location, existence, possession, specification: be (somewhere), there is, have, be (someone/something) live, die Life and death: Time: when/time, now, before, after, a long time, a short time, for some time, moment [in one moment] Space: where/place, here, above, below, far, near, side [on one side], inside not, maybe, can, because, if Logical concepts: more, very Augmentor, intensifier: like Similarity:  Notes: – Primes exist as the meanings of lexical units (not at the level of lexemes) – Exponents of primes may be words, bound morphemes, or phrasemes – They can be formally complex – They can have different morphosyntactic properties, including word-class, in different languages – They can have combinatorial variants (allolexes) – Each prime has well-specified syntactic (combinatorial) properties. – Two (or more) primes can share the same lexical exponent, with different syntactic properties.

3.  “Eating” and “drinking” in the Papuan language Kalam The Papuan language Kalam has been studied for a long time by Andrew Pawley (for extensive discussions of Kalam from an NSM perspective see Pawley 1994; Goddard 2001; see also Wierzbicka 1996: 200–202, Goddard 2002: 27–28; Wierzbicka in press b). A wealth of information about the Kalam lexicon can be found in the Dictionary of Kalam co-authored by Pawley and Bulmer. As this dictionary makes clear, Kalam has no words equivalent in meaning to the English words eat and drink. This doesn’t mean that Kalam people cannot speak and think about what English speakers call “eating” and “drinking”, but that they speak, and presumably think, about such activities in a different way: not in terms of ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ but in terms of a concept which they link with the verb ñb-, roughly, ‘consume’ (and its variants). Pawley and Bulmer’s Kalam dictionary assigns to this verb as many as eight different meanings or senses. The most important and presumably the most common among these senses is the first one, described and illustrated in

 Anna Wierzbicka

the Dictionary as follows: “Consume, especially by mouth; thus: 1. Eat, drink. ñbin agen, yuurt gs-ap. When I try to eat it hurts. (lit. When I say ‘I’ll eat!’ pain keeps happening.) ñg pagen, apek ñbin. When I suck the liquid it comes up (through the straw) and I drink it. Tap etp nbsay? What are they eating/drinking?” Although the Dictionary glosses the Kalam concept with two English verbs (“eat, drink”), to its credit, it doesn’t regard the two glosses as two distinct meanings, but rather, recognizes the unitary character of the Kalam concept (‘consume’). As the last example in the entry above illustrates, a sentence like Tap etp nbsay? ‘What are they eating/drinking?’ is vague rather than ambiguous. It may seem ambiguous from the point of view of an English speaker but not from a Kalam point of view: clearly, Kalam speakers do not habitually think about ‘oral consumption’ in terms of two distinct conceptual categories (1. eat, 2. drink), as speakers of English (and other European languages) do, but rather, in terms of one, unitary category. As we have seen, the Kalam dictionary offers, in addition to the two glosses “eat, drink”, a unitary one: “consume (especially by mouth)”. Why can’t we say then, that ñb-, which makes no distinction between ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’, means the same as the English word consume? The addition “especially by mouth” is no doubt motivated by other, secondary, uses of ñb-, for example, as in “drown in the ocean, lit. consume sea-water”. But why can’t we say that in its primary meaning ñb- means the same as consume (in its literal sense, that is, “consume by mouth”)? The intuition behind glossing ñb- as “eat, drink” (rather than simply “consume”) reflects no doubt the basic and colloquial status of this Kalam word, similar to the basic and colloquial status of eat and drink rather than to the technical and as it were disjunctive character of consume. The Collins Cobuild Dictionary of English defines consume, sensibly though not accurately, as “eat or drink”. The definition is not quite right because it doesn’t work in substitutions. For example, the sentence “they consumed vast quantities of alcohol” does not mean that “they ate or drank vast quantities of alcohol”. One could say, however, that it means something along the following lines (very roughly): “They introduced alcohol into their bodies, by doing something to some alcohol as people do something to some things when they want to eat or drink these things”. This very rough approximation suggests that the meaning of consume is based on the meanings of eat and drink (as the meaning of parent is based on the meanings of mother and father). To eliminate the reference to eat and drink in the definition of consume we could try to replace it with a reference to the mouth, along the following lines: “to consume something is to introduce it into one’s body through the mouth”. This would not work, however, because this version would apply to tobacco or marijuana as well as to food and drink, which is not compatible with the ordinary use of consume.



All people eat and drink 

Furthermore, consume is not used to describe human activities in progress, as eat and drink are in English and ñb is in Kalam. For example, it would be odd to say “I saw her consuming something” or “what are they consuming?”. Consume is an abstract verb which indicates the speaker’s lack of interest in the physical activity as such and focusses on the outcome. Clearly, ñb is not like that: it is a verb of physical activity analogous, broadly speaking, to the English verbs eat and drink rather than to the English verb consume. It describes a kind of physical activity – from an English point of view, two kinds (‘eat’ and ‘drink’), but from a Kalam point of view, one kind. Arguably, therefore, it makes more sense to describe the meaning of ñb as “eat/ drink” than as “consume”. But clearly, this cannot be the end of the story. From a Kalam perspective, ‘ñb’ is a unitary conceptual category, not a disjunctive ‘eat or drink’. To capture this unitary meaning of ñb from a Kalam perspective we need to go beyond “translating” it into conceptual categories of English (‘eat’, ‘drink’) and try to understand what such a unitary category could possibly mean for people who do not have separate conceptual categories of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. Lexicography is not a traditional cultural pursuit in Papua. Nonetheless, it might be useful at this point to try to imagine that we are in the shoes of a hypothetical Kalam lexicographer trying to explain the meaning of ñb in a large monolingual dictionary of Kalam (if they had shoes, that is). How could such a hypothetical Kalam lexicographer (who doesn’t speak English) approach this task? To answer this question (in English!) we need to forget, for a short time, English as we know it, that is, English in all its culture-specific richness, and try to limit our conceptual kit to a small set of concepts which English and Kalam share. What matters most in the present context is that if a Kalam speaker wanted to explain in Kalam what ñb means, they could readily draw on the concepts do and happen (using two exponents identical in their form but different in their grammatical properties). For example, he or she could say the exact equivalents of the following English sentences: she was doing something to something with her mouth for some time because of this something was happening to this something at the same time

Thus, we can assume that it would not be very difficult to draw a Kalam version of Table 1. This version would show a good deal of polysemy, for example, the same lexical element g- would be presented as the Kalam counterpart of the English elements do and happen, but this by itself would not be a problem from the point of view of developing a Kalam explication of complex Kalam concepts, for example, of the complex Kalam concept ñb (‘eat/drink’). Furthermore, we can also hypothesize that Kalam, like other languages, has a number of “semantic molecules”, including, for example, ‘hands’, ‘head’, ‘mouth’,

 Anna Wierzbicka

and ‘water’, which are definable in terms of the semantic primes but which can enter the meanings of many other more complex concepts as semantic chunks (Goddard 2007; Wierzbicka 2007). Experimenting with various semantic explications and drawing on the semantic template developed for other verbs of physical activity in (Goddard and Wierzbicka 2008), I have come to the conclusion that the hypothetical Kalam lexicographer could define the meaning of ñb- as in the explication below. With one exception, this explication relies exclusively on universal semantic primes (including ‘do’, ‘happen’, ‘someone’, ‘something’, ‘people’, ‘body’). The exception is the word mouth, which can be plausibly regarded as a near-universal semantic molecule (for an explication of mouth in terms of primes, see Wierzbicka 2007).

The Kalam word ñb (‘eat/drink’) Someone (X) was ñb-ing something (Y)

LEXICO-SYNTACTIC FRAME

someone (X) was doing something to something (Y) with their mouth[M] for some time because of this, something was happening to this something (Y) at the same time  PROTOTYPICAL MOTIVATIONAL SCENARIO people do something like this to something when it is like this: they are doing something to this something with their mouth[M] because they want this something to be inside their body  MANNER when someone does something like this to something the same thing happens many times it happens like this: this someone does something to something with their mouth[M] because of this, after this, part of this something is for a short time inside this someone’s mouth[M] after this, this someone does something to it with their mouth[M] because of this, after this, it is not inside this someone’s mouth[M] anymore, it is somewhere else inside this someone’s body for some time,  POTENTIAL OUTCOME if someone does this to something for some time after some time all of it [i.e., all parts of it] can be inside this someone’s body

The template used in this explication was not invented ad hoc, for the purposes of explicating ñb in Kalam and eat and drink in English, but was developed on the basis of extensive experimentation with many verbs of physical activity in many languages (see Goddard & Wierzbicka 2008; Wong, Goddard & Wierzbicka, to appear).



All people eat and drink 

Briefly, the “lexico-syntactic frame” accounts for a given verb’s basic syntactic profile, including in particular its transitivity and its temporal and aspectual properties. The “prototypical motivational scenario” sets up a prototypical situation, with a prototypical goal which shapes, to a large extent, the details of the “manner” in which the action is done. The “manner” segment specifies the constant features of the way in which the action is performed. The final segment, the “potential outcome”, is closely related to the “prototypical motivation”: if the action proceeds in accordance with the “prototypical motivational scenario” for some time, the goal set out in the “prototypical motivation” section can be achieved. In the case of the Kalam verb ñb, the “lexico-syntactic frame” specifies that the action is performed by someone for some time and that it affects, simultaneously, some things or some substance. The “prototypical motivational scenario” refers to “doing something to something with one’s mouth” in order to introduce part of this something into one’s mouth. The “manner” shows that the action is iterative and it describes its stages: doing something to something with one’s mouth, having a bit of that thing in one’s mouth for a short time, doing something to it with one’s mouth (i.e., swallowing it), after which the bit in question travels to some other places in the person’s body. The “potential outcome” envisages the possibility of the whole thing1 in question ending up inside the person’s body.

4.  The English verbs ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ seen from a Kalam perspective Suppose now that our hypothetical Kalam lexicographer seeks to understand, and to explain to other Kalam speakers, the meaning of the two unfamilar English concepts, with no equivalents in Kalam: ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. There can be little doubt that this lexicographer would try to explain the meaning of the English verbs eat and drink via the Kalam word ñb-. As a starting point, he/she might offer the explanation that eat and drink stand for two varieties of ñb-ing, and that the distinction between the two is based, partly, on the kind of thing that the ñb-ing person is putting inside his or her mouth. If this thing is like water, the English speaker would choose drink, and if it is not like water, they would choose eat. Of course such an explanation will work in Kalam only if Kalam, too, has a word for ‘water’, and if this word is very close, if not identical, in meaning to

.  In English, a more idiomatic rendering for “all parts of this something” would be “all of it”.

 Anna Wierzbicka

the English word water, and Pawley and Bulmer’s dictionary tells us that it does. Since ‘water’ is not a universal semantic prime, the availability of a word for it in Kalam cannot be taken for granted. In English, ‘water’ is a semantic molecule,2 which enters – alongside the molecule ‘mouth’ – the meanings of the words drink, eat, and of course many others (including, for example, liquid, cup, mug, bottle, jug, urine, tears and many others). Presumably, the Kalam word for water, ñg, is also a semantic molecule in Kalam, but evidently this molecule is not included in the meaning of the verb ñb- (‘eat/drink’). In addition to the distinction between ‘things like water’ and ‘things not like water’,3 an astute Kalam lexicographer would point out that the English verbs eat and drink refer also to a difference in what is happening in the mouth of the person ñb-ing (“consuming”) something. If the substance “consumed” is like water the following happens to it many times: first some of it is for a very short time in the person’s mouth, then the person does something to it with the mouth (“swallows” it), and then it is not in the person’s mouth any longer. If, on the other hand, the substance “consumed” is not like water, what happens to it each time is more complex: when some of it is in the person’s mouth, the person does something to it with some parts of the mouth (“chews” it, “bites” it, moves it around with the tongue), and as a result, something happens to it; after this, the person does something else to it with their mouth (“swallows” it), and after this, because of this, it is no longer in this person’s mouth. If our hypothetical Kalam lexicographer persists in the analysis of the alien English concepts ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ they might notice that there is a third difference between them, related to the other two: ‘drinking’ can be done directly with one’s mouth (for example, when someone is ‘drinking’ water from a source), whereas ‘eating’ typically involves also the use of the hands.

.  The molecule “water” can be explicated in NSM as follows: water something of one kind people can see a lot of this something in some places when people are in these places this something can touch some parts of their body on all sides of the body at the same time often people do something with this something because they want this something to be inside their body at that time often people do other things with this something .  The idea that not only drink but also eat may refer in its meaning to ‘things like water’ (in the case of eat, ‘things not like water’) is due to Michael Neubauer (personal communication).



All people eat and drink 

On the basis of all these observations the hypothetical Kalam lexicographer could arrive at the following explications of the English words eat and drink, stated here in nsm English but statable also in nsm Kalam, by means of the Kalam set of semantic primes and the Kalam semantic molecules ‘mouth’ and ‘water’:

Someone (X) was eating something (Y) LEXICO-SYNTACTIC FRAME someone (X) was doing something to something (Y) with their mouth[m] for some time because of this, something was happening to this something (Y) at the same time PROTOTYPICAL MOTIVATIONAL SCENARIO people do something like this to something when it is like this: this something is not something like water[m] they do something to this something with their mouth[m] because they want this something to be inside their body MANNER when someone does something like this to something the same thing happens many times it happens like this: this someone does something to something with their hands[m] at the same time, this someone does something to it with their mouth[m] because of this, after this, part of this thing is for a short time inside this someone’s mouth[m] when this part is inside this someone’s mouth[m] , this someone does something to it with some parts of their mouth[m] because of this, something happens to it at this time after this, this someone does something else to it with their mouth[m] because of this, after this, it is not inside this someone’s mouth[m] anymore, it is in another part of this someone’s body for some time POTENTIAL OUTCOME if someone does something like this to something for some time after some time all of it [i.e., all parts of it] can be inside this someone’s body

This explication of eat overlaps to a large extent with that of the Kalam verb ñb, but there are also some differences. Thus, the “prototypical motivational scenario” of eat specifies that the agent is doing something with “something not like water”. This specification is missing in the case of ñb. Its presence in the “prototypical

 Anna Wierzbicka

motivational scenario” of eat does not imply that eat can only be applied to solids and that one cannot, for example, eat soup. It only suggests that the prototypical situation of eating involves solids. The “manner” of eating includes a reference to “the hands”, and also, to something happening to the bit in one’s mouth when it is there (e.g., being chewed). Both these references are absent from the explication of ñb and both require a comment. As for the use of the hands, I should clarify that I regard the verb eat as polysemous and that the meaning explicated here applies only to human eating. When animals or birds “eat”, they “eat”, I would claim, by analogy with human eating. Just as the head of a snake is not the uppermost part of the snake’s body (as the human head is), but rather, that part of the snake’s body which is ‘like’ the head in people’s bodies, so the snake’s “eating”, too, is conceived by analogy with human eating. (For discussion, see Wierzbicka 2007: 37–38; 1980: 86–88). The conceptual salience of the ‘hands’ in eat is of course related to the fact that prototypically, people eat solids, and that in general, when they eat something, they do so in the way in which people eat solids. This conceptual salience of solids (“something not like water”) is also linked with the fact that when someone eats something this someone does something to the bits in his or her mouth (e.g., chews them) and that consequently, something happens to these bits while they are in this person’s mouth (they can be broken into smaller bits, mixed with saliva, and so on). These two components are also missing from the explication of ñb. As for the explication of drink, it is much closer to that of ñb, but unlike the explication of ñb, it specifies that the substance introduced into one’s body is “something like water”.

Someone (X) was drinking something (Y) LEXICO-SYNTACTIC FRAME someone (X) was doing something to something (Y) with their mouth[m] for some time because of this, something was happening to this something at the same time PROTOTYPICAL MOTIVATIONAL SCENARIO people do something like this to something when it is like this: this something is something like water[m] they do something to this something with their mouth[m] because they want this something to be inside their body MANNER when someone does something like this to something the same thing happens many times it happens like this:



All people eat and drink 

this someone does something to this something with their mouth[m] after this, because of this, part of this something is for a very short time inside this someone’s mouth[m] after this, this someone does something to it with their mouth[m] because of this, after this, it is not inside this someone’s mouth[m] anymore it is somewhere else inside this someone’s body for some time POTENTIAL OUTCOME if someone does something like this to something for some time after some time all of it [i.e., all parts of it] can be inside this someone’s body

The explications of eat and drink developed here can of course be arrived at from within English: they don’t require an outsider’s, for example a Kalam person’s, perspective. But to take a Kalam perspective helps us to de-naturalize English and to resist the temptation to interpret the indigenous Kalam concept ñb- through the prism of the English concepts ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. Eating and drinking are universal human activities, but so is ñb-ing. Universally, people put various substances into their mouth and swallow them, bit by bit. The process of doing so can take different forms and can involve different kinds of substances. How the activities involved are conceptualized and categorized depends, to some extent, on the language. The use of a mini-language based on universal human concepts (nsm) allows us to study those different conceptualizations and categorizations from a neutral, language-independent perspective. It frees us from our conceptual dependence on languages like English and at the same time it allows us to see it in a fresh way. Seen from a Kalam perspective, English may seem an exotic language, just as Kalam may seem exotic from the perspective of native speakers of English; but the use of NSM allows the speakers of English to understand the perspective embedded in Kalam, and vice versa.

5.  “Eating” and “drinking” in the Australian language Warlpiri In Warlpiri, the basic counterpart of the English word eat is the verb ngarni, which, like the Kalam ñb-, makes no distinction between solids and liquids.4 The Warlpiri Dictionary glosses this word as “ingest, eat (of solid), drink (of liquid)”, and it provides the following unitary definition: “xerg cause to be in stomach (miyalu) of x, by action of mouth (lirra) and alimentary canal”.

4.  Other Australian languages which don’t distinguish lexically between “eat” and “drink” include, e.g., Nhanda (Blevins 2001) and Wik-Mungkan (Kilham et al. 1986).

 Anna Wierzbicka

It is to the credit of the Warlpiri Dictionary that it tries to inject in this definition some elements of the indigenous perspective, by including in it the Warlpiri words miyalu (‘stomach’) and lirra (‘mouth’). This willingness to accommodate the indigenous perspective breaks down, however, in the phrase alimentary canal: judging by the data in the Dictionary, there is no corresponding phrase in Warlpiri, and there are no words like alimentary and canal. So what can ngarni really mean, from a Warlpiri point of view? Let us first consider some examples: Maliki-rli ka-Ø kuyu nga-rni yarnunjuku-rlu. dog-erg pres-3sg.subj meat “eat/drink”-npst hungry-erg ‘The hungry dog is eating the meat.’ Ngapa-ju yu-ngka yi-rna water-1sg.obj give-imp result-1sg.subj ‘Give me some water to drink as I am thirsty.’

purraku-rlu nga-rni. thirsty-erg “eat/drink”-npst

Ngapa-rlangu miyi-rlangu kuyu-rlangu ka-Ø nga-rni. water-also food-also meat-also pres-3sg.subj “eat/drink”-npst ‘She is drinking water and eating vegetable food and meat.’

The English translations use two verbs, eat and drink, but the Warlpiri sentences use only one verb, ngarni. Thus, ngarni is like ñb-, in not drawing any distinction between taking into the body, through the mouth, liquids and solids.5 On the basis of the examples given in the two dictionaries, Kalam and Warlpiri, we can surmise that ngarni means the same as ñb- and could be assigned the same explication. The interlinear glosses provided for the sentences above, with their slashes and inverted commas, highlight the fact that the whole practice of interlinear glosses is deeply problematic. As this paper illustrates, the assumption that any words from any language can be matched, at least approximately, with some English words, is plain wrong. The practice of interlinear glosses perpetuates both the myth of word-for-word translatability and the view that English words offer a viable “neutral” medium for the representation of meaning. Returning to Warlpiri, I will note that while it is similar to Kalam in that it does not distinguish between ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’, it draws other lexical distinctions, absent from both English and Kalam. Consider for example the verb yilyiwirrpi-rni, glossed as “drink, drink up, slurp up, lap up, sip, suck up”, and defined as follows: “xerg ingest (nga-rni) y (= heavy liquid typically blood, fat or hot liquid) 5.  Some Australian languages have grammaticalized the concept of, roughly speaking, ‘eating/drinking’ in the form of what is often called an “associated eating suffix”. For example, of the Wangaaybuwan language of New South Wales, Donaldson (1980 : 175–6) writes that the “associated eating suffix” –DHa-y “indicates that the event occurs in association with eating and/or drinking (…) –DHa-y is obligatory whenever some NP argument in the sentence has to be interpreted as being ingested.” (Cf. also Giacon, Forthcoming).



All people eat and drink 

bit by bit”. What is particularly interesting is the folk comments on the meaning of this Warlpiri word included in the Dictionary: ‘Yilyi-wirrpirni is what they do to kangaroo blood. Yirrimiji is what we call the blood of kangaroos. The word yilyi-wirrpirni is used thus: when the meat has cooked and they have taken it out of the cooking-pit and are cutting it up, they pour the blood into pannikins or tins as once it’s cooked it is good to drink. They drink up that blood. They drink it out of the tin or whatever. Or even if there are no pannikins or tins they still drink it up – when they cut up the cooked kangaroo they slurp up the blood as they do so.’ Kuyu marlu karna ngajulurlu yilyi-wirrpirni yirrimiji. ‘I drink up the blood of the kangaroo.’ Yilyi-wirrpirni karna wawirri jara. ‘I am slurping up the kangaroo fat.’

One reason why these comments are so valuable is that they illuminate the link between conceptual categories and cultural practices. The Warlpiri word yilyiwirrpirni appears to include in its meaning a reference to a cultural practice involving kangaroo blood. Evidently, the word can be also used in other contexts (for example, with reference to kangaroo fat), but a prototype referring to kangaroo blood appears to be included in its meaning. Roughly, to yilyi-wirrpirni appears to mean “to do something to something with one’s mouth like people do something to kangaroo blood with their mouth, bit by bit, when they want some of it to be inside their bodies”. More precisely, this meaning could be explicated as follows (the bits in bold indicate how this explication differs from those of the Kalam word ñb- and of the English word drink):

The Warlpiri word yilyi-wirrpirni (‘to slurp, like kangaroo blood’) Someone (X) was yilyi-wirrpirni-ing something (Y)

LEXICO-SYNTACTIC FRAME someone (X) was doing something to something (Y) with their mouth[m] for some time because of this, something was happening to this something (Y) at the same time PROTOTYPICAL MOTIVATIONAL SCENARIO people do something like this to something when it is like this: this something is like yirrimiji [M] [kangaroo blood] they are doing something to it with their mouth[m] because they want this something to be inside their body MANNER when someone does something like this to something the same thing happens many times it happens like this:

 Anna Wierzbicka

this someone does something to this something with their mouth[m] other people in this place can hear it at the same time, some parts of this someone’s mouth[m] are moving after this, part of this something is for a short time inside this someone’s mouth[m] after this, this someone does something to it with their mouth[m] because of this, after this, it is not inside this someone’s mouth[m] anymore, it is inside somewhere else in this someone’s body  POTENTIAL OUTCOME if someone does this to something for some time after some time all parts of this something can be inside this someone’s body

The “prototypical motivational scenario” of the English word eat includes the component “this something is not something like water”, and of drink, “this something is something like water”. The corresponding line of the “prototypical motivational scenario” of the Warlpiri word yilyi-wirrpirni reads: “this something is something like yirrimiji [kangaroo blood]”. Why does English distinguish lexically between ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ whereas, for example, Kalam and Warlpiri do not? It cannot be excluded that there could be some cultural factors at play here, as there are clearly cultural factors behind the fact that Warlpiri distinguishes lexically between “ingesting” kangaroo blood and “ingesting” things in general whereas English has no similar lexical distinction. However, it must be noted that geographically, genetically and culturally close languages of Central Australia behave differently from one another in this respect. For example, while Warlpiri makes no lexical distinction similar to that between eat and drink, Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara and Arrernte do (Goddard 1996; Henderson & Dobson 1994). There can be no doubt that culture-specific conceptualization of human activities is often related to salient culture-specific practices (cf. e.g, Goddard & Wierzbicka 2008). But the question to what extent conceptual distinctions relating to “bodily intake” of substances of different kinds are associated with different cultural practices requires further investigation. Reading the entries on bodily activities in the Warlpiri Dictionary one is also struck by the salience of ‘sucking’ in the Warlpiri view of the world and of the human life in it.6 Consider for example the following dictionary entries: kuuny-nga-rni. English: suck, eat, drink. Definition: xerg (=being) eat/drink (nga-rni) y by making vacuum with muscles of lips and mouth in contact with y or with entity containing y.

6.  The observation that “sucking” is frequently mentioned in Warlpiri Dictionary entries related to “eating” is due to Helen Bromhead (personal communication).



All people eat and drink 

Example: Yatiyi! Pamarna kuuny-ngarni. Kuuny-ngarni kapurna ngajulurlu. ‘Hurrah! Let me eat some honey. I’ll eat some.’ kunykuny-nga-rni. English: suck (out/up), draw out/up (with lips), suck on. Definition: xerg (=being) eat/drink (nga-rni) y (=liquid-like entity) by causing y to come to be external to some entity, by making vacuum with muscles of lips and mouth in contact with said entity. Examples: Pajirni karnalu, parawuju, ngula karlipa kunykuny-ngarni yangka maru pama. ‘We pick it, the parawuju flower and we suck out that black nectar.’  iriwarla karnalu pamalku ngarni, kunykuny-ngarni. Pamanya karnalu yurrkulju P kunykuny-ngarni. ‘We eat the nectar on the Corkwood flowers, suck it up. It’s the nectar of the flowers that we suck up.’

In European culture, “sucking” is associated mainly with babies, but in Warlpiri culture something like “sucking” appears to be seen also (perhaps even primarily) as a valued source of nourishment for adults. Thus, both the references to the “slurping” of kangaroo blood (for which, as we have seen, there is a separate word) and those to the “sucking” of honey and nectar are in keeping with the hunter-gatherer character of traditional Warlpiri life. The Warlpiri Dictionary defines the verb kuuny-nga-rni (“suck, eat, drink”) in terms of “making vacuum with muscles of lips and mouth”, but this is clearly a scientific Anglo perspective, not an indigenous Warlpiri one. Presumably, what matters from a Warlpiri point of view is first, that the mouth is moving in a certain way, and second, that because the mouth is moving like this, parts of the substance in question, which is first inside something else, can move too, and as a result, can be subsequently inside this someone’s mouth. To better understand the Warlpiri concept of ‘kuuny-nga-rni’, which from the point of view of English looks like a strange cross between ‘eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘sucking’, we need to understand, first, the English concept of ‘sucking’.

6.  The English concept of ‘sucking’ and its closest counterparts in Warlpiri The English verb to suck (in its primary meaning, which I will call suck1) has two main syntactic frames, both involving a “container” and one also its “contents”, as illustrated in A and B below: A. The baby went on sucking the bottle. B. He was sucking lemonade through a straw.

 Anna Wierzbicka

Of these two, the first frame has a wider range of use, and I will focus on this frame first. It is certainly a major point of difference between suck and drink that while suck can be combined both with names of liquids and names of “containers”, drink can only be combined with the former: She was sucking/drinking milk from the bottle. She was sucking/*drinking the bottle.

Thus, sucking implies that while it is the milk (juice etc.), not the container, that the “sucker” is interested in, nonetheless, he or she is doing something to the container, in order to extract the liquid from it. Of course in the case of drinking, too, the liquid is normally in some kind of container, but the conceptualization reflected in the word drink ignores the container: in the prototypical scenario of drinking, the liquid is easily accessible and the actor is seen as doing something to that liquid rather than to the container. The relative inaccessibility of the liquid implied by the verb suck explains, to some extent, the need for a greater effort of the front and side parts of the mouth, and this fits in with the salient movements of the lips (and some other parts of the mouth). On the other hand, once the liquid is in the mouth, it is drinking, rather than sucking, which implies some effort, or at least some further action: the “drinker” needs to swallow the liquid. In the case of sucking, on the other hand, the amount of liquid which is in the mouth at any one time is very small, and when it goes down the throat this is not perceived as something that one “does to it”. In any case, sucking focuses on getting some liquid into one’s mouth (a little bit at a time), and whether or not this liquid travels further into the body or not is not something that the speaker is focussing on. (One could even “spit out” what one has sucked out of the container). This is different from drinking, where what matters is taking some liquid into one’s body (and keeping it there for some time), rather than merely taking it into one’s mouth (and one could not “spit out” what one has drunk). Sucking suggests oral pleasure, whereas drinking suggests, rather, quenching one’s thirst (and perhaps soothing one’s dry throat). The extended meaning of suck as in “sucking one’s thumb” (suck2) highlights all the points discussed above in relation to suck1 : the movements of some parts of the mouth, the focus on the “container” rather than the “content” and the “oral pleasure”. To account for all the aspects of sucking discussed above I propose the following explication:

Someone (X) was sucking something (Y)   [e.g., a bottle] LEXICO-SYNTACTIC FRAME someone (X) was doing something to something (Y) with their mouth[m] for some time



All people eat and drink 

because of this, something was happening to this something at the same time PROTOTYPICAL MOTIVATIONAL SCENARIO people do something like this to something when it is like this: there is something else inside this something this other something is something like water [m] they do something to this something with their mouth[m] because they want part of this other something to be for a short time inside their mouth[m] babies [m] do something like this to their mothers’ breasts[m] MANNER when someone does something like this to something the same thing happens many times it happens like this: this someone does something to this something with their mouth[m]\ when this someone is doing it, some parts of this someone’s mouth[m] are moving as this someone wants because of this, a small part of this other thing moves inside this something because of this, after this, it is not inside this something anymore, it is inside this someone’s mouth when it is in this someone’s mouth, something happens to it because of this, after this, it is not inside this someone’s mouth[m] anymore POTENTIAL OUTCOME if someone does something like this to something for some time when there is something else inside it all of this other thing [i.e., all parts of it] can be for a short time inside this someone’s mouth[m]

When suck is used in the other syntactic frame, in which the word for the contents rather than the container is the direct object, its explication will be closer to that of the Warlpiri word kuuny-ngarni, but it will still be different from it in some respects. Above all, the Warlpiri concept of ‘kuuny-ngarni’ is clearly a hyponym of the concept ‘ngarni’, whereas in English, the concept of ‘sucking something from something’ is not a hyponym of any other named concept. As the examples in the Warlpiri Dictionary show, in Warlpiri, the same activity can be described, in the same sentence, as kuuny-ngarni and ngarni. By contrast, in English, sucking and drinking tend to exclude each other, and so do sucking and eating, so that the English gloss of the Warlpiri sentence below sounds odd (in English):

Piriwa-rla corkwood-loc

ka-rnalu pama-lku pres-1pl.excl.subj delicacy-then



kunykuny-nga-rni “suck out”-“eat/drink”-npst



‘We eat the nectar on the Corkwood flowers, suck it up.’

nga-rni, “eat/drink”-npst

 Anna Wierzbicka

Arguably, in the explications of the Warlpiri words kuuny-ngarni and kunykuny-ngari, the verb ngarni itself should be used as a semantic molecule. But there are no semantic molecules (other than ‘water’ and ‘mouth’) which could be justifiably used in the explication of the English word suck, regardless of its syntactic frame.

Someone (X) was sucking something (Y) from something (Z) LEXICO-SYNTACTIC FRAME someone (X) was doing something (Y) with their mouth[m] for some time because of this, something was happening to this something at the same time PROTOTYPICAL MOTIVATIONAL SCENARIO people do something like this to something when it is like this: this something is something like water [m] this something is inside something else this someone is doing something to this something with their mouth[m] because they want part of this something to be inside their body MANNER when someone does something like this to something the same thing happens many times it happens like this: this someone does something to this something with their mouth[m] when this someone is doing it, some parts of this someone’s mouth[m] are moving because of this, after this, a small part of this thing moves inside this other thing because of this, after this, it is not inside this other thing anymore, it is inside this someone’s mouth[m] when it is in this someone’s mouth, something happens to it because of this, after this, it is not inside this someone’s mouth[m] anymore it is somewhere else inside this someone’s body [mouth?]  POTENTIAL OUTCOME if someone does something like this to something for some time when this something is inside something else after some time all of it can be inside this someone’s body

7.  “Drinking” in another Australian language, Arrernte In order to better understand the concept encoded in the English word drink, it will be useful to compare it not only with its closest counterparts in Kalam and



All people eat and drink 

Warlpiri, but also with its counterpart in another well documented Australian language: Arrernte. As we have seen, neither Kalam nor Warlpiri distinguish lexically between “bodily intake” of liquids and solids, as English does, at least not in the case of substances which are readily accessible and which are normally (noticeably) swallowed. At the same time, Warlpiri has two compound verbs for, roughly speaking, consumption of liquids, applicable to substances which are usually not easily accessible and whose extraction needs to be slow and gradual and requires special movements of the lips and other muscles of the mouth. Arrernte is closer to English than Warlpiri is in that it, too, makes a distinction between, roughly speaking, “consumption of solids” and “consumption of liquids”, that is, a distinction comparable to that of eating and drinking. The word glossed in the Arrernte dictionary (Henderson and Dobson 1994) as “eat” is arl kweme, illustrated with sentences like the following ones (I will only give English glosses here): ‘This fruit tastes really sweet when you eat it’. (p. 213) ‘You can eat it raw’. (p. 212) The word glossed by the Arrernte dictionary as “drink” is antyweme, illustrated, inter alia, with the sentence translated into English as follows: ‘I drank too much water and now my stomach is upset’. However, the full gloss for the relevant sense of the verb antyweme reads: “drink something; have a drink, sip, suck”, and the illustrative examples include some which would normally not be translated into English with the verb drink. For example: ‘The butterfly’s (wings) are fluttering as it sips the nectar.’ (p. 165) ‘Ticks drink your blood’. (p. 166) ‘The marchfly drinks [antyweme] blood by jabbing his long nose into the person’s skin and sucking [antyweme] the blood up through it. ‘Is your child still breastfeeding (lit. antyweme-ing `the breast)’? (p. 166) Both the examples and the Dictionary’s gloss for the verb antyweme suggest that this verb is close not only to the English drink but also to the English suck, and the English-Arrernte part of the Dictionary offers antyweme as a gloss for suck, as well as for drink. The verb antyweme is also used as part of the compound ltyantyweme (from ltye ‘juice, sap, nectar’ and antyeme ‘drink/suck’), glossed as ‘suck’. What can a verb mean if it refers, above all, to the bodily intake of liquids or semi-liquids (e.g., honey), if it is applicable to “blood-sucking” insects as well as to humans, and if it is also applicable to a baby sucking its mother’s breast? It seems clear that the meaning of antyweme is not identical to that of either drink or suck, but combines some semantic components of both these concepts.

 Anna Wierzbicka

Having studied all the examples offered in the Dictionary and all the clues, I would hypothesize that this meaning can be captured in the following explication:

Someone (X) was antyweme-ing (‘drinking/sucking’) something (juice, nectar; blood; mother’s milk) LEXICO-SYNTACTIC FRAME someone (X) was doing something to something (Y) with their mouth[m] for some time because of this, something was happening to this something at the same time PROTOTYPICAL MOTIVATIONAL SCENARIO people do something like this to something when it is like this: this something is something like water [m] this something is inside something else they are doing something to this something with their mouth[m] because they want this something to be inside their body MANNER when someone does something like this to something the same thing happens many times it happens like this: this someone does something to this something with their mouth[m] because of this, part of this something moves because of this, after this, it is not inside this other thing anymore, it is inside this someone’s mouth when it is in this someone’s mouth, something happens to it because of this, after this, it is not inside this someone’s mouth[m] anymore it is somewhere else inside this someone’s body POTENTIAL OUTCOME if someone does something like this to something for some time after some time all of it can be inside this someone’s body

As this explication shows, the Arrernte concept of ‘antyweme’ shares the following main component with the English ‘drink’: it refers to “bodily intake” of liquids. At the same time, it differs from ‘drinking’ because it does not refer to anything like “swallowing” (or “doing something to the liquid with one’s mouth when it is inside one’s mouth”), and because it refers to the presence of something like a container from which the liquid in question has to be removed. In these latter two respects, antyweme is different from the English drink but analogous to the English suck. However, I have not included in the explication of antyweme two components which have been included in that of suck: the one referring to the movements of



All people eat and drink 

the mouth and the one referring to the liquid moving “inside that other thing (the container)”. If such specific manner components were included in the explication it would be difficult to explain why antyweme can refer to ordinary “intake of water” (i.e., to what would be called in English “drinking) and also, why this verb can be so readily extended to insects, in the case of which no “movements of the mouth” could be possibly observed or even imagined. Interestingly, Arrernte has also another verb glossed by the Dictionary as “suck something, suck on something”, and when used in a different syntactic frame, “suck stuff from something”. The verb in question is akweke-areme. The examples provided refer to “sucking a flower” and “sucking the nectar from a flower”. But a baby sucking its mother’s breast is described by means of antyweme (‘drink/suck’), not in terms of akweke-areme (‘suck on’). My main conclusion concerning the Arrernte data is that while the language does draw a lexical distinction broadly speaking analogous to that between eat and drink, the Arrernte counterpart of drink is similar in some respects to the English suck rather than the English drink and that its construal includes a “container” from which the liquid needs to be extracted or removed before it can be introduced though the mouth into the body. The link between the construal of activities which in English would be conceptually separated as either “drinking” or “sucking” appears to reflect a cultural interest in how consumable liquids can be obtained – a concern reflected in English only in the somewhat peripheral verb suck, not in the two basic categories lexicalized as eat and drink.

8.  Conclusion As we have seen, ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are not universal human concepts. At the same time, the material discussed in this paper and coming from languages as different from English as Kalam, Warlpiri and Arrernte shows that all these languages have words, broadly speaking, comparable to the English words eat and drink. Such words are frequently glossed by linguists as “eat” and “drink”, but clearly, such glosses are inaccurate and misleading, and glosses like “eat water” exoticise the concepts in question and make them incomprehensible, almost bizarre. They are also sometimes glossed as “ingest” or “consume”, and clearly, such glosses (which suggest an abstract, technical and/or scientific perspective on the bodily activities involved) are also inaccurate and misleading. The approach illustrated in this paper is radically different from those two, because it relies on shared, universal concepts, and thus can avoid the pitfalls of scientification, eurocentrism, and exoticisation.

 Anna Wierzbicka

Thus, the conceptual categories ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ do not cut nature at its joints. The conceptualization of such activities depends, to some extent, on what is culturally salient in a particular society. The concepts of doing and happening are universal, as are also people, body, inside, and the other sixty or so concepts specified in Table 1. But ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, while very common, are not universal. Detailed lexicographic studies of non-European and not easily accessible languages such as Kalam, Warlpiri and Arrente can help speakers of English, including Anglophone scholars, to see the world in a new, non-Eurocentric, way. There is an important lesson here for colour studies, emotion studies, and many other areas of psychology and related disciplines (Wierzbicka 2008, in press a). The more science becomes dominated by English the more it needs to seek what Russian formalists of the early twentieth century used to call “ostranenie” (the principle of “making strange”, that is, of making the familiar look foreign). Detailed lexicographic studies of languages like Kalam, Warlpiri and Arrente can contribute significantly to that “ostranienie”, which the globalized and Englishdependent contemporary science badly needs. They can teach us  – if anything can  – that apart from the sixty-three empirically discovered universal semantic primes no other concepts can be taken for granted as culture-independent analytical tools – not even as seemingly “simple” and “natural” ones as ‘eat’ and ‘drink’.

Abbreviations 1 =1st person; 3 = 3rd person; erg = ergative; excl = exclusive; imp = imperative verb inflection; loc = locative; npst = nonpast verb inflection; obj = object; pl = plural; pres = present verb inflection; sg = singular; subj = subject.

References Blevins, Juliette. 2001. Nhanda: An aboriginal language of Western Australia. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai’i Press. Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary. 1991. London: Collins. Donaldson, Tamsin. 1980. Ngiyambaa: The language of the Wangaaybuwan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giacon, John. Forthcoming. Associated motion and associated eating: Yuwaalaraay Gamilaraay verb specification. Goddard, Cliff. 1996. Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara to English dictionary, rev. 2nd Edn. Alice Springs: Institute for Aboriginal Development. Goddard, Cliff. 1998. Semantic analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goddard, Cliff. 2001. Lexico-semantic universals: A critical overview. Linguistic Typology 5(1): 1–66.



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Goddard, Cliff. 2002. The search for the shared semantic core of all languages. In Meaning and Universal Grammar: Theory and empirical findings,Vol. 1, Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds), 5–40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Goddard, Cliff. 2005. Natural Semantic Metalanguage. In Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, 2nd Edn. Keith Brown (Ed), Oxford: Elsevier. Goddard, Cliff. 2007. Semantic molecules. In Selected papers of the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Australian Linguistic Society, Ilana Mushin & Mary Laughren (Eds), (http://espace.library. uq.edu.au/view.php?pid=UQ: 12798) Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds). 2002. Meaning and Universal Grammar: Theory and empirical findings. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka. 2008. Contrastive semantics of physical activity verbs: “Cutting” and “chopping” in English, Polish, and Japanese. Language Sciences 31(1): 60–96. Henderson, John & Veronica Dobson. 1994. Eastern and Central Arrernte to English dictionary. Alice Springs: Institute for Aboriginal Development. Kilham, Christine, Mabel Pamulkan, Jennifer Pootchemunka & Topsy Wolmby. 1986. Dictionary and source book of the Wik-Mungkan language. Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Laughren, Mary, Ken Hale & Warlpiri Lexicography Group. 2006. Warlpiri-English encyclopaedic dictionary. Electronic files. St Lucia: University of Queensland. Lehrman, Alexander. 2006. Meaning as grammar. Language Sciences 28: 497–507. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1903. Opuscules et fragments inédits de Leibniz. Louis Couturat (Ed), Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Repr. 1961. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Pawley, Andrew. 1994. Kalam Exponents of lexical and semantic primitives. Semantic and lexical universals, Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds), 387–421. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pawley, Andrew & R.N.H. Bulmer. In press. A dictionary of Kalam with ethnographic notes. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1980. Lingua mentalis: The semantics of natural language. Sydney: Academic Press. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1996. Semantics: Primes and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wierzbicka, Anna. 2007. Bodies and their parts: An NSM approach to semantic typology. Language Sciences 29: 14–65. Wierzbicka, Anna. 2008. Why there are no ‘colour universals’ in language and thought. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14: 407–425. Wierzbicka, Anna. In press a. Language and metalanguage: Key issues in emotion research. Emotion Review 1(1). Wierzbicka, Anna. In press b. ‘Eating’ and ‘drinking’ in Kalam. In A Festschrift for Andrew Pawley, John Bowden & Nikolaus Himmelmann (Eds), Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Wong, Jock, Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka. To appear. Walk, run, jump: The semantics of human “locomotion”.

‘eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’ A generic verb and its semantics in manambu Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald The Cairns Institute James Cook University

Many of the world’s languages have different forms for the concepts of ‘eating’ (solid food) and ‘drinking’ (liquid). Manambu, from the Ndu family in the Sepik region of New Guinea, has the same verb covering the notions of ‘eating’, ‘drinking’, smoking’ and ‘breast-feeding’. It also refers to destructive processes (‘drowning’ and ‘burning down’), and to the ritual distribution of a mortuary payment. The verb of consumption is similar to a number of general verbs in the language whose semantics is disambiguated by their object arguments. Having one form for all ingestive processes is a feature Manambu shares with many languages of New Guinea. Examples of a similar polysemy outside New Guinea come from a number of Australian languages, all adjacent to each other, pointing towards its diffusability.

Many of the world’s languages have different forms for the concepts of ‘eating’ (solid foods) and ‘drinking’ (liquid) (see John Newman, Chapter 1, this volume, for an overview). However, this is not universal. In a number of languages of New Guinea, the same form covers these concepts. We first discuss the functions and metaphorical extensions of such a verb in Manambu, a Ndu language from the Sepik area of New Guinea (Section 1), and then look at its properties within the context of the Manambu verbs (Section 2). Section 3 addresses the generic verb of ‘consumption’ in a genetic and areal perspective. 1.  The verb of ‘consumption’ and its semantics in Manambu1 1.1  Eating, drinking and smoking: general remarks Manambu has one verb kә- referring to the consumption of any substance (independent of its consistency) that involves swallowing, inhaling or going down the .  Manambu is spoken by over 2000 people in 5 villages in the Ambunti district, East Sepik Province. It is predominantly suffixing and agglutinating with some fusion, and combines both dependentmarking and head-marking. The subject is always cross-referenced on the verb; another constituent

 Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

person’s throat. This verb can refer to drinking, as in (1), to eating, as in (2), and to smoking, as in (3): (1) gu kә-na-wun water consume-act.foc-1sgbas.np ‘Iˉamˉdrinkingˉwater;ˉIˉhaveˉdrunkˉwater.’ˉ(lit.ˉ‘Iˉamˉconsumingˉwater;ˉIˉhave ˉconsumed water.’) (2) kamna:gw kә-na-wun food consume-act.foc-1sgbas.np ‘Iˉamˉeatingˉfood;ˉIˉhaveˉeatenˉfood.’ˉ(lit.ˉ‘Iˉamˉconsumingˉfood;ˉIˉhaveˉ consumedˉfood.’) (3) yaki kә-na-wun tobacco consume-act.foc-1sgbas.np ‘Iˉamˉsmokingˉtobacco;ˉIˉhaveˉsmoked.’ˉ(lit.ˉ‘Iˉamˉconsumingˉtobacco;ˉIˉhave ˉconsumed tobacco.’)

The exact meaning of the verb kә- is disambiguated by its second argument, that is, the object which can be water, food, or tobacco. The second argument has all the properties of an object. For instance, it can be marked with the accusative case if definite or referential, as in (4): (4) kә gu-a: m dem.prox.fem.sg water-lk+acc ‘Iˉwillˉdrinkˉthisˉwater.’

kә-k-na-wun consume-fut-act.foc-1sgbas.np

The majority of Manambu verbs are S=A ambitransitive – they can be used transitively and intransitively. The verb kә- ‘consume’ is one of these – it can be used transitively (as in (1)–(4)) or intransitively, as in (5). (5) bәta: y kә-na-wun already consume-act.foc-1sgbas.np ‘Iˉhaveˉalreadyˉeaten/drunk/smoked.’

This sentence does not presuppose any specific object – rather, it describes the act of having consumed food, drink or smoke, depending on the context (and implies that the speaker is satisfied and does not want any more). This is quite unlike many other languages, such as Athapaskan, described by Sally Rice (Chapter 6, this volume), where the choice of ingestive verb depends on the properties of the object, similarly to typical classificatory verbs. And also, unlike many other languages, the ingestive verb in Manambu does not display any quirky transitivity (object, location, time, or manner) can also be cross-referenced if it is more topical than the subject. A verb marked with action focus and non-past tense can refer to present, recent past and near future (as in (1)–(4)). Manambu has nine case-forms, including accusative-locative case marking referential and definite objects, and dative case (Aikhenvald 2008 provides a reference grammar).



‘eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’ 

patterns (see Åshild Naess, Chapter 2, this volume, and Amberber 2002 and Chapter 3, this volume, for cross-linguistic generalizations concerning the transitivity of ingestive verbs). The verb kә- is not used with any directionals. It appears in the first slot of a few verb compounds, kә-kәta- (consume-try) ‘taste, try and consume’ and kә-kusә- (consume-finish) ‘finish consuming, eat/drink up’. In Section 2, we return to its other properties in the context of grammatical subclasses of verbs in Manambu. If the object is clear from the context, it can be omitted, and no ambiguity arises with regard to which ingestive process is implied. Consider (6). The object gu ‘water’ is understood from the context due to the presence of the verb ‘pour’ and the location, ‘cup’:  (6) kapa:r wur-sakin ak cup+lk+all pour-across.away+seq impv+consume ‘Drinkˉ(water)ˉpouringˉitˉintoˉtheˉcupˉ(fromˉtheˉbucket).’ˉ(or: ‘Drinkˉwaterˉhavingˉpoured itˉintoˉtheˉcup.’)

The verb kә- can also mean ‘suck,ˉbreast-feed’, as in mәñ kә- (breastˉconsume) ˉ‘beˉbreast-feeding’ˉ(ofˉaˉbaby)ˉinˉ(7).

(7) yabә-wa mәñ kә-kwa-na road+lk-comit breast consume-hab-act.foc+3fem.sgbas.np ‘Sheˉusuallyˉbreast-feedsˉ(asˉweˉgo)ˉalongˉtheˉroad.’

This expression also occurs in the term for ‘last child’, kә-tәp-ә-mәñ (consume-be. closed-lk-breast) lit. ‘eat breast for the last time’. We will now turn to further uses and metaphorical extensions of this polyfunctional verb (§1.2). Further verbs to do with consumption of food and drink in Manambu are considered in §1.3. Then we address the problem of which of the ‘ingestive’ meanings – if any – is primary (§1.4). 1.2  ‘Metaphorical consumption’ in Manambu As expected (see John Newman, Chapter 1, this volume), the ‘ingestive’ verb has a variety of metaphorical extensions. A number of these refer to destructive processes (compare similar, ‘destructive’, overtones of ingestive verbs in Amharic, discussed by John Newman and Daniel Aberra, Chapter 11 of this volume). The verb kә- in combination with gu ‘water’ as its formally unmarked direct object may also mean ‘drown’, as in (8): (8) ñab-a:r yi-tukwa guˉ+ kә-ku Sepik.river-lk+all go-proh water+ consume-compl.ss kiya-k-na-ñin die-fut-act.foc-2fem.sgbas.np ‘DoˉnotˉgoˉtoˉtheˉSepikˉRiver,ˉ(orˉelse)ˉyouˉwillˉdieˉbyˉdrowning.’

 Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

That ‘consuming water’ involves drowning is clear from the context because the negative consequence, ‘dying’, is overtly mentioned. In fact, the context may be sufficient, as in a warning: (9) guˉ+ˉkә-k-na-ñin waterˉ+ˉconsume-fut-act.foc-2fem.sgbas.np ‘Youˉmightˉdrownˉ(sinceˉyouˉcan’tˉswim,ˉandˉtheˉriverˉisˉdeep).’

The grammatical function of ‘water’ in the expression gu kә- ‘drown’ is different from that of gu ‘water’ in gu kә- ‘drink water’ (exemplified in (1) and (4)). The expression ‘drown’ is a lexicalized complex predicate which consists of two phonological words but forms one grammatical word (the two components are separated in examples (8) and (9) with +). No constituent can normally intervene between gu ‘water’ and kә- ‘consume’, and gu ‘water’ cannot be modified by an adjective or a demonstrative; neither can it be understood as definite or referential and take accusative case marking. And gu in (8) and (9) cannot be questioned. A question agwa-ja:p kә-k-na-ñin (what-thing consume-fut-act. foc-2fem.sgbas.np) ‘What might you consume?’ presupposes consuming water, or food, or tobacco, but cannot be answered with something like *gu kә-k-nawun (water consume-fut-act.foc-1sgbas.np) ‘I might drown’. This is unlike the same word gu ‘water’ as an object of kә- in its conventional meaning ‘consume’ – this was illustrated in (4). The verb kә- ‘consume’ has a destructive extension in another idiomatic expression, yi kә- (fireA consume) ‘burn completely’. Here, the fire is the transitive subject (A), and the village is the object (O): (10) a-dә tәpO yiA bәta:y ka:d dem.dist-masc.sg village fire already consume+3masc.sgbas.p ‘Fireˉalreadyˉdevouredˉthatˉvillage.’

The verb kә- ‘consume’ has a destructive extension in yet another context. If a person breaks a taboo concerning the two ritually most important resources, yams and fish, they have to appease the ancestral spirits of yams and of fish, with offerings of a chicken, betelnuts, or a pig. Otherwise the offender would run the danger of falling sick and dying as a result of what Harrison (1990:  49) called “a grim reversal of the normal role of man and food”: the foods the offender had misused would ‘eat him’ (Harrison 1993: 49): (11) kә-kә-na-dana-d consume-fut-act.foc-3plsubj.np-3masc.sgbas.np ‘Theyˉwillˉconsumeˉ(thatˉis,ˉdestroy,ˉeliminate)ˉhim.’

The verb kә- has an additional culturally important metaphorical extension, embedded within the traditional Manambu system of exchange and payment



‘eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’ 

between kinsmen.2 When a sister’s child dies, their mother’s kinsmen receive a large payment (nowadays of cash and/or shell valuables) which is supposed to repay them for their gifts and other services to the dead person (including payments for bride-price). The payments are distributed as a follow-up to the Mortuary Feast, Kәkә-tәp (consume:red-be.closed), lit. ‘eating for the last time’. The name of the feast is transparent: it is indeed conceptualized as ritual ‘eating’ of a relative (see further discussion in Harrison 1990: 35). The bride-price, takwa-yu (woman+lk-greensnail.shell (used as shell money)), or simply yu-, is also ‘eaten’, that is ‘consumed’, by the recipient. All the Manambu are proficient in Tok Pisin, the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea, and some know a fair bit of New Guinea English. Whenever they speak about organizing the Mortuary Feast and receiving concomitant payments in Tok Pisin, they use the verb kaikai ‘eat’. This confirms that the speakers do conceptualize receiving a payment as tantamount to consuming food. This idea of ‘consuming’ a payment is reflected in the way a speaker explained who the recipient of a particular mortuary payment was. The verb kә- is in bold. (12) atawa kәkә-tәp thus consume:red-be.closed

kui-ba-k aw give.to.3.p-1pl-compl.ds so

dә-kә amæy lә-kә-di gәkәkә-di dәy ya-ku he-obl+fem.sg mother she-obl-pl side+obl-pl they come-compl.ss dәy yu kә-da-d they shell.valuable consume-3plsubj.p-3plbas.p ‘Thus as we give ‘Mortuary Feast’, his (relatives), so those on his mother’s side having come, they receive (lit. consume) shell valuables.’

The idea of a particular sub-clan having the right to receive a payment on their sister’s child’s death is usually described as ‘consuming’: (13) ñәki:k tә-ku day kә-da-d blood+dat be-compl.ss they consume-3plsubj.p-3plbas.p ‘Dueˉtoˉtheirˉbloodˉ(inheritedˉthroughˉone’sˉmaternalˉside),ˉtheyˉconsumeˉitˉ (theˉpayment).’

One talks about ‘consuming’ money and valuables at the Mortuary Feast, as in (14).

.  A major feature of the kinship system of the middle Sepik area societies, including the Manambu, is the tie between mother’s brother and sister’s child, whereby the mother’s brother maintains a warm, solicitous and quasi-maternal relationship with the nephew (see Harrison 1993: 43, and Forge 1971).

 Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

(14) nak-a-na nak-a-na ja:p mani æm san one-lk-one one-lk-one thing money share put/plant+seq kә-da-d consume-3plsubj.p-3plbas.p ‘Theyˉconsumeˉvaluablesˉ(lit.ˉthings)ˉ(and)ˉmoney,ˉsharingˉthemˉoneˉbyˉone.’

‘Consuming’ a relative has an additional meaning of organizing the Mortuary Feast. The compound ‘sister’s children’ is in the O function: (15) nakalәb kә-kwa-na-dian gabәraw-ñanugwO together consume-hab-act.foc-1plbas.np sister’s.child-children ‘Weˉconsumeˉsister’sˉchildrenˉallˉtogether.’ˉ(thatˉis,ˉweˉprepareˉtheˉMortuaryˉ Feast together)

In this metaphorical meaning, the verb kә- can be used as a convenient way of summing up a kinship relationship between people without going into too much detail. During my fieldwork in Avatip, the major Manambu-speaking village, I was adopted into a family, and consequently into a clan. Just like all the indigenous groups of the area, everyone in the Manambu community is related to everyone else, and the major issue is to determine exactly how the person, especially a newcomer, fits into the existing system. A store owner in the Avatip village had figured out my relationship to him (before I did) and summed it up as follows: (16) kusә-ñәn-әk ñәn-a:m kә-k-na-wun finish-2fem.sg-compl.ds you-lk+acc consume-fut-act.foc-1sgbas.np ‘Whenˉyouˉdie,ˉIˉwillˉconsumeˉyou.’

This was said instead of going into a lengthy explanation of what clan he belongs to and what makes me count among his sister’s children. There are no more anthropophagical implications to such ways of expression than there are to the Christian tradition of holy communion, whereby Christ’s flesh and blood are metaphorically ‘consumed’. The Mortuary Feast and associated mourning ceremonies are among the few traditional ritual activities still very much alive among the Manambu (see Aikhenvald 2008: 11–13). The Mortuary Feast occupies a central role in Manambu society, providing a ‘social glue’ for the Manambu within villages and also away from them, for the urban Manambu. This is undoubtedly due to the monetary exchange and potential gain for the participants. Once the relative has been metaphorically ‘eaten’ and the payment received, the person is said to be ‘over and done with’ since the obligation has been fulfilled:



‘eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’ 

(17) kәkә-tәp kui-ku, dә-kә-m consume:red-be.closed give.to.3.p-compl.ss he-obl-acc wukәmaymar-ba-l aka ya forget:ˉred-1plsubj.p-3fem.sgbas.p there emph ‘HavingˉgivenˉhimˉtheˉMortuaryˉFeast,ˉweˉfullyˉforgetˉaboutˉhim.’

This takes us to a further overtone of ‘consume’ – that of something done and forgotten. This is illustrated in (18), from a lament about a foiled marriage (Harrison 1983: 51–2; glossing and translation are mine). The would-be bride remembers the man who’d promised to marry her, and then adds that this is not something to be forgotten easily. This is phrased as ‘thing to eat with food and forget’ (in bold in the example below): (18) wun-a:k kra:k wa-mәnә-k wun ma:ˉ wukәmar I-lk+dat marry+purp.ss say-2masc.sg-compl.ds I neg forget:ˉneg kamnagwә-wa ka:n wukәmar-ja:p-adi wa-kәr? wun food+lk-comit consume+seq forget-thing-3plnom say-des I wukE-jәbәr rә-kә-tua-dәmәn think-customary sit-fut-1sgsubj.np-2masc.sgbas.np ‘After you said you would marry me, I did not forget (this). Do I want to say that these are things to eat with (one’s food) and forget (lit. these are things forgotten, after having been eaten with food)? I always think about you.’

That is, ‘being eaten with one’s food’ is a sure road to oblivion. In addition, kә- can also refer to one’s livelihood: (19) implies that lazy people live off store goods rather than having their own gardens: (19) kamna:gw yapi:n kә-kwa-na-di kaykwap-adi food buy+seq consume-hab-act.foc-3plbas.np lazy-3plnom ‘Theyˉliveˉonˉstoreˉgoodsˉ(lit.ˉtheyˉeatˉfoodˉbyˉbuying),ˉtheyˉareˉlazy.’

1.3  Other verbs referring to food consumption Manambu has highly productive verb compounding. Numerous verbs may have been compositional compounds at some point in time; however, nowadays only one part can be recognized as an extant verb. For instance, the compound gra-makimeans ‘cry a lot’ and obviously contains the verbal root gra- ‘cry’ (which has cognates throughout the Ndu family). The component -maki- is not found in the modern language (or in the other related languages). Two verbs contain kә- ‘consume’ as their first component. These are kә-marki- ‘swallow’ (the meaning of -marki- is obscure) (see (21)) and kә-jaba- ‘spit out’ (the form jaba- on its own means ‘spit’). The verb kә- never means ‘bite’: vætә- ‘bite, sting (of mosquitoes)’ is used in this meaning.

 Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

If food is only chewed and not swallowed, the verb jә- is used. This verb is S=A ambitransitive, just like the general verb kә- ‘consume’ (see (1)–(5)). (20) ma:s akәs jә-kwa-na betelnut neg.hab chew-hab-act.foc+3fem.sgbas.np ‘Sheˉneverˉchewsˉbetelnut.’

The most typical traditional chewing activity among the Manambu and their neighbours involves betelnut. (This practice is forbidden for some Christian denominations – (20) was said about a woman who is a Seventh Day Adventist, and therefore abhors betelnut chewing.) Nowadays jә- also applies to such Western innovations as chewing gum (also chewed, but not swallowed). This verb can also describe chewing food for someone else who cannot do it otherwise, so as to facilitate its consumption. (21) comes from a traditional narrative about Kamkundi, the sole survivor of a bloody battle who had been hiding in the trunk of a sago tree for so long that he could not eat by himself. A Manambu man, Sisawi, found him. In order to save Kamkundi’s life, Sisawi had to chew food and put it into his mouth: (21) adәka jә-ta:y lau-lap ata dem.dist.masc.sg.top chew-cotemp.ss ripe-banana then kui-dә-k ata kә-marki-dә-l give.to.3.p-3masc.sg-compl.ds then consume-swallow-3masc.sgsubj.p-3fem. sgbas.p ‘Havingˉchewedˉ(it)ˉheˉ(Sisawi)ˉgaveˉhimˉripeˉbanana,ˉthenˉheˉ(Kamkundi) ˉswallowedˉit.’3

Manambu has another verb, ñam- ‘chew food in order to put into baby’s mouth’. This describes a traditional way in which the Manambu women used to feed babies who could not yet take solid food. The Manambu term for such baby food is ñam-kamna:gw (chew.for.baby-food). This is how it was described: (22) kwasa-ñanugw-a:k kui-kwa-bana kamna:gw small-children-lk+dat give.to.3.p-hab-1plsubj.np+3fem.sgbas.np food ñam-kamna:gw-al chew.for.baby-food-3fem.sgnom ‘Theˉfoodˉweˉgiveˉtoˉsmallˉchildrenˉisˉtheˉfoodˉchewedˉforˉbabiesˉ(andˉputˉinto ˉtheir mouth).’

.  As is typical for many Papuan languages (see Roberts 1997 for an overview), the identity of participants is disambiguated by switch reference: same subject (ss) forms are distinct from different subject (ds) forms. A literal translation for (21) is ‘He (Sisawi) having chewed, having given him ripe banana, then he (Kamkundi) swallowed it’. Note that lap ‘banana’ is feminine.



‘eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’ 

Example (21) comes from a version of the story told by a man. In her version of essentially the same story, a woman story-teller used the verb ñam- rather than jә-: (23) adәka ñam-ta:y lau-lap ata dem.dist.masc.sg.top chew.for.baby-cotemp.ss ripe-banana then kui-dә-k ata give.to.3.p-3masc.sg-compl.ds then kә-marki-dә-l consume-swallow-3masc.sgsubj.p-3fem.sgbas.p ‘Havingˉchewedˉ(it)ˉ(asˉtheˉfoodˉisˉchewedˉforˉbabiesˉandˉputˉintoˉbaby’sˉ mouth)ˉhe (Sisawi)ˉgaveˉhimˉripeˉbanana,ˉthenˉheˉ(Kamkundi)ˉswallowedˉit.’

The activity described by ñam- is what women do. Consequently, there is little wonder that a woman-narrator opted for this term, and a man employed a more general verb for ‘chewing’ instead. Various other speakers commented on the fact that the choice of the verb jә- was not felicitous in this context. We can recall that the verb kә- never refers to chewing without swallowing. Consequently, a form kәkә – an action nominalization of kә- – refers to ‘consumption in general’, that is, eating, drinking, or smoking, depending on the context (but not to chewing). It does not refer to food. As we will see in the next section, Manambu has three separate forms for ‘food’. Two of them can be used as evidence in favour of ‘eating’ as the central meaning of the verb kә- ‘consume’. 1.4  ‘Eating’ as the central meaning of the verb ‘consume’ Manambu has three general terms referring to food of various kinds. The term kamna:gw (or its variant kamna:) refers to food prepared for eating. The form kamna:gw appears to derive from a compound kami-na:gw (fish-sago). Fish and sago are the staples of the Manambu diet, so generalizing a combination of these to refer to food in general makes sense.4

.  Iatmul, also from the Ndu family, has a compound kami-nau (fish-sago) ‘fish and sago’. The noun nau ‘sago’ in Iatmul is used in a more general meaning of ‘food’ (e.g., gabi-nau ‘morning food’, ‘breakfast’), while its Manambu cognate na:gw is not. (Both nau and na:gw can refer to baked goods involving flour, e.g., Iatmul walinɨba-nau ‘white.people-sago’, Manambu wali-na:gw.) A compound kami-kamna:gw (fish-food) is used to refer to provisions, or foodstuffs, to be stored, or procured. The term mәy-a-kamna:gw (real-lk-food) ‘real food’ refers to traditional Manambu foods rather than the opposite, wali-kamna:gw (white.person-food) ‘white people’s food’, typically store-bought. Saying kamna:gw ma: (food neg) implies the lack of

 Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

The term for ‘raw food’ is kәkәpa:t. Synchronically, this form is not segmentable. However, it has a cognate in Iatmul kɨ-kɨ-va:k (eat-eat-der) ‘food’ (Jendraschek 2007; Staalsen & Staalsen 1973) (Iatmul v corresponds to the Manambu p whose intervocalic allophone is v; and word-final Iatmul k corresponds to Manambu t). While the Iatmul -va:k is a productive derivational suffix, its Manambu cognate -pa:t is found only in this term. Interestingly, the word for ‘raw food’ contains kә‘consume’ in one of its senses, that of eating. The third term kәja:p refers to protein food, such as game or fish. Speakers conceive of this word as unsegmentable. Etymologically it is a compound consisting of kә- ‘consume’ and ja:p ‘thing’. Once again, the ‘eating’ sense kә- is the one occurring in this, now fossilized, compound. The fact that the root kә- has the meanings of ‘eating’ in the two now lexicalized derived nominal forms may serve as a piece of evidence in favour of ‘eating’ – rather than ‘drinking’ or ‘smoking’ – being its central meaning. Along similar lines, the verb kɨ- in Iatmul means ‘eat, drink, smoke’ (the exact meanings are disambiguated by the context). But in the two extant terms for ‘food’ this same root refers to ‘eating’: Iatmul kɨ-kɨ-da (eat-eat-thing), kɨ-kɨ-va: k (eat-eatder) ‘food’. (The two terms appear to be full synonyms: Jendraschek 2007.) Manambu has no general word for a drink – the word gu ‘water’ covers all liquids, including beer and wine, and even petrol.5 Similarly, there is no generic term for ‘smoke’ – the word yaki ‘tobacco’ is used. The root kә- does not occur in any derivation with the meaning of ‘drink’, or ‘smoke’. This confirms our suspicion that ‘eating’ is indeed its central meaning.

2.  The status of the verb of consumption in Manambu Manambu has a large open class of verbs which fall into several subclasses depending on their transitivity and also on their semantics. We have seen the verb kә‘consume (eat, drink, smoke)’ is S=A ambitransitive. The class of verbs is open to loans (see Aikhenvald 2008: 605–618). It is not open by derivation: in other words, Manambu has no word-class-changing mechanisms which would result in a derived verb.

protein food (on several occasions, this was said when there was plenty of sago, rice and bananas in the house, but no meat or fish). .  An alternative term for alcoholic drink is either wali-gu ‘white person’s water’ or kuprapә gu ‘bad water’, or even kuprapә-saprapә gu ‘really bad water’, depending on the speaker’s attitude.



‘eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’ 

Manambu also has a closed subclass of a dozen verbs with fairly generic semantics. Different semantic overtones for these verbs are achieved through the choice of a nominal complement, or a directional, or a part of a verb compound. Generic verbs are versatile and highly frequent (in terms of type and in terms of token in texts of all genres). Five verbs used as auxiliaries, as support verbs (or light verbs) with nouns, as copulas and as lexical verbs are: tә- ‘become’, ‘be’, ‘exist (vertical position) (in a location)’, ‘have’; rә- ‘be in/at’, ‘exist (horizontal position)’; kwa- ‘be in/at’, ‘exist (in general, or in multiple locations)’; yi- ‘do, be’; and kur- ‘do, get, become (fully)’. Other generic verbs – all of them ambitransitive – cannot be used as copulas or auxiliaries. They have a fairly general meaning on their own; but the exact meaning always has to be specified by an object or a directional marker. For instance, the verb sә- can mean ‘plant, call, move’, depending on the object. If the object is ‘garden’ or any garden produce, such as kapayawi ‘sweet potato’, it refers to planting, e.g., kapayawi sә- ‘plant a sweet potato’. If the object is a song, a name or a word, it refers to ‘calling’ or ‘singing’, e.g., ga:m (serenade) sә- ‘sing a serenade’, wayәpi (address term) sә- ‘use an address term’ (also see (14)). If used intransitively, it usually means ‘move’, especially in combination with directional suffixes, e.g., sә-tay-tay- (generic.verb-to.side-to.side) ‘move back and forth’. It can also occur in lexicalized complex predicates, such as bas sә- ‘ask’ where bas means ‘first’ when used independently. Other verbs with similar properties include kar-/kra-/ ka- ‘bring, carry, take’, ku- ‘put’, ta- ‘hit, move’ and taka- ‘put, stay’. In addition, Manambu has a catch-all pro-verb mәgi- ‘do whatever, be whatever’ used whenever the speaker cannot remember the appropriate specific verb, or if the speaker chooses not to specify the exact manner of action. Generic verbs cannot be substituted with mәgi- The verb of consumption kә- shares two major features with generic verbs. Firstly, its exact meaning is determined by its object argument. Secondly, kә- cannot be replaced by the pro-verb mәgi-. Having a closed class of verbs with fairly general semantics is a feature Manambu shares with many Papuan languages of New Guinea, such as Kalam (Kalam-Kobon: Pawley 1993). Unlike Manambu, Kalam has only about 130–140 verb roots, of which 30 roots are the most frequent. Each of these has numerous senses, and the verbs combine together in serial verb constructions consisting “of a generic verb preceded by one or more verb stems and one or more nominal or adverbial complements” (Pawley 1993: 96). Despite the fact that “the object or a nominal or an adverbial complement in a broader sense carries the more specific meaning, the verb stem is not empty of meaning” (Pawley 1969: 30). Numerous Papuan languages from most areas of New Guinea have a closed set of similar, fairly generic verbs which occur with nominals (often in the object function) (see the preliminary overview in Lang 1975: 181).

 Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

The typical meanings of such generic verbs include ‘do, say’, as in Asmat (Asmat-Kamorro: Drabbe 1959:  25); ‘do’, ‘say’ and ‘go’ as in Mianmin (Ok: Smith & Weston 1974:  85), ‘hit’, ‘do, ‘be’ and ‘pierce’ in Benabena (Gahuku-Benabena: Young 1964: 78–80). In Enga (Lang 1975: 178) – and a number of other languages from the East New Guinea Highlands family to the southwest of the Sepik River Basin where Manambu is spoken – the verb of consumption has been analyzed as a generic verb. In Kewa (also from East New Guinea Highlands: Franklin 1971: 74) the verb ‘eat’ has been analyzed on a par with generic verbs such as ‘speak’, ‘bring’, ‘emit’, ‘hit’ and ‘make’. Similar examples are found in Melpa (Lang 1975: 189) and Kuman (Lang 1975: 200), from the same family. This typological similarity takes us to the next section.

3.  ‘Verb of consumption’ in Manambu: genetic and areal perspective The polysemy of kә- ‘consume’ in Manambu [1] is not an innovation.6 Most Ndu languages use a cognate form to refer to both eating and drinking, e.g., Iatmul [2] kɨ - (Jendraschek, p.c.), Ambulas [3] ka (Kundama et al. 1987: 29–30), Boikin [4] (Kwusaun dialect) k% (Laycock 1965: 165). Boikin (Yengoru dialect) has a form tɨ ho (Freudenburg 1975) which translates as both ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. This same form means ‘smoke’ in Iatmul and Ambulas (we have no information about other languages). The same polysemy is found in some unrelated neighbouring languages. Kwoma [5] (Kwoma-Nukuma family) which has been in contact with Manambu for a long time has one verb a ‘ingest’ to refer to eating and drinking (Bowden 1997) (there is, however, a different root for ‘smoke’). One verb covers the meanings of eating and drinking in a number of other New Guinea languages.7 Within the Sepik area, it is found in Alamblak [6] (Sepik Hill family; Les Bruce, p.c.) – a language which shares a number of areal features with Manambu and other Ndu languages (Aikhenvald forthcoming). The same polysemy has been recorded for two languages from the Lower Sepik

.  The approximate location of the languages cited here is given in the Map. Manambu has been assigned number 1. All other numbers are given in square brackets after each language name. .  The data presented here were based on a query on the Papuanist List (October 2006). I am grateful to Les Bruce, Borut Telban, Darija Hoenigman, Alan Rumsey, Karl Franklin, Ken Sumbuk, Andrew Pawley, Lila San Roque, Lise Dobrin, the late Cindi Farr, Ngawae Mitio, Carol Priestley, Matthew Dryer, John Roberts, Colin Filer, Lourens de Vries, Ross Bowden, and Gerd Jendraschek for providing invaluable information on the languages of their expertise. I am indebted to Nicholas Evans, Mary Laughren and David Nash for answering my questions about Australian languages, and to R.M.W. Dixon for incisive comments on various issues in this paper.



‘eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’  Manus Jayapura 25. 2 2 2. 4. 24 3. . 3. . 27a 5 28a.. 1. 2. 6. 7. 26a. 8. 9. 10.

Bismarck Archipelago

Wewak

New Ireland

20. 13.12. 21. Goroka 11.15. 14. New Britan

Port Moresby

1. Manambu (Ndu) 2. Iatmul (Ndu) 3. Ambulas (Ndu) 4. Boikin (Ndu) 5. Kwoma (Kwoma-Nukuma family) 6. Alamblak (Sepik Hill) 7. Yimas (Lower Sepik family) 8. Karawari (Lower Sepik family) 9. Awiyakay (Arafundi) 10. Ku Waru (East New Guinea Highlands family) 11. Enga (East New Guinea Highlands family) 12. Kewa (East New Guinea Highlands family) 13. Dom (East New Guinea Highlands family)

16. 1 19. 8. 17.

14. Kalam (Kalam-Koban) 15. Duna (Duna-Bogaya) 16. Orokaiva (Binanderean) 17. Korafe (Binanderean) 18. Baruga (Binanderean) 19. Biangai (Goilalan) 20. Koromu (Eavpia group, Madang) 21. Amele (Gum family) 22. Yahang (Torricelli) 23. Arapeshan languges (Torricelli) 24. Walman (Torricelli) 25. Roko-Rawo (Sko) 26a. Sare (or Kapriman) (Sepik Hill family) 27a. Yelogu (or Kaunga) (Ndu family) 28a. Gala (Ndu family)

Map. Approximate locations of Papua New Guinea Languages mentioned in §3. Languages are referred to by numbers. Languages 26a, 27a and 28a have different terms for ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’.

Family – Yimas [7] (Lower Sepik family: Foley 1986:  113) and Karawari [8] (Lower Sepik family: Telban 1998: 22) – and for Awiyakay [9] (Arafundi, also from the Sepik area: Darja Hoenigman, p.c.).

 Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

This same polysemy is found in numerous languages of the East New Guinea Highlands family: Ku Waru [10] (Alan Rumsey, p.c.), varieties of Enga [11] (Lang 1973: 75; Draper & Draper 2002: 201), Kewa [12] (Karl Franklin, p.c.) and Dom [13] (Tida Syuntaroo, p.c.).8 Other languages of the New Guinea Highlands area with one verb for ‘consume’ include Kalam [14] (Kalam-Kobon: Andrew Pawley, p.c.) and Duna [15] (Duna-Bogaya: Lila San Roque, p.c.). A number of languages from other families and areas have the same polysemy: these include Binanderean languages Orokaiva [16] (Lise Dobrin, p.c.), Korafe [17] and [18] (Cindi Farr, p.c.) from Oro Province, Biangai [19] (Goilalan: Ngawae Mitio, p.c.), from Morobe Province; Koromu [20] (Evapia group, Madang, Rai Coast: Carol Priestley, p.c.), and Amele [21] (Gum family: John Roberts, p.c.) from Madang Province; a number of Torricelli languages, including Yahang [22] (Colin Filer, p.c.), Arapeshan languages [23] (Lise Dobrin, p.c.), and Walman [24] (Matthew Dryer, p.c.), at least one Sko language, Roko-Rawo [25] (Matthew Dryer, p.c.), all from Sandaun (West Sepik) Province. The distribution of this polysemous pattern goes beyond the languages of the Highlands area, involving numerous Sepik and Torricelli languages. It has also been attested in Inanwatan, from Bird’s Head Peninsula area in West Papua (Lourens de Vries, p.c.). However, this polysemy is not ubiquitous. It is absent from Sare (also known as Kapriman [26a]), a language from the Sepik Hill family, closely related to Alamblak (Ken Sumbuk, p.c.). Two languages from the Ndu family distinguish different forms for ‘eat’ and drink’. Yelogu (or Kaunga [27a]: Laycock 1965: 165) has k% ‘eat’ (a reflex of the Proto-Ndu form ‘consume’) and rә ‘drink’ (etymology unknown). Gala [28a] distinguishes ‘eat’ (kә- or kәkә-) and ‘drink’ (dugә-/duga-) (my fieldnotes; Aikhenvald 2008; pace Laycock 1965: 165). This can be considered a Gala innovation.9 We can conclude that the apparent lack of formal differentiation between ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ in Manambu is a feature shared with many other related languages. Having the same form for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ could well be an areal feature of the island of New Guinea as a whole. Interestingly, this polysemy has not really infiltrated any variety of Tok Pisin in the Sepik area.10

.  Which of these languages use the same root for smoking or chewing is a matter for further investigation. .  The Kwoma expression uku a (lit. water ingest) ‘drink’ looks suspiciously similar to the Gala verb meaning ‘drink’. Since there was a considerable amount of contact between the Gala and the Kwoma, the Gala form may well be a borrowing. .  The expression kaikaim wara (lit. eat/bite water) to mean ‘drink’ occurs in the Tok Pisin part of the SIL questionnaire used for Boikin (Yengoru variety) in Freudenburg 1975.



‘eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’ 

Examples of a similar polysemy outside New Guinea come from a number of Australian languages. The distribution of languages which employ a single lexeme for ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ is determined by genetic and areal boundaries (see classification and the discussion of areal distribution in Dixon 2002). One form for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ is found in some languages of the Yapa subgroup of the Northern Desert Fringe genetic grouping, e.g., Warlpiri ngarni (Mary Laughren, p.c.; Menning 1981: 151, 155) and Ngardi (or Ngari: Menning 1981: 87) ngarnanta.11 (But note that Warlmanpa, from the same subgroup, has different forms for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’.) Of the neighbouring languages only Mudbura (Menning 1981:  79) and Walmatjarri (Menning 1981: 127) have the same term for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ (Mudbura nga-nyja, Walmatjari nganyja). Other languages in the same subgroup have different lexemes. Of the four languages of the Maningrida subgroup only two have one lexeme covering ‘eating’ and drinking’: Na-Kara (Eather et al. 2005: 6, 17) has verbs bara ‘eat, drink, bite’ and also dja ‘eat, drink’, and Burarra (Glasgow 1994: 113) uses bay for ‘eat, drink, bite, smoke’.12 This same polysemy has been attested in the adjacent Yolngu languages, Djapu (Morphy 1983: 183) luka ‘ingest: eat, drink, smoke’, Ritharngu (Heath 1980:  204) luka- ‘to eat, to consume, (occasionally) to drink’, and Gupapuyŋu (Anonymous n/d) luka ‘eat, drink, take’. These facts point towards areal diffusability of having a single verb of ‘consumption’. A single cover term for ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ may have different metaphorical extensions in different languages. Ku Waru (Alan Rumsey, p.c.) uses the verb ‘consume’ for ‘burn completely’ – just like Manambu (see (10)). But while in Manambu ‘the man drowned’ translates as ‘the man consumed water’, the same meaning in Kyaka Enga translates as ‘water consumed the man’ (Draper & Draper 2002: 281). Manambu, Enga and its relatives share the generic character of the verb of consumption. However, the details of usage differ. Expressions involving the verb ne- ‘consume’ in Enga (Lang 1975: 103, 178) include ‘steal, be difficult, afflict, be sick’ and so on. None of these are found in Manambu. This aberrant usage (John Burton, p.c.) may reflect a nonce calque from Boikin itself. Carol Priestley (p.c.) reports that she heard kaikai wara used by native-like speakers of Tok Pisin in the Highlands in the 1970s. .  David Nash (p.c.) suggests that the Warlpiri verb is etymologically ‘eat’ rather than ‘drink’. .  In Bininj Gun-wok or Gunwinjgu, from the adjacent Gunwinjgu-Gunbarlang group, and in Dalabon, from the Far East Arnhem Land group, ‘drink’ is formed by incorporating the noun for liquid into the root meaning ‘eat’ (Nicholas Evans, p.c.). Kayardild, a Tangkic language in the same area, has a form diyaja which means ‘eat’ but can include drinking as well (Evans 1992: 43 and p.c.). But closely related Yukulta (Keen 1983: 301) and Lardil (Leman 1997) have different lexemes for ‘eat’ and ‘drink’.

 Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Unlike other Papuan languages described so far, Manambu provides evidence in favour of one central meaning of the verb of consumption. The words for ‘food’ indicate that ‘eating’ is its central meaning. Further evidence in favour of differentiating eating, drinking and smoking comes from the words for ‘hunger, be hungry’, ‘thirst, be thirsty’ and ‘(have) desire to smoke’. All these concepts are lexically differentiated in Manambu. The word for ‘hunger’ is ka:m typically used with the verb yasa- ‘feel a desire’. The ways of saying ‘be thirsty’ are gu yasa- (water feel.a.desire) or kwa:l yasa- (neck feel.a.desire). And for ‘desire to smoke’ one says yaki yasa- (smoke feel.a.desire). Other Ndu languages also distinguish ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’ (compare Ambulas kaadé ‘hunger’, gutak ‘thirst’: Kundama et al. 1987: 28, 24; Iatmul wudɨ ‘hunger’, gu kәkә (lit. water consuming) ‘thirst’: Gerd Jendraschek, p.c.). (Along similar lines, Warlpiri distinguishes yarnunjuku ‘hunger’ and purraku ‘thirst’: Mary Laughren, p.c.) This is unlike Awiyakay, an Arafundi language from the Sepik area, where one term covers ‘eat’, ‘drink’ and ‘smoke’, and another term refers to both hunger and to thirst (Darja Hoenigman p.c.). How likely is a language with a generic ingestive verb covering eating, drinking and smoking to extend this ‘underdifferentiation’ into the domain of hunger and thirst? The question remains open for the time being. A final typological observation is in order. Dixon (1999: 331–2) proposed a semantic typology of verbal meanings, based on two parameters: (A) ‘verbs are taken to describe a kind of action with respect to the (articulation of) types of participants that are involved; or (B) verbs are taken to describe a kind of action per se.’ The Girramay dialect of Dyirbal has three specific transitive verbs of eating, depending on the nature of the foodstuff being consumed: rubima- ‘eat fish’, burnyja- ‘eat meat’, and nanba- ‘eat vegetables’. This, and also the Athapaskan languages (Sally Rice, Chapter 6, this volume) are examples of the (A) type. In contrast, Jarawara, an Arawá language from southern Amazonia, has a number of transitive verbs of eating, which describe the nature of action rather than the type of object involved, e.g., -kaba- ‘eat where a lot of chewing is involved (e.g., eat meat, fish, sweet corn)’, jome -na- ‘eat where little or no chewing is needed (e.g., eat an orange or a banana, also used for swallowing a pill), komo -na- ‘eating which involves spitting out seeds’ and bako-na- ‘eating by sucking (e.g., watermelon, sugar cane)’. This is an instance of the (B) type. Characterizations (A) and (B) are better viewed not as polar alternatives, but as the ends of a continuum. Manambu occupies a mid-way position on this continuum: the verb itself loosely defines the action which is further specified with the object argument. Additional verbs are available to specify the manner in which the action is performed (in the domain of consuming food or drink these include jә- ‘chew’ and ñam- ‘chew (food) and put it in baby’s mouth’).



‘eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’ 

Abbreviations a = transitive subject; acc = accusative; act.foc = action focus; all = allative; bas.np = basic cross referencing set non past; bas.p = basic cross referencing set past; comit = comitative; compl.ds = completive different subject; compl. ss = completive same subject; cotemp.ss = cotemporaneous same subject; dat = dative; dem.dist = demonstrative distal; dem.prox = demonstrative proximal; der = derivation; des = desiderative; emph = emphatic; fem = feminine; fut = future; give.to.3.p = give to third person; hab = habitual; impv = imperative; lk = linker; masc = masculine; neg = negative; nom = nominal cross referencing; o = object; obl = oblique marker; pl = plural; proh = prohibitive; purp.ss = purposive same subject; red = reduplication; s = intransitive subject; seq = sequential; sg = singular; subj.np = subject marking cross referencing set non past; subj.p = subject marking cross referencing set past; top = topic.

References Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2008. The Manambu language of East Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. Forthcoming. Language contact along the Sepik River. Anthropological Linguistics. Amberber, Mengistu. 2002. Quirky alternations of transitivity: The case of ingestive predicates. In Language universals and variations, Mengistu Amberber & Peter Collins (Eds), 1–20. Westport: Praeger. (reprinted in this volume). Anonymous. N/d. Temporary Gupapuyŋu dictionary. ms. Bowden, Ross. 1997. A dictionary of Kwoma, a Papuan language of north-east New Guinea. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Dixon, R.M.W. 1999. Semantic roles and syntactic functions: the semantic basis for a typology. Chicago Linguistic Society 35. Part 2: Papers from the Panels: 323–41. Dixon, R.M.W. 2002. Australian languages: Their nature and development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drabbe, P. 1959. Grammar of the Asmat language. Syracuse IN: Our Lady of the Lake Press. Draper, Norm & Sheila Draper. 2002. Dictionary of Kyaka Enga, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Eather, Bromwyn, Jimmy Kalamirnda & the Yurrbukka Community. 2005. A first dictionary of Na-Kara. Winnellie: Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation. Evans, Nicholas. 1992. Kayardild dictionary and thesaurus. A vocabulary of the language of the Bentinck Islanders, North-West Queensland. Melbourne: University of Melbourne. Foley, William A. 1986. The Papuan languages of New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forge, Anthony. 1971. Marriage and exchange in the Sepik: Comments on Francis Korn’s analysis of Iatmul society. In Rethinking kinship and marriage, Rodney Needham (Ed), 133–44. London: Tavistock Publications.

 Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald Franklin, Karl J. 1971. A grammar of Kewa, New Guinea. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Freudenburg, Allen. 1975. Survey list (standard). Boiken (Yengoru). Ms. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Glasgow, K. 1994. Burarra-Gun-nartpa dictionary with English finder list. Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Australian Aborigines and Islanders Branch. Harrison, Simon J. 1983. Laments for foiled marriages. Love songs from a Sepik river village. Boroko: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. Harrison, Simon J. 1990. Stealing people’s names. History and politics in a Sepik river cosmology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harrison, Simon J. 1993. The mask of war. Violence, ritual and the self in Melanesia. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Heath, Jeffrey. 1980. Basic materials in Ritharngu: Grammar, texts and dictionary. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Jendraschek, Gerd. 2007. Iatmul-English dictionary. Melbourne: RCLT. Keen, Sandra. 1983. Yukulta. Handbook of Australian languages, Vol. 3, R.M.W. Dixon & Barry J. Blake (Eds), 191–304. Canberra: The Australian National University Press. Kundama, J. & P. Wilson, with A. Sapai. 1987. Kudi kupuk. Ambulas (Maprik dialect) Tok Pisin English. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Lang, Adrianne. 1973. Enga dictionary with English index. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Lang, Adrianne. 1975. The semantics of classificatory verbs in Enga (and other Papua New Guinea languages). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Laycock, Donald C. 1965. The Ndu language family (Sepik District, New Guinea). Canberra: Linguistic Circle of Canberra Publications. Leman, Ngakulmungan Kangka. 1997. Lardil dictionary. A vocabulary of the language of the Lardil people, Mornington Island, Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland. Gununa: Mornington Shire Council. Menning, K. 1981. Sourcebook for Central Australian languages, David Nash (Ed), Alice Springs: Institute for Aboriginal Development. Morphy, Frances. 1983. Djapu, a Yolngu dialect. In Handbook of Australian languages, Vol. 3, R.M.W. Dixon & Barry J. Blake (Eds), 1–188. Canberra: The Australian National University Press. Newman, John. This volume. A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. Pawley, Andrew K. 1969. Transformational grammar and the native speaker: Some elementary issues. Kivung 2: 2–37. Pawley, Andrew K. 1993. A language which defies description by ordinary means. In The role of theory in language description, William A. Foley (Ed), 87–129. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Rice, Sally. This volume. Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions. Roberts, John R. 1997. Switch-reference in Papua New Guinea: A preliminary survey. In Papers in Papuan Linguistics 3, Andrew Pawley (Ed), 101–241. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Smith, Jean & Pam Weston. 1974. Notes on Mianmin grammar. In Studies in languages of the Ok family, Richard Loving (Ed), 35–142. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics [Workpapers in Papua New Guinea Languages 7]. Staalsen, Phil & Lori Staalsen. 1973. Iatmul-English dictionary. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Telban, B. 1998. Dancing through time. A Sepik cosmology. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Young, Robert A. 1964. The primary verb in Bena-bena. In Verb studies in five New Guinea languages, Benjamin F. Elson (Ed) 45–83. Norman OK: Summer Institute of Linguistics of the University of Oklahoma.

Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions Sally Rice

University of Alberta Athapaskan languages comprise one of the largest, most geographically distributed, and most culturally diverse families in North America. Nevertheless, each daughter language features a set of classificatory verb stems which, semantically, focus less on signaling a relational predication than on some physical attribute of a prominent relational participant. Consequently, most consumption expressions focus on the marking of the theme; that is, on the type of object consumed, the manner in which the consumption happens, or the extent of the dissipation of the object through a combination of classificatory verb stems and adverbial prefixes. Unlike what is found in many languages, there is no appreciable focus on the agent/consumer or on the benefits or detriments associated with the acts of eating or drinking.

1.  A focus on themes in the Dene languages1 Athapaskan languages have enjoyed a century-long history of unbroken linguistic attention, no less than by Edward Sapir himself and by several generations of his students and academic successors. The family is one of the largest, most geographically distributed, and most culturally diverse in North America. It also subsumes Navajo, a language of the American Southwest with well over 100,000 speakers and one which has received the most extensive documentation of any indigenous .  Throughout this chapter, I will use Athapaskan and Dene interchangeably to designate the entire family. Not only is Athapaskan only one of four alternate spellings which leads to some bibliographical confusion (viz. Athabaskan, Athabascan, and Athapascan), it is an Algonquian-based ethnonym designating a specific area—around Lake Athabasca straddling the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada—in which Dene speakers did and do live. Thus, the term greatly misrepresents the geographical extent of speakers as well as obscures what is generally presumed to be the Dene homeland (southern Alaska/Yukon). Increasingly, speakers are reclaiming traditional ethnonyms and variations of Dene, meaning ‘people’ or ‘person’, are preferred. I provide traditional and contemporary (reclaimed) terms for the daughter languages in footnote 3.

 Sally Rice

language in the Americas.2 Even a passing acquaintance with Athapaskan leaves one struck by the same set of typological features found in each daughter language in the family, such as an extensive phonetic inventory, a morphologically polysynthetic and partly fusional verb consisting of a final stem and a large array of prefixes, and a set of classificatory verb stems which, semantically, focus less on signaling a relational predication (for example, in the context of the present volume, on eating or drinking) than on some physical attribute of a prominent relational participant (e.g., the entity consuming or being consumed). The classificatory verb system in Athapaskan is generally associated with expressions of location/existence, independent motion, and controlled or uncontrolled handling of entities which are solid and compact, sticklike, heaplike, flat and flexible, and so on. However, a vestige of what may have once been a robust classificatory verb stem system across the family for verbs of eating and drinking still persists in a couple of the daughter languages, especially in Navajo and some other Apachean languages as well as in Koyukon and Ahtna, spoken in central Alaska. In this overview of eating and drinking expressions in Athapaskan, I survey this remnant classificatory verb system affecting eating and drinking predications, but also discuss eating and drinking expressions more broadly across the languages, especially expressions which conflate either consumption and the object consumed or consumption and manner. In addition, I will provide examples of figurative extensions of such expressions. Across the board, we will see a recurring pattern: a widespread focus on the marking of the theme. This focus involves the type of object consumed, the manner in which the consumption happens, or the extent of dissipation of the consumed object. Unlike what is found in other languages, there is no appreciable focus on the agent/consumer in Athapaskan languages or on the primary (i.e., slaking) or secondary (i.e., nourishing) benefits or detriments associated with acts of eating or drinking, except in a few metaphorical extensions. In short, there is no real “affected agent” construal in Dene languages for eating and drinking predications as seems to be the default case in most other languages (cf. Næss, this volume). Finally, I briefly touch on how the exploration of the syntax and semantics of basic events such as eating and drinking can enhance ethnographic research on a set of speakers and even provide evidence of migration patterns in cases of a large-scale diaspora, as has happened among the Dene peoples.

.  Undeniably, Young & Morgan’s The Navajo Language: A Grammar and Colloquial Dictionary (1987) is a linguistic masterpiece, likened by some to the Oxford English Dictionary in scope and detail.



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

The examples used here come from published accounts as well as from my own field notes, based on consultation with speakers of a variety of Canadian Athapaskan languages. I have tried to represent the five major geographical areas associated with Dene speakers at the time of European contact and list these areas and the daughter languages from which examples in this chapter are drawn in (1):3 (1) apachean pacific coastal alaskan interior mackenzie basin

Navajo, Western Apache, Jicarilla Apache Hupa, Galice Koyukon, Ahtna Witsuwit’en, Carrier, Tsuu T’ina Dene Sųłiné, South Slavey, Slave

2.  A brief overview of Dene clause structure and the Dene verb Transitive constructions in Dene languages (which are consistently head-final in both lexical and phrasal constituents) exhibit SOV word order, as shown in the Western Apache example in (2a) below.4 Most clauses, however, are largely pronominal and agreement with both S and O is marked on the verb, typically the last (or only) constituent in a contextualized proposition, as shown in (2b–c). (2) a. isdzán ápos y-í-yą̄ą̄ Western Apache (de Reuse & Goode 2006: 201) woman apple 3o-perf.3sgs-eat ‘The woman ate an/the apple.’ b. y-í-yą̄ą̄ 3o-perf.3sgs-eat ‘S/he ate it.’ c. í-yą̄ą̄ perf.3sgs-eat ‘S/he ate.’

.  Contemporary, indigenous ethnonyms for some of the Athapaskan languages represented in this paper are given in parentheses after the term likely to be more common in the traditional linguistic and anthropological literature: Babine (Witsuwit’en), Chipewyan (Dene Sųłiné), Navajo (Diné), Sarcee/Sarsi (Tsuu T’ina), South Slavey (Dehcho or Dene Tha), North Slave (Sahtu). .  I have retained the original orthography in all quoted examples. Where possible, I have attempted crude interlinearizations as an aid to the reader. Unfamiliar abbreviations include: cl (the pre-stem voice valency classifier), err (errative prefix), mom (momentaneous aspect), opt (optative). Conventionalized abbreviations for the Athapaskan classificatory verb stem categories are given in the Abbreviations.

 Sally Rice

Even in these simple but very representative examples, one notes that this Western Apache eating verb is ambitransitive, capable of signaling both a transitive or intransitive reading. However, with the intransitive reading, as shown in (2c), the verb simply lacks a pronominal object agreement prefix, represented by the prefix y- in (2a–b)—a morpheme which is otherwise obligatory and even redundant in the presence of an overt object nominal, as shown in (2a). The Athapaskan linguistics literature famously abounds with analyses, not of ambitransitivity and diathesis alternations, but with interpretations of and explanations about a different kind of pronominal contrast and its effect on event structure, the so-called yi-/bi- alternation, exemplified in (3) and (4), again, for Western Apache: (3) a.

Sóg-í isdzán y-í-yą̄ą W. Apache (de Reuse & Goode 2006: 201) fish-dem woman 3o.direct-perf.3sgs-eat ‘The fish ate a/the woman.’

b. isdzán-hí Sóg b-í-yą̄ą woman-dem fish 3o.indirect/obviative-perf.3sgs-eat ‘The woman was eaten by a/the fish.’ (4) a. dó̜Ñ Sī̜ī ̜ y-ish-hash fly horse 3o.direct-perf.3sgs-bite ‘The fly bit a/the horse.’ b. Sī̜ī ̜ dó̜Ñ b-ish-hash horse fly 3o.indirect/obviative-perf.3sgs-bite ‘The horse was bitten by a/the fly.’

Whether this alternation is a true syntactic or simply pragmatic phenomenon, whether it is sensitive to animacy hierarchies, or whether it signals a change in voice or merely one of attention flow based on discourse accessibility, these matters need not concern us here. The fact remains that eating and drinking predications in the Dene languages are not singled out as especially vulnerable to the effects of ambitransitivity, and the family would therefore be exceptional from Næss’ (this volume) perspective. Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs pattern the same way that the majority of transitive verbs do syntactically and, furthermore, do not felicitously invite an “affected agent” construal. There is, however, an interesting valency alternation triggered by the presence of a postposition found in some of the northern Athapaskan languages with respect to the argument structure and meaning of the generic vs. more specific eating verbs. This alternation has received little attention in the literature, but it provides some insight into how eating events are construed in these languages. The Dene Sųłiné examples in (5) for “controlled” or generic eating and (6) for



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

“uncontrolled” or ravenous eating demonstrate the alternation. The stem -dak/ -dagh is normally only used for animals eating, but it can refer to a bad-mannered human (eating voraciously as animals do) or any human eating a small animal or fish in its entirety. (5) a. shésti̜ ‘I’m eating (a meal).’

Dene Sųłiné (author’s fieldnotes)

b. *Sué shésti̜5 ‘I’m eating a fish.’ c.

Sué gha̜ shésti̜ ‘I’m eating a/the fish.’ [lit. ‘I’m eating at fish.’]

(6) a. hesdak ‘I’m devouring it.’ b. Sué hesdak ‘I’m devouring the whole fish.’ c.

Sué gha̜ hesdak ‘I’m devouring only part of the fish.’

The postposition gha̜ seems to have a transitivity-reversing function in these two contexts. With the less telic Dene verb, shésti̜ ‘I’m eating’, gha̜ functions like a straightforward applicative, adding a complement to the main verb. With the more telic and dynamic, hesdak ‘I’m eating.whole/devouring it’, gha̜ lends a partitive reading to the implied direct object/patient. This use of the postposition gha̜ is reminiscent of the valency increasing and decreasing effects of English at, discussed at length in S. Rice (1987). With certain intransitive verbs, the preposition at functions like an applicative, allowing for a lexicalized transitive counterpart, as in She yelled vs. She yelled at him (He got yelled at by her). With certain transitive verbs, on the other hand, at seems to function like a conative, decreasing the overall transitivity profile of the event by mitigating the nature or extent of the interaction between agent and patient, as in She grabbed him vs. She grabbed at him (*He got grabbed at by her). Postpositional complements, whether free-standing or incorporated, play a major role in signaling differences in lexical meaning inside the typical Athapaskan lexicon (cf. S. Rice & Wood 1996). In these cases, the postposition is indicating the degree to which the patient has been affected by the act

.  The standard syntactic argument for the unacceptability of this form is based on some version of a Theta-Criterion violation; that is, the incorporated stem shé- ‘food’ is the de facto direct object and, thus, the stem -tį ‘eat’ cannot support a second nominal or pronominal direct object—hence, the need for the applicative in (5c). An account compatible with this view is given in K. Rice (1989: 661).

 Sally Rice

of consumption. Such variations in manner and extent of consumption are very important across the family within the eating and drinking lexicons. However, the morphosyntactic means by which individual languages convey these differences are not uniform, as we’ll see in §§3–5. Turning to the typical Dene verb word—a highly synthetic marvel of a headfinal stem preceded by a large array of derivational and inflectional prefixes—the identity and order of prefixes and how they interact with the verb stem has predominated Athapaskan linguistics for nearly a century. For discussion about template and root morphology vs. prefix zones, ordering and scope relations, as well as an alternate account of the composition of the Dene verb see, respectively, Kari (1989); K. Rice (1989, 2000); McDonough (2000). Of primary concern here is the semantic interpretation of the stem morphemes for the many particularized verbs of consumption. In addition, the juxtaposition—with different verb stems —of specific postpositions or specific adverbial, errative, or gender prefixes, or the incorporation of a generic (and archaic) ‘food’ prefix or a ‘mouth’ or ‘into the mouth’ prefix in some of the languages will be discussed. One general note about variation in the shape of the verb stem is relevant here, especially since we are comparing forms across a number of different languages. The pre-stem syllable is a portmanteau of the highest order, fusing tense/aspect/ mode, subject agreement and sometimes certain “peg” and “thematic” prefixes, as they are known in the Athapaskan literature. For analyses of Dene verbs which posit extensive conjugation sets, this pre-stem TAM+AGR syllable is the locus of the conjugation, which collocates very specifically with certain forms of the stem syllable itself. To that end, there is considerable stem allomorphy within nearly every Athapaskan verb paradigm. In the most limiting case, different aspect/modes may cause the verb-final stem syllable to be open or closed or the stem vowel may change its tone, length, or nasality. Note the considerable aspect-induced stem variation in the following triplet for a rather specialized Koyukon eating verb: 7) a. yegheeSggotl Koyukon (Axelrod 1993: 68) ye- ghe- S- ggotl 3sg.o perf cl crunch.durative ‘S/he was crunching it, chewing it with a crunching noise.’ b. yeetlgguS ye- le- S- gguS 3sg.o perf cl crunch.semelfactive ‘S/he crunched it once, bit it with a crunch once.’ b. yeSggutl ye- ø- S- gguS 3sg.o impf cl crunch.consecutive ‘S/he crunches on it again and again.’



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

In addition to any stem allomorphy induced by the TAM+AGR syllable, a pre-stem voice/valence “classifier” (CL) may also alter the consonantal onset to the stem syllable (as in a /y/ changing to /d/).6 More confusingly, many paradigms are highly suppletive and a verb may feature a different stem depending on the number or person of the subject participant(s). This fact will be especially relevant below as the most generic eating verb in many Dene languages may only hold for persons eating singular objects. Multiple persons eating or an individual eating a plurality of objects give rise to a lot of semantic neutralization. Such multiplex eating scenarios are typically coded with a generic plural motion/action stem, whose reflexes are some variant of -{t/d}V{l/S}, usually something like -teel, -dil, or -deS. Typical paradigms for the most generic verbs of eating and drinking are illustrated by the Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 775, 779, 781) and Dene Sųłiné paradigms (author’s field notes) in (8) and (9). (8) a.

Navajo ‘eat it’ impf sg 1 yishá ̜ 2 niyá ̜ 3 yiya̜ ́ perf sg 1 yı́yá̜á̜Ñ 2 yı́nı́yá̜á̜Ñ 3 yiyı́ı́yá̜á̜Ñ

pl yiiyá̜ wohsá yidá̜ pl yiidá̜á̜Ñ wooyá̜á̜Ñ yida̜á̜Ñ

.  The grossly misnamed pre-stem “classifiers” are traditionally listed as {ø-/d- and S-/l-}. Loosely speaking and when used productively, the members of the two sets alternate with each other, signaling—in the most general semantic terms—a decrease in force-dynamics (i.e., transitivity, agency, telicity, or more effortful or unexpected outcome) as one moves from the first to the second member of the pair. Increasingly (and appropriately) in the contemporary literature, they are being re-christened as voice/valence prefixes, to capture the effects of their productive function (they also have a “thematic” or wholly lexicalized distribution in which case their semantic or syntactic contribution remains opaque). Representative of this more contemporary view is Hargus (2007: 341), who states, “there are three such prefixes: the valence prefix S- and (mostly) voice prefixes d- [traditionally symbolized as D-] and l-” [brackets mine]. Generally speaking and when productive, S- is associated with a causative reading, and l- and D- with a passive, mediopassive, or reflexive reading. The voice prefix D- is widely known for its phonological interactions (the so-called D-effect) with certain stem-initial consonants which directly follow it. For example, it fuses with [S-] to create [dl-], with [s-] to create [dz-], with [ʔ-] to create [t’-], and with [y-] to create [d-]. Compare this Witsuwit’en active/passive eating pair, as signaled by the effect of the D voice prefix: cәʔaS ‘s/he’s eating something’ and cәt’aS ‘something’s being eaten’ (Hargus 2007: 711). The most functionally oriented (and coherent) analysis of the voice/ valency markers in Athapaskan that I know of is by Kibrik (1996), where he calls them “transitivity indicators”. He also provides a well-researched history of their mislabeling as “classifiers”.

 Sally Rice

b.

Navajo ‘drink it’ impf sg 1 yishdlá ̜ 2 nidlá ̜ 3 yidlá ̜ perf sg 1 yı́dlá̜á̜Ñ 2 yı́nı́dlá̜á̜Ñ 3 yiyı́ı́dlá̜á̜Ñ

(9) a.

Dene Sųłiné ‘eat’ impf sg 1 shésti̜ 2 shéneti̜ 3 shéti̜ perf sg 1 shéghesti̜ 2 shéghi̜ti̜ 3 shégheti̜

b.

Dene Sųłiné ‘drink’ impf sg du 1 hesda̜ hı́da̜ 2 neda̜ huhda̜ 3 yeda̜ heyeda̜ perf sg du 1 ghesda̜ ghı́da̜ 2 ghi̜da̜ ghuhda̜ 3 gheda̜ hegheda̜

pl yiidlá̜ wohdlá̜ daadla̜ pl yiidlá̜á̜Ñ woodlá̜á̜Ñ yidlá̜á̜Ñ du shéhı́ti̜ shúhti̜ shéheti̜ du shéghı́ti̜ shéghuti̜ shéhegheti̜

pl shéhı́lyi̜ shúSyi̜ shéhelyi pl sheǵhı́lyi̜ shéghuSyi shéheghelyi

pl dáhída̜ dóhda̜ dáyeda̜ pl dághída dághuhda̜ dágheda

I present these paradigms without further discussion only to prepare the reader to expect rather less than regular or transparent verb morphology in the subsequent examples. The generic eat and drink paradigms in (8) and (9) convey little of the lexical richness found in the typical Dene verb stem inventory or the set of prefixstem combinations for signaling exactly what is getting consumed and how. The most obvious expression of this richness can be found in those languages which still retain a set of classificatory stems for eating and drinking, as discussed in the next section.

3.  “ Specialized” classificatory consumption verb stems in some Dene languages The classificatory verb stem (CVS) system is regarded as a hallmark of the Athapaskan family. All daughter languages make some degree of distinction about the



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

physical nature of a prominent relational participant, usually the theme or figure (indicated as X below) in predications involving those loosely described and schematically glossed in (10): ( 10) a. location/existence/position of x e.g., ‘There is/lies X’ b. independent motion of x e.g., ‘X moves/drifts/falls’ c. controlled handling of x e.g., ‘Y handles/takes/gives/carries/picks up X’ by another participant, y d. uncontrolled handling of x e.g., ‘Y grabs/throws/steals X’ by another participant, y

In most Dene languages, the verb stem is the locus of difference among the various relational predications shown in (10) as well as the distinguishing properties best characterizing the X entity. The inventory of lexicalized property types for X differs across individual languages, but the most salient are those that distinguish among entities which are solid—often round—and compact, animate, sticklike, heaplike, mushy, or flat and flexible (viz. SRO, FF, MM, AO, etc.).7 Detailed studies about the classificatory verb system across the family and in individual languages abound,8 although I do not regard the system as particularly unique to Athapaskan or particularly limited to the “classic” predication types listed in (10) or to the usual suspects among property types.9 Indeed, the system is far more heterogeneously organized across the daughter languages than often supposed. Moreover, as discussed in §4, the entire system leaks massively, and classificatory verb stems turn up in predication types far removed semantically from those schematized in (10). A case in point with regard to the idiosyncracy of Dene CVS systems is found in Koyukon, a northern Athapaskan language spoken in central Alaska. Koyukon features a 12-way distinction in its classificatory verb system and has stems for, most unusually, burning things as well as eatables. In an appendix to Jetté & Jones (2000:  763), Jules Jetté writes that this latter category, represented by the stem -koot, refers to “all eatables, considered as about to be eaten, but not when stored as supplies for future use. Thus, a piece of bread, but not the whole loaf, unless it be for the meal of the entire family, a piece of fish, but not a whole fish, etc., come

.  These are among the more frequent property types distinguished in the typical Dene classificatory verb system inventory along with some commonly used acronyms (see Abbreviations). .  To cite just a few Athapaskan CVS studies, cf. Basso (1968); Carter (1976); Davidson, Elford, & Hoijer (1963); Haas (1968); Landar (1967); and Rushforth (1999). .  Haas (1948) describes a similar CVS system for Muskogee and Cherokee as does Berlin (1967) for Tzeltal. Mithun (1999) gives examples of classificatory verb systems in other Iroquoian languages such as Mohawk, as well as in languages from the Siouan, Wakashan, and Muskogean families.

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in this group.” This description gives considerable insight into how other Dene languages lacking a dedicated classificatory verb stem category for food substances regard acts of eating and drinking in general, as well as how the entities being consumed are typed. That is, there are no absolute qualities ascribable to a consumable object as reflected by the choice of verb stem or construction, only contingent qualities relevant to the focused-upon act of ingestion. Thus, the manner in which or the degree to which something is consumed matter most across the majority of the Dene languages described here. This topic forms the basis of the discussion in §§4–5. Returning to the general notion of a classificatory verb system in Athapaskan languages, Koyukon is unusual in that it has a general be located/spontaneous dislocation/controlled and uncontrolled handling classificatory stem, -koot, for “EOs”—eatable objects. Some examples are given in (11): (11) a. etlkoot ‘It (food) is there, stored away.’ Koyukon  (Jetté & Jones 2000: 303–4) b. yeneeSkoot ‘S/he arrived with it (food).’ c. k’edaadlekoot ‘S/he is saving something (food) for herself/himself.’ d. yetl’ok’egheSkoot ‘S/he gave him/her something (food).’ [lit. ‘S/he fooded into his/her palm.’]

Ahtna, another Alaskan Athapaskan language, retains a similar classificatory stem, -cuut’, for locating or handling food substances, but there does not seem to be any restriction on its use for items of imminent consumption. (12) presents a few examples: (12) a. deScuut

‘It (food) is up there (stored on shelf).’ Ahtna (Kari 1990: 118–19) b. c’etsen’Scuut ‘Meat is there.’ c. yiScuut ‘S/he is keeping/storing/saving it (food).’ d. xanay’ dilcuut ‘S/he feeds himself, s/he is stingy.’ (lit. ‘S/he handles food excessively for self.’)

Other languages, notably the Apachean languages, preserve a vestige of what may have once been a robust classificatory verb stem system across the family specifically for predications of eating and drinking rather than just for those event schemas listed in (10). Thus, instead of being used for any relational templates having to do with location, movement, or handling, these consumption stems show up in a schema such as y consumes x, where ‘consumes X’ makes up the purported semantic content of the CV-based stem and resulting verb. Herbert Landar described what he called a “pseudo-classificatory” verb system for consumption verbs in two Apachean languages, but did so from more of an ethnographic than linguistic perspective, as he was intent on establishing what kind of referent, X,



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

could be associated with each stem in the series. More than anything, he was trying to determine the range of “genders” for noun classes in Apachean and focused more on referential than wholistic or experiential aspects of the stems. Table 1 compares the sets he elicited from speakers of Navajo and Jicarilla Apache. Note the close similarity between the languages in stem form and food-class designation. According to Landar (1976:  265), class (vii) verbs in Table 1 may suggest hand-to-mouth motion rather than the separability of the consumed object. These stems strike me as suspiciously cognate with the pan-Athapaskan plural motion/action stem, e.g., -dil/-deS, briefly mentioned in §2 above. In any case, we have a set of stems that, as a cohort, are supposed to differentiate among various types of objects eaten. It takes little effort to reach an alternative interpretation of the set. Beyond generic eating (i), the remaining forms in (ii-vii) in Table 1 invoke highly individuated and kinesthetically or sensorily distinct eating scenarios. The eating of a hard or chewy object (ii) may involve loud crunching. A long, stringy object like dried meat (iii) may involve lengthy mastication. The meat stem in (iv) may have been associated with a full meal rather than the literal eating of meat. A single object (v) is salient because it is wholly consumed, not nibbled at. Mushy matter (vi) would have been eaten with spooned fingers or other implement as it would require containment up to the mouth. Finally, a multiplicity of similar objects (vii) would involve a lot of repetitive hand-tomouth action. I submit that each of these foodstuffs is as salient in terms of the manner of eating as it is in terms of its substance, either in absolute terms or relative to the contingencies of immediate eating act. Moreover, I believe that this inherent ambiguity between comestible object and manner of consumption has helped foster burgeoning (and heterogeneous) eat and drink vocabularies across the Athapaskan family. Table 1.  Apachean “pseudo-classificatory” consumption verbs of eating and the foods they designate, taken from Landar (1964: 94) and (1976: 264); all verbs can be glossed ‘I ate it’ (or ‘them’). Navajo

Jicarilla

food being consumed

i.

yiyá̜á̜Ñ

yı́ı́yá̜

ii.

yı́Ñaal

yıÑá̜á̜S

eating in general that requires chewing & swallowing (includes everything but stew, which is drunk) hard or chewy object (ice)

yı́Stšož

yiStšo̜š

long, stringy object (jerky, sinewy meat)

yišɣal yiškhit

yiSɣaS –––––

meat [ceremonial use only for JA]

yı́StsÑeeÑ yištéél

yı́StsÑéÑ yiSteeS

iii. iv. v. vi. vii.

one round object mushy matter (corn mush, apple sauce) separable objects (corn kernels, grapes, berries)

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Young & Morgan (1987) expanded the set of classificatory verb stems of consumption for Navajo well beyond Landar’s original set of seven. They cite no fewer than fifteen verb stems based on properties of the object consumed or the manner of consuming. I list these in Table 2.

Table 2.  15 Navajo verb stems of consumption, taken from Young & Morgan (1987: 251– 263, 875); distinguishing features are specified in small caps. stem

manner/food of consumption

example edibles

i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. ix. x. xi. xii.

-yı̜́ı́h ̜ -ÑaaS -chozh -ghaS -keed -tsÑééh -deeS -wol -jooS -tSeeh -mááS -Ñaah

anything corn, peyote, candy lettuce, hay meat bun, melon mush, jello berries, eggs marrow cotton candy ice cream single piece of food moistened bread, cake

xiii. xiv. xv.

-dlá -kaah -tÑaah

consume/chew unspecified consume/chew hard, compact consume/chew leafy consume/chew meat consume/chew round consume/chew mushy matter consume/chew plural object consume/chew marrow consume non-compact matter consume mushy matter consume/devour by gulping/bolting consume solid, round object dunked in liquid consume/drink unspecified consume/drink from open container consume/drink from closed container

soup, thin gruel milk from glass milk from bottle

Pace Young and Morgan’s and Landar’s interpretation of Navajo and Jicarilla, it is possible to posit an equally robust list of classificatory verb stems for English, as shown in Table 3. No one considers the English set a system, mainly because the verbs delimit a lexical field unified under the guise of consumption, but differentiated largely on the basis of manner in which the consumption is taking place. A subtle shift in construal from type of object consumed to the manner in which such a type of object is consumed is not difficult to fathom and I would argue that both languages, Navajo and English, are covering roughly the same semantic territory with their verb stems. Nevertheless, the rest of the English verbal lexicon mitigates against a CVS interpretation, while the CVS system is an iconic part of Navajo and Dene languages in general.



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

Table 3.  15 English verb stems of consumption; distinguishing features specified in small caps.

i.

stem

manner/food of consumption

eat

consume/chew unspecified

canonical edible : canonical consumer

solid/liquid food : any animate (plus fish, insects) ii. devour consume/chew uncontrolled solid food : wild animals, hungry humans solid food, full meal : teenagers, iii. wolf down consume whole, uncontrolled people in a hurry iv. nibble at consume partially solid food, full meal : reluctant eaters v. snack on consume intermittently solid food: human vi. dine consume meal solid food, full meal : human (formal register) start to consume/chew solid food : any animate vii. bite continue to consume/chew solid, gummy food : any mammal viii. chew ix. crunch chew brittle nuts, hard candy, bone : any mammal x. drink consume liquid any liquid : any animate any liquid : any mammal xi. gulp drink whole, uncontrolled any liquid : any mammal xii. sip drink liquid, controlled water, milk : any feline or small xiii. lap drink intermittently with tongue canine xiv. slurp drink noisily from open container any liquid, soup, stew : any mammal liquid from straw, bottle, breast : baby xv. suck drink from closed container

Table 3  is meant to show just how readily classifying inferences can be drawn in English about the event participants from the use of one of these manner-ofconsumption conflating stems. Indeed, the same could be said of Navajo or Jicarilla Apache. Consider the examples in (13) and (14): (13) Navajo (Landar 1964: 96) a. pilasáana yiyá̜á̜Ñ b. pilasáana yiškhit c. pilasáana yištééS

‘I ate an apple.’ ‘I ate a roundish apple.’ ‘I ate apples one after another.’

(14) Jicarilla Apache (Phone et al. 2007: 143, 329) a. -ch’iS b. medishch’iS c. medisht’aa

‘eat (nuts); crack (nuts); lightning crackles’ ‘I’m eating (nuts).’ ‘I’m eating (scraping meat off bone).’ [e.g., eating ribs]

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In (13), we see three different Navajo classificatory verb stems being used with the same referent, pilasáana ‘apple’. Thus, the three stems differentially focus on the act of eating something, the roundness of the thing being eaten, or serial eating. In (14), the stems in (b) and (c) are not on Landar’s (1967) original list for Jicarilla. The (b) form is clearly related to that in (a), the stem associated with the noise made by lightning. When used in an eating context, it has fixed the inference to mean the eating of nuts even in the absence of a specified object. Although I was unable to verify the meaning of the (c) stem, -t’aa, in isolation, it seems to have likewise conventionalized to mean a particular type of eating associated with a cutting or gnawing action, as happens when one tries to remove flesh from a bone with the teeth. Here are two sets of examples which demonstrate how the entire construction—in this case, a fully inflected verb—can induce (or did so historically) an eating construal and a specific type of eating at that, despite the absence of one of the cardinal eating verb stems in the construction per se. I suspect that, across the family, a particularly salient aspect of an act of eating (the sound, any prolonged chewing, or the conspicuous motion of a hand or container moving up to the mouth) may have provided a metonymical source for new eating stems. As a case in point, Ahtna also has a verb stem of crunching or noisy eating, -gguuts’, much like its Koyukon counterpart given above in (7). This stem, shown in (15), is regarded as onomatopoeic, deriving from gguus ‘wild celery’, a rhubarblike plant that is crisp and crunchy when eaten. The verb generalizes to any eating that involves a crunching noise (except, perhaps for the eating of bones—see below): (15) itneSgguuts’ ‘S/he’s crunching on it (crackers, celery).’

Ahtna (Kari 1990: 201)

Ahtna has a different stem meaning ‘crunch, gnaw, or eat (bone) with a crunching noise’, -k’on. The sound associated with this kind of eating must be especially salient, as shown in the related ideophone (many Athapaskan languages feature huge inventories of stative verbs like that shown in (16b) depicting highly particularized sounds): (16) a. ts’en ghiSk’on ‘S/he crunched on a bone.’

Ahtna (Kari 1990: 259)

b. i’delk’on ‘There is a crunching sound.’

The bulk of the eating and drinking stem lexicons in many Athapaskan languages seem to reflect the still externalized, pre-ingestion stages of consumption, or more accurately, the way in which particular objects get transported to the mouth or how they get masticated.



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

Another example of a “coerced” eating verb comes from Navajo—in particular, the stem listed as (viii) in Table 2, ‘to eat marrow’. This highly specialized eating stem is not widely found across the family. Indeed, it is not really even based on a verb. Most of the fully inflected forms for the consumption stems in Table 2 for first person singular imperfective (‘I’m eating X’) would be something like, yishá̜, yish’aaS, yishchozh, yishaghaS, and so forth. The counterpart for ‘I’m eating marrow’ has a different structure, as shown in (17): (17) ndishwol Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 615) ndi- sh- wol [< Ñawol ‘marrow’ (n); -lwol ‘to eat marrow’ (v)] mouth.circa 1sg marrow lit. ‘I marrow about the mouth.’?

This innovative yet non-standard eating verb paints a vivid picture of the prolonged gnawing action involved in extracting marrow from a bone. ‘Marrowing about the mouth’ certainly leads one to draw an inference of eating, just as the more generically classifying ‘handling X about the mouth’ does. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that many ersatz eating and drinking stems in Dene languages are actually part of conventionalized consumption expressions which themselves are built up from classifying or even denominal stems. In short, many of the component eating and drinking stems in isolation have little to do with eating or drinking per se, but a lot to do with handling different kinds of objects. Inside the larger construction, especially in the presence of incorporated stems for ‘mouth’ or ‘into the mouth’, an inference is made and an association set. We turn to the more “classic” CVS items next and see how they have been deployed across the family for fine-grained distinctions in their eating and drinking predications.

4.  “ Co-opted” classificatory consumption verb stems in other Dene languages The Apachean classificatory stem sets illustrated in Tables 1 and 2 are not all that unique and actually have correlates, if not out and out cognates, in other Dene languages. Many of these stems are identical in form and meaning with the more “classic” CVS systems for expressions of location, movement, and handling—the predication types outlined in (10). Moreover, quite a number of these expressions involve an incorporated stem for mouth or mouth area. Thus, across the family, eating predications in particular seem to be constructed as “variations” on a handto-mouth “theme”, a notion quite compatible with Wierzbicka’s claim (this volume) about the semantic primes associated with the (otherwise non-primitive) notions of eating and drinking. The examples and discussion in this section illustrate (a)

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the lexico-semantic richness in many Dene languages for expressions about eating and drinking, as well as (b) the considerable overlap between stems doing “classic” CVS predication and those signaling acts of consumption. Let’s begin with Hupa, a Pacific Coastal language for which the available data suggest a somewhat limited and therefore tractable system. Nevertheless, it mirrors what we find elsewhere, albeit in less robust fashion. The generic verb stem for eating is -(y)a:n, as shown by the examples in (18): (18) a. k’iwha:n b. ky’a:n c. yiky’a:n d. ch’inehSya:n e. xola: n-ky’a:n

‘I am eating.’ Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 30) ‘S/he is eating.’ ‘It (animal) is eating it.’ ‘S/he ate it up, devoured it.’ ‘He helps him to eat; he feeds him.’ (lit. ‘helping 3sgo-3sgs eats’)

The examples in (19) below give a flavor of the range of stem shapes for related consumption expressions in Hupa: (19) a. diwhxuts’ b. diwhqos c. Ñiwh’ul d. ch’iwilxit’ e. tawhdina:n f. ta’dina:n g. taydina:n

‘I’m biting something.’ Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 30) ‘I’m biting something crunchy/brittle.’ ‘I’m chewing something.’ ‘S/he swallowed it.’ ‘I’m drinking.’ ‘S/he is drinking.’ ‘Animal is drinking.’

There are still other eating stems found in Hupa. The examples in (20) feature the common neutralization that we find across the family in the use of the all-purpose -dil/-diS when it comes to plural action, in this case, an individual person eating multiple objects. Other stems, as shown in (21), blatantly build on garden-variety CVS forms. (20) a. ÑiwhdiS Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 30) ‘I’m eating small objects (berries) one-by-one (as I pick them).’ b. ch’ildil ‘S/he is eating small objects one-by-one.’ (21) a. sa-wh-jich into.mouth-1sgs-handle.particles lit. ‘I’m putting particles into my mouth.’ ‘I’m eating (seeds) by the handful.’ b. sa’-wing-xa:n into.mouth-perf.3sgs.handle.filled.container ‘S/he ate from a bowl/spoon.’ (lit. ‘s/he puts filled container into mouth.’)



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

For comparison purposes, a full set of the Hupa classificatory “handling” verbs are exemplified with the prefix ya- ‘up (in the air)’ to yield the composite meaning ‘S/he picked up X’ in (22): (22) a. ya’-win-jich up-perf.3sg-handle.granular.mass

Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: v)

b. ya’-wing-xa:n up-perf.3sg-handle.filled.container c. ya’-wing-’a:n up-perf.3sg-handle.round.object d. ya’-win-ta:n up-perf.3sg-handle.stick-like.object e. ya’-wiS-te:n up-perf.3sg-handle.living.being f. ya’- wiS-iq’ up-perf.3sg-handle.dough-like.substance g. ya’-wi-lay up-perf.3sg-handle.several.objects/rope h. ya’-wiS-kyo:s up-perf.3sg-handle.cloth-like.object

The Hupa examples in (21), which derive from two of the more commonplace classificatory “handling” verbs, shown in (22a-b), do so in conjunction with the incorporated stem, sa-, ‘into the mouth’. Most Athapaskan languages have at least a few eating verb themes that feature an incorporated nominal or postpositional stem, similar to the examples in (21). Mackenzie Basin languages have an incorporated ‘mouth’ morpheme, dhá-, considered to be cognate with Hupa sa-.10 Moreover, they typically have a generic eating verb that is suspiciously similar to these Hupa forms in that they feature a requisite (and identically positioned) incorporated stem, shé-, usually glossed as an archaic word meaning ‘food’ rather than ‘mouth’,11 along with the verb stem -ti̜ (sg/du), which just happens to be identical

.  Sapir (1931) reports the following reflexes of proto-Athapaskan *z: Hupa /s/, Chipewyan (Dene Sųłiné) /δ/, Navajo /z/, and Sarsi /z/. Hupa sa- and Dene Sųłiné dhá- are likely to be true cognates for ‘mouth’. .  Li (1946), in his grammatical sketch of Chipewyan (Dene Sųłiné), lists shé- as an incorporated and archaic stem form for ‘food’. K. Rice (1989: 652) also identifies shé- in the Slave

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in form with the standard classificatory verb stem for ‘handle sticklike/animate object’. Etymologically speaking, I wonder whether the Dene Sųłiné generic verb word, shé-s-ti̜ < food-1sgs-eat ‘I’m eating’, as first presented in (5a), would be more accurately glossed linguistically as: food-1sgs-handle.SO/AO? Whether this is the correct etymology of shésti̜ or not, the fact remains that in many Athapaskan languages, eating is not really predicated outright, but rather is inferred from the entire verbal construction, which, in the two Hupa examples in (21) and possibly the entire Dene Sųłiné paradigm in (9a), are based on bonafide classificatory handling stems.12 Because of the similarity between the generic Hupa eating verb stem, -a:n, as exemplified in (18) and the stems for handling round object in (22c) – the stem which often stands in for ‘handling generic or unspecified object’ across the family, this may constitute additional evidence for a handling basis for eating predications in Athapaskan. A different type of argument for the robustness of a hand-to-mouth event frame or image-schema in Athapaskan eating and drinking predications comes from a blatantly literal verbal construction in Dene Sųłiné for the causatively framed event, feed. Dene languages vary in terms of the prevalence and deployment of an inflectional, periphrastic, or lexical causative. An inflectional causative in Athapaskan is formed via the presence of the erstwhile causative voice/valence prefix or S- classifier before the stem syllable. A periphrastic causative involves a higher-order, all-purpose make or help predicate (see the Hupa example in [18e]), but otherwise no special complementizer or subordinating morphology is needed. Dene languages do not seem to share the same strategies for marking

languages as a non-independent, always incorporated stem meaning ‘food’ and notes that it surfaces not just with -tį ‘eat’, but also in the postpositional phrase shéak’e ‘lacking food’ [lit. ‘food-without’]. Hoijer & Joël (1963), in their write-up of Sapir’s field notes from the early 1920s, list the absolute and combined forms for ‘food’ in Tsuu T’ina (Sarsi) as šìh and -šìhɑˀ, but they also cite the alternate independent forms dáníÑ ‘food’ and -níɣàˀ ‘food’, as well as -zàÑ ‘mouth’. .  Hoijer’s (1966) sketch of Galice, a now-extinct Coastal Athapaskan language spoken by speakers in Oregon at the time he recorded his data, lists imperfective stem forms that resemble those in Hupa for drinking (-naa), swallowing (-kad), and chewing (-ʔaS), the only consumption predicates listed in the sketch. The chew stem in Galice, in particular, happens to look identical to its ‘handle.RO’ stem, the same kind of overlap noted elsewhere here between a generic eat predicate and a cardinal CV stem. Of course, this chew stem is also likely to be cognate with Koyukon ‘chew’ in (42b), Dene Sųłiné ‘chew.meat’ in (46d), Witsuwit’en ‘eat’ in (52), Carrier ‘eat’ in (69), not to mention the apparently non handling-based ‘chew’ in Hupa in (19c). Clearly, more etymological and comparative work needs to be done on these stem correspondences and these languages generally.



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

causatives even within the same narrow lexical field.13 Nevertheless, feed in Dene Sųłiné is neither a morphological nor a periphrastic variant of eat, but is based on an entirely different (and non-classificatory) handling verb stem, -ni, in conjunction with the just-mentioned incorporated noun stem dhá- ‘mouth’. Thus, in (23) we have a richly imaged path of transfer for feed spelled out in the verb itself: (23) a. be-dhá-re-s-ni Dene Sųłiné (author’s fieldnotes) 3sg-mouth-impf-1sgs-move.hand ‘I am feeding him/her.’ [lit. ‘I put it (hand) into his/her mouth.’] b. ye-dhá-re-ni 3sg.obv-mouth-impf.(3sgs)-move.hand ‘S/he is feeding him/her.’ [lit. ‘S/hei put it (hand) into his/herj mouth.’]

If we return for a moment to Navajo, Table 2 suggests that these eating and drinking stems have a sort of equipotentiality when it comes to inflection or distribution or even interpretation, for that matter. The discussion around the ‘eat marrow’ example in (17) may have dispelled any such expectations. Quite a few of the stems in Table 2 are also classically classificatory and one in particular, (ix) -jooS ‘consume noncompact matter’ (e.g., cotton candy), does not readily signal consumption. Instead, it requires extra morphology to get an eat reading, as the examples in (24) demonstrate. Compare yishÑaaS ‘I’m chewing it (gum, corn, hard candy),’ which is a dedicated eat verb, with the similarly spare, but infelicitous (24a): (24) a. #y-ish-jooS Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 64, 140, 783, 875) 3o-impf.1sgs-handle.noncompact.matter ? ‘I’m placing it/them.’ (sounds incomplete; needs locative complement) b. kí̜íh ̜ y-ish-jooS town 3o-impf.1sgs-handle.noncompact.matter ‘I’m taking it/them to town.’ c. ’ahi- sh-jooS out.of.sight impf.1sgs-handle.noncompact.matter ‘I’m carrying it/them away out of sight’ ‘I’m eating it (cotton candy).’ d. ’ázaa- sh-jooS refl.mouth impf.1sgs-handle.noncompact.matter ‘I’m putting it/them into my own mouth.’

.  Cf. S. Rice (2002) for a discussion about how sit and lie stems but not stand can take an inflectional causative in Dene Sųłiné.

 Sally Rice

The locus of the lexical meaning resides in the incorporated locative prefix in the examples in (24). Moving something out of sight and, especially, into one’s mouth certainly can imply eating. Although an eating interpretation can be coerced out of (24c-d), other non-eating interpretations are also possible. Over time, particular readings likely conventionalize in a language. The point to bear in mind is that handling something into the mouth remains the dominant organizing schema for a majority of Dene eating predications. The fact that these languages already have a proliferation of handling verbs guarantees, at minimum, an equivalently sized consumption lexicon. Ahtna draws widely and deeply from its CVS inventory when it comes to eating and drinking predications. In addition to the “dedicated” or generic eat stem, -(y)aan, shown in (25) and the devour stem shown in (26), a number of other stems in Ahtna based on classificatory verbs enter into eating constructions as shown in (27)–(34). Many of these are formed with the incorporated stem prefix, sa- ‘mouth’, thus completing the hand-to-mouth circuit implied in many of these expressions. (25) a. iyaan ‘S/he is eating it.’

Ahtna (Kari 1990: 429)

b. c’eyaan ‘S/he is eating something.’ c. koyaan ‘It is grazing (over an area).’ d. ic’eSyaan ‘S/he is feeding something to him/her.’ [< i-c’e-S-yaan 3o-indef-caus-eat] (26) a. tikaandi yatnaek Ahtna (ibid.: 297) ‘The wolf devoured it.’ [ < -naek ‘eat/devour o greedily’] b. kuggaedi setnax ‘Mosquitos are devouring me.’ (27) kuggaedi sastelt’ak Ahtna (ibid.: 343) ‘Mosquitos are starting to eat me.’ [ < -t’ak ‘move ao/so quickly’; compare (39) below] (28) sayalghel ‘S/he devoured it.’ [ < -ghel ‘ao/so moves quickly’]

Ahtna (ibid.: 218)

(29) ighitsaet Ahtna (ibid.: 375–77) ‘S/he ate/gulped it whole (liver, fish head, biscuit).’ [ < -tsaet ‘handle SRO quickly/uncontrolled’] (30) sayatlae’ ‘S/he ate it (mush, mushy object).’ [ < -tlaek’ ‘handle MM’]

Ahtna (ibid.: 354)



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

(31) saydalnen Ahtna (ibid.: 299–300) ‘S/he ate it up.’ [ < -nen/-ziic ‘handle compact object quickly’ (a highly suppletive verb)] (32) a. yeldaeS Ahtna (ibid.: 146) ‘S/he is eating them.’ [ < -daetl’ ‘handle po quickly/uncontrolled’] b. iy’ghiSdaetl’ ‘S/he was feeding them to him/her.’ [< i-ghi-S-daetl’ 3o-perf-caus-eat.po] (33) iday’delkay Ahtna (ibid.: 237) ‘S/he is eating it slowly.’ [ < -kay ‘strike o with elongated object’] (34) c’edeSuut Ahtna (ibid.: 283) ‘S/he is eating something stringy.’ [ < -Suut ‘eat.dur stringy o’]

The same overall pattern holds for drink predications in Ahtna—there are a few dedicated drink stems (35–37) and a few others lexicalized through inference from cv stems (38–39): (35) a. itnaan ‘S/he is drinking it.’

Ahtna (ibid.: 290)

b. c’etnaan ‘S/he is drinking something.’ c. iyghiSnaan’ ‘S/he gave him/her something to drink.’ [< i-ghi-S-naan 3o-perf-caus-drink] (36) a. c’ezes ‘S/he is sipping something (hot), i.e., soup, tea.’

Ahtna (ibid.: 459)

b. tsaey ughases ‘I made him/her sip tea.’ (37) a. ighiSts’ae’ ‘S/he licked it.’

Ahtna (ibid.: 403)

b. sayalts’ae’ ‘S/he lapped it up.’ (38) day’ditset Ahtna (ibid.: 137, 383) ‘S/he drank something quickly.’ [ < da- ‘down/descending’ + -tset ‘move hand quickly/uncontrolled’] (39) kayghiSt’ak Ahtna (ibid.: 343) ‘S/he drank it up (glass of water).’ ‘S/he threw him/her out.’ [ < -t’ak ‘move ao/so quickly’; compare (27) above]

 Sally Rice

A few additional examples can only reinforce the larger point: ingestion in Dene languages is not so much about eating and drinking (and all the nourishing benefits to the agent or destructive effects on the patient) as it is on intake of an object through the mouth. The following examples illustrate the same classificatory stem, -ggots’ ‘drink liquid quickly’ being used both for rapid ingestion and rapid elimination of effluvia— the by-product of consumption! (40) a. i’deSggots’ Ahtna (ibid.: 199) ‘S/he chugged something.’ (drink/gulp.momentaneous) b. Sets teSggos ‘S/he’s peeing urine in squirts.’ (drink/gulp.customary)

The stem, -ggots’, is clearly related to an identical stem (which takes different classificatory prefixes) glossed as ‘mass moves quickly’. A similar bi-directional pair based on the stem, -taac’ ‘move plural objects quickly’, is exemplified in (41). Note the incorporated nominal stem sa- ‘mouth’ in (41a): (41) a. saydaltaay’ Ahtna (ibid.: 318–19) ‘S/he ate them all up.’ (move.po.quickly.momentaneous) b. bac’itaay’ ‘S/he got diarrhea.’ (move.po.quickly.customary)

Koyukon, like Ahtna, is a language that preserves a dedicated classificatory verb stem for eatable objects. There is likewise a very extensive set of eating and drinking expressions built on a wide range of stems, most of which are classificatory in the standard sense, and behave much like the just-discussed Ahtna expressions do. A few non-classificatory stems (in the CVS sense) still manage to intrigue by showing the conflation of manner of eating and object of eating. Compare the two chew stems in (42): (42) a. dzaah ghee-kk’ʉsk Koyukon (Axelrod 1993: 69) gum perf-chew.repetitive [ < -kk’os ‘chew o (hard or resistant substance)’] ‘S/he was chewing gum.’ b. nelaan ghee-’ʉtl meat perf-chew.consecutive [ < -’otl ‘chew o (e.g., meat)’] ‘S/he bit the meat repeatedly.’

Eating does entail swallowing and Koyukon features a semi-(pseudo)-classificatory system for swallow or choke (the latter is formed through the use of an errative prefix, discussed in §5.2 below). That is, there are four different verbs of swallowing/choking depending on the constituency of the substance caught in the throat (43a-c) or the path taken (43d):



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

(43) a. k’enaadlenekk Koyukon (Jetté & Jones 2000: 464) ‘S/he choked on something whole (bone, pill, berry).’ [-nekk ‘swallow whole’] b. k’enaadlekk’os (ibid.: 366) ‘S/he choked on something stiff (meat or gristle).’ [-kk’os ‘stiff ’] c. k’enaadletuts (ibid.: 535) ‘S/he choked on something soft (bread, fermented meat).’ [ -tuts ‘handled stuffed/inflated o’] d. too ek’eenaadleyeets ‘S/he swallowed water the wrong way.’ [ -yeets ‘breathe’]

(ibid.: 684)

5.  Manner and extent of consumption coding As described in §§3–4, there are two avenues to expressive specificity in Dene eating and drinking predications: (a) lexical selection of a particular classificatory verb stem to indicate a particular type of eaten or drunken object and (b) modulations on the manner of eating, regardless of the particular foodstuff getting consumed. In this section, I explore some of these manner-modulating constructions in greater detail, starting with stems that conflate consumption and manner and then moving on to manner-modifying prefixes. 5.1  N  on-classificatory stem sources for manner-conflating consumption verbs In §3, in the discussion around the examples in (13), I mentioned that despite the presence of a CVS system in many Apachean languages for acts of consumption, the classificatory stems tend not to invoke qualities associated absolutely to a particular class of consumable objects, but rather suggest contingent qualities relevant to the particular act of consumption being described. That is, the shape, constituency, or configuration of the consumable at the moment of ingestion is what matters, not any permanent characteristic(s) of the eaten object. We see a similar set of examples below from Dene Sųłiné (incidentally, also involving the eating of apples): (44) a. jı́echok gha̜ she-s-ti̜ apple at food-impf.1sgs-eat ‘I’m eating an apple (bit by bit).’ b. jı́echok he-s-tthik apple impf-1sgs-eat ‘I’m eating an apple (whole).’

Dene Sųłiné (author’s field notes)

 Sally Rice

c. nake jı́echok he-s-déS two apple impf-1sgs-handle.po ‘I’m eating two apples.’ (45) a. jı́echok da-he-tthik apple pl-impf.3s-eat ‘They are each eating an apple.’ b. jı́echok dá-l-déS apple pl-middle-handle.po ‘They are eating many apples.’

In addition to predicating the extent of consumption, Dene Sųłiné has eating and drinking verb stems which blend manner and theme. (46) a. Sué hesdak ‘I’m eating the (whole) fish.’

Dene Sųłiné (author’s field notes)

b. Sué hestthik ‘I’m eating (snacking on/licking at) a whole piece of fish.’ (can also be used with fried chicken) c. sas hetthik ‘The bear is licking it up (honey).’ d. ber heʔáS ‘S/he’s chewing meat.’ (also used with gum, ice) e. hesʔeS ‘I’m biting something.’ f. hesttha ‘I’m biting into a chunk of something (meat, bannock).’ g. hesxáth ‘I’m gnawing on it (a bone).’ h. kafi thizes ‘I’m sipping/slurping coffee.’ (can also be used with soup, stew, or juicy tomatoes) i. kafi hesda̜ ‘I’m drinking coffee.’

Slave is a dialect complex in the watershed of the Mackenzie River encompassing languages such as South Slavey (Dehcho) and the three languages often subsumed under the name North Slavey: Bear Lake (Sahtu), Hare, and Mountain. These languages have received comprehensive treatment in K. Rice (1989). Very rightly, she observes, “[t]here are many verb themes that can be used to describe eating. They differ in



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

terms of the type of object eaten or manner in which objects are eaten” (p. 789). So far, we have seen a lot of eat and drink stems that vary in shape and construction of the resulting predication based on the nature of the consumed object. Eating and drinking expressions in Slave are also subject to a very particular type of lexical distinction found in many Athapaskan languages, between “controlled” and “uncontrolled” manners of action. This distinction loosely links pairs of lexical stems. Across the family, the classic CVS system is especially sensitive to this distinction, as indicated in the difference between the handling schemas described in (10c) and (10d). In Slave, there are two principal and fairly generic stems associated with eating, (shé)-ti̜ and -Ñáh, both of which can be used with overt or omitted objects and both of which suggest controlled eating. (47) a. shéehtį ‘I ate (meal).’

Slave (K. Rice 1989: 448–9)

b. ehk’ah ‘I ate one (one object).’

Hare appears to have a controlled/uncontrolled stem difference with incremental eating, as shown in (48). (48) a. xayedéhde ‘S/he ate it up piece-by-piece.’ (controlled)

Slave (ibid.: 786)

b. xayedéhdze ‘S/he ate it up piece-by-piece, quickly.’ (uncontrolled)

Slave also features two fairly generic stems associated with drinking, -dǫ and -ts’é, of which the former is the “controlled” variant, while the latter is the “uncontrolled”, roughly meaning ‘gulp’. The latter is clearly cognate with a previously exemplified Athapaskan drink stem based on uncontrolled handling, that exemplified in (38) for Ahtna. (49) a. yadǫ S/he drank it.’ (controlled)

Slave (ibid.: 786)

b. yats’e S/he drank (it) quickly.’ (uncontrolled)

K. Rice also lists the following imperfective stems along with their respective (and lexicalized) voice/valency prefix for Slave. Some of these seem to have contradictory glosses when compared to some of the perfective forms given above, but all of which reinforce the fact that multiple stems are available in the typical Athapaskan language for signaling different kinds of consumption: (50) a. Ø -ʔáh Slave (ibid.: 789) ‘chew’ (generalized to ‘eat a small meal/snack’ in northern dialects)

 Sally Rice

b. d-déh ‘eat po (berries, popcorn, raisins) one-by-one’ c. Ø-k’a ‘chew’ d. d-dzee ‘eat one at a time’ e. Ø-xa ‘eat meat, gnaw’ f. d-do̜ ‘eat soup/porridge’, ‘drink’ (controlled) g. Ø-ts’é ‘drink/gulp’ (uncontrolled)

5.2  Prefix modulations affecting eating and drinking verbs In §§3–4, I gave examples of classificatory verbs of handling and other denominal stems being coerced into a consumption reading in the presence of an incorporated nominal or postpositional prefix having to do with ‘mouth’ or ‘oral area’. A number of other lexical (or “disjunctive” to use the common term in the Athapaskan literature) prefixes are available across the family to elaborate the eating or drinking verb or to further specify the act of eating or drinking. Thompson (1996) surveys a number of Athapaskan languages in terms of how the presence or absence of the D-voice/valence prefix or “D-classifier” (cf. footnote 6) can alter the overall semantics and not just the voice of the predication. For example, in Koyukon, the basic intransitive eat stem can yield a neutral reading when no voice/valence prefix is present (the so-called zero-classifier), but an unintentional or excessive outcome, or a sense of suppressed agency is achieved when the D-voice/valence prefix is present in conjunction with the ne- errative prefix. Compare the two examples in (51): 51) a. k’egheehonh k’e- ghe- ø- honh indef.o perf cl eat.durative ‘S/he ate something.’ b. k’enaaSdon’ k’e- ne- le- de- on’ indef.o err perf cl eat.err ‘S/he overate.’

Witsuwit’en erratives work exactly the same way:

Koyukon (Axelrod 1993: 108–09)



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

(52) a. c’7-s-ʔal indef-1sgs-eat.perf ‘I ate.’

Witsuwit’en (Hargus 2007: 388)

b. c’ә-n-izә-s-t’al indef.o-err-conj-1sgs-d.eat.perf ‘I overate/I got sick from eating.’ (53) a. yitneʔ 3o-3sgs-d.drink.perf ‘S/he drank it.’ b. ta-n-izә-s-tneʔ water-err-conj-1sgs-d.drink.perf ‘I’m drunk.’

In Navajo, these same notions are conveyed through a compound (and rather allpurpose) excessive prefix, ńdíÑní- ‘prolongative’ (Young & Morgan 1987: 606): (54) a. ńdí’ní-sh-di̜i̜h too.much-1sgs-eat ‘I’m overeating.’

Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 605)

b. ńdí’ní-sh-ghááS too.much-1sgs-eat.meat ‘I’m eating too much meat.’ c. ńdí’ní-sh-dlí̜í̜h too.much-1sgs-drink ‘I’m drinking too much.’

The preceding Koyukon, Witsuwit’en, and Navajo examples with the mannerchanging prefixes may be related to the following lexical pair I once unintentionally elicited in Tsuu T’ina, but was unable to analyze at the time. Compare (55b) with the corresponding Witsuwit’en version containing the errative prefix in (56b): (55) a. d7-sisn7k’ ‘I swallowed (it).’ [old form]

Tsuu T’ina (author’s field notes)

b. ’ini-sisn7k’ ‘I’m choking.’ (56) a. t7zәcSnәɣ ‘I swallowed it.’ b. nt7zәgәlnәɣ ‘I accidentally swallowed it.’

Witsuwit’en (Hargus 2007: 399)

 Sally Rice

In Dene Sųłiné, excessive consumption is handled periphrastically with an adverbial: (57) a. deʔá̜zí̜ shéghesti̜ ‘I ate too much, I overate.’

Dene Sųłiné (Cook 2004: 103)

b. ʔ i̜ghá̜ shéghesti̜ ‘I ate too quickly.’

A completely different kind of thematic prefix-stem interaction occurs in Witsuwit’en, a language of the British Columbia interior formerly known as Babine and closely related to Carrier. Witsuwit’en, like many of the Alaskan and Apachean languages, still has a somewhat transparent and productive set of gender prefixes (also called “qualifier” prefixes). These have atrophied or completely lexicalized in Dene Sųłiné, showing up only in a small set of stative verbs (e.g., ‘be red’, ‘taste good’). The first two Witsuwit’en eating stems given in (58)–(60) will look familiar from examples seen earlier in other languages. Both are associated with fairly generic eating, one having to do with eating a singular object and the other featuring the widely deployed “plural action” stem. Nevertheless, the language still has a way of signaling something particular about the object being eaten. The n- qualifier prefix (glossed as Qro) in the (b) examples suggests agreement with a solid round object and thus contrasts with the (a) examples. (58) a. y-ә-ʔaS 3o-impf.3sgs-eat ‘S/he’s eating it.’ b. lemәdec yә-n-ә-ʔaS potato 3o-qro-impf.3sgs-eat ‘S/he’s eating the potato.’ (59) a. lәsuc hә-l-diS sugar impf.3sgs-cv-eat.PO ‘S/he’s eating sugar.’ b. c’әɣiz n-ә-l-diS eggs qro-impf.3sgs-cv-eat.PO ‘S/he’s eating eggs.’ (60) a. y-ә-ɣuc 3o-impf.3sgs-gnaw ‘S/he’s gnawing on it.’ b. lәsucam yә-n-ә-ɣ uc turnip 3o-qro-impf.3sgs-gnaw ‘S/he’s gnawing on the turnip.’

Witsuwit’en (Hargus 2007: 263)



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

A more striking (that is to say, lexical) effect can be seen in an alternation between two different pronominal prefixes in Witsuwit’en. By substituting the third person personal pronoun y- (which also has an obviative function in combination with a third person subject) with the more abstract, impersonal areal pronoun w- (which is supposed to related to land, digging, farming, etc.) not only is a change in the animacy ranking of the agent-eater produced, but in the manner and object of eating as well: (61) a. yәʔaS ‘S/he’s eating it.’

Witsuwit’en (Hargus 2007: 390)

b. wәʔaS ‘It’s grazing.’

All in all, as we have seen, Athapaskan languages have an impressive inventory of eating and drinking stems and a wide array of morphosyntactic options for finetuning these already fairly specific predications. We now turn from literal eating and drinking to more figurative extensions of these stems and expressions.

6.  Figurative eating and drinking in Dene languages The fact that eat and drink verbs constitute part of the basic vocabulary of all human languages, coupled with the highly specific nature of eating and drinking predications in Athapaskan languages, has meant that these eating and drinking stems and constructions are aggressively deployed as sources for other lexical items and expressions. Eating and drinking vocabulary items prove to be an especially rich and useful source of imagery across the family and readily enter into figurative extensions.14 A sample of some of the more common or imaginative metonymies and metaphors found in these languages follows. The metonymies tend to involve deverbal or otherwise relativized forms and largely have a referential function, while the metaphors tend to be more propositional and are used for more abstract reference or predication (see S. Rice 1998b and 1999 for a more detailed discussion and illustration of Athapaskan metaphors and metonymies). 6.1  Metonymies The most common metonymies based on eat or drink verbs in Dene languages relate to generic words for food or to specific kinds of culturally significant foods. Nearly

.  A favorite non-Athapaskan eat-based figurative expression of mine is the Haida los taas, ‘wave eater’ for war canoe or long boat.

 Sally Rice

all of the examples in (62)–(70) are based on the most prevalent stem whose modern reflex is a (usually relativized or nominalized) variant of -(d/y)an ‘eat’, a stem which Krauss & Leer (1981: 201) have reconstructed as *-ha.ŋ in Proto-Athapaskan. food in general and particular foods (62) daan, dann, dán, dánÑı̜Ñ ‘food’

Jicarilla Apache (Phone et al. 2007: 158, 176)

(63) ch’iyán, idán ‘food’

W. Apache (de Reuse & Goode 2006: 507)

(64) a. ch’iyá̜ Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 30, 280, 295) ‘food’ (customary diet of an animal) b. ch’iyáán ‘food, groceries’ c. ch’iyáán doo bidi’ndzinígíí ‘garbage’ [lit. ‘food which is not wanted’] d. ch’éé jiyáán ‘watermelon’ [lit. ‘food which is eaten in vain’] e. dá̜á̜’ ‘food, corn, provender’ (< perfective stem form -yá̜á̜’/-dá̜á̜’ ‘to eat’) (65) a. edonee ‘edibles’ [lit. ‘that which is eaten’]

Koyukon (Jetté & Jones 2000: 287)

b. ts’eSonyee ‘inedibles’ [lit. ‘that which we do not eat’] (66) a. daan ‘food’

Ahtna (Kari 1990: 429)

b. -daane’ ‘food (of an animal)’ [cf. udzihdaane’ ‘lichen’, lit. ‘caribou’s food’] c. c’aan ‘food, flour’ (67) dóní ‘food’

Tsuu T’ina (Cook 1984: 78)

(68) -ni ‘food’

Dene Sųłiné (author’s field notes)

(69) hәyuÑaS ‘food’ [lit. ‘what they might eat’] (70) etÑaS ‘food’ [lit. ‘what gets eaten’]

Witsuwit’en (Hargus 2007: 358) Carrier (Morice 1932: 358)



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

(71) a. k’iwiyul Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 37; 1–2) ‘food in general’ [lit. ‘what one keeps eating’] b. k’iwinya’n ‘acorn’ (a dietary staple of the Hupa) [lit. ‘what someone eats’] c. sa’-xa:wh ‘acorn soup/mush’ [lit. ‘what someone handles.container into.mouth’]

Less common are analogous metonymies for ‘things which are drunk’, which might signify either water or alcoholic beverages. The few examples available are presented in (72)–(73). beverage, drink, water (72) ta’na:n < ta’dina:n ‘water’ [lit. ‘what one drinks’]

Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 105)

(73) daadlán-ígíí Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 306) ‘beverages’ [lit. ‘those things that are drunk’]

Quite a number of terms of acculturation have developed in Dene languages out of eat-based metonymies. These typically have to do with items found about the hearth and home or implements used for eating or drinking. table (74) mi-kÑáÑ-chi-̜daÑ-chi-ya̜Ñ-i Jicarilla Apache (Phone et al. 2007: 332) it-on-food-4.eat [lit. ‘one eats food on it’] (75) bi-káá’-adání it-on-4.eat [lit. ‘one eats food on it’]

Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 1034)

(76) bi-ká’-idáné W. Apache (de Reuse & Goode 2006: 555) it-on-4.eat [lit. ‘on it (there is) eating’] (77) uk’e’sc’eyaani lit. ‘that on which we eat’

Ahtna (Kari 1990: 429)

(78) be-tlee-kk’e k’edone lit. ‘that which people eat on it’

Koyukon (Jetté & Jones 2000: 287)

(79) be-k’e-shi-ch’elyi lit. ‘that which people eat on it’

Dene Sųłiné (author’s field notes)

(80) miq’it-dahky’a:n lit. ‘on it-one eats atop’

Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 94)

utensils (81) me’-ky’a:n Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 26) ‘plates, cups, things one eats from’ [lit. ‘in it-one eats’]

 Sally Rice

(82) tó-zis bee ’adlání Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 708) water-bag with.it something.is.drunk ‘drinking glass’ [lit. ‘the bottle with which something is drunk’] (83) dәcәn bi c’әt’aS ‘chopsticks’ [lit. ‘with wood one eats’]

Witsuwit’en (Hargus 2007: 271)

Places where food and drink are prepared, consumed, or purchased also have developed metonymically from eat and drink stems. This type of metonymy is especially prevalent in Apachean languages: food/drink-related locations (84) a. ch’iyáán ’ál’íní góne’ Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 295, 301, 304) food it.is.made.place inside ‘kitchen’ [lit. ‘inside the place where food is prepared’] b. da’a-dą̄ą góne’ people-eat inside ‘dining room’ [lit. ‘inside the place where people eat’] c. ch’iyáán bá hooghan ‘grocery store’ [lit. ‘food-for-building’] d. da’ji-yán-í ‘restaurant, cafe’ [lit. ‘people-eat-place’] e. da’ji-dlán-í ‘barroom, tavern’ [lit. ‘people-drink-place’] (85) a. da-ch’iyą̄ą-yú W. Apache (de Reuse & Goode 2006: 70, 72) pl-eating-nmlz ‘restaurant, cafeteria’ [lit. ‘the place where people eat’] b. ch’iyán baa gowaąh food concerning house ‘food store, grocery store’ [lit. ‘house about food’] (86) c’etnaande Ahtna (Kari 1990: 289–90) ‘tavern, bar’ [lit. ‘the place where one drinks something’]

eat and drink stems also participate in the metonymyic (and sometimes metaphoric) lexicalization of particularly salient agents of eating and drinking. Specific animal names and cannibals (salient “eaters” par excellence!) derive from expressions with eat or related stems, as shown in (87)–(89). Parts of the body specifically associated with eating are named in (90). And particularly salient drinkers—alcoholics—are named with drink stems in (91)–(92): animal and cannibal names (87) a. dekenh ehone Koyukon (Jetté & Jones 2000: 287) ‘porcupine’ [lit. ‘that which eats sticks’]



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

b. ketleĥone ‘small fish, minnows’ [lit. ‘that which eats meat’] (said of certain small fish found in abundance around salmon-preparation areas) (88) tšabaayo yaSts’ǫǫsa Galice (Hoijer 1966: 322) ‘hummingbird’ [lit. ‘flowers, the one that sucks them’] (89) a. ÑeS dyanni Ahtna (Kari 1990: 429; 146) ‘spruce grouse, spruce hen’ [lit. ‘that which eats spruce boughs’] b. tneldaetSne ‘cannibals’ [lit. ‘those that eat.PO people’]

consumption-related body parts (90) a. miS-ky’a:n ‘set of teeth’ [lit. ‘with it-one eats’]

Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 95, 91)

b. whik’iwiyul-me’-nolxit’ ‘stomach’ [lit. ‘my food-into it-is swallowed up’]

eaters and drinkers (91) ’adláan-í Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 871) ‘drinker, drunkard’ [lit. ‘the one that drinks’] (92) ta:’awhdina’n ‘I’m a drinker.’ [lit. ‘I drink habitually.’]

Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 29)

Finally, physiological states associated with too much or not enough food and drink also form the basis of metonymies built on stems for eat, drink, food, and water in Dene languages. have a party (93) bá ’ajiyá̜ Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 124) 3sg-for people.eat ‘They’re having a party.’ [lit. ‘People eat for him/her.’]

get drunk

(94) ’áde ’eesh-dlá̜á’̜  above.self perf.1sg-drink ‘I overdrank.’ [lit. ‘I drank above myself.’]

Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 125)

be hungry

(95) dák’azhá̜ íyā̜ā̜ W. Apache (de Reuse & Goode 2006: 407) ate impf.3sgs.eat ‘S/he is hungry.’ [lit. ‘S/he is eating late.’]

starvation (96) a. Ña:kÑineÑ ‘There is no more food (archaic term).’

Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 37, 47)

 Sally Rice

b. Ña: dixin/Ña: dixing ‘be hungry/starving’ [lit. ‘eating off oneself ’ or ‘subsisting on oneself ’] (97) ho-dichin ‘starvation, famine’ [lit. ‘areal-hunger’]

Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 450)

(98) shéak’e ‘lacking food’ (archaic term) (99) shiṉá’ ‘hunger’ [lit. ‘food ???’]

Slave (K. Rice 1989: 652) W. Apache (de Reuse & Goode 2006: 520)

6.2  Metaphors The high degree of figurativity in Athapaskan languages has not received much sustained attention. A few dictionary compilers, notably Young & Morgan (1987), Kari (1990), and Golla (1996), have been consistent in listing literal and free glosses side-by-side. With respect to Athapaskan figurativity, I have speculated elsewhere about a possible correlation between small, esoteric societies (as is common with hunter-gatherers) and an over-reliance on the endolexicon for purposes of deriving new expressions (cf. S. Rice 1998b, 1999). Any reliance on a core, indigenous lexicon means that the same set of old forms must be deployed for new and different purposes, thus hastening semantic extension and its inevitable by-product, figurativity. The Dene languages provide a rich source of metaphors, from the more to the less conventional. Orientational and ontological metaphors are quite common, as well as those based on form/shape similarity across distinct conceptual domains (cf. Lakoff & Johnson 1979, 1999; Brown 1999). Let us begin with a few, simple referential metaphors in which food stems (which typically derive from eat) form the basis of terms that designate particular plants as food sources. plant names

(100) a. dah yiití̜hí̜dá̜á̜ Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 301, 302) ‘Indian Paintbrush (flower)’ [lit. ‘hummingbird food’] (hummingbird = ‘that which hangs suspended’) b. dá’á-k’eh ‘cornpatch, farm, field’ [lit. ‘food/corn-place’] (dá’á- is combining form of dá̜á̜’ ‘food, corn’)

indigenous and acculturated foods (101) a. dlúne ni ‘seneca root’ [lit. ‘rat food’] b. dlie ni ‘peanut butter’ [lit. ‘squirrel food’]

Dene Sųłiné (author’s field notes)



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

c. Sįchogh ni ‘oats’ [lit. ‘horse (big-dog) food’] d. eni ‘bait’ [lit. ‘unspec/animal food’]

Analogous to metaphorical eat, one finds the following example of metaphorical bite in Ahtna (102b and c): (102) a. Si yiz’aS dog 3o.perf.bite ‘A dog bit him (once).’

Ahtna (Kari 1990: 79)

b. uc’iis’aS 3indef.perf.1sgs.bite ‘I trapped it.’ c. te’aSi ‘steel trap’ [lit. ‘that which bites’]

Moving from the referential to the more relational, the following examples based on eat and drink stems or constructions generally describe a process or a state. to poison (feed) (103) a. miS-xosa:-y’an Hupa (Golla et al. 1996: 73) with it-into.mouth-put.round.object ‘I poisoned him/her.’ [lit. ‘I placed it into her/his mouth.’] b. miS-xosa’awh with it-someone puts round object into his mouth ‘Someone poisons him/her; Poisoning is happening.’

to be sick (104) ha-sê•-deaS ‘I have cancer.’ [lit. ‘it is eating off of me’]

Carrier (Morice 1932: 242)

(105) a. gu se-dak Dene Sųłiné (author’s field notes) bug 1sgo-devour ‘I have cancer.’ [lit. ‘Bugs/worms are devouring me.’] b. ya se-dak lice 1sgo-devour ‘I’m infested with lice.’ [lit. ‘Lice are devouring me.’] c. dekoth se-dak phlegm/cough 1sgo-devour ‘I have a cold.’ [lit. ‘Phlegm is devouring me.’] d. shiratth’en se-dak heartburn 1sgo-devour ‘I have heartburn.’ [lit. ‘Heartburn is devouring me.’]

 Sally Rice

(106) a. benozehtl te k’ʉdehonh Koyukon (Jetté & Jones 2000: 285–7) ‘S/he has arthritis.’ [lit. ‘Something is eating his/her limbs.’] b. baanh k’oolkkoy ts’eege yets’e gheehonee ‘S/he (that child) has a chronically runny nose.’ [lit. ‘His/her mother ate pike entrails towards him (while she was pregnant).’]

to be angry

(107) k’edohʉdeehon’ Koyukon (Jetté & Jones 2000: 285) ‘S/he scolded everybody.’ [lit. ‘S/he chewed everybody out/ verbally ate everybody.’]

Finally, I present a few examples based on drink verbs, which prove to be a fertile source of metaphors to express drowning and getting drunk in Dene Sųłiné. In both cases and only in these examples, can we say that an “affected agent” construal is present. That is, the act of consumption highlights a detrimental effect on the consumer. Moreover, these examples mark an affected agent in the absence of an errative or excessive marker. to drown (108) tu-ne-s-dí̜ ha Dene Sųłiné (author’s field notes) water-mom-1sgs-drink fut ‘I’m going to drown.’ [lit. ‘I will drink water.’]

to be/get intoxicated

(109) kón-tué ne-s-dí̜ ha Dene Sųłiné (author’s field notes) fire-water mom-1sgs-drink fut ‘I’m going to get drunk.’ [lit. ‘I will drink (drown in) alcohol.’]

The only other instance I could find of a similar “affected agent” expression involving a verb of ingestion comes from Witsuwit’en, for a verb meaning ‘taste’ rather than ‘eat’ or ‘drink’, as shown in (110). The third person object pronoun y- has been replaced by the abstract, impersonal or areal object pronoun, w-. This pair mirrors the alternation described in (61). to experience misfortune (110) a. yәSnic ‘S/he tasted it.’

Witsuwit’en (Hargus 2007: 288)

b. wәSnic ‘S/he knows how it feels.’ [lit. ‘S/he tasted something (i.e., misfortune).’]

7.  Hunger and thirst in Athapaskan Thus far, we have seen that the Dene languages surveyed opt for the more specific over the more generic when it comes to rendering eat and drink events into



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

linguistic predications. Indeed, this attraction towards the hyponymic cuts across Dixon’s (1999) and Aikhenvald’s (this volume) semantic typology of verb meanings. In their terms, there is a continuum between languages in which the verbs expend semantic energy in expressing the nature of the event participants over the nature of the event per se (their A type language) and languages in which the nature of the action is more likely to be specified at the expense of the event participants (their B type language). It is fair to say that Athapaskan languages appear to be uncontroversially A and B type languages at the same time, depending on the class of predications being scrutinized. They have an abundance of participantreferring stems which grossly underspecify the event type (the classic CVS system), as well as a number of incorporated stems, postpositions, gender prefixes, and other devices which fine-tune the nature of the action or the manner in which the action is performed, but which give short shrift to the nature of the foodstuff being consumed. A sharp, blinkered focus on only the verb stem in Dene languages is just about meaningless since the propositional verb word as a whole, along with its immediate syntactic frame, conveys meaning in an often non-compositional but highly conventionalized fashion. Thus, the Dene verb must be regarded as a construction in its own right (cf. Croft 2001; S. Rice 2006), and items in the Dene verbal lexicon must be respected in all of their wholistic heterogeneity. That said, we do find one domain relevant to the semantic fields of eating and drinking in which Dene languages opt for the more generic over the more specific and look like B type languages in the process.15 The expression of physical desire, especially of hunger and thirst, but also craving for tobacco or sexual release, is often made with the same verb. The examples from Dene Sųłiné in (111), built on a ‘crave’ (or possibly ‘think’) verb, seem especially generic in their extensiveness. (111) a. bér-ba hédher Dene Sųłiné (author’s field notes) meat-for impf.3sgs.crave ‘S/he is hungry.’ [lit. ‘S/he hungers for meat.’] b. tu-ba hédher water-for impf.3sgs.crave ‘S/he is thirsty.’ [lit. ‘S/he hungers for water.’] c. ʔe-ba hédher unspec-for impf.3sgs.crave ‘S/he is horny.’ [lit. ‘S/he hungers for someone.’]

.  A striking example of underspecification and ingestion comes from Slave (Bearlake), where Ñénehtlah can mean ‘I swallowed’, ‘I choked’, or ‘I coughed up’ (K. Rice 1989: 532). Norwegian & Howard (2004: 504) gloss the very same cognate stem in South Slavey, -tSa, as ‘throat action’, where it subsumes all of the above, but also the notion of having hiccups.

 Sally Rice

d. kafi-ba hédher coffee-for impf.3sgs.crave ‘S/he wants some coffee.’ [lit. ‘S/he hungers for coffee.’] e. ts’élt’ui-ba hédher tobacco-for impf.3sgs.crave ‘S/he craves a cigarette.’ [lit. ‘S/he hungers for tobacco.’] f. *tsa̜ba-ba hédher money-for impf.3sgs.crave [lit. ‘S/he hungers for money.’] g. *hédher impf.3sgs.crave [lit. ‘S/he craves.’]

In Navajo and Western Apache, an equative or similitude verb is generically used for both hunger and thirst. This is based on a metaphor of the strongest order: I am thirsty < I am/have become thirst, as shown in (112) and (113): 112) a. dichin nishSi̜ hunger impf.1sgs.be ‘I’m hungry.’ [lit. ‘I am hunger.’]

Navajo (Young & Morgan 1987: 661)

b. dibáá nishSi̜ thirst impf.1sgs.be ‘I’m thirsty.’ [lit. ‘I am thirst.’] (113) a. shiná’ siSī ̜ī̜’ W. Apache (de Reuse & Goode 2006: 520; 559) hunger perf.3sgs.be ‘S/he got hungry.’ [lit. ‘S/he became hunger.’] b. tábá’ siSī ̜ī̜’ thirst perf.3sgs.be ‘S/he got hungry.’ [lit. ‘S/he became hunger.’]

8.  Th  e lexical semantics of basic verbs and coming to terms with Athapaskan prehistory As I indicated in my two previous chapters in this series on the syntax and semantics of basic verbs (on give verbs in S.  Rice 1998a and sit/stand/lie verbs in S. Rice 2002), Athapaskan verbs tend to be more specific than generic.16 Here, too,

.  In those earlier studies, I attributed a reluctance of basic verbs to grammaticalize in Dene Sųłiné to this familial tendency towards the particular.



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

in the case of Athapaskan eat and drink verbs, we find a large number of lexical variations on the general theme of consumption. In all of the daughter languages surveyed, a number of lexicosyntactic reflexes were shown to manifest a great deal of theme-oriented specificity, focusing attention on the manner of consumption and the nature of the object consumed. Sometimes these two semantic properties are independently marked and dissociable; sometimes they are intertwined, either logically or inferentially. The main point is that acts of consumption in Athapaskan are highly specific across the family and are rather literally tied to the situation at hand. To whit, handling into the mouth or handling variously shaped or constituted objects about the mouth is a dominant organizing schema and has proven to be a fertile source of eat predications, in particular. Notwithstanding the relatively high level of specificity in the semantic typing of events in Dene languages, they manage this against the backdrop of a somewhat impoverished stem lexicon (albeit not so radically limited as the Papuan languages, Kalam or Manambu (cf. Aikhenvald, this volume). On average, Athapaskan languages have around 1300 stems (Jim Kari and Victor Golla, p.c.), of which the vast majority are used to form verbs. A massive amount of recycling and recombination transpires within the typical Dene lexicon, giving rise, not surprisingly, to much figurativity, but also to much ambiguity and vagueness. To be sure, the result is quite a lot of phonological and semantic shift and “slippage” across the daughter languages, a state of affairs that hampers cross-language comparison and protolanguage reconstruction. The sheer number of alternative forms and meanings across the family is daunting, especially given the paucity of monosyllabic stems (and non-derived nouns, generally), considerable fusion and stem suppletion, the clear tendency towards semantic specificity amongst derived verbs, and the likelihood that neighboring Dene languages will form dialectal continua rather than mutually unintelligible languages (not to mention the frequency of ideolectal variation within single communities). Studies of the lexical semantics of basic verbs and expressions can provide a coherent background both for language-internal analysis, but also for deeper cross-linguistic—in the case of reflexes of a single family—and typological—in the case of unrelated languages—research in areas beyond those already heavily mined on largely structural grounds alone. The classic domains of the formal syntactician and the typologist alike (viz. word order patterns, agreement, case systems, head/dependency marking, extraction, etc.) do not tell us very much about being human, about how different cultures relate to the world, and how different languages foster the categorization of experience. By focusing on a smallish corner of the lexicon and a circumscribed semantic field, fine-grained patterns and correspondences can emerge for both the linguist and the native speaker, patterns which might otherwise be overlooked because they are not readily obvious or they are not part of a major morphosyntactic system or a universal vocabulary set.

 Sally Rice

Furthermore, a relational predication, such as a basic verb, although seemingly more intractable than a referential term, can reveal much about the degree of differentiation amongst areally or genetically related languages, as well as yield insights into what might have been the prehistorical cultural relationships among contemporary groups. The direction, pace, and motivation behind language change or lexical innovation is too large to track wholesale or across the board. However, experientially basic event frames, as afforded by concentrated attention to the linguistics of eating and drinking, for example, can offer some measure of focus whereby new cognates, loan translations, and other similar patterns and meanings can be identified and compared. It is just this kind of semantically motivated focus that can allow us to make progress in our understanding of Athapaskan prehistory and migration patterns (cf. Ives & Rice, under review). Despite the startling linguistic similarities among Athapaskan languages, their speakers are distinguished by a huge geographical dispersal and deep cultural diversity. The motivations, means, paths, and timecourses of Dene peoples’ great journeys across the western half of the North American continent remain a mystery. The physical record that archaeologists have at their disposal is quite fragmentary and ambiguous and offers little in the way of conclusive evidence in response to this mystery. Moreover, the precise daughter language relationships have yet to be worked out, especially when it comes to determining who are today’s descendants of the most immediate northern ancestors to the Apacheans. In addition, only a few comprehensive proto-Athapaskan (PA) reconstructions have been attempted and they have been conducted on a modest and fairly recycled inventory of somewhat skewed (in terms of representativeness and extent of the languages sampled) and disjoint (in terms of content) language data (cf. Krauss 1969 and Krauss & Leer 1981; the latter of which helpfully includes comparisons and reconstructed PA forms for ‘eat’ (*-ha.ŋ), ‘drink’ (*-na.ŋ), ‘lick’ (*-na.t’), and ‘swallow/choke’ (*-ne͛.x̣), but not ‘chew’; unfortunately, among body parts, ‘wart’ and ‘nostril’ are reconstructed, but not the more critical ‘hand’ and ‘mouth’). A comprehensive pan-Athapaskan study of the linguistic and cultural usage facts of a targeted domain, such as expressions of eating and drinking, may yield a new wave of experientially grounded (and dare I say more relevant) language data which can make both scientific and practical contributions. By tracking degree of cognation and calquing from contact languages versus spontaneous innovation for experientially relevant domains (e.g., for flora and fauna, hunting and tracking techniques, kinship, moccasin manufacture, and basic verbs), language evidence can be brought to bear on this major question about North American prehistory and allow us to test certain models of Athapaskan ancestry and migration. However, such an enterprise can also be brought to bear on helping a community



Athapaskan eating and drinking verbs and constructions 

which has lost some of its vocabulary to reconstruct a form or an expression in ways consistent with patterns found elsewhere in the family or to even borrow a form outright from a sister language. Athapaskan languages have traditionally eschewed borrowing from unrelated contact languages as a means of expanding the lexicon. However, in an age in which indigenous language loss and death puts all of the extant daughter languages (even Navajo) on a vulnerable footing, knowledge about related languages and communities within the larger Dene Nation of North America is usually the preferred means of restoring lost language. That giant of 20th century anthropology and linguistics, Edward Sapir, made intriguing observations about the migration of the Apachean Athapaskans into the American Southwest that deserve to be revisited (1936). He thought that the Athapaskan route southward involved four probable strata or stages of migration out of the Subarctic: a fundamental northern layer (related to the Mackenzie Basin), an early upper Plains adaptation, a first contact with non-Puebloan peoples in the Southwest, and a second distinctly Puebloan influence later on. Although Sapir anticipated that archaeological evidence would be forthcoming, he was only able to offer linguistic cues for these four stages, specifically, in Apachean words for ‘ladle’, ‘corn’, ‘sown seed lies’, and ‘gliding/paddling’, which either preserved northern terms and meanings or involved innovations based on northern items or concepts. It is no surprise that three of these concepts are intimately linked with the notion of eating or cultivation, those most basic of human experiential domains. In the 21st century, a return to semantically and conceptually driven comparison, as attempted here, may help us better connect the dots between the daughter languages, for, as Sapir himself writes (1936: 225), “there is undoubtedly a large amount of relevant cultural experience packed away in the vocabularies of [these languages].”

Abbreviations 1 = 1st person; 2 = 2nd person; 3= 3rd person; caus = causative; cl = pre-stem voice valency classifier; conj = conjunct prefix; cv = classificatory verb; dem = demonstrative; err = errative; impf = imperfective; indef = indefinite; mom = momentaneous aspect; nmlz = nominalizer; o = object; obv = obviative; perf = perfective; pl = plural; qro = qualifier prefix; refl = reflexive; s = subject; sg = singular; unspec = unspecified. Abbreviations relating to the Dene classificatory verb system: AO = animate object; CC = closed container and its contents; FF = flat, flexible; GO = granular, powdery, or heaplike mass; MM = mushy matter; OC = open container; PO = plural objects; SO = sticklike object; SRO = solid, round, compact object.

 Sally Rice

Notes I am grateful to the following Cold Lake Dene Sųłiné speakers for their generosity of time, insight, deep patience, and good humor: Valerie Wood, Nora Matchatis, Shirley Cardinal, the late Ernest Ennow, and most especially John Janvier. Thanks, too, to Agnes Carlson from Lac Brochet, Manitoba. I appreciate the many helpful discussions with Andy Norwegian (South Slavey), Bruce Starlight (Tsuu T’ina), and Mary Koyina Richardson (Dogrib) and the suggestion of a particularly nice Navajo example from Elly van Gelderen. Victor Golla and Sharon Hargus graciously provided useful feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. Any errors of representation or interpretation remain my own. I gratefully acknowledge one of my former students, Dinorah Haber, who prompted me to start thinking about lexical extensions of the classificatory verb stem system in Athapaskan languages in the first place, of which extensions into the domain of eat and drink are only one small part. This research was funded in part by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Community-University Research Alliance grant (2000–2005).

References Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. This volume. ‘Eating’, ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking’: A generic verb and its semantics in Manambu. Axelrod, Melissa. 1993. The semantics of time: Aspectual categorization in Koyukon Athabaskan. Lincoln NB: University of Nebraska Press. Basso, Keith. 1968. The Western Apache classificatory verb system: A formal analysis. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 24: 252–266. Berlin, Brent. 1967. Categories of eating in Tzeltal and Navaho. IJAL 33: 1–6. Brown, Cecil. 1999. Lexical acculturation in Native American languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carter, Robin. 1976. Chipewyan classificatory verbs. IJAL 42: 24–30. Cook, Eung-Do. 1984. A Sarcee grammar. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Cook, Eung-Do. 2004. A grammar of Dëne SųSiné (Chipewyan) [Memoir 17, Special Athabaskan Number]. Winnipeg: Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics. Croft, William. 2001. Radical construction grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, William, L.W. Elford & Harry Hoijer. 1963. Athapaskan classificatory verbs. Studies in Athapaskan languages, Harry Hoijer et al. (Eds), 30–41. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. de Reuse, Willem & Phillip Goode. 2006. A practical grammar of the San Carlos Apache language. Münich: Lincom Europa. Dixon, R.M.W. 1999. Semantic roles and syntactic functions: The semantic basis for a typology. Part 2: Papers from the Panels. Chicago Linguistic Society 35: 323–41. Haas, Mary. 1948. Classificatory verbs in Muskogee. IJAL 14: 244–246. Haas, Mary. 1968. Notes on a Chipewyan dialect. IJAL 34: 165–175.



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Hargus, Sharon. 2007. Witsuwit’en grammar: Phonetics, phonology, morphology. Vancouver: UBC Press. Hoijer, Harry. 1966. Galice Athapaskan: A grammatical sketch. IJAL 32: 320–327. Hoijer, Harry & Janet Joël. 1963. Sarsi nouns. In Studies in the Athapaskan languages, Harry Hoijer et al. (Eds), 62–75. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. Golla, Victor et al. 1996. Hupa language dictionary, 2nd Edn. Hoopa: Hoopa Valley Tribal Council. Ives, John W. & Sally Rice. Under review. Correspondences in archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence for Apachean history. In Languages and genes, Bernard Comrie (Ed), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jetté, Jules & Eliza Jones. 2000. Koyukon Athabaskan dictionary. Fairbanks AK: Alaska Native Language Center. Kari, James. 1989. Affix positions and zones in the Athabaskan verb complex: Ahtna and Navajo. IJAL 55: 424–454. Kari, James (Ed), 1990. Ahtna Athabaskan Dictionary. Fairbanks AK: Alaska Native Language Center. Kibrik, Andrej. 1996. Transitivity decrease in Navajo and Athabaskan: Actor-affecting propositional derivations. In Athabaskan language studies: Essays in honor of Robert W. Young, E. Jelinek; S. Midgette; K. Rice & L. Saxon (Eds), 259–303. Albuquerque NM: University of New Mexico Press. Krauss, Michael. 1969. On the classification in the Athapascan, Eyak, and the Tlingit verb. Supplement to IJAL 35 [Memoir 24], Part II. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press. Krauss, Michael & Jeff Leer. 1981. Athabaskan, Eyak, and Tlingit sonorants. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center Research Papers. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1979. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh. New York: Basic Books. Landar, Herbert. 1964. Seven Navaho verbs of eating. IJAL 30: 94–96. Landar, Herbert. 1967. Ten’a (Koyukon) classificatory verbs. IJAL 33: 263–268. Landar, Herbert. 1976. Six Jicarilla Apache verbs of eating. IJAL 42: 264–267. Li, Fang-Kuei. 1930. A study of Sarcee verb-stems. IJAL 6: 3–27. Li, Fang-Kuei. 1946. Chipewyan. Linguistic structures in Native America. Cornelius Osgood (Ed), 398–429. Viking Fund Publications no. 6. McDonough, Joyce. 2000. On a bipartite model of the Athapaskan verb. The Athapaskan languages: Perspectives on a Native American language family, T. Fernald & P. Platero (Eds), 139–166. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morice, Adrien-Gabriel. 1932. The Carrier language (Déné family): A grammar and dictionary combined, Vols. I & II. St.-Gabriel-Mödling, Austria: Anthropos. Næss, Åshild. This volume. How transitive are eat and drink verbs? Norwegian, Andy & Philip Howard (Eds). 2004. A dictionary of the verbs of South Slavey, 2nd Edn. Vols. 1 & 2. Ft. Simpson NT: Dehcho Divisional Education Council. Phone, Wilhelmina, Maureen Olson & Matilda Martinez. 2007. Dictionary of Jicarilla Apache. Albuquerque NM: University of New Mexico Press. Rice, Keren. 1989. A grammar of Slave. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Rice, Keren. 2000. Morpheme order and semantic scope: Word formation in the Athapaskan verb. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 Sally Rice Rice, Sally. 1987. Participants and non-participants. Towards a cognitive model of transitivity. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. UC, San Diego. Rice, Sally. 1998a. Giving and taking in Chipewyan: The semantics of Thing-marking classificatory verbs. The linguistics of giving, John Newman (Ed), 97–134. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Rice, Sally. 1998b. Metaphors and metonymies in Chipewyan lexicalization. Paper presentation at the annual Athapaskan Languages Conference, University of Calgary, 13–14 June 1998. Rice, Sally. 1999. Esoterogeny and analyzability in Chipewyan lexicalization: A case study in Athapaskan metaphor and metonymy. Paper presentation at the 6th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, University of Stockholm, 12–16 July 1999. Rice, Sally. 2002. Posture and existence predicates in Dene SųSiné (Chipewyan): Lexical and semantic density as a function of the SIT/STAND/LIE continuum. The linguistics of sitting, standing, and lying, John Newman (Ed), 61–78. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Rice, Sally. 2006. Radical construction grammar meets the Dene verb. Keynote address at the biennial High Desert Linguistics Society Meeting. University of New Mexico, 9–11 November 2006. Rice, Sally & Valerie Wood. 1996. Postpositions and lexicalization patterns in the Chipewyan verb. Paper presentation at the annual Athapaskan Languages Conference, University of Alberta, 15 June 1996. Rushforth, Scott. 1991. Uses of Bearlake and Mescalero (Athapaskan) classificatory verbs. IJAL 57: 251–266. Sapir, Edward. 1931[1949]. The concept of phonetic law as tested in primitive languages by Leonard Bloomfield. Selected writings of Edward Sapir, David G. Mandelbaum (Ed), 73–82. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sapir, Edward. 1936. Internal linguistic evidence suggestive of the northern origin of the Navaho. American Anthropologist 38: 224–235. Thompson, Chad. 1996. The Na-Dene middle voice: An impersonal source of the D-element. IJAL 62: 351–378. Wierzbicka, Anna. This volume. All people eat and drink: Does this mean that ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are universal human concepts? Young, Robert & William Morgan, Sr. 1987. The Navajo language: A grammar and colloquial dictionary. Albuquerque NM: University of New Mexico Press.

The semantic evolution of eat-expressions Ways and byways Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi University of Michigan/Kobe University

The act of consuming food occupies a central place in our day-to-day lives and the experiential reality associated with it serves as a rich source for a variety of metaphorical extensions across languages. In this paper we focus on two IndoAryan languages (Hindi-Urdu and Marathi) and demonstrate how various subcomponents of the basic action of eating may be extended to express relatively abstract events, states, and experiences. We approach the explication of the polysemy network of EAT in Hindi-Urdu and Marathi from two complementary perspectives: (1) a cognitive perspective and (2) a lexical perspective. This bilateral approach allows us to explore both the general (aka “universal”) and the particular (historical, language-specific) factors underlying the extended uses of the verb EAT.

1.  Introduction Like other lexical verbs commonly found across languages to be subject to grammaticalization (BE, DO, WANT, GO, COME, LEAVE, STRIKE, etc.) the verb EAT is one of those that frequently occur in daily speech. However, unlike other common verbs, EAT is rarely the source of fully grammaticalized formants.1 Semantically centripetal, its subject is both the initiator and the locative-goal of the action it denotes. (Contrast canonical centrifugal verbs like kill or throw.) The dual participant role of its subject stems from the inherently reflexive nature of eating (Masica 1976; Næss 2003) and paves the way for extensions in two opposed directions: expressions in which the EATER is an agent and those in which the EATER bears the role of a theme, patient, experiencer, or exhibitor. The latter roles are seen in abundant extended uses of EAT in Indo-Aryan (as well as Central Asian

.  Chepang, a Tibeto-Burman language of central Nepal, is an exception. (See Caughley 1982.)

 Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

and Northeast Asian) languages.2 Example (1a) is from Urdu and (1b) is from Marathi: (1) a. inqilaabii fikar zang khaa jaa-egii aur manzil tak pahũčnaa revolutionary thought rust eat go-fut and goal up.to arrive-inf

muškil ho jaa-egaa difficult become go-fut

‘Revolutionary thinking will gather rust and it will become hard to reach the goal.’ b. rugnaalay.aa saaţhi ubhaar-leli imaarat aankhi kaahi mahine dhuļ hospital for construct-pp building more some months dust

khaat paḍ-ņaar aahe eat fall-futp is

‘The structure built for the hospital is going to sit gathering dust for several months more.’ (esakal)

We maintain that in the sense of ‘gather’ the New Indo Aryan (NIA) root khaareflects indirect development from the basic senses of the lexical item EAT. That is, in (1) khaa- has a sense which cannot be derived directly from some one aspect of the basic meaning of EAT but is one which must have itself developed from one of the (already) extended meanings. This chain of semantic developments extends far enough in Hindi-Urdu that in some of its sub-senses EAT is as if antonymous to itself. In (2a) mandii ‘slowdown’ is the subject of khaa ‘eat’ and sheyar-baazaar ‘stock-market’ is its object, whereas in (2b) sheyar-baazaar is the subject and mandii is the object. But because of the wide gap in the semantics of khaa in (2a) and (2b), the meanings of the sentences are nearly the same.3 (2) a. is saal-kii mandii sheyar-baazaar khaa gaii this year-gen slowdown(f) stock-market eat went.f.sg ‘This year’s slowdown wrecked (literally: devoured) the stock market.’

.  Our data for Hindi-Urdu, Marathi, (and Mandarin) was obtained from native speaker intuitions, dictionaries and Google. EAT-expressions are also found in Chinese and in the SinoTibetan and Austroasiatic languages of Southeast Asia: See Pardeshi et al. (2006). However, there are distinct differences in their numbers (contrast the 160 or so EAT-expressions in Hindi-Urdu with the 30 or so found in Mandarin Chinese) and types. .  A close parallel in English may be: (a) Fire caught (in/on) the dry grass. versus: (b) The dry grass caught fire. However, there are still differences between (a) and (b), in idiomaticity and in whether the fire came from somewhere else.



The semantic evolution of eat-expressions: Ways and byways 

b. is saal-kaa sheyar-baazaar mandii khaa gayaa this year-gen stock-market(m) slowdown eat went.m.sg ‘This year’s stock market suffered a slowdown.’

In this paper we distinguish the living from the frozen extensions in the set of EAT expressions in Indo-Aryan and for the non-frozen expressions attempt to describe as fully and as plausibly as possible the set of ways in which they may have emerged and continue to evolve. However, prior to making such an attempt (or as part of it) we must acknowledge that much of the radiation in the meanings and functions of the predicate EAT occurred outside of South Asia, possibly in Central Asia but more likely in West Asia, and was imported into South Asia already in a highly evolved and proliferate state over the past thousand or so years of India’s intense cultural and political contact with Persia and Persian.4 This debt can be seen by comparing the EAT datasets from Hindi-Urdu with those from Persian (Babai 2007; Family, in press).5 Highly divergent uses of EAT came into Urdu and Hindi as loan translations from Persian ready made. Among these: (3) X kaa namak khaa- {X’s salt EAT} ‘benefit from the support and protection of X’ X kaa ğam khaa- {X’s sorrow EAT} ‘experience sorrow about X; grieve over X’ Y ke paas X kii cuğlii khaa- {Y-near X’s tattling EAT} ‘tell on X to Y; rat out X to Y’

The Persian origin of these expressions is indicated by the survival in Urdu and Hindi of borrowings that contain the Persian formants -xor ‘EATer’ and -xorii ‘EATing’: namak-xor ‘servant; dependent’; ğam-xor ‘patiently suffering, meek’; cuğal-xorii ‘tattling; slander’, etc.

.  “The Persianate culture was carried by succeeding dynasties into Western and Southern Asia, in particular, by the Persianized-Seljuqs (1040–1118), and their successor states, who presided over Iran, Syria, and Anatolia until the thirteenth century, and by the Ghaznavids, who in the same period dominated Greater Khorasan and India. These two dynasties together drew the centers of the Islamic world eastward. Their institutions stabilized Islamic society in a form that would persist, at least in Western Asia, until the twentieth century. The Ghaznavids moved their capital from Ghazni to Lahore in modern Pakistan, which they turned into another center of Islamic culture. Under the Ghaznavids poets and scholars from Kashgar, Bukhara, Samarkand, Bagdad, Nishapur, and Ghazni congregated in Lahore. Thus, the Persian language and Persianate culture was brought deep into India and carried further in the thirteenth century.” (adapted from Wikipedia) .  Persian does not possess DRINK-expressions. Hindi-Urdu has at least one: ğussaa pii(anger DRINK) ‘swallow one’s rage’.

 Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

There are other perhaps less decisive kinds of evidence: For Persian Family (in press) reports more than 200 EAT-expressions. So far we have found about 160 for Hindi-Urdu and about 70 in Marathi. There are no types of EAT-expressions in Hindi-Urdu and Marathi that are not answered by a similar type in Persian. However, there are some types in Persian that have no counterparts in Hindi-Urdu and Marathi. Finally, there is no evidence for EAT-expressions based on khād- ‘eat’ (T 3865) in Old Indo Aryan (OIA) Sanskrit, the direct historical ascendant of HindiUrdu and Marathi.6

2.  Cognitive issues The most detailed of the several treatments of EAT-expressions in Persian is Family (in press).7 Her study includes a radial diagram of the kind featured in Lakoff (1987; §§10.1–10.3); see Figure 1. A multi-authored project in which we participated has a similar diagram for EAT-expressions in Hindi-Urdu; see Figure 2. Our purpose in including these two figures here is not to make a detailed comparison of the semantic organization of EAT-expressions in Persian versus Hindi-Urdu nor to critique either of the diagrams but rather to draw the reader’s attention to the necessity of making a distinction between the central branches and the outer ones. It is possible to group EAT-expressions into clusters as Family has done in impressive detail and to show (as we do below in section 3) how the individual members of a cluster are in general related to one another but this is true only for the outermost branches. This distinction between outermost and inner branchings is more easily seen in the detailed diagram given for xordæn by Family (Figure 1). The more primitive branchings, the central ones that radiate directly out from the basic lexical sense of EAT FOOD and which are not directly associated with individual EAT-expressions, are not easy to explain. Family says as much in her discussion of the major branches shown in Figure 3 (below). The history of the sequence of changes that would, for instance, link EAT FOOD to MOTION in Persian or UNDERGO or SUFFER an action or an effect in HindiUrdu can no longer be confidently reconstructed from the attested data in either language. The steps and stages of that evolution can perhaps be guessed at but they

.  However, there are signs of a prehistoric radiation of a different root meaning ‘eat’, namely bhuj. See section 7 below. .  These include Babai (2007), Dabirmoghaddam (1997), Folli, Harley & Karimi (2005), and Karimi (1997).

kard [knife]

∫ælaq [whip] hand held

weapon

suffering

ængo∫t [finger]

affected

XORDÆN [to eat]

sævari [riding] nozul [interest] usurping re∫ve [bribe]

pit∫ [twist] gere [knot]

modifying

motion

suzæn touching [needle] naxon reshaping zærbe ta [nail] type of hit [shock] sili [fold] fer kotæk [slap] [curl] lægæd [beat] [kick]

hurt-ing

Figure 1.  xordæn’s semantic space (Family, in press).

sæt∫me [pellet] golule projec-tile [bullet] tir [bullet]

potk [mallet]

instrument

t∫æko∫ [hammer]

trick gul [trick]

færib [trick]

qæbn [cheat]

qose [grief] emotion æsæf [regret]

gorosnegi [hunger] gij [dizziness] condition særma [cold] æzab [torment] tækan [motion]

qælt [sommersault]

fusing [connection] bæxiye [stich]

sædæme [damage] lætme damaging [damage} qat∫ [chop] ju∫ [weld] væsle

general sekændari [stumble] vul [slither]

rotation

pit∫ [twist]

The semantic evolution of eat-expressions: Ways and byways 

 Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

HAVE an emotion

UTTER or PERFORM

BOTHER or TORMENT someone

A.EAT FOOD (central meaning)

HIDE an emotion

B. INCORPORATE or SWALLOW

ENJOY

LIVE in a place C. UNDERGO or SUFFER an action or an effect C2. INVOLUNTARY ACTION or REACTION C1. BE DAMAGED or SPOILED by X (= direct object) Figure 2.  Radial diagram of meanings of the verb EAT in Hindi-Urdu (Pardeshi et al. 2006: 105).

cannot be recovered from the data presently available. There are too many missing links. We must regard the innermost branchings in these figures as no more than an expository convenience, useful for grouping clusters into clusters of clusters and for organizing our discussion but not necessarily shedding any light on the (pre)history of EAT-expressions. We might compare the situation to the Cambrian Radiation in which a number of divergent “body plans” suddenly appear in the paleontological record as if “out of the blue” (Briggs 2005). This limitation does not apply, however, to the relationships among individual EAT-expressions inside a given cluster. There we encounter “semi-productivity”, recent neologisms, and predictability enough to permit a number of generalizations to be made (with confidence) about the ways in which new EAT-expressions within a particular cluster can emerge and diffuse through a delimitable semantic space. Even though EAT-expressions did not originate in South Asia, there is evidence from the presence of hybrid EAT-expressions that their repertoire in Hindi-Urdu, if not necessarily growing, is not stable either. Older EAT-expressions may or may



The semantic evolution of eat-expressions: Ways and byways 

usurping

suffering

XORDÆN [to eat]

motion

affected Figure 3.  Major branches in xordæn’s semantic space. (Family, in press).

not disappear, but new ones, some incorporating English nouns as their “preverbs”, continue to emerge:8

(4) ran/gol khaa {run/goal EAT} ‘suffer runs/goals (from an opposing team)’ (Terry Varma, p.c.)

jaise 45 ovar mẽ 251 ran khaa le.ne-ke baad bhaarat jab unhẽ as 45 overs in 251 runs eat taking-after India when them utaar. ne mẽ lagaa to… putting down in engaged then ‘After suffering 251 runs in 45 overs when India got around to bringing them down… ’ (jan sattaa)

(5) kicks khaa {kick EAT} ‘receive a kick’

lagtaa. hai kicks khaa-khaa-kar dimaağ ke saath-saath tumhaarii eyeside seems kicks eat-eat-cp brain with-with your eyesight bhii weak ho.gaii hai too weak become is ‘… seems with you ğetting kicked and kicked your eyesight got weak, too, along with your brain.’

.  The preverb is the non-verbal element that together with EAT forms an EAT-expression. In Hindi-Urdu the preverb is always a noun (and hence we often refer to them as “contained nouns”). In Persian the picture is more complicated.

 Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

3.  Patterns of diffusion in Hindi-Urdu While the presence of EAT-expressions in Hindi-Urdu, Marathi, Kashmiri, and other Indo-Aryan languages owes much to their presence in a Persian adstrate, they have continued to evolve and spread even after the influence of Persian has waned. In this section we propose some bases for this continuing proliferation. Synonymy: An obvious way in which the repertoire of EAT-expressions can expand is by moving through a set of synonymous or nearly synonymous contained nouns. Thus from (6) we may expect (and do indeed find) EAT-expressions based on čakmaa, dağaa, fareb, kuuţ and other synonyms of dhokhaa: (6) tuu kaise dhokhaa khaa gay.ii you how deception eat went ‘… (but) how were you deceived?’ (Premchand’s godaan, p. 126, line 8)

(7) dhokhaa1/čakmaa2/dağaa3/fareb4/kuuţ5/dããv6 … khaa(lit: deception 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 EAT) ‘be fooled, taken in, tricked, cheated’

(8) aaropii čakmaa khaa ga.e aur pulis-ke bichaa-ye jaal-me˜ phãs ga.e accused deception eat went and police-gen spread-pp snare-in caught went ‘The accused were fooled and fell into the trap set by the police.’ (dailydeshbandhu.com) (9) phir un.kii saadgii se fareb khaa baiţh.e again her simplicity from deception eat sat ‘Once again we were taken in by her simplicity…’ (whereincity.com/shayari)

Cohyponymy:9 A related road to expansion is via the incorporation of nouns that are not strictly synonymous but which refer to entities of the same kind or of parallel function [(10) through (14)]: (10) koŗaa ‘whip’ ó jhaaŗuu ‘broom ó laaţhii ‘cudgel’ ó khanjar ‘dagger’ ó golii ‘bullet’ ó juute ‘shoes’ ó gaalii ‘curse’ ó nazar ‘evil eye’ ó etc. (11) piiţh-mẽ khanjar khaa-ne se kaun bač paataa.hæ back-in dagger eat-inf from who escape manages ‘Who manages to avoid getting stabbed in the back?’ (shayri.com/forums) (12) gããdhiijii ãgrezõ.kii laaţhii khaa-rahe the… Gandhiji Brits’ cudgel eat-ing was ‘Gandhiji was getting cudgeled by the Brits.’ (hindi.mkgandhi.org/gmarg/ chap16.htm)

.  The question has been raised as to why pii ‘drink’ as a cohyponym of khaa ‘eat’ does not figure as the host for some of the same nouns that are contained in Hindi-Urdu’s EATexpressions. The extensions we are accounting for here are from a late phase in the semantic evolution of khaa. In these extended meanings khaa is no longer a cohyponym of pii ‘drink’.



The semantic evolution of eat-expressions: Ways and byways 

(13) pačaasõ juute10 khaa-kar bhii kučh.na bolaa fifties shoes eat-cp even nothing spoke ‘(The poor soul), taking his medicine, said nothing.’ (Premchand’s godān, p. 265, line 3) (14) ek lekh lie mãĩ-ne gaalii khaaii, buraa bhii kaafii lagaa one article taken I-erg curse ate bad too enough seemed ‘I got cursed over one article and didn’t like it either!’ (commoditystreet.blogspot.com)

Hypernymy: Nouns expressing concepts of which other nouns are concrete instantiations may themselves become contained in EAT-expressions [(15) through (17)]: (15) mukkaa ‘fist; blow11 of a fist’ => mukke kii čoţ ‘injury from the blow of a fist’ => čoţ khaa- ‘be injured’ (16) vo mukke-kii čoţ khaa-kar ghaayal ho gayaa he fist-gen injury eat-cp wounded become went ‘He was injured from taking a punch.’ (17) aisii čoţ khaaii hai pyaar-mẽ ki ab aur jiiyaa nahĩĩ jaataa such injury ate is love-in that now more lived not goes ‘He’s so hurt in love he can’t bear to live any longer.’ (whereincity.com/shayari/ sad-shayari)

Higher level cohyponymy: The presence in EAT-expressions of nouns like čoţ ‘injury’ may condition (or be reinforced by) the incorporation of similar abstract state and action nouns: (18) čoţ ‘injury’ ó maar ‘beating’ ó gaččaa ‘setback’ ó shikast ‘defeat’ ó kasar ‘loss’ ó etc. (19) tuu aaj maar khaa-ne par lagii.huii hai you today beating eat-inf on keen are ‘You are looking for a beating today!’ (Premchand’s godān, p. 38, l. 10) (20) daanish.waarõ.kii aqal shikast khaa jaatii.hai intelligent.ones’ wits defeat eat goes ‘The intelligence of the intelligent is defeated.’ (hallagulla.com/vb3/ mohabat-kadah)

.  A “shoe-beating”, usually delivered by a woman to a man, is a traditional form of humiliation in South Asia. The expression jute khaa- may be used metaphorically for receiving a severe rebuke or insult. .  In Hindi nouns referring to weapons and weaponizable body parts can also refer to the blows delivered by them.

 Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

While it may be hard to identify a specific hypernym of which abstract nouns like shikast ‘defeat’ and kasar ‘loss’, and čoţ ‘injury’ are cohyponyms, it is clear that undesirability is a common component in the meanings of these as well as other nouns contained in idiomatic EAT-expressions.

4.  Variation in the thematic roles of the subjects of EAT-expressions In the examples that we have discussed so far [(4) through (20)] the subject of the clause is the patientive undergoer or sufferer of an undesirable action or event. However, in other idiomatic EAT-expressions the subject is more agentive, either exhibiting or performing the action, emotion, or state denoted by the contained noun. In this section we will present conjectured scenarios for the bleeding of EAT-expressions into areas of meaning in which the subject does not denote a patientive sufferer. Nouns referring to setbacks, shocks, and shoves participate in patientive EATexpressions: (21) čaudharii-ne use zor.se piičhe ḑhakel diyaa. punnii dhakkaa Chaudhary-erg her hard back shove gave Punni shock khaa-kar gir paŗii eat-ing topple fell ‘Chaudhry pushed her hard. Punni was knocked (off her balance) and fell.’ (Godan 34.7) (22) suučanaaẽ eḑ se pachaaŗ khaa-rahii hãĩ news advt. from shove.back eat-ing are ‘The news is giving ground to ads.’ (http://www.mediavimarsh.com/march-may07)

In (21) and (22) the subject of the clause suffers a blow or setback from an external source. In (23) the subject herself staggers backward (from an internal shock) and falls: (23) yahii paise hãĩ, yahii in.kaa go-daan hai. aur pačhaaŗ khaa-kar these money are this his cow-gift is and shove.back eat-ing gir paŗii topple fell ‘This is the money; this is his godan. And staggering back she fell.’  (Godan 365.18–9)

In (21), (22), and (23) the two situations are similar in result but not similar in cause. In the first two the subject takes a blow from someone or something else. In the third the subject herself staggers backward from an internal shock. There is a small hop in the meaning of khaa from ‘receive’/’undergo’ to ‘undergo’/’exhibit’.



The semantic evolution of eat-expressions: Ways and byways 

Polysemy of the contained noun also creates space for the semantic evolution of EAT-expressions. In (24) the subject experiences ‘external heat/heatstroke’; in (25) he exhibits ‘internal heat/anger’: (24) uff! mãĩ yahãã garmii khaa-rahii hũũ aur ye laŗkiyãã vahãã oof I here heat eat-ing am and these girls there paarţii-shaarţiyãã manaa rahii hãĩ parties-sharties celebrate prog are ‘Oof! Here I am dying of the heat while these girls are having parties over there…’ (25) naa-haq garmii khaa-rahe ho aap No-right heat eat-ing are eat-ing ‘You are getting angry for no reason.’ (ragistan.com)

Since internal causes can only be surmised from outward signs the net effect is the emergence of a new non-passive (or less passive) sense of EAT as ‘exhibit’ or ‘show’. This new ‘landing’ may license the emergence of an EAT-expression whose subject is volitional: (26) bhaiyaa, ğussaa mat khaa-o Brother anger neg eat-imper ‘Man, don’t get mad!’ (bbc.co.uk/hindi/regionalnews/story/2004/05/040504_ bindas22.shtml)

The imperative in (26) indicates that its subject is agentive and the khaa in it has an active sense but one removed by a number of hops from that of the primary one of ‘consume (food)’. Other sets show hops relating external and internal cause. The subject of (27) complains that he is the victim of betrayal: (27) is zindagii se bahut bevafaaii khaa-ii hai mãĩ-ne this life from much betrayal eat-en is I-erg ‘I’ve suffered a lot of betrayal from life…’ (www.coolyaar.com)

In (28) the subject commits an error which he is at least partly responsible for: (28) tiisrii gend-par vo gaččaa khaa gae aur el-bii-ḑablyuu ho.gae third ball-on he setback eat went and leg-before-wicket became ‘On the third pitch he messed up and was (caught) LBW.’ (navbharattimes. indiatimes.com)

In (29) the subject is the locus, source, and performer of the error: (29) ye phoţo shaayad ğalatii khaa-ke kisii-ne lii hai this photo maybe error eat-cp someone-erg taken is ‘Maybe somebody took this photo by mistake…’(shayri.com/forums; respelled)

 Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

In this sequence of examples there are three different meanings of EAT which exhibit three progressively firmer degrees of agency: ‘undergo’ (27), ‘experience’ (28), and ‘commit’ (29). A common pattern in such linkages is their dependence on the extension of some EAT-expression A from a concrete meaning {a} to an abstract meaning {b} mediated by the polysemy of its contained noun. For example, the noun palţii (derived from the verb palaţ-‘flip over, turn upside down’) means both ‘turn over’ or ‘flip over’ as well as ‘rebound’ or ‘change back’. Used with palţii in palţii’s simple deverbative sense, khaa means ‘undergo’ or ‘exhibit’: (30) ţrak palaţii khaa-kar gaḑḑhe-me˜ gir gayaa truck flip eat-cp ditch-in topple went ‘The truck flipped over and fell into a ditch.’ (www.bhaskar.com/newsitems/ view_city_news)

Used with palţii in its figurative meaning of ‘flip-flop’, khaa- encompasses more agentive situations: (31) netaa vahii sahii jo palaţii khaa-ne me˜ ustaad ho. leader that.one indeed who flip.flop eat-ing in master be. bolo aur mukar jaao… speak and retract go ‘The true mark of a leader is mastery of verbal retreat. Speak – and then go back on your words.’

In this sense palaţii khaa- expresses an action that is volitional, an action that is subject to the subject’s will and that is different from (30) in the degree of agency imputed to the subject. As a consequence of these local hops the participant role of the subject of khaa- (once khaa- is unmoored from the basic sense of ‘consume food’) becomes plastic, oscillating between agent (instigator, performer), exhibitor, and patient, experiencer, or unintransitive undergoer.12 Sets like (24–6) and (30–1) suggest that such oscillations may occur (and recur) on very small scales quite independently of the overall picture one might devise for them in a radial diagram like that in Fig. 2.

.  We have found it necessary to have recourse to the neologism “unintransitive” in order to differentiate those EAT-expressions which, while grammatically transitive, refer to monoactantial situations: učhaal khaa- ‘jump, shoot up’, mandii khaa- ‘slow down’, palaţaa khaa‘flip over’, ubaal khaa- ‘boil over’, etc. Many (but not all) of these expressions alternate with synonymous intransitive verbs: učhalnaa ‘to jump up’, mandiyaanaa ‘to slow down’, palaţnaa ‘to flip over’, ubalnaa ‘to boil over’, etc.



The semantic evolution of eat-expressions: Ways and byways 

But to say that the explanatory power of a radial diagram like that in Fig. 2 is diminished is not to say that it is null. The emergence and persistence of EATexpressions in Hindi-Urdu is not anarchic. Some of the clusters registered there are more fully populated than others. We propose that there are at least three central meanings that are instrumental in the proliferation of EAT-expressions in Indo-Aryan languages. One of these is of course also the original meaning of ‘consume (edibles)’ (A in Fig. 2). The other two are ‘suffer’/‘undergo’ and ‘exhibit’, meanings that have evolved via the incorporational aspects of eating (B in Figure 2) but which now serve as the unifying centers of elaborate webs of meanings that are two or three hops from the historically primary meaning. While any census of tokens of EAT in Hindi texts will show the quotidian physical sense of consuming edibles (including poisons and medicines) is the most frequent, it is nonetheless the senses of ‘suffer’ or ‘undergo’ and of ‘exhibit’ which are now the most productive sources of novel EAT-expressions.13 5.  Syntactic properties of EAT-expressions in Hindi-Urdu Hindi-Urdu has a system of aspectual-attitudinal auxiliary verbs which, because of their etymological relation to lexical verbs expressing motion or displacement (GIVE, TAKE, GO, COME, PUT, RISE, FALL, THROW, LET GO, etc.), we term “vectors”. Of these GO typically occurs with intransitive main verbs while GIVE and TAKE appear with transitives. Selection of GIVE versus TAKE depends on the orientation of the action expressed by the main verb. If the action is centrifugal or if it has no orientation then GIVE is the usual choice: (32) mãĩ-ne korţ-ko sač bataa diyaa I-erg I-dat truth tell gave ‘I told the truth to the court.’ (http://newswing.com/?p=1159)

(centrifugal)

If actions are centripetal, that is, oriented toward the agent-subjects (‘buy’, ‘take’, ‘grab’, ‘drink’, etc.) or if interior to them (‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘understand’, ‘digest’, etc.) TAKE and GO are the normal choices. If the transitive action is volitional (or not) then TAKE is used; if involuntary or accidental, GO is more common: (33) is-ne nae zamaane-kaa rang-ḑhang dekh-sun-samajh liyaa thaa he-erg new time-gen colors-ways see-hear-understand took was (volitional) ‘He (Nehru) had seen, heard and understood the form and spirit of the new age.’ (mail.sarai.net)

.  See (4) and (5) for examples of novel EAT-expressions in Hindi-Urdu.

 Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

(34) mãĩ samajh gayaa ki sab paise na de-ne se naaraaz hãĩ I.nom understand went that all money neg give-inf from angry are (involuntary) ‘I realized that they were angry because I hadn’t paid all the money.’ (sahityakunj.net)

The more the subject of an EAT-expression is exhibitive, experiential or patientive (i.e., not an agent) the less likely is the vector TAKE to be used and the more likely the vector GO is to be used. Thus, in the first hundred googled examples of khaa liyaa ‘EAT TOOK’ fully 91 involve the volitional consumption of food or poison.14 Four others denote the devouring or destruction of persons by abstractions: disease, desire for power, obsession, litigation. The rest are idioms: ‘EAT X’s brain’ (= ‘pester X’) and ‘take an oath’. Only two of the subjects in this set can be considered patientive. Contrast this with the khaa gayaa ‘EAT WENT’ sample in which forty-two of the first hundred hits involve the exhibitive, experiential, or patientive subjects of EAT-expressions like ‘flip over’ (said of trucks and busses), ‘shoot up’ (of prices), ‘take fright’, ‘be shocked’, ‘faint’, ‘get dizzy’, ‘be turned off ’, ‘get a beating’, ‘be wounded’, ‘be defeated’, ‘be deceived’, ‘be scored against’, etc:15 Table 1.  Differential distribution of vectors and types of EAT-expressions Vector verb

TAKE (khaa liyaa) (preterite, [+ne])

GO (khaa gayaa) (preterite, [–ne]

Subject type: agentive experiential exhibitive patientive

98 0 0 2

58 7 12 23

6.  EAT-expressions in Marathi (Indo-Aryan, southern neighbor of Hindi) Marathi, like Hindi-Urdu, came in contact with Persian during Mughal rule (from the early 16th to the mid-19th centuries) but almost a century later (during the 17th century) and for a shorter time. The presence in Marathi of ready-made borrowings from Persian containing the formants -khor ‘EATer’ and -khorii ‘EATing’ are testimony to this fact: haraam-khor ‘wicked person; bastard’ (lit. one who .  Because Google’s system does not filter out all duplicates it took the first 120 hits to yield a pool of 100 examples. .  Again assembling this sample required the examination of the first 140 googled hits.



The semantic evolution of eat-expressions: Ways and byways 

eats forbidden food) and haraam-khori ‘unlawful acts, illicit gains’ (lit. eating of forbidden food); divaaļ-khor ‘squanderer, prodigal, spendthrift’ (lit. one who eats insolvency or bankruptcy) and divaaļ-khori ‘lavish or wasteful living, prodigality’; cugali-khor ‘slanderer, tell-tale’ (lit. one who eats slander); cugali-khori ‘tattling; slander’, etc. Few contemporary speakers of Marathi are aware of the meaning of -khor or -khorii in these words. Other perhaps less decisive evidence is the size of the inventory of EAT-expressions in Marathi which according to our count is about 70. This total is about half of Hindi-Urdu’s total which in turn is less than the 200 EAT-expressions reported for Persian (Family, in press).16 In an earlier study (Pardeshi et al 2006) we found that among the South Asian languages, the directness and intensity of language contact with Persian also seems to play an important role in the repertoire of EAT-expressions. Hindi-Urdu (North India), which has had a longer and more extensive contact with Persian, abounds with EAT-expressions as compared with Sinhala (in Sri Lanka), which did not have direct contact with it. The languages neighboring Hindi-Urdu such as Gujarati and Marathi which have had relatively less direct contact with Persian but direct contact with Hindi-Urdu fall in between in terms of their inventories of EAT-expressions. Contact with a language rich in EAT-expressions may help in the proliferation of the repertoire of EAT-expressions through mechanisms like borrowing, calquing, and stimulus diffusion. Diffusion through contact with a language rich in EAT-expressions like Persian is just a part of the story. Japanese and

.  As noted above, there are some types of Persian EAT-expressions which have no counterparts in Hindi-Urdu or Marathi: (a) in damæn ruban mixorad this skirt ribbon is EAT.ing ‘This skirt needs a ribbon.’ (b)

bærname-ye imruz be-hæm xord program-of today to-each.other ATE ‘Today’s program has been canceled.’

(c)

kian æfv xord (name) pardon ATE ‘Kian was pardoned.’

In (a) EAT means ‘lack, need’; in (b), ‘cancel (itself?)’ and in (c), ‘receive (a desirable thing)’. (These examples are from Babai MS: 46, 49, 73.) However, in the absence of an exhaustive list of Persian EAT-expressions, it is impossible to know if the converse is true. That is, are there EAT-expression types in Hindi-Urdu or Marathi that are not found in Persian?

 Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

Korean never had direct contact with Persian but they do possess EAT-expressions in fairly sizable numbers.

A. Disappearance of EAT-expressions in Marathi In the discussion of EAT-expressions in Hindi-Urdu we demonstrated the emergence of novel EAT-expressions formed by incorporating English nouns such as goals and runs as preverbs [see example (4) and (5)]. No such phenomenon is observed in Marathi. The abundance of EAT-expressions in Hindi-Urdu might have kept the seeds alive which give rise to such new sprouts. In Marathi, on the other hand, the rate of disappearance of EAT-expressions is significant. A large number of EATexpressions listed in Molesworth’s Marathi and English Dictionary of 920 pages (Molesworth and Candy 1857) involving a preverbial element of Persian origin collocated with khaaņe (to eat) are not part of a contemporary native speaker (the second author of this paper)’s mental lexicon. Assuming that the EAT-expressions listed in Molesworth’s dictionary were current in 1857, Marathi’s lexicon has witnessed the loss of a considerable number of Persian borrowings over the period of 150 years since then. It is noteworthy that parallel expressions in Hindi-Urdu are still in use.

B. Patterns of diffusion in Marathi For Hindi-Urdu we discussed patterns of diffusion through the routes of synonymy, cohyponymy, hypernymy and higher level cohyponymy. The Hindi-Urdu lexicon is rich in synonymy owing to its two-tier structure: native words of Sanskrit origin and Perso-Arabic borrowings. Owing to this a concept like “deception” can be expressed using as many as six synonyms [see example (7)]. This is not the case in Marathi where the lexicon is basically single-tiered, borrowing heavily from Sanskrit. The abundance of EAT-expressions in Hindi-Urdu and the relative paucity of EAT-expressions in Marathi is partly due to this compositional difference in the lexicon. Very rarely, English near-synonyms can substitute for a contained noun of native origin giving rise to a hybrid EAT expression: (35) dzaage-čyaa-vyavahaaraa-t dalaal madh.lyaa-madhe loņi/kamishan land-gen-deal-in agents middle-in butter/commission khaa-t-aat eat-pres-3pl ‘In land deals agents make profit from both sides.’

These cases are of code mixing based on a pre-existing EAT expression and are not the true neologisms found in Hindi-Urdu examples (4) and (5).



The semantic evolution of eat-expressions: Ways and byways 

Some of the same routes of expansion, such as cohyponymy and hypernymy, are attested in Marathi.

B1 Cohyponymy

i. Based on kinds of verbal abuse:

(36) bolaņi ‘scolding’ ó orḑaa ‘rebuke’ ó shivyaa ‘curses’ ó dzoḑe ‘shoes’ (used figuratively):17 (37) aai-či bolaņii khaa-un-hi mi pustak vaats-at bas.lo Mother-gen scolding eat-cp-concessive I book read-ing sat ‘Even after being scolded I continued reading the book.’ (38) mi shikshak.aan-kaḑun aaļashi.paņ.aa-baddal oraḑe khaa-t asto I teachers-from laziness-for rebukes eat-ing am.hab ‘Even after being scolded I continued reading the book.’ (39) saaheb.aan-tse dzoḑe khaa-un khaa-un mi thak-l-o aahe Mother-gen scolding eat-cp eat-cp I tire-pst-1sg.m am ‘I am tired of constantly getting called on the carpet by my boss.’



ii. Based on instruments of physical abuse. [Notice that, unlike in Hindi-Urdu, penetrating weapons (knives, swords, bullets, etc.) do not occur as cohyponyms of such instruments in Marathi’s EAT-expressions]:

(40) jhaaḑu ‘broom’ ó laaţhi ‘cudgel’ó chaḑi ‘cane (that a teacher uses)’ ó bukki ‘blow of the fist’ ó thappaḑ/tsaapaţ ‘slap’ ó phaţkaa ‘blow (of the hand)’ ó laath ‘kick’ ó etc. (41) lahaan.paņ-i ma-laa baryaa.ts-daa saraan-čya chaḑyaa khaa-vyaa childhood-loc me-dat many-times teachers-gen canes eat-futpart laag-lyaa. attach-pst ‘As a child I had to suffer beatings from my teacher.’ (42) tu-laa phaţkaa khaa.y-tsaa-y kaa? you-dat blow eat-gen-is qp ‘Do you want a beating?’ (43) baap-re-baap! raam-ne kitti bukkyaa khaa-llyaa! father-oh-father Ram-erg how.many punches eat-pst ‘Oh my god, the number of punches Ram took!’

.  See footnote 10.

 Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

B2 Hypernymy The action noun maar ‘beating’ serves as the hypernym to the nouns listed in (40): (44) paalak toņḑ daab-un bukkyaan-tsaa maar khaa-t hote parents mouth press-cp punches-gen beating eat-ing were ‘Parents had to suffer these reverses with their mouths shut.’  (maharashtratimes.indiatimes.com)

B3 Higher-level synonymy (tsop = maar): (45) striyaa hyaa phakt tsop khaa-ņyaa-čyaa-ts laayaki-čyaa aahet women these only beating eat-inf-gen-emph worth-gen are ‘Women are only worthy of being beaten.’  (www.puladeshpande.net/bhartiya.php)

B4. From the discussion in section A (“disappearance”) it seems reasonable to conclude that some of the paths of expansion of the system of EAT-expressions in Marathi are not as heavily trafficked as those in Hindi-Urdu. The disparity in the inventories of EAT-expressions reported by Molesworth in the mid Nineteenth Century and those in use today suggests instability if not actual retreat. A possible contributing factor for this may be the later advent and earlier cessation of contact with Persian in Maharashtra as compared with northern India. 7.  Signs of a prehistoric radiation of EAT With sufficient time and semantic change it is possible for speakers to lose their awareness of the basic meaning of a verb EAT and the interrelations of its evolutes. A case can be made that this happened with an ancient Indo-Aryan verb, namely OIA bhuj-. While many uses of bhuj- indicate a (basic?) meaning ‘eat’, already in some of its earliest attestations bhuj- has assumed the senses of ‘enjoy’, ‘experience’, ‘suffer’, ‘undergo’, ‘live through’, ‘possess’, ‘rule’, ‘govern’, ‘use’. Example (46) from the Rig Veda dates from nearly 4000 years ago: (46) visarmāņam karņuhi vittam eşām ye bhuñjate dispersing.acc make.imper wealth of.them who eat(?).3pl.pres a-pŗņanto na not-providing our

ukthai: prayers.instr

‘Disperse the wealth of those who enjoy (wealth) by our prayers without paying (us).’ (RV 5.42.9)



The semantic evolution of eat-expressions: Ways and byways 

Example (47) is from the Laws of Manu and dates from nearly 2000 years later: (47) na bhinna-bhāņde bhuñjīta na bhāva-pradūşite neg broken-bowl.loc eat.opt3sg neg mood-fouled.loc ‘He should not eat from a broken vessel nor in a bad mood.’ (manusmŗti 4.65)

Did bhuj originally mean ‘eat’? Or ‘enjoy’? Lexicographers like Böhtlingk and Roth and Monier-Williams suggest ‘enjoy’ is prior. It is not clear how much the history of bhuj may have influenced the semantic evolution of khaa (< khaad-) but there are large areas of overlap in their networks of meaning.

8.  Conclusions and conjectures In the study of quasi-productive idioms like EAT-expressions an optimal taxonomy does not necessarily recapitulate ontogeny (let alone phylogeny!). That is, the best or most logical grouping and subgrouping of EAT-expressions may be historically misleading. Metaphors, even those that are moribund, may (or may not) sprout metaphors of their own. In their radiation, figurative uses of EAT may emerge and develop on different branches independently. Much of the information required to reconstruct the chronology of the evolution of EAT-expressions is irrevocably lost. Given that there are many co-existing and co-operating ways for EAT-expressions to proliferate, it is possible that a radial conception of their emergence and evolution is inadequate. If sources of a given EAT-expression are multiple, acting in consort, we may need to think of these sources as braided together, forming a network. Then the more ways a potential EAT-expression is related to existing ones, the more likely it is to emerge and to “catch”.

Abbreviations 1= 1st person; 2 = 2nd person; 3 = 3rd person; acc = accusative; cp = conjunctive participle; dat = dative; emph = emphatic; erg = ergative; f = feminine, fut = future; futp = future participle; gen = genitive; hab = habitual; imper = imperative; inf = infinitive; instr = instrumental; loc = locative; m = masculine; neg = negation; nom = nominative; opt = optative; pl = plural; pp = past participle; pres = present, prog = progressive; pst = past; qp = question particle; sg = singular; t = Turner entry.

 Peter Edwin Hook & Prashant Pardeshi

References Babai, Hajar. 2007. Polysemy or monosemy: A case study of Persian xordæn ‘eat’ verb. MA thesis, Kobe University. Böhtlingk, Otto & Rudolph Roth. 1855–75. Sanskrit Wörterbuch. Saint Petersburg: Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften. (1966 reprint by Otto Zeller, Ösnabrück & Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden) Briggs, Derek E.G. 2005. Review of Valentine, James W. 2004. On the origin of phyla. University of Chicago. (www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/42353). Caughley, Ross Charles. 1982. The syntax and morphology of the verb in Chepang. Canberra: Australian National University. Dabirmoghaddam, M. 1997. Compound verbs in Persian. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 27: 25–59. Family, Neiloufar. In press. Mapping semantic spaces: A constructionist account of the “light verb” eat in Persian. In From polysemy to semantic change: Towards a typology of lexical associations, Martine Vanhove (Ed), 139–161. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Folli, Raffaella, Heidi Harley & Simin Karimi. 2005. Determinants of event types in Persian complex predicates. Lingua 115: 1365–1401. Karimi, Simin. 1997. Persian complex verbs: Idiomatic or compositional? Lexicology 3: 273–318. Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Masica, Colin P. 1976. Defining a linguistic area: South Asia. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Molesworth, J.T. & T. Candy. 1857[1989]. Molesworth’s Marathi and English Dictionary, 2nd Edn. [1989. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services.] Monier-Williams, Sir Monier. 1899. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon [1999 reprint of 1899 edition. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services.] Næss, Åshild. 2003. What markedness marks: The markedness problem with direct objects. Lingua 114: 1186–1212. Pardeshi, Prashant, Peter Hook, Colin Masica, Hajar Babai, Shinji Ido, Kaoru Horie, Jambalsuren Dorjkhand, Joungmin Kim, Kanako Mori, Dileep Chandralal, Omkar N. Koul, Hsin-hsin Liang, Yutaro Murakami, Kingkarn Thepkanjana, Qing-Mei Li, Prasad Vasireddi & Terry Varma. 2006. Toward a geotypology of EAT-expressions in the languages of Asia: Visualizing areal patterns through WALS. Gengo Kenkyu 130: 89–108. Turner, R.L. 1966–69. A comparative dictionary of the Indo-Aryan languages, 3 Vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink Toshiko Yamaguchi

Tunku Abdul Rahman University The chapter describes literal and figurative uses of Japanese ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs. By paying special attention to the earlier and present forms of each verb, one can argue that not only universal conceptual mapping but also cultural orientation and honorification have contributed to the establishment of metaphorical extensions. The first part of the chapter focuses on the linguistic, socio-cultural and historical properties of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs. The second part demonstrates metaphorical and metonymic extensions of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs built on the facets of experiential reality introduced in Newman (1997). The chapter spotlights a link between the pervasiveness of adversity observed in metaphors and the sense of ‘unhappiness’, suggesting that the latter has been a cultural preference in the history of the Japanese language.

1.  Introduction1 This paper is a study of literal and figurative uses of eat and drink verbs in Japanese. Figurative uses mean both metaphorical and metonymic extensions of the literal verbs. Modern Japanese has eleven basic verbs at its disposal to express the activity of eating and drinking, as shown in Table 1.2 While the verbs in this table all share the same central meaning, that is, ‘the intake of food and beverages into the mouth and digestive tract’ (Newman this volume: 1), their usage is differentiated according to social and cultural factors encoded in Japanese. Verbs classified as ‘neutral’ are used independently of register (written versus spoken; formal versus informal; male versus female) and degrees of politeness. Verbs classified as ‘written’ or ‘formal’ belong to the noncolloquial style, used frequently in written or formal discourse and rarely in spoken. When verbs are classified as ‘male’ and ‘vulgar’, they are used mainly by males and

.  I would like to thank John Newman for encouragement and many helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter. .  Verbs indicated by numbers 7 and 8 are the same verbs.

 Toshiko Yamaguchi Table 1.  Overview of verbs of eating and drinking in Japanese eat

respect

5 飲む nomu 6 呑む nomu3 嗜む tashinamu 2 食する shoku-suru 8 嗜む tashinamu 3食う kuu 4 食らう kurau 9召し上がるmeshiagaru 10上がる agaru

humble

11 頂く itadaku 12 頂戴する choodai-suru

Neutral

1食べる taberu

written, formal male, vulgar honorifics

drink

often sound vulgar. Honorific verbs encode the ways the speaker shows his or her respect/humbleness to another person. The first four verbs all contain the same idiogram 食 that originally depicted food served on a receptacle. In general, taberu and nomu are common basic consumption verbs used to express the central meaning. While metaphorical extensions are confined mostly to kuu and kurau (for eating) and nomu (for drinking), metonymic extensions are applied to taberu, kuu (for eating) and nomu (for drinking), and marginally to kurau. An influential approach to the study of metaphor and metonymy is Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The approach is called “experiential” on the grounds that the language user’s basic physiological experience or ‘preconceptual bodily experience’ (see Goatly 1997: 6, 41) plays a role in constructing figurative language. As demonstrated in Newman (1997), many examples of eat and drink may reveal what Lakoff and Johnson call ‘mind-as-body’ conceptual metaphor (1999: 235–6 for the notion). While scholars from different disciplines agree that conceptual mapping exists, giving rise to figurative expressions across languages (see Jaggar and Buba, this volume and Song, this volume), Japanese verbs of eat and drink provide representative examples to support the domain-to-domain mapping. However, many eat and drink verbs do not behave uniformly. Consider the fact that not all eat and drink verbs in Table 1 extend metaphorically. Even among the verbs that extend metaphorically, their availability is often constrained by factors that go beyond human bodily experiences. This implies that the figurative meaning which attaches to eat and drink verbs may not be merely shaped by conceptual mapping. While I agree that, as demonstrated in Newman (1997), target domains are defined by different source domain properties, the paper will show that other factors, both socio-cultural and historical, contribute to the verb’s construction of figurative meanings at the target domain. 3.  The difference between the two versions of nomu, i.e., 飲む and 呑む, is that the former is categorized as standard writing, while the latter is not. This paper does not make a distinction between the writing systems.



Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink 

In this paper, I will discuss the semantics of Japanese eat and drink verbs from their literal and figurative perspectives. Section 2 briefly illustrates the rudiments of morphosyntax of eat and drink verbs. Sections 3 and 4 elaborates on the different literal usages of eat and drink verbs, which includes the discussions of their historical development. Section 5 explains how and why eat verbs were correlated with honorific systems. Sections 6 and 7 demonstrate metaphorical and, to a less extent, metonymic extensions of eat and drink verbs. Section 8 concludes the paper.

2.  Morphosyntax with the central meaning Japanese is an SOV language and rich in topic-comment structure. The syntax of eat and drink verbs is straightforward. All verbs in Table 1 are used as transitive verbs. An eater or a drinker of an action is indicated in a subject position marked by a nominative particle ga. The thing eaten or drunken is placed in an object position marked by an accusative particle o. When subject is topicalized (e.g., speaking of S, S eats/drinks O) or functions as a discursive marker, it is marked by a topic particle wa. In colloquial speech, particles tend to be omitted (see C2 of (1)), and subject or object is elliptical when they are contextually inferable (see (1) where C and A converse without mention of subject). eat verbs can be intransitive (with the direct object unexpressed) when they refer to the eating of a meal or some typical food as a resource of nutrition. Metonymic usage of eat and drink verbs (see examples (34) and (36)) serve as illustrative examples in this regard. Most of the verbs in Table 1 [1, 3 to 7/8, 10 and 11] are monomorphemic. When the verb is derived from Sino-Japanese vocabulary, it contains the light verb suru ‘do’ as a second element. Examples are shoku-suru [2] and choodai-suru [12]. Meshiagaru [9] is a native-Japanese compound consisting of two honorific verbs, mesu and agaru. Mesu is used for activities that affect parts of human body (wearing, eating, drinking, catching a cold, getting old, taking a bath; see LBOJD: 515). Agaru, a verb meaning ‘consume’, is restricted to eating, drinking and smoking (MJD: 15). The combination of mesu and agaru thus creates a higher level of honorific expression of consumption (excluding the sense of smoking) than that of agaru [10].

3.  ‘Eat’ 3.1  Taberu, kuu, kurau As mentioned in the Introduction, taberu is the most commonly used word in present-day Japanese expressing the activity of consuming food that is chewable

 Toshiko Yamaguchi

(e.g., bread, rice, cookies, vegetables, ice cream). Unlike Korean (Song, this volume), neither taberu nor kuu is used in the sense of drinking; kurau, on the other hand, can refer to drinking in restricted contexts (see section 4.1). The usage of kuu and kurau is, as noted earlier, differentiated from taberu in the domain of usage; their use is restricted to male register and occurs often in crude, vulgar personal interactions (e.g., rows). Example (1) below is an instance of casual conversation taken from asahi.com, a Japanese newspaper website. In this conversation kuu is employed in place of taberu. There is no coarseness but intimacy of the speaker (male) to his interlocutor is made salient. This shows that male register and coarseness do not always coexist and that the use of kuu can convey a positive meaning in certain contexts. The conversation is initiated by the children who ask the adult for something to drink. Note that the children do not reply using kuu; rather they use taberu. The reason for this may be that they do not feel the same degree of intimacy or that they would not want to sound rude (C stands for children, and A for male adult). (1) C1: Nodo ga kawaita yo. Nanika ogutte yo. throat nom thirsty part something buy part ‘We’re thirsty. Buy us something.’ A1: Aa, ii yo. Aisu demo ku-u ka. yes good part ice.cream part eat-prs ques ‘Of course, I can. How about eating ice cream?’ C2: Aa, aisu tabe-tai. yes ice.cream eat-want ‘Yes, we want to eat ice cream.’ A2:

Okkei. OK ‘OK’ (17 June 2006)

The difference between kuu and kurau is subtle but there are two factors that play a part. First, when kurau is used literally, it underscores an unusual way of eating/ drinking (e.g., ‘X eats a hearty meal’ with the implication that X is acting like a glutton), and it can be used to describe eating habits of wild animals (e.g., hyenas). Thus, kurau is derogatory in a way that kuu is not. In the above extract, it would not be possible to use kurau in place of kuu and taberu. Second, when kurau is used metaphorically, meaning ‘receive’ or ‘accept’ (see section 6.6 below), it can co-occur with the agent who conducts a denoted action. (2) does not express the agent overtly; both kuu and kurau is felicitous. (3) expresses the agent (i.e., aite ‘opponent’) overtly who punches the kick boxer; only kurau is acceptable.



Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink 

(4) expresses a natural event (i.e., ‘getting old’) − an event that occurs without the intervention of an agent; only kuu is compatible. (2) kikku-bokusaa wa panchi o √kut-ta/√kurat-ta kick-boxer top punch acc eat-past/eat-past ‘A kick boxer was punched.’ (3) kikku-bokusaa wa aite ni panchi o *kut-ta/√kurat-ta. kick-boxer top opponent by punch acc eat-past/eat-past ‘A kick boxer was punched by the opponent.’ (4) Michiko-san wa toshi o √kut-ta/*kurat-ta. Michiko-ads/ref top age acc eat-past/eat-past ‘Michiko has put on years.’34

In an extract below (translation only), the use of kurau (katasukashi o kurau ‘eat a clever trick’) refers clearly to the judge whose decision is the cause for the disappointment of the journalist. The degree of the disappointment expressed is stronger than would have kuu been used.

(5) The prescription of the statute was applied. It formed a judgement that Mr Nishiyama’s right to claim damages had been extinguished on the grounds that he instituted an action after a lapse of twenty years since the prosecution. Without reference to the rights or wrongs of the legal proceedings and judicial decision, we felt that we were turned down (kurau = eaten) as a result of a clever trick. We question the hard-and-fast application of the prescription.  (Chugoku Newspaper 28 March 2007)

The uses of the different verbs for eating cannot be fully accounted for without recourse to their history. Of the three verbs [1, 3 and 4] in Table 1, kuu is the most ancient. Its original meaning does not refer to ‘consuming food’ but to ‘holding an object’ (CDJL IV: 748). Initially kuu was written as 噛う which contains a radical referring to tooth. This earlier meaning may help explain certain metaphors based on this verb (see section 6.1 below). Old Japanese – spoken in the periods of Nara (710–794) and Heian (794–1185) – had an alternative verb hamu (written as 食む using the ideogram for eating) that was used to mean ‘consuming food’ but it did not remain in use for long since kuu gradually took over the meaning of consumption (CDOJ: 1353). The verb kurau emerged later than kuu and hamu and was used derogatorily from the beginning: it expressed the way animals or uncultivated

4.  I thank Yukiko Ueda for a fruitful discussion on the difference between kuu and kurau in July 2007.

 Toshiko Yamaguchi

people eat and drink (especially alcohol) and in this way it was differentiated from kuu and hamu (CDJL IV: 1039). The verb taberu has a different origin from kuu and kurau. It developed from tabu (給ぶ), a respect honorific verb meaning ‘giving’, and tabaru or taburu (the initial form of taberu) was its humble honorific counterpart. In other words, taberu originally expressed the act of giving from a superior to a person of a lower status and came to be employed as a humble expression of eating in a later period. In the Muromachi Period (1333–1568) tabu (食ぶ) existed as a humble form of eating, referring to the receiving of food to be consumed (CDJM: 1075). As this example indicates, the original meaning of giving changed to receiving when tabu entered the semantic domain of consumption. The social link between receipt and consumption might also explain why some verbs are polysemous between receiving and eating/drinking (see sections 5 and 6.6). As noted earlier, the fact that the majority of the metaphoric usage of eating derives from kuu or kurau, but not from taberu, is presumably an indicator that metaphoric extensions with eat are an early coinage in the history of Japanese language (see also DLC: 1021). 3.2  Shoku-suru As mentioned in section 2, shoku-suru [2] is a hybrid of a Sino-Japanese word shoku ‘eating, food, meal’ and a native-Japanese suru ‘do’, and its use is restricted to written discourse. Shoku-suru takes objects which refer to chewable things. An excerpt below shows that it alternates with taberu in a written text. This alternation makes it sound formal, serious and correct. The newspaper article discusses a special marrow, a product of Nagaoka-city, Japan. While this vegetable is normally eaten when it is grown and hard, Nagaoka-city has a custom that it is eaten while it is young and soft. The use of shoku-suru here may draw the reader’s special attention to this unique custom. (6) jukushite kataku natta aki ni, itojyoo no kaniku o tabe-ru ripe hard become autumn time slimy poss flesh acc eat-prs no ga ippanteki da ga, nagaoka ni wa wakakute nominalizer nom general cop but Nagaoka loc top young yawarakai uchi ni shokusu-ru dokutoku no shuukan ga ar-u. soft within time eat-prs unique poss custom nom exist-prs (asahi.com 6 July 2007) ‘People normally eat (taberu) the slimy flesh of the marrows in autumn when they have grown ripe and become hard enough. Nagaoka-city has a unique custom that people eat (shoku-suru) marrows while they are young and soft.’



Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink 

Unlike kuu and kurau, shoku-suru does not extend metaphorically. One reason might be that, similarly to taberu, it emerged much later than kuu and kurau when the two verbs were already in use as metaphors.

4.  ‘Drink’ 4.1  Nomu, tashinamu When we drink liquids (e.g., water, juice, alcohol), nomu [5, 6] is the most common word for this activity. This verb is also used in the sense of swallowing nonliquids (e.g., medicine), smoking (e.g., cigarettes) or eating liquid food (e.g., soup). Contrary to eat verbs, the rise of nomu is less complex; it has no relation to the levels of socialization. Neither does it have variants depending on social and cultural configurations except for tashinamu [8] which mainly appears in formal context (see section 4.2). Tashinamu [7] as a neutral verb functions more like an idiom. There is a fixed expression (o)sake wa tashinamu teido (alcohol top drink extent) to mean that one drinks alcohol to the extent that one does not get drunk. Here, tashinamu cannot be replaced by nomu. As briefly mentioned in section 3.1 (see also Table 1), kurau can be used for drinking only when it implies an ensuring negative behaviour (e.g., oozake o kurau ‘drink a lot of sake (Japanese wine made of rice)’), that is, someone drinks alcohol excessively or in a bad manner, which may result in unfavorable intoxication or may be the cause of unwanted social behaviour (e.g., lack of enthusiasm to work). 4.2  Tashinamu When tashinamu [8] expresses, in a polite manner, the act of drinking (frequently ‘alcohol’ but also ‘tea’ or ‘wine’) for pleasure, it is used more often in formal (possibly, written) context. Tashinamu refers not just to the act of drinking; it also emphasizes that the person who drinks has knowledge about or special interest in what he drinks and has therefore pleasure in tasting it. It can therefore be used equally for everyday activities such as playing music instruments, singing or drawing, attending a tea ceremony, all of which requires a knowledge of how to do the activity in order to enjoy it. When we say nihonshu/nihoncha o tashinamu (Japanese. wine/Japanese.tea acc drink) ‘enjoy Japanese wine/tea’, it conveys the message that we know or want to know how to enjoy Japanese wine/tea, what the best Japanese wine/tea is, where and how such wine/tea can be produced, and so on. I consider the ‘drink’ use of tashinamu [8] to be metonymy because drinking is considered among other activties a type of enjoyment.

 Toshiko Yamaguchi

Tashinamu [7, 8] does not extend metaphorically. The reason might be that the entailment of this verb, that is, ‘positive drinking’, may not be consonant with adversity shared by the metaphors (see section 6).

5.  Honorifics Honorifics already existed in the Joodai period (7th and 8th centuries) (Sawagata et al. 1967: 46; Kasuga 1971: 35). They originally symbolized fear or awe toward nature, and this attitude was transferred to great respect to God or Emperor. Natural, and hence autonomous, force was that which had to be venerated (Ono 1966: 74–6). Importantly, honorifics were also employed to verbalize social hierarchy and the interpersonal relationships governed by that hierarchy, both of which were an integral part of traditional Japanese society. Thus, an honorific system established itself reflecting this hierarchy, and, as noted in section 3.1, the way people gave and received things were an important element in organizing this honorific system. It is not surprising that the concept of ‘eating’ (the basic nutrition) and the concepts of ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’ (food as important goods for exchange in everyday life) came to be cognate (EJL: 726). Because of the emergence of taberu as a polite expression of eating, kuu, whose origin has no relation to honorific systems, became an unrefined expression (CDJL IV: 748). This historical development might indicate that the hierarchical nature of the society imposed the highly articulated honorific usage of the language on its members as the means of communication (Tsujimura 1971: 19–24). Honorifics are organized according to the ways in which the speaker shows respect or honour to another person who is a higher social rank. By using respect honorifics the speaker respects the person who appears in the subject position. This person can be either the speaker’s speech partner or the person who is mentioned in the speech. By using humble honorifics the speaker humbles himself to honour the status of his speech partner. Consider examples (7) to (9).54

(7) Respect honorific (to the speech partner)

Okashi/ocha o meshiagari-masu-ka. confectionary/tea acc eat/drink.respect-pol-ques ‘Would you like to have some confectionaries/tea?’

5.  The interested reader should consult Yamaguchi (2007:  153–159) for more information on honorifics.





Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink 

(8) Respect honorific (to the person mentioned in the speech)



Sensei ga okashi/ocha o meshiagat-te imas-u. teacher nom confectionary/tea acc eat/drink.respect-link aspect-prs ‘The teacher is eating confectionaries/tea.’ ‘The teacher is drinking tea.’

(9) Humble honorific (to the speech partner)



Okashi/ocha o itadaki-mas-u /choodaishi-mas-u. confectionary/tea acc eat/drink.humb-pol-prs /eat/drink.humb-pol-prs ‘I shall eat confectionaries.’ ‘I shall drink tea.’

The striking fact with honorifics is the neutralization between the semantic fields of eating and drinking. This neutralization can be explained in terms of socio-cultural norms. The concept of consumption did not require two independent semantic fields because it was considered presumably a single social activity. It was not the semantics of consumption that contributed to the establishment of honorific systems of eating and drinking but the relationship between the social actors who eat and drink in a society. As Newman mentions (this volume: 3), there is a semantic closeness between eating and drinking in that they are both subordinates to the sense of ingestion or consumption. This semantic closeness may have facilitated the process in which the two activities fall under a single activity. To illustrate, different verbs of eating (hamu, tabu, kuu and kurau) expressed the act of drinking in the course of their historical development. According to CDJJ (p. 568), for example, nomu ‘drink’, already in use in the Joodai period (7th to 8th century), focused mainly on the drinking of alcohol, implying that hamu or kuu (initial forms of eat) were used for drinking of other drinks. It is stated (LBOJD: 333) that tabu ‘eat’ (a form of eat from which a modern form taberu ‘eat’ derives) once replaced nomu. The reason was that nomu was used in colloquial speech, while tabu in formal context. I presume that this replacement did not just occur due to the semantic closeness but due to the fact that nomu did not develop its independent honorific form. Formal speech situations required for sure the use of honorific expressions for the act of drinking, and tabu, a humble form for eating, was an appropriate alternative lexeme in this respect. Both itadaku [11] and choodai-suru [12] are used as humble honorific expressions of receiving. Their neutral form is morau ‘receive, get’. Thus, tegami o morau/ itadaku/choodai-suru (letter acc receive) all express the receipt of a letter in different degrees of politeness. In addition, itadaku (but not choodai-suru; see also Kikuchi 1997 [1994]: 220) functions as an auxiliary verb. It is thus possible to combine neutral forms, taberu ‘eat’ or nomu ‘drink’, with itadaku. Consider a short excerpt in (10) in which the owner of a wine museum uses a compound with two neutral verbs nonde-moratte (drink-get) ‘get X to drink’, the second part of which can be replaced by itadaku. When itadaku is used, it is natural to change imasu to

 Toshiko Yamaguchi

its humble honorific orimasu. Two parentheses in (10) refer to the neutral forms used originally in the excerpt. (10) Kochira de wa okyakusan ni nonde itadaite (moratte) here loc top guests by drink get.humb (get.neu) orimasu (imasu) asp.humb asp.neu ‘We would like the guests to drink (some wines).’ 

(asahi.com 30 June 2005)

When itadaku serves as an auxiliary, the main verb that precedes it can either be a neutral or honorific form. The choice depends on the speaker’s subjectivity, that is, the degree of politeness intended in a given context. Only the humble honorific forms can replace the metaphoric uses of kuu or kurau, as shown in (11). (11) Watashi wa senjitsu oomedama o itadai-ta / I top the.other.day big.eyes acc receive.humb-past/ choodaisi-ta. receive.humb-past ‘I got a good scolding the other day.’

The crucial meaning encoded in these two verbs is ‘receive’ rather than ‘eat’ (see section 6.6). This may be the reason why adversity in (11) is not as strong as would be the case had kuu and kurau been used. The social difference (that is, the person who is scolded is socially lower than the person who scolded) is clearly the main message conveyed here. In short, the honorific verbs shown in Table 1 are not frequent in figurative usage, as they are not, strictly speaking, eat and drink verbs, but much more likely to be the expressions for eat and drink that reflect the social norms in Japanese society. 6.  Metaphoric extensions This section examines metaphoric extensions of eat and drink verbs based on their experiential realities. Newman (1997, this volume) proposes basic experiential categories associated with eating and drinking across languages. According to him, the first facet of experience the consumer participates in is hunger or thirst that compels him to eat or drink. Each act begins with an intake of food/liquid into the mouth followed by mastication, swallowing and digestion before the act terminates in the stomach. The component of nourishment and enjoyable gustation that is important in some languages (Newman, this volume) is absent in Japanese (but present for the metonymic extensions).



Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink 

The crucial difference between eat and drink is that, as Newman (1997, this volume) also points out, eating necessarily entails mastication, while drinking does not. Because mastication requires the use of teeth and results necessarily in the destruction of the food, the destructive meaning extends to the negative aspects of human life or human nature. Drinking, on the other hand, entails a smooth, automatic and uncontrolled movement of liquids/non-liquids, starting in the throat via the oesophagus ending up in the stomach. This physiological reality gives rise to the sense of overwhelming power. The implication is that the thing that traverses the body cannot resist that power. Contrary to the eater who has a destructive power, the drinker does not possess control over liquids (cf. Jaggar & Buba, this volume). The salient factor shared commonly by the metaphors in Japanese is the sense of adversity that is realized in different contexts as disadvantage, misfortune, harm, endurance, exploitation, toleration and so on. The subsections are organized according to the facets of experiential reality. Examples used for illustration are either taken from contemporary dictionaries (modified by the author where necessary) or extracted from asahi.com. The main focus will be on kuu ‘eat’ [3] and nomu ‘drink’ [5, 6]. 6.1  Holding food in the mouth ‘Holding food in the mouth’ is the first facet of the basic experience encoded in kuu (but neither in taberu nor in kurau). As explained in section 3.1, this basic experience is derived from the original meaning assigned to kuu in the period of Old Japanese (see above). (12) and (13) show that kuu functions as an intransitive verb, though the referent of the subject (marked by ga) is not an eater. What is depicted by (12) and (13) is the thread stuck in the machine and the fish caught at the fishing pole, respectively. In both cases, a physical object is held tightly at a certain place. Replaceability with kurau is not permitted. (12) Kono mishin wa yoku ito ga ku-u. this sawing machine top often thread nom eat-prs ‘The thread in this sawing machine gets often stuck.’ (13) Kyoo wa yoku sakana ga ku-u. today top often fish nom eat-prs ‘The fish are an easy catch today.’

6.2  Internalizing food Internalization consists of stages at which a consumer puts food into the mouth where it is chewed, and the food chewed proceeds to the throat and eventually

 Toshiko Yamaguchi

moves into the stomach to be digested. It is the agent who is responsible for this series of actions, and internalization therefore provides us with the strong image of an active agent. As stated in Newman (this volume: 8), internalization pictures the transition of food being visible to being invisible; that is to say, once food moves down the throat and settles in the stomach, it is hard to be brought up again. In Japanese, this sense of internalization is limited to particular substances such as fuel, energy, money or time. It should be noted that these substances are not merely consumed (from being visible to being non-visible) but also used in a context in which their supply is ‘wasted’ because they are used either excessively or more often than one can afford or has expected to. The substance that is consumed appears as a direct object (marked by the particle o), as shown in (14) and (15). It is important to note that these examples express a certain degree of adversity. The person who is disadvantaged is the user of the car (14) and the user of the television (15). It is impossible for kurau to replace kuu here. (14) Kono kuruma wa ichinichi ni 19 garon no gasorin o ku-u. this car top one.day per 19 gallon poss petrol acc eat-prs ‘This car consumes 19 gallon (72 liter) of petrol per day.’  (Asahi.com 11 May 2006) (15) Kono terebi wa maitsuki 2000/3000 yen no this television top every.month 2000/3000 yen poss ijihi o ku-u. maintenance.expenses acc eat-prs ‘This television uses up the maintenance expenses of 2000/3000 yen every month.’  (Asahi.com 11 December 2005)

6.3  Biting food The act of biting is one particular aspect of internalization. Biting, if used metaphorically, refers to the action of non-humans such as insects that are particularly noxious (e.g., flea, moths, mosquitoes). The metaphorical extensions under discussion foreground the humans (not always overtly expressed) who experience disadvantage caused by the biting. Consider the examples below. While in (16) a human is disadvantaged on the grounds that an apple (s/he may have intended to eat it) is now inedible, in (17) a human is disadvantaged as the winter cloth is no longer wearable. In (18) the person is disadvantaged, as biting may cause pains or the affected area is now reddened or swollen. All the expressions are better in the passive voice rather than in the active. Preference to passive suggests that the focus of interest is on the patient who is in a state of being affected. All examples are incompatible with kurau.



Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink 

(16) Kono ringo wa mushi ni ku-ware-teiru. this apple top worm by eat-pass-asp ‘There is a worm in this apple.’ (17) Fuyu-mono no yoofuku ga mushi ni ku-ware-ta. winter-thing poss cloth nom moth by eat-pass-past ‘The moths have made holes in winter clothing.’ (18) Yuugata soto e deta-ra, ka ni ku-ware-ta. evening outside loc went.out-conj mosquito by eat-pass-past ‘When I went out in the evening, I was bitten by a mosquito.’

6.4  Destruction of food When food is internalized, it undergoes change in its form and is destroyed in some sense. While Newman (1997, this volume) views the process of destruction as a patient-oriented extension, agency is still relevant since it is agency which causes the patient to be damaged or destroyed. As shown in (19) to (22), the exact interpretation of destruction depends on the effect brought about by the denoted action. An interesting fact is that kurau does not occur with the destruction sense unless specific contexts are provided. Note that if kurau is used in (19) to (22), each sentence would sound as if the direct object (which is inedible) were literally eaten by the subject. This non-replaceability is contrastive with the replaceability in section 6.6 in which kuu has a passive-like meaning, that is, receiving. Defeating (19) Shinjin no senshu ga yuushoo-kooho o kut-ta. new poss athlete nom victory-candidature acc eat-past ‘A new athlete defeated the candidate for the championship.’ Disadvantaging, harming (20) Sono seijika wa kokumin no jiban o ku-u seisaku o that politician top nation poss ground acc eat-prs policy acc kakage-ta. suggest-past ‘That politician suggested a policy that encroaches on the nation’s foundations’. Intimidating (21) Sono wakai onna wa hito o kut-ta henji o kaeshi-ta. that young woman top person acc eat-past reply acc return-past ‘That young woman gave (me) a deceptive/insolent reply.’

 Toshiko Yamaguchi

Exploiting (22) Omae wa, ai o ku-u kedamono. you top love acc eat-prs beast ‘You are a beast and exploit love affairs’

(title of a comic)

6.5  Swallowing liquid Swallowing is another facet of the process of internalization. In Japanese, it is the swallowing facet of the act of drinking which is most relevant to understanding certain metaphoric usages. As shown in (23) to (28), the metaphoric meaning of swallowing contributes to various adversative scenarios. All the examples are based on our twofold image of drinking; (i) the movement of a liquid substance is overwhelming, and (ii) the agent neither changes the form of the substance nor controls its movement. Examples (23) to (25) appear in passive. The use of passive voice reinforces the adversity in that it foregrounds the patient who undergoes a difficult or uncontrollable experience. The point is that the patient is unable to avoid the event as it is overpowering. By contrast, examples (26) and (27) choose active voice; the agent accepts (or must accept) an unfavorable situation. Unlike (23) to (25), these two examples create an image of the agent who is conscious of undertaking an adversative event. This suffering image of the agent coincides with the component of [–control] highlighted by Jaggar & Buba (this volume), which is only ascribed to drink but not to eat in Japanese. Being drowned (23) Kisha ga dakuryuu ni nom-are-ta. Journalist nom turbid.waters by drink-pass-past ‘A journalist was drowned by the turbid waters.’  (asahi.com 18 August 2005) Being out of control (24) Watashi wa hanmokku ni yurare nagara hitori omoide no uzu I top hammock by swing while alone memory poss swirl ni noma-re-te-it-ta. by drink-pass-link-go-past ‘While I was swung in a hammock, I was taken into the swirl of a memory’  (asahi.com 19 September 2001) Being overwhelmed (25) Watashi wa dokutoku no funiki ni nom-are-ta. I top unique poss atmosphere by drink-pass-past ‘I was overwhelmed by the unique atmosphere’  (asahi.com 4 September 2005; shortened)



Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink 

Tolerating one’s vexation (26) Akita senshu wa ato ippo no tokoro de namida o Akita athelete top more one.step poss place loc tears acc non-da. drink-past ‘Athlete Akita tolerated his loss at the last moment.’  (asahi.com 4 September 2005; shortened) Accepting unconditionally (27) Watashi wa aite no yookyuu o non-da. I top opponent poss demand acc drink-past ‘I accepted the opponent’s demand unconditionally’

One exception is (28) in that the person who drinks denotes a sense of dominance. Here, the agent (teacher) initiates an adversative action toward the patient (students). The teacher may not take them seriously or ignore their opinions. The dominant image of an agent we picture here is correlated with the liquids that submit to the automatic downward movement once they are taken in. The liquids are so unsubstantial that they can be ignored and that they allow the agent to have a dominant image. Belittling, ignoring (28) Sono sensei wa gakusei o non de kakaru taido o that teacher top student acc drink link play.against attitude acc tot-ta. take-past ‘That teacher treats students in a dismissive way.’

6.6  Receiving food Receiving is another facet of internalization. When food is internalized, the body receives nutrition. Most of the metaphors in the previous sections highlight the role of an agent; either a strong agent whose action affects the patient or an “affected agent” whose action has effect on himself (cf. Næss, this volume). Metaphors in this section encode a receiver at the subject position who experiences or undergoes a negative (never positive) event alluded to by a direct object. Let us consider examples (29) to (33). The referent of the noun phrase marked by the topic wa or the nominative ga ((30) is elliptical) serves as a receiver. The object marked by the accusative o preceding kuu is neither what is affected nor destroyed. In all examples, the referent of the object is metonymous, pointing either to some salient aspect of an event or to some historical myth or custom.

 Toshiko Yamaguchi

For example, the noun phrase soosukan in (29) literally means ‘total dislike’. The phrase sukan is originally a dialectal expression meaning ‘I don’t like X’. The noun phrase shippegaeshi ‘retaliation’ in (30) derives from Buddhist tradition in which higher monks strike the lower monks who are in training with a stick (called shippei ‘bamboo stick’). This religious practice became conventionalized such that it bore the meaning that someone retaliates when harmed or annoyed. (31) contains the noun phrase oitekibori ‘being marooned’. It originally refers to a pond in central Edo (the old name for Tokyo) that speaks to some fishermen saying ‘Leave the fish’. This old myth came to be associated with someone being marooned, left behind or left in the lurch. In (32), aori refers to ‘blast’ that is created by strong wind or any wind created secondarily (e.g., by a train that passes), standing for an unfavorable result that does not occur by itself but is caused externally. The noun phrase hiyameshi ‘cold cooked rice’ in (33) represents the cold treatment. Since the cooked rice (or the meal in general) is normally eaten while being warm, the cooked rice that has become cold indicates a lack of familial care, which extends to bad human treatment. All examples can be replaced by kurau, and its use strengthens the level of adversity. (29) Sensei ga jugyoo de joodan bakari iuuto gakusei kara soosukan teacher nom class in joke only say students from dislike o ku-u. acc eat-prs ‘A teacher would be disliked by all the students if he often tells them jokes’ (30) Hito o damashite bakari iru to shippegaeshi o ku-u. person acc cheat only asp when retaliation acc eat-prs ‘If you continually cheat the others, you would be harmed in return’ (31) Minna ga sakini shuppatsu shite shimai, watashi wa everyone nom earlier start.off do finish, I top oitekibori o kut-ta. being.left.behind acc eat-past ‘Everyone started off without me and I was left behind.’ (32) Fukyoo no aori o kut-te, kaisha wa toosan shi-ta. recession poss blast acc eat-link company top go.bankrupt do-past ‘The company went bankrupt because of the blast of the recession’ (33) Koozu-shi wa oo-en o motome-te mo mukashi kara Kozu-Ms top support acc ask.for-link despite previous.time since hoji-san des-u kara anata o ooen-shi-te, rakusen Hoji-Mr cop.pol-prs as you acc support.do-link be.defeated



Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink 

sure ba oretachi ga hiyameshi o ku-u to kotowa-rare-ru do conj we nom cool.rice acc eat-prs quo reject-pass-prs to katar-u. quo tell-prs ‘Ms Kozu says that, even if she asks for support, people answer that they have been supporting Mr Hoji and they can’t change their mind. If she does not get elected in spite of their support, they are afraid of being treated badly (by those who continue to vote for Mr Hoji).’ (Asahi.com 6 September 2005)

7.  Metonymic extensions Metonymic extensions of eat and drink verbs are in general proportionally less frequent than metaphoric ones. Unlike metaphors that arise out of the mapping between two conceptually different domains, metonymies arise from two conceptually similar domains (Barcelona 2000; Gibbs 1994; Radden & Kövecses 1999; among others). In the Japanese context, the rise of metonymy is closely related to the socio-cultural sub-domain of consumption, as proposed by Newman (this volume). Metonymies constructed with eat are associated with the concept of everyday nourishment and gustation. In (34), the activity of eating expressed by taberu or kuu stands for maintaining one’s life by virtue of the fact that the act of eating represents the essence of our living. The direct object is not expressed as it refers to a meal or typical food as an exemplary source of nourishment (Newman & Rice 2006: 4). The difference between taberu and kuu lies in the degrees of politeness. The use of kurau would be unacceptable due to its derogatory effect — unless of course such an effect is intended. (35) comprises three headings of an internet advertisement. Three nominals stand for three types of cuisines offered by the world, the city of Sapporo and nature. The verbal phrases impart the sense of enjoyment associated with eating. The fact that it is possible to say sekai o tanoshimu (world acc enjoy) ‘enjoy the world’ lends support to the metonymic link that exists between eating and enjoyment. Nourishment (34) Watashi wa tabe-ru/ku-u tameni yoru osoku made hatarak-u. I top eat-prs for night late until work-prs ‘I work until late at night to make a living.’

 Toshiko Yamaguchi

Gustation (35) Sekai/Sapporo/shizen world/Sapporo (place name) / nature ‘Eat the world/Sapporo/nature’

o tabe-ru. acc eat-prs

Metonymies constructed with drink are associated with the concept of socialization. In many cultures, as Partanen (1999: 217) observes, there is a close link between drinking and sociability. drink therefore stands for drinking alcoholic beverages since the intoxication entailed in the act of drinking is a typical way of socializing. (36) illustrates one aspect of socialization through the metonymic use of nomu. The direct object is not expressed as it denotes alcoholic drink as a typical exemplar (Newman & Rice 2006: 4). This sentence may be uttered among colleagues working in the same company. Drinking alcohol in this context typically includes informal talks or singing with karaoke – a central aspect of socialization. Socialization (36) Konban nomi ni ika-nai? this.evening drink purpose go-neg ‘Shall we go for a drink this evening?’

8.  Conclusion The first part of the paper (sections 1 to 5) focused on linguistic, socio-cultural and historical properties of verbs of eat and drink. The second part (sections 6 and 7) demonstrated metaphorical and metonymic extensions of eat and drink verbs according to the facets of experiential reality available to Japanese. The paper highlighted three issues. The first is that literal uses of eat and drink verbs do not always have figurative counterparts ­— especially when verbs are in formal or honorific uses, or lexicalize a positive sense. The second is that metaphors and metonymies with eat and drink are constructed on the grounds of our physiological experiences. The third is that socio-cultural (including honorific systems) and historical facts contribute to the construction of the meanings of eat and drink and their extensions. It is evident that figurative language does not emerge merely from some universal conceptual mapping, but that language-specific socio-cultural and historical realities influence or interfere with the mapping. We have proposed six experiential factors for metaphors (section 6). One point to be disputed might be the element of receiving food (section 6.6) as it can, we may argue, derive from the social act of receiving – a component that was crucial in the emergence of honorifics and that was cognate with the act of consumption (sections 3.1 and 5). If we try to apply these six factors to Newman’s target domain categorizations (1997),



Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink 

many of them pertain to the emotional domain. But it is not clear how the demarcation between positive emotions that are absent largely in Japanese and negative emotions that are abundant in Japanese can be explained experientially. First, positive properties such as nourishment and enjoyable gustation are sure to be part of experiential reality for Japanese people (see also Anderson 2004: 97–103; Newman, this volume: 3). Second, some instances of adversity (e.g., sections 6.2. and 6.3) may not derive directly from our physiological experiences. The concept of adversity has been mentioned in passing and illustrates the possible influence of socio-cultural factors in the figurative extensions of the verbs in question. Although it was not our concern here to account, precisely, for why it is associated systematically with metaphors with eat and drink, it suffices to say that it is a cultural phenomenon in Japanese society. In his book, Psychology of the Japanese People, Minami (1971 [1953]) views the sense of unhappiness as the fundamental characterization of the mentality of Japanese people. In such a society, as aptly articulated by Johnson (1993: 244), ‘one should be grateful for being spared severe adversity’. While adversity is stated to be a common phenomenon with expressions that contain eat in Asian languages (Pardeshi et al. 2006), the sense of unhappiness integrated deeply in the mind of Japanese people might explain the richness of ensuring negative connotations embedded in metaphors with eat and drink in Japanese. My hypothesis is that adversity has been a cultural preference in the history of the Japanese language.

Abbreviations acc = accusative; asp = aspect; CDJJ = Comprehensive Dictionary of Japanese after Historical Periods: Joodai Period; CDJL = Comprehensive Dictionary of Japanese Language; CDJM = Comprehensive Dictionary of Japanese after Historical Periods: Muromachi Period; CDOJ = Comprehensive Dictionary of Old Japanese; conj = conjunction; cop = copula; DLC = A Japanese/Chinese/English Dictionary of Language and Culture; EJL = An Encyclopaedia of the Japanese Language; humb = humble honorific; LBOJD = Learner’s Basic Old Japanese Dictionary; loc = location; MJD = Meikyo Japanese Dictionary; neg = negative; neu = neutral; nom = nominative; part = particle; pass = passive; poss = possessive; pol = polite; prs = present, ques = question; top = topic; quo = quotation.

References Anderson, Eugene Newton. 2004. Everyone eats: Understanding food and culture. New York NY: New York University Press.

 Toshiko Yamaguchi A Japanese/Chinese/English dictionary of language and culture (Nicchuuei Gengo Bunka Jiten). 2000. Tokyo: McMillan Language House. Barcelona, Antonio. 2000. Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: A cognitive perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Comprehensive dictionary of Japanese language IV (Nihon Kokugo Dai-jiten IV), 2nd Edn. 2001. Tokyo: Shogakukan. Comprehensive dictionary of Japanese after historical periods: Joodai period (Jidai-betsu Kokugo Dai-jiten: Joodai-hen). 1967. Tokyo: Sanseido. Comprehensive dictionary of Japanese after historical periods: Muromachi period III (Jidai-betsu Kokugo Dai-jiten: Muromachi-jidai-hen III). 1994. Tokyo: Sanseido. Comprehensive dictionary of Old Japanese (Kogo Dai-jiten). 1983. Tokyo: Kadokawa. Gibbs, Raymond W. 1994. The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language, and understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goatly, A. 1997. The language of metaphors. London: Routlege. Johnson, Frank A. 1993. Dependency and Japanese socialization: Psychoanalytic and anthropological investigations into Amae. New York NY: New York University Press. Kasuga, Kazuo. 1971. Joodai keigo soosetsu I (Overview of Honorifics in Joodai I). In Tsujimura et al., 33–95. Tokyo: Taishukan. Kikuchi, Yasuto 1997[1994]. Keigo (Honorifics). Tokyo: Kodansha. Kindaichi, Haruhiko, Oki Hayashi & Takeshi Shibata (Eds), 1988. An encyclopaedia of the Japanese language [Nihongo Hyakka Jiten]. Tokyo: Taishukan. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphor we live by. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the fresh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York NY: Basic Books. Learner’s basic Old Japanese dictionary (Gakushuu Kihon Kogo-Jiten). 1984. Tokyo: Taishukan. Meikyo Japanese dictionary (Meikyo Kokugo-Jiten). 2003. Tokyo: Taishukan. Minami, Hiroshi. 1971 [1953]. Psychology of the Japanese people. Translated by A.R.  Ikoma. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Newman, John. 1997. Eating and drinking as sources of metaphor in English. Cuadernos de Filologia Inglesa 6(2): 213–231. Newman, John & Sally Rice. 2006. Transitivity schemas of English eat and drink in the BNC. In Corpora in cognitive linguistics, Vol. 2: The syntax-lexis interface, Stefan T. Gries & Anatol Stefanowitsch (Eds), 225–60 Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ono, Susumu. 1966. Nihongo no Nenrin (The wisdom of age). Tokyo: Shinchosha. Pardeshi, Prashant et al. 2006. Toward a Geotypology of EAT-expressions in languages of Asia: Visualizing areal patterns through WALS. Gengo-Kenkyu 130: 89–108. Partanen, Juha. 1999. Sociability and Intoxication: Alcohol and drinking in Kenya, Africa, and the Modern World. Helsinki: The Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies. Radden, Günter & Zoltán Kövecses. 1999. Towards a theory of metonymy. In Metonymy in language and thought, Klaus-Uwe Panther & Gunther Radden (Eds), 17–59. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sawagata, Hisataka et al. 1967. Joodaigo gaisetsu (Introduction to language in the Joodai period). In Jidai-Betsu Kokugo Dai-Jiten: Joodai-Hen (Comprehensive dictionary of Japanese after historical periods: Joodai period), 13–58. Tokyo: Sanseido. Tsujimura, Toshiki. 1971. Keigo-shi no hoohoo to mondai (Systems and problems in the history of honorifics). In Tsujimura et al, 3–32. Tokyo: Taishukan. Tsujimura, Toshiki et al. 1971. Keigo-Shi (History of honorifics). Tokyo: Taishukan. Yamaguchi, Toshiko. 2007. Japanese language in use: An introduction. London: Continuum.



Literal and figurative uses of japanese eat and drink 

Internet sources www.ashahi.com 19 September 2001, 30 June 2005, 18 August 2005, 4/6 September 2005, 11 December 2005, 11 May 2006, 17 June 2006, 6 July 2007. www.chugoku-np.co.jp 28 March 2007.

What (not) to eat or drink Metaphor and metonymy of eating and drinking in korean Jae Jung Song

University of Otago This article concerns metaphorical extensions of two verbs of consumption in Korean, mek- ‘to eat’ and masi- ‘to drink’ and, to a less extent, metonymic processes built on the verb mek-. It begins with a description of the basic syntax and semantics of the two verbs with a view to understanding similarities and differences between them and also between the acts denoted by them. It also discusses the different aspects of eating and drinking with an eye to their implications for metaphorical extensions. The discussion also explains why some metaphorical extensions are possible while other seemingly plausible ones are not. The article then shifts its focus to metonymic processes based on the social/ cultural significance of the act of eating.

1.  Introduction1 The present chapter is an exploration of the metaphorical extension of the two basic verbs of consumption in Korean, namely mek- ‘eat’ and masi- ‘drink’ and, to a less extent, the metonymic process built on the verb mek- ‘eat’.2 This study is grounded in the tradition of Cognitive Linguistics in that it appeals to the nature and experience of the human being in motivating and explaining the metaphor and metonymy of eating and drinking (Lakoff & Johnson 1980 and 1999; Lakoff 1987; Lakoff & Turner 1989; Pauwels & Simon-Vandenbergen 1995; and Newman 1997 and this

.  I am grateful to John Newman for creating an opportunity to work on the linguistics of eating and drinking in Korean. His 1997 article has been an inspiration, showing me where to look and what to look for. He also kindly read an earlier draft and made useful comments and suggestions, which improved the quality of the present chapter. I am also indebted to Keith Allan for his helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Alan Kim and Jaeil Kwon for providing me with additional data on mwul-ul mek- ‘suffer humiliation’. .  For a general introduction to Korean, see Song (2005).

 Jae Jung Song

volume inter alia). In particular, the two bodily experiences or acts, i.e., eating and drinking, will be characterized in detail and these characterizations will then be drawn upon in order to explain the way the basic experiences or acts of eating and drinking – or components thereof – are pressed into service as the conceptual basis on which other experiences or acts, i.e., outside the domain of the bodily experiences of consumption, are understood and encoded in Korean. The present work will make use of important theoretical assumptions that are standard in Cognitive Linguistics. Two such assumptions can be identified at the outset. First, bodily experiences or acts such as eating and drinking, by virtue of their physically or preconceptually basic nature, are very likely to serve as source images or domains for other abstract kinds of conceptualization or metaphors (i.e., the use of the verb mek- ‘eat’ or masi- ‘drink’ in conjunction with non-edible or non-drinkable entities). Human beings must eat and drink in order to live. These experiences or acts, being of vital importance to human beings’ survival, are understood to the effect that they can be extended to express other conceptually abstract experiences or acts by way of what Lakoff (1987: 268) refers to as “metaphorical projection”. Second, basic bodily experiences or acts such as eating and drinking are not “unstructured mush[es]” but have structure (Lakoff 1987:  266–268). As will be amply demonstrated in what follows, the basic preconceptual bodily experiences or acts of eating and drinking have internal structure, the components of which can be relatively easily recognized, and some of these components will then be shown to participate actively in metaphorical extensions (cf. Newman, this volume) or in metonymic processes (cf. Goossens et al. (1995)). The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a description of the basic syntax and semantics of the two verbs, mek- ‘eat’ and masi-‘drink’. Section 3 discusses similarities and differences between eating and drinking, with a view to understanding their implications for metaphorical extensions. In particular, it will be demonstrated that in Korean the verb of eating mek- is conscripted in a variety of metaphorical extensions, from women (i.e., sexual intercourse, not gender-biased anthropophagy!) to heatstroke or criticism, whereas the metaphorical extension of the verb of drinking masi- is restricted to the bodily intake of non-solid/non-liquid substances, i.e., air and other types of gas. It will be argued that this fundamental difference in metaphorical extension between the two verbs is motivated by at least three factors: (i) the hyponymic relationship between the two verbs of consumption; (ii) the limited range of liquids, as opposed to the wide range of food items, affected by the act; and (iii) the physical differences between eating and drinking (Newman 1997 and this volume). Section 4 focuses on the metaphorical extension of the verb of eating mek-. Following Newman (1997 and this volume; cf. Pauwels and Simon-Vandenbergen 1995), various metaphorical extensions of this verb will be categorized into: (i) agent-oriented



What (not) to eat or drink 

extensions (the agent’s internalization of the patient); (ii) patient-oriented extensions (the agent’s destructive effect on the patient); and (iii) extensions with both agent and patient orientation (i.e., internalization and destruction). Moreover, it will be suggested that, while it is important to pay attention to the destructive effect on the thing eaten (i.e., the patient) in understanding the metaphorical extension of the verb mek- ‘eat’, the nature of the patient itself should also be regarded as a crucial factor in accounting for metaphorical extensions involving certain antonymic pairs (e.g., heat vs. cold, as opposed to love vs. hatred). In section 5, the discussion shifts focus to the social/cultural significance of eating, especially the eating of the staple food (i.e., various types of pap ‘meal’), and the related metonymy of eating. The last section contains a brief summary of the major points and findings. 2.  Basic syntax and semantics of mek- ‘to eat’ and masi- ‘to drink’ The two basic verbs of consumption in Korean appear in the transitive construction of (1): (1) NP-ka NP-(l)ul Verb [NP-ka = Agent, NP-(l)ul = Patient, Verb = mek- ‘eat’ or masi- ‘drink’]

Unless it can be understood or retrieved from the context, the NP-(l)ul tends to be expressed. Thus, sentences like (2), without a supporting context, will be unusual and certainly unidiomatic in Korean. (2) chelswu-ka mek-/masi-ess-ta chelsoo-nom eat-/drink-pst-ind ‘Chelsoo ate/drank.’

This contrasts with English, in which the identity of the thing eaten or drunk can be suppressed or backgrounded if the focus is placed on eating or drinking as an activity, not on what was done to the thing eaten or drunk (i.e., the patient), as the English translations in (2) show (cf. Næss, this volume; Amberber 2002). Thus, in Korean, it is normally necessary to express what is eaten or drunk, even if it is a highly generic item, as illustrated in (3). (3) a. chelswu-ka pap-ul mek-ess-ta Chelsoo-nom meal-acc eat-pst-ind ‘Chelsoo ate (a meal).’ b. chelswu-ka mwul-ul masi-ess-ta Chelsoo-nom water-acc drink-pst-ind ‘Chelsoo drank (water).’

Note that in (3a) the NP-(l)ul or pap-ul should be metonymically understood because the expression pap on its own really means ‘cooked rice’, as can be seen in

 Jae Jung Song

the compound expression pap panchan ‘rice and side-dishes’, as in pap panchan-ul chayngkye-cwu- ‘fix someone a meal’. The foregoing does not mean that the verbs mek- ‘eat’ and masi- ‘drink’ cannot be used on their own in order to encode the generic activities of eating and drinking, respectively, with the NP-(l)ul or the patient completely suppressed. They certainly can but under rather restricted circumstances, as illustrated in (4) and (5). (4) chelswu-nun mek-ko Chelsoo-top eat-and

masi-ki-man drink-nmlz-only

ha-myense do-while

seywel-ul ponay-ss-ta lifetime-acc spend-pst-ind ‘Chelsoo ate and drank his life away.’ or lit. ‘Chelsoo spent his time eating and drinking.’ (5) mek-ko masi-ko nol-ca eat-and drink-and play-PROPOSITION ‘Let’s paint the town red’ or lit. ‘Let’s eat, drink and play.’

As the sentences in (4) and (5) suggest, when the thing consumed is not mentioned or cannot be understood from the immediate context, textual or otherwise, the verbs are interpreted as denoting generic activities, probably carried out to an excessive extent. Thus (4) could easily be interpreted to imply that Chelsoo engaged in binge eating and drinking and in so doing he wasted much of his life (because he did not have time left for other things). Similarly, (5) implies that the speaker is proposing that everyone should have a good time without any inhibitions or prohibitions. The liquid understood to be the patient of the verb masi- ‘drink’ in both (4) and (5) is an alcoholic beverage. This is understandable because people do not normally drink an excessive amount of water or juice, but they may drink alcohol excessively (and get intoxicated or inebriated). Also note that, although they are used together in (4) and (5), the two verbs do not need to appear together in order to denote the generic activities. The verb mek- ‘eat’, less so the verb masi- ‘drink’, can combine with other expressions referring to different types of food. For example, different types of grain can be mentioned, i.e., ssal pap-ul mek- ‘eat rice’, poli pap-ul mek- ‘eat rice cooked with barley’, khong pap-ul mek- ‘eat rice cooked with beans’, phath pap-ul mek- ‘eat rice cooked with red beans’ and capkok pap-ul mek- ‘eat mixed grain’. As will be discussed in detail in section 5, most of these expressions have assumed “social” meanings. That is to say, they have become fixed expressions with social connotations (cf. Enfield 2002). Suffice it here to point out that in the not so distant past the production of rice was not sufficient in Korea that many poor Koreans had to live on grains other than rice, typically barley, for extended periods of time (e.g., a long winter). Recently, however, many have started to consume grains other than



What (not) to eat or drink 

rice for health or diet reasons. This change of attitude towards the types of grain consumed has a strong bearing on how some of these fixed expressions can be interpreted, depending on the context. The (native Korean) verb mek- ‘eat’ does not contribute to fixed expressions that may indicate the manner, place or style of eating, unlike, for instance, in Mandarin expressions, e.g., chг gua ˇ nzi ‘eat at a restaurant’, chг kuàizi ‘eat with chopsticks’ chг shítáng ‘have one’s meals in the mess’, chгsù ‘abstain from eating meat, be a vegetarian’, and chгzhāi ‘practise abstinence from meat’ (Newman, this volume). If, however, the Sino-Korean word sik (from Chinese 食), together with the generic verb ha- ‘do’ and other specifying words (e.g., oy ‘outside’, tan ‘stop’ cel ‘reduce’, kum ‘forbid’ chay ‘vegetables’, yuk ‘meat’, pwun ‘flour’, and cap ‘mixed’), is selected in lieu of the verb mek-, such fixed expressions are not hard to find, e.g., oysik ha- ‘eat at a restaurant’, tansik ha- or kumsik ha- ‘do fasting’, celsik ha- ‘diet, go on a diet’, chaysik ha- ‘be a vegetarian’, yuksik ha- ‘eat meat’, pwunsik ha- ‘eat wheat products (instead of rice)’, and capsik ha- ‘be omnivorous’. The verb masi- ‘drink’ is a hyponym of the verb mek- ‘eat’ in Korean (cf. Yamaguchi, this volume). Said differently, it is possible to say in Korean that one also eats what one drinks, but not the other way round.3 Thus the verb masi- can be replaced by the superordinate verb mek- in (6) but the reverse is not possible, as in (7).

.  This may perhaps have arisen from the fact that Korean meals typically include consommétype soup, and that many popular Korean dishes are soup-based, their names ending in the suffix -thang ‘soup’, e.g., sellongthang ‘milky beef soup’, komthang ‘beef soup’, talkkomthang ‘chicken soup’, samkyeythang ‘chicken and ginseng soup’ and sayngsennaychangthang ‘fish-gut soup’. Thus eating typical Korean meals almost always involves drinking soup. One may raise the question as to whether the verb mek- is an instance of polysemy, with the senses of ‘to consume’ and ‘to eat’. It does not seem to be polysemous, because there is no metaphorical connection between the two senses involved, and because the replacement of masiby mek-, as illustrated in (6), has to do with semantic markedness. The situation is analogous to the English word dog, which has a generic sense (i.e., canine animals) and a specific sense (i.e., male dogs). This is demonstrated in (i):

(i) A: Jim bought a dog yesterday. B: A dog or a bitch? A: A bitch. It does not seem correct to say the word dog is an instance of polysemy, because in the generic sense (Jim bought a dog yesterday) it is superordinate to bitch and in the specific sense (A dog or a bitch?) it is co-hyponymous with bitch (Lyons 1977: 308). By the same token, the Korean verb mek- cannot be said to be polysemous: in the generic sense it is superordinate to the other verb masi- while in the specific sense it is co-hyponymous with masi-.

 Jae Jung Song

(6) a. ai-ka wuyu-lul masi-ess-ta child-nom milk-acc drink-pst-ind ‘The child drank milk.’ b. ai-ka wuyu-lul mek-ess-ta child-nom milk-acc eat-pst-ind ‘The child drank milk.’ (7) a. ai-ka talk koki-lul mek-ess-ta child-nom chicken meat-acc eat-pst-ind ‘The child ate chicken.’ b. *ai-ka talk koki-lul masi-ess-ta child-nom chicken meat-acc drink-pst-ind ‘The child ate chicken.’

As will be argued in section 3, this hyponymic relation of the verb masi- to the verb mek- has an important bearing upon the extent of their metaphorical extensions. When we take in something for nutrition, we tend to combine eating and drinking. A meal normally consists of food and water or some other substitute drink (e.g., juice, beer, wine, etc.). Thus it does not come as a surprise that languages have separate verbs the meaning of which subsumes both eating and drinking (Newman, this volume). As in English (i.e., ingest and consume as opposed to eat or drink), there is in Korean a generic Sino-Korean verb of consumption, the use of which is confined to a formal, learned or scientific register, namely sepchwi ha- ‘consume or absorb’, as illustrated in (8). (8) a. elin ai-tul-un cohun umsikmwul-ul manhi young child-pl-top good food-acc much

sepchwi hay-a-ha-nta absorption do-pf-must-ind



‘Young children must eat a lot of good food.’

b. wuntongsenswu-tul-un swupwun-ul manhi sports.(wo)man-pl-top moisture-acc much

sepchwi absorption

hay-a-ha-nta do-pf-must-ind



‘Sportsmen/women must drink a lot of water.’

Note that the words used in conjunction with this formal or learned verb of consumption in (8), namely umsikmwul ‘food’ and swupwun ‘moisture’, as opposed to pap ‘meal’ and mwul ‘water’, also come from the formal, learned or scientific register.



What (not) to eat or drink 

3.  Internal structure of eating and drinking Newman (this volume and also 1997: 215–216) provides a useful description of the acts or experiences of eating and drinking. There is no need to reproduce it here. Nonetheless, it would be remiss not to highlight certain aspects of these bodily experiences or acts, which will turn out to be of relevance to the sections to follow. Newman identifies at least seven stages of eating: (i) hunger; (ii) intake; (iii) mastication (i.e., biting, chewing and crushing); (iv) swallowing; (v) digestion; (vi) nourishment; and (vii) enjoyable gustation. Two comments can be made about these stages before briefly describing them. First, the stage of (i) is prior to consumption. The stages in (ii), (iii) and (iv) are during consumption. Digestion and nourishment are post-consumption stages. Enjoyable gustation is a kind of panconsumption stage in the sense that we can imagine the taste of food even before taking it (e.g., salivating at the thought of food) or remember the taste of the food that we ate in the past. Of course, we can also enjoy the taste of food while consuming it. Second, although it is very similar to eating, drinking does not involve the stage of mastication at all. In fact, liquid, when reaching the stomach and intestines and also when leaving the body, remains qualitatively more or less the same as prior to consumption (i.e., urine, sweat, tears, etc.). Eating is different from drinking in this particular respect. Food needs to be chewed up or broken into small pieces or particles before it can be swallowed; otherwise we will end up with a stomach-ache or, worse still, we may choke on inadequately masticated food. Moreover, hunger triggers the need to eat and thirst the need to drink. The seven stages of eating can be briefly described as follows. We feel hunger, which compels us to take hold of food and put it into our mouths. We masticate the food taken into the mouth by manipulating the teeth, tongue and palate (i.e., Langacker’s (1987) active zone). The masticated food is then swallowed and transferred to the stomach, where it is digested. The digested or transformed food then travels to the intestines, where its nutrients are absorbed into the body. Whatever remains after that process will be excreted. As explained earlier, enjoyable gustation can start before, and remain after, the consumption of food. In particular, Newman (1997: 215) points out that “we eat food which produces pleasant, agreeable taste and normally we avoid food which is not pleasant to taste” to the extent that “there is an experiential bias towards enjoyable gustation”. This is true, but it is equally true that we eat food which is not “pleasant to taste” for sustenance or survival under certain circumstances (e.g., famine or visiting a foreign country). As will be argued in 4.1, this is why the metaphorical extension of the verb mek‘eat’ sometimes involves unpleasant experiences (e.g., tewi ‘heatstroke’ or yok ‘criticism’) as well.

 Jae Jung Song

Drinking has slightly less complex structure than eating because it does not involve mastication. The other stages of eating, on the other hand, are all involved in drinking as well. Moreover, there is a subtle difference between drinking and eating, more accurately between things eaten and things drunk. Liquid travels from the mouth, down the esophagus and into the stomach in a more or less continuous, smooth, uninterrupted manner. We do not do likewise with food lest we choke on it; (solid) food needs to be laboriously processed in the mouth for purposes of smooth swallowing. This does not have so much to do with the physical difference between eating and drinking as with the qualitative difference between food and liquid. When it comes to metaphorical extensions, there seems to be a clear difference between mek- ‘eat’ and masi ‘drink’. The use of the verb mek- is metaphorically extended to a wide range of non-food entities, including physical entities (e.g., women) and abstract entities (e.g., criticism). The metaphorical extension of the verb masi-, on the other hand, is restricted to the bodily intake of air and other types of gas (e.g., coal briquette gas, cigarette smoke, vehicle emission gas, etc.). This difference in the metaphorical behavior between the two verbs is illustrated by the sentences in (9)–(14). (Note that the verbs mek- and masi- are glossed here and elsewhere as ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, respectively, in order to indicate their etymological sources.) (9) n  a-nun ce yeca-ka mek-e-po-ko I-top that woman-nom eat-pf-try-comp ‘I like to try to have sex with that woman.’

siph-ta like-ind

(10) ku salam-un langkhawi-eyse tewi-lul simhakey mek-ess-ta the man-top Langkawi-loc heat-acc seriously eat-pst-ind ‘The man suffered serious heatstroke while visiting Langkawi.’ (11) ku salam-un caki pwumo-uy caysan-ul ta tul-e-mek-ess-ta the man-top self parents-gen assets-acc all lift-pf-eat-pst-ind ‘The man used up (i.e., wasted) all of his parents’ assets.’ (12) ku salam-un nam-uy il-lo the man-top others-gen business-because.of yok-ul mek-ess-ta criticism-acc eat-pst-ind ‘The man received criticism because of someone else(’s fault).’ (13)

k u ai-nun chan kongki-lul memwu manhi masi-ese the child-top cold air-acc too much drink-because kamki-lul keli-ess-ta cold-acc catch-pst-ind ‘The child caught a cold because he took in too much cold air.’



What (not) to eat or drink 

(14) ku salam-un yenthan kasu-lul masi-ko cwuk-ess-ta the man-top briquette gas-acc drink-and die-pst-ind ‘The man died from breathing coal briquette gas (i.e., carbon monoxide).’4

It is not possible to use the verb masi- ‘drink’ with women or abstract entities, as illustrated in (15) and (16). (15) * na-nun ce yeca-ka masi-e-po-ko I-top that woman-nom drink-pf-try-comp ‘I like to try to have sex with that woman.’

siph-ta like-ind

(16) *ku salam-un nam-uy il-lo the man-top others-gen business-because.of yok-ul criticism-acc

masi-ess-ta drink-pst-ind

‘The man received criticism because of someone else(‘s fault).’

There are at least three motivating factors for this disparity between mek- ‘eat’ and masi- ‘drink’. First, masi- is a hyponym of mek-. This means that wherever masi- is used in conjunction with liquid entities such as water or juice, mek- can also be used but that the former verb cannot replace the latter verb, as illustrated earlier by (6) and (7). In other words, the verb mek-, by virtue of its general or inclusive meaning, is more widely and frequently attested than the verb masi-. Thus mek- is more likely to be metaphorically extended to other entities than masi-. The verb mek- can be said to have a propensity for extension. Indeed, masi- can be metaphorically extended only to gases or gas-like substances, which still need to be taken into the body either through the nose and/or the mouth. In other words, the metaphorical extension of the verb masi- is essentially “embodied” or based on the bodily intake of X. The verb mek-, on the other hand, can apply to the metaphorical internalization of entities ranging from human beings (albeit typically females) to criticism. Said differently, the metaphorical extension of mek- can be “disembodied” or based on the non-bodily intake of X. Second, the range of food items affected by the act of eating, as opposed to the range of liquids affected by the act of drinking, is very wide. They include hard items (e.g., nuts, dried meat and fruits), soft items (e.g., yoghurt, jelly and tofu), and semi-hard items (e.g., meat, fruits and vegetables), and all kinds of food in between. The range of liquids that can be drunk is limited, however. Whether it is water, juice or wine, it comes in essentially liquid form. They may, of course, vary in viscosity (e.g., water vs. tomato juice, and milk vs. oil), but they are still all

.  Coal briquettes used to be the most common source of domestic heating in Korea.

 Jae Jung Song

“amorphous” liquids, lacking a definite shape. In view of this difference, it is not unreasonable to think that it is the verb mek- that is more likely to be metaphorically extended to other entities or acts than the verb masi- is. Again, the verb mek-, as opposed to the verb masi-, can be said to have a propensity for extension. Third, related to the second factor above is the stage of mastication, which is entailed by eating but not by drinking. This additional stage of mastication provides a conceptual motivation for further metaphorical extensions in which the broad sense of destruction may be a salient feature. For example, in (11) renumbered here as (17) the sense of destruction, inherent in mastication, serves as the conceptual motivation for the expression of the man’s using up (i.e., destroying) his parents’ assets. (17) ku salam-un caki pwumo-uy caysan-ul ta tul-e-mek-ess-ta the man-top self parents-gen assets-acc all lift-pf-eat-pst-ind ‘The man used up (i.e., wasted) all of his parents’ assets.’

Drinking, on the other hand, would be inappropriate for the situation in (17), because it lacks the crucial sense of destruction (arising from the stage of mastication) (also see Newman 1997: 224). One may argue that eating and drinking both involve a drastic transformation or destruction of food and liquid in the stomach and intestines (e.g., changes in color and texture). However, this particular destruction, common to eating and drinking, is not normally visible to us unless the food or liquid is somehow brought out of the body (i.e., vomiting). Moreover, “[i]t is controlled by involuntary reflexes and processes beyond our conscious control” (Newman, this volume).5 Mastication, on the other hand, is visible to us (i.e., we can see food being masticated inside someone’s mouth, especially when they eat and talk at the same time) and it in fact creates highly tactile sensations in the mouth. Masticated food can also be much more easily brought out of the mouth than the food that is already transformed in the stomach and intestines (spitting vs. vomiting). In other words, mastication and digestion, although they both involve destruction, differ from each other in the sense that the former is a visible, tactile and conscious process and the latter is not. This difference (i.e., mastication) is something that it is argued here motivates the metaphorical extension illustrated in (17). Having explained why it is the verb mek- that is far more likely to be metaphorically extended than the verb masi-, I will first describe the conceptual basis for the metaphorical extension of the latter verb, as exemplified in (13) and (14).

.  Keith Allan (personal communication) points out that anorexics regularly and consciously induce vomiting.



What (not) to eat or drink 

Gas and gas-like substances are akin to liquid in that they have a volume but no (definite) shape. They can also be inhaled through the nose – or the mouth if required – without interruptions, just as liquid is taken through the mouth into the stomach and intestines with virtually no interruption. This smooth, continuous, uninterrupted intake is what motivates the metaphorical extensions in (13) and (14). In fact, the same sense is so salient a component of the concept of breathing in Korean that the native Korean expression for ‘breathe in’ or ‘inhale’ contains the verb masi-, as in tulimasi- in (18) (cf. Sino-Korean hohup ha- ‘breathe’).6 (18) hwanca-ka kongki-lul kiphi tulimasi-ess-ta patient-nom oxygen-acc deeply inhale-pst-ind ‘The patient inhaled oxygen deeply.’

4.  Metaphorical extensions of the verb mek- ‘eat’ Newman (1997 and this volume) discusses three categories of metaphorical extensions based on the verbs of eating or drinking: (i) agent-oriented extensions; (ii) patient-oriented extensions; and (iii) extensions with both agent and patient orientation. Not surprisingly, these categories are directly related to the transitive construction in (1), where NP-ka has the semantic role of agent (i), and NP-(l)ul the semantic role of patient (ii), while the Verb links these two NPs, or the agent and the patient (iii). For the reasons given in section 3, the present discussion will be restricted to metaphorical extensions of eating. The first category is based on “properties of the agent, i.e., the consumer, in the process” (Newman 1997: 216). Metaphorical extensions of this category are motivated by what the agent does by eating. There may be different conceptual variations on the agent engaging in the act of eating but most salient is the one in which the agent does something to the patient (i.e., the thing eaten) or in which

.  Where air is not inhaled in such a smooth, continuous, uninterrupted manner, the verb of eating mek- instead is used, as in (i), where air is accidentally sucked in:  (i)

ip-ul peli-ko pap-ul mek-u-myen kongki-lul mouth-acc open-and meal-acc eat-pf-if air-acc



mek-key-toy-se thulim-i manhi na-o-nta eat-RESULT-become-because burp-nom much exit-come-ind



‘If you eat (i.e., chew) food with your mouth open, you are going to burp a lot.’

In (i), the inhaling of air is merely incidental to the main process of eating food. Thus it is not like normal breathing (i.e., via the mouth and in a non-continuous, interrupted manner).

 Jae Jung Song

the agent “internalizes” the patient. The agent consumes the patient by putting it through the mouth into the body. This internalization (or Pauwels and SimonVandenbergen’s (1995: 37) interiorization) “involves a clear transition from being visible and outside the body to being no longer visible and inside the body” (Newman 1997: 216). Once processed in the mouth, the food is transferred down the esophagus into the stomach and intestines. This image of internalization is what serves as the basis for the cloth internalizing or absorbing the dye in the Hausa sentence in (19) (Abraham 1962: 136). (19) zanè yaa ci baabaa cloth he.asp eat indigo ‘The cloth took the indigo-dye well.’

The patient-oriented category, on the other hand, focuses on what happens to the patient, i.e., food, in the process. Food is taken whole or piecemeal into the mouth, and then crushed and chewed (i.e., masticated) by means of the teeth, tongue and palate before being swallowed, as explained earlier. Food, reduced to small particles, can be said to be transformed or “destroyed”. Thus the patientoriented category of metaphorical extensions is based on the destruction or transformation of the patient. Recall that the destruction of liquid is not as drastic as the destruction of food, as pointed out earlier. “Hence, verbs relating to eating (rather than drinking) are especially appropriate as sources for images of destruction” (Newman, this volume). For example, the English verb eat, in conjunction with the preposition into, is used to express the sense of destruction, in this case “the meaning of the gradual, incrementally destructive effect of some entity acting upon another” (Newman, this volume): (20) …she found herself in the high little town called Adeje, from which the long Barranco del Infierno, the gorge called Hell’s Valley, ate into the mountainside (Cherkawska 1990: 166).

The English example in (21) also illustrates the destructive effect of the agent on the patient. The sense of completeness in the destruction of money is signalled by the use of the particle up. (21) Big cars eat up money.

The third category of metaphorical extensions draws upon two motivations, one based on the agent (i.e., the first category) and the other based on the patient (i.e., the second category). As an example of this category, Newman (this volume) gives English idiomatic expressions such as eat one’s heart out or eat one’s words. In eat one’s heart out, the agent is seen to suffer “through having to eat something unpleasant” (i.e., his heart, metonymic for his feelings, passion and the like); at the same time, the locus of his feelings, passion and the like is eaten or destroyed.



What (not) to eat or drink 

Further examples provided by Newman involve the use of the verb ci ‘eat’ in Hausa or the verb dla ‘eat’ in Zulu in metaphorical expressions relating to a sexual experience or conquest (cf. English Seeing her, too, blindfolded like a hostage, he felt a throb of lust. […] And here he was, wanting to eat her (Theroux 2005: 5)). Having sexual intercourse is taken to be a physical and pleasurable experience, and the use of the verb eat in the expression of this experience is then motivated by the image of internalization and also by the effect on the patient of the agent’s action. In order to experience the taste and texture of food, we first have to “internalize” it (i.e., by consuming it). Similarly, to have sex with someone is to have a physical and pleasurable experience with that person. The effect on the patient of the agent in a sexual experience or conquest is also conceptualized in the same way as the effect on food of the consumer’s eating is (i.e., destruction; but see 4.3). While constituting a very useful system with which to compare different metaphorical extensions in terms of motivations, Newman’s three categories may perhaps create a wrong impression that they are somehow discrete or distinct. Take the category of agent-oriented extensions, exemplified in (19). Although this particular metaphorical extension is based on the internalization of food (i.e., the cloth absorbing the dye), the “flip side” (i.e., the destructive effect on the patient of the dyeing process or the dye absorbed into the cloth) is also evident. In other words, the dye was effectively “destroyed”, because it disappeared into the cloth (although the colour may still be visible on the cloth). In fact, it may be possible to argue that the sense of destruction is as strong as, if not stronger than, the sense of internalization in (19), depending on where one’s attention may be focused. The same can be said of the second category of metaphorical extensions, i.e., the patient-oriented extensions. In (20), “the meaning of the gradual, incrementally destructive effect of some entity acting upon another” (Newman, this volume) may come to the fore, as it were. But the extent of the gorge (or the gorge’s internalization of the mountain-side by encroaching on it) is also present in the metaphorical extension in question. Therefore, it is a matter of where (one thinks) the focus lies, internalization or destruction. It is not the case that the sense of destruction is utilized for purposes of metaphorical extensions to the exclusion of the sense of internalization or vice versa. Rather, they are concomitant with each other. Nonetheless, Newman’s three categories of metaphorical extensions, with the foregoing caveat in mind, will be retained for illustrative purposes in what follows. 4.1  Agent-oriented extensions The most salient property of the agent in the process of eating is the internalization of food. The internalization can be metaphorically extended to cover abstract

 Jae Jung Song

as well as concrete entities. First, the internalization can still refer to concrete or physical objects, albeit non-edible and non-food. The examples in (22) and (23) demonstrate this point. (22) catong hyenkum inchwulki-ka nay khatu-lul mek-ess-ta automatic cash machine-nom my card-acc eat-pst-ind ‘The ATM ate my cash card.’ (23) i cha-nun hwipalyu-lul nemwu manhi mek-nunta this car-top petrol-acc too much eat-ind ‘This car uses too much petrol.’

In both (22) and (23), what is “eaten” refers to a concrete thing, be it petrol or a cash card. The image of the agent internalizing the patient is salient in (23), in which the card is received from the user by the ATM without being returned to him or her. There is “a clear transition from being visible and outside the [ATM] to being no longer visible and inside the [ATM]” (Newman, this volume). A similar comment can be made about (23), where the car takes in petrol, just as we take in food. (There is also an image, in the background, of someone feeding the car with petrol, just as we feed young children with food.) Note, also, that the agents in (22) and (23) are entities that, unlike human beings or animals for that matter, are not capable of eating food. In other words, the metaphor here involves not only the patient but also the agent. The same image of the agent internalizing the patient is also evident in (24), in which the verb mek- is used to describe bribe-taking. (24) ku cengchiin-un noymwul-ul emcheng mek-ess-ta the politician-top bribe-acc many eat-pst-ind ‘The politician took many bribes (or kickbacks).’

When a bribe is accepted, it must be hidden or at least put in a place where it cannot be seen as a bribe (e.g., a secret bank account), and then used in such a way that no money or objects can be traced back to the bribe. Thus, although a bribe is “visible” at the time of bribe-taking (i.e., the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker both recognizing it as a bribe), it should be rendered “invisible”, as it were, once in the bribe-taker’s domain of possession. This transition from “visible” to “invisible” in bribe-taking harks back to the sense of internalization. Moreover, one may perhaps go so far as to claim that a bribe can possibly be converted into something to be put into the mouth, i.e., food. In such a case, there is “a chain of understanding” (Newman 1997: 223–224) to the effect that receiving a bribe (i.e., money) leads to spending it on worldly things, including (expensive) food. Thus “the eating […] domain can be used to visualize the acquisition of material objects, making them part of one’s possession” (Newman 1997: 223).



What (not) to eat or drink 

In (25), the sense of internalization is still related to something concrete or something that is partially put into the mouth and stays there that way. (25) ku salam-un tampay (sa) mek-nun ton-i emcheng-nata the man-top cigarette (buy) eat-rel money-nom substantial-is ‘The man spends a lot of money on (buying and) smoking cigarettes.’

The verb mek- in (25) can be replaced by the verb phi- ‘smoke’, and if one wants to express explicitly that cigarette smoke is being inhaled, the verb tulimasi- must be used, as in (26). (26) ku salam-un tampay yenki-lul tulimasi-ess-ta the man-top cigarette smoke-acc breathe-pst-ind ‘The man inhaled cigarette smoke.’

Abstract entities can also participate in the metaphorical extension of the verb mek- ‘eat’, as illustrated in (27) and (28). (27) ai-tul-un salang-ul mek-ko cala-ya-ha-nta child-pl-top love-acc eat-and grow-pf-must-ind ‘Children must grow on love.’ (28) ce chinkwu-nun oykwuk mwul-ul mek-ess-ta that bloke-top foreign.country water-acc eat-pst-ind ‘That bloke has overseas (living/working) experience.’

Experiencing love or living/working in a foreign country is conceptualized in the same way as internalizing food is. Emotions such as love (or hatred) are something that we internalize to the effect that we feel loved (or hated). Note, also, that in (28) the word mwul ‘water’ is metonymically used to refer to the culture and/ or environment of a foreign country (cf. English expressions like There must be something in the water, used when describing something unusual about people from somewhere else). In fact, the word mwul is used in combination with other words (e.g., tayhak ‘university’, sahoy ‘society’, kwuntay ‘military’, yengkwuk ‘UK’, mikwuk ‘USA’ etc.) to express the personal experience of the culture or milieu of a particular group, society or country, as in (29). (29) ce chinkwu-nun tayhak mwul-ul mek-ess-ta that bloke-top university water-acc eat-pst-ind ‘That bloke went to university.’ or ‘That bloke received university education.’

The internalization of food can also entail that the mouth, or less immediately the stomach, can become full or literally ‘filled up’ (cf. English expressions of satiation, e.g., I am so full that I could burst). Satiation is indirectly related to, or a potential consequence of, the internalization stage of eating (too much) (also see Næss, this volume and Amberber 2002 on the affectedness of the agent). This incidental

 Jae Jung Song

property can motivate the use of the verb mek- ‘eat’ in the expression of a “blocked” ear, as in (30). (30) ne-n kwi-ka mek-ess-nya you-top ear-nom eat-pst-q ‘Are you deaf?’; ‘Are you hard of hearing?’; ‘Why aren’t you listening to me?’

It is probably the relative size of the ear as an orifice that can be thought to be easily filled up or stuffed up with even a small amount of words heard. The image of food filling up the mouth or the stomach is what motivates the use of the verb mek- in conjunction with kwi ‘ear’ in (30), which literally means ‘Have your ears eaten (something)?’. One may suggest that there can also be a sense of destruction (i.e., a damaged ear and a consequent loss of hearing) (John Newman, personal communication). This, however, does not seem to be the case because the verb mek-, in (30), can be optionally modified by adverbial expressions of quantification such as manhi ‘a lot’ or ‘much’, and also because the nominal kwi-ka encodes the agent, not the patient. Incidentally, the Korean expression for ‘deaf person’ is kwimekeli. Note that the presence in this expression of the noun kwi ‘ear’ and the verb mek‘eat’. The metaphorical extension displayed in (30) is lexicalized in the expression kwimekeli (cf. pengeli ‘mute person’). Newman (this volume) mentions the use of the verb nengé ‘eat’ in Enga and of the verbs ci ‘eat’ and shaa ‘drink’ in Hausa in the expression of “unpleasant or painful experiences” (also see Jaggar & Buba, this volume). Unpleasant or painful experiences are similar to pleasurable experiences in that they can also be internalized. Thus one can invoke the image of internalization to account for this type of metaphorical extension as well. Generally speaking, however, what we take into our mouths should be pleasant to taste or to eat. Recall that one of the stages of eating (or drinking for that matter) is enjoyable gustation. In Newman’s (1997: 215) words, “we eat food which produces pleasant, agreeable taste and normally we avoid food which is not pleasant to taste” (also see Wierzbicka 1982:  761 for a similar view). Thus the fact that the verb ‘eat’ is metaphorically extended to cover unpleasant or painful experiences may not sit well with Newman’s observation about enjoyable gustation. This “anomaly”, if it can be called that, can be resolved, if it is realized that we also eat food that can cause problems for our bodies (e.g., unhealthy food, unhygienically prepared food, etc.). The outcome of the internalization of such “bad” food may be unpleasant or even painful, but the internalization stage remains the same as in the case of “good” food. Examples in which the verb mek- ‘eat’ is metaphorically extended to refer to the internalization of unpleasant or painful experiences are not hard to find, as illustrated in (31)–(35).



What (not) to eat or drink 

(31) ku salam-un langkhawi-eyse tewi-lul simhakey mek-ess-ta the man-top Langkawi-loc heat-acc seriously eat-pst-ind ‘The man suffered serious heatstroke while visiting Langkawi.’ (32) ku salam-un nam-uy il-lo the man-top others-gen business-because.of yok-ul mek-ess-ta criticism-acc eat-pst-ind ‘The man received criticism because of someone else(‘s fault).’ (33) wuli thim-i hwupancen-ey pheynelthi-lul mek-ess-ta our team-nom second.half-loc penalty.goal-acc eat-pst-ind ‘Our team suffered a penalty goal in the second half.’ (34) ku salam-un wuli-hanthey kolthang-ul mek-ess-ta the man-top us-from prank-acc eat-pst-ind ‘The man fell victim to our prank.’ (35) ce chinkwu-nun celeta enceyko hanpen mwul-ul that bloke-top that.way some.day once water-acc mek-ul-kes eat-rel-thing

ita is

‘That bloke will some day suffer humiliation if he behaves like that.’

The foregoing examples are all straightforward and are in no need of explanation, except that in (35) the word mwul ‘water’ is used to refer to serious humiliation (cf. the English expression bite the dust). It is not clear as to how this usage has come about, although there are a few unverifiable etymologies (e.g., torturing someone by forcing their heads into water). Incidentally, Haspelmath (1990: 64) mistakenly describes a Korean sentence similar to (32), with yok without its accusative case marker -ul, as an adversative passive sentence (i.e., taking mek- to be an “adversative passive” marker, suffixed to the “verb” yok). This is incorrect, because yok is not a verb but a noun, as can be clearly seen from its accusative case marker in (32). It is also not uncommon to find the verb mek- ‘eat’ to be metaphorically extended in the context of the passive construction. (The active counterparts of such sentences will be unusual (to varying degrees), it not ungrammatical (cf. (22) and (23)).)7 This is exemplified in (36)–(38). .  The reason why the passive, not the active, is possible in (36) may be that the quality of the cloth (i.e., the ability to absorb dye) is more “newsworthy” than the situation in which the cloth absorbs dye. A similar comment can be made about (37). For further discussion of “newsworthiness” in Korean passives, see Song (1988).

 Jae Jung Song

(36) i chen-un mwulkam-i cal mek-hi-nta this cloth-top dye-nom well eat-pass-ind ‘The cloth dyes well.’ or literally ‘As for the cloth, the dye is eaten well.’ (37) kamwum ttang-ey pismwul-i mek-hi-tusi drought earth-loc rain.water-nom eat-pass-as

ku salam-un that man-top

cisik-ul patatuli-ess-ta knowledge-acc receive-pst-ind ‘That man absorbed knowledge as parched soil soaks up rain water.’ Or literally ‘As for the man, knowledge is absorbed as rain is soaked up by parched soil.’ (38) na-nun swuhak kongsik-i meli-sok-ey cal I-top maths formula-nom head-inside-loc well an mek-hi-e-tul-e-ka-nta not eat-pass-pf-enter-pf-go-ind ‘Mathematical formulae do not get into my head well.’ or ‘I can’t memorize mathematical formulae well.’

The examples in (36)–(38) all seem to be based on the internalization of the patient, albeit expressed by means of passive sentences. 4.2  Patient-oriented extensions The effect on the patient of the agent’s eating is what drives the second category of metaphorical extensions. The effect can be in the form of destruction or transformation of the patient (i.e., the source image being food being crushed, chewed and swallowed). As in the case of the first category of metaphorical extensions, it is possible to combine the verb mek- ‘eat’ with nouns referring to concrete objects other than food. This is demonstrated in (39). (39) phyeam-i ku-uy mom-ul mek-e-tul-e-ka-ss-ta lung.cancer-nom 3-gen body-acc eat-pf-enter-pf-go-pst-ind ‘Lung cancer started to destroy his body.’

In (39), the image of destruction is undeniable in the sense that the body (or the patient) is described as being destroyed by lung cancer (also metaphorically understood). This sense of destruction is also attested in the context of non-concrete or abstract objects, as in (40). (40) i il-un ssulttayepsi sikan-man mek-nunta this work-top for.no.use time-only eat-ind ‘This work just takes up time (for nothing).’



What (not) to eat or drink 

The speaker in (40) is expressing his or her exasperation over the work taking up an excessive amount of valuable time without ever getting done. The image of destruction is salient here, too. Speaking of valuable time, nothing can measure up to lifetime. Thus it is usual to describe the aging process as eating nai ‘age’ in Korean, as in (41). (41) saylo o-n cikwen-un nai-lul manhi mek-ess-ta newly come-rel clerk-top age-acc many eat-pst-ind ‘The newly arrived clerk is advanced in age.’

Lifetime is therefore looked upon as something that gets destroyed eventually to nothing (i.e., death). A similar comment can be made about (42), in which the speaker is lamenting the fact that he or she is getting older without achieving anything. Lifetime is being destroyed to little or no purpose, as it were. (42) na-n ssulttayepsi nai-man mek-nunta I-top for.no.use age-only eat-ind ‘I am just getting older for nothing.’

Incidentally, as we get older, we are expected to gain more life experience or more knowledge or wisdom (cf. the English expression older but wiser). This is implied in (43), in which the speaker is criticizing someone who, despite his age, does not seem to know anything (useful). (43) ce salam-un nai-man mek-ess-ci that man-top age-only eat-pst-although a-nun-kes-i eps-ta know-REL-thing-nom no.exist-ind ‘That man knows nothing although he is old enough to know something.’

In 4.1, the destruction of one’s assets was taken to be based on the agent’s internalization of the patient, as in (11), renumbered here as (44). (44) ku salam-un caki pwumo-uy caysan-ul ta tul-e-mek-ess-ta the man-top self parents-gen assets-acc all lift-pf-eat-pst-ind ‘The man used up (i.e., wasted) all of his parents’ assets.’

The sentence in (44) can also be said to be based as much on the destruction of the patient (i.e., his parents’ assets) as on the agent’s internalization of the patient. As alluded to earlier, it is rather difficult to decide which of the two is a more powerful or salient motivation. There are some variations on the example in (44). In (45), the verb mek- ‘eat’ is “colorfully” modified by “auxiliary” verbs other than tul- ‘lift’. These auxiliary verbs thus describe different manners in which the assets were destroyed.

 Jae Jung Song

(45) ku salam-un caki pwumo-uy caysan-ul ta the man-top self parents-gen assets-acc all mal-/hwumchi-/haychi-/samkhi-a/e-mek-ess-ta roll.up/steal/harm/swallow-pf-eat-pst-ind ‘The man used up (i.e., wasted) all of his parents’ assets.’

In (44), the auxiliary verb tul- ‘lift’ suggests the manner of snatching something (i.e., assets) from someone’s hand (i.e., possession). In (45), the auxiliary verb mal‘roll up’ depicts the manner of someone’s assets being taken in one sweep as if they were being rolled up like sushi! Indeed the whole point of rolling up sushi is to keep all the filling (e.g., raw fish, pickled vegetables, avocado, etc.) tightly tucked inside a roll of rice by using a sheet of dried seaweed. The sentence thus describes the man taking his own parents to the cleaner’s (i.e., as a consequence, not a single cent was left behind in the parents’ possession). The auxiliary verb hwumchi- ‘steal’ needs no explanation. The auxiliary verb haychi- ‘harm’ describes the harmful manner of the man’s action. Finally, the auxiliary verb samkhi- ‘swallow’ describes the manner in which the man gulped down his parents’ assets. One more example will suffice to highlight the sense of destruction as the motivation for the second category of metaphorical extensions. (46) ne-n ni aymi-lul cap-a-mek-ulye-ko you-top your mother-acc catch-pf-eat-INTENTION-comp ile-ni? do.like.this -q ‘Are you trying to kill me, your own mother, by behaving this way?’ (i.e., Your arrant behaviour will be the death of me)

The sentence in (46) could easily be uttered by a distraught mother who is pleading her wayward child to behave himself or herself. The implication here is that if the child is not changing his or her behavior, he or she could end up destroying his or her own mother. There are variations on the image of destruction: (i) elimination; (ii) suppression; and (iii) efficacy. Each will in turn be briefly discussed. One of the variations on the image of destruction is what Newman (1997: 227–228) refers to as elimination. For this particular variation, Newman suggests that “swallowing makes food relatively inaccessible and swallowing is therefore appropriate as a way of conceptualizing the complete elimination or removal of an entity, without implying the continuous, bit by bit destruction found with the metaphorical extensions of mastication verbs [e.g., eat]” (Newman 1997: 227). This is illustrated by his example, reproduced here as (47).



What (not) to eat or drink 

(47) He had changed, and latterly all those good memories had been swallowed up by indifference and uncertainty. (Cherkawska 1990: 8)

Here, “the intended meaning is that the memories have been completely erased, with the verb particle up adding to the completive, perfective sense” (Newman 1997: 227). In Korean also, the sense of elimination can be expressed by means of the verb samkhi- ‘swallow’, as in (48) (also cf. (45)). (48) ha-ten mal-ul samkhi-ess-na mal-ul mos do-rel word-acc swallow-pst-because word-acc unable ha-ko do-comp

iss-e? is-q

‘Have you swallowed your tongue or something?; why are you stopping talking?’

Note, however, that it is not the case that the verb mek- cannot express the sense of elimination metaphorically. This is illustrated in (49). (49) a. na-nun cakun cha-lul sa-ki-lo maum-ul mek-ess-ta I-top small car-acc buy-nmlz-all mind-acc eat-pst-ind ‘I decided to buy a small car (e.g., because of a high petrol price, although I really wanted a big car).’ b. na-nun samwusil cenhwa penho-lul ic-e-mek-ess-ta I-top office phone number-acc forget-pf-eat-pst-ind ‘I (completely) forgot the office phone number.’

The sentence in (49a) contains the idiomatic expression maum-ul mek- ‘make up one’s mind (i.e., maum) (to do something)’ or literally ‘eat one’s mind (to do something)’. This expression describes one’s intention or determination to ignore what the heart (i.e., maum) desires in favor of what the head says. In order to do what the head dictates, one must first eliminate one’s maum by ‘eating’ it, as it were. In (49b), on the other hand, the elimination, permanent or temporary, from the speaker’s memory of the phone number, primarily expressed by the verb ic- ‘forget’, is reinforced by the metaphorical use of the verb mek-. The second variation on the image of destruction is suppression of certain emotional or mental states, typically unpleasant ones. The verb samkhi- can also be metaphorically extended to describe this sense, as illustrated in (50). (50) ku salam-un caki hyengcey-ulwihay the man-top his sibling-ben wulpwun-ul samkhi-ess-ta wrath-acc swallow-pst-ind ‘The man suppressed his wrath for the sake of his siblings.’

 Jae Jung Song

This is an example of suppression, not destruction or elimination, because the man’s wrath can subsequently rise to the surface, as it were. Similar examples can be attested also in English, using the verb swallow, as in (51). (51) The billionaire swallowed his pride.

In (51), it does not mean that the billionaire lost his pride completely but that he had to suppress it temporarily. It is possible to translate (51) into Korean word for word, as in: (52) ekmancangca-nun caconsim-ul (kkwulkkek) samkhi-ess-ta billionaire-top pride-acc (in.a.single.gulp) swallow-pst-ind ‘The billionaire swallowed his pride.’

The third variation concerns the efficacy of certain actions, as exemplified in (53); efficacy is used here in the sense of an action “destroying” any difficulties of carrying out that action in order to achieve the desired results. Note the use of the passive construction, whereby the lack of efficacy of the work being done is highlighted. (Note that the active counterpart of (53) is ungrammatical (cf. Song 1988; and note 7).) (53) il-i cal an mek-hi-e-tul-e-ka-nta work-nom well not eat-pass-pf-enter-pf-go-ind ‘The work isn’t going well.’

4.3  Extensions based on internalization and destruction One of the two examples that Newman (this volume) discusses in the third category of metaphorical extensions (the other being the already discussed English expressions eat one’s words and eat one’s heart out) concerns sexual intercourse, because it is claimed to involve both the sense of internalization or, as Newman would have it, sensation (i.e., sexual intercourse as a physical and pleasurable sensation to be internalized), and the sense of destruction (i.e., the agent’s destructive effect on the patient in a sexual conquest). Newman documents a number of languages (e.g., Hausa, Zulu, Rumu and Yir-Yoront), in which the verb ‘eat’ is metaphorically extended this way. Korean can be added to the list of such languages, as illustrated in (54). (54) ko nyen cham mek-ko siph-ta that broad really eat-comp like-ind ‘I really want to have sex with that broad.’

It is not clear in what social circumstances the verb ‘eat’ can be utilized for the metaphorical extension of sexual intercourse in Hausa, Zulu, Rumu and Yir-Yoront, but



What (not) to eat or drink 

in Korean the sentence in (54) can probably be uttered between close male friends in a highly informal, in fact private, context (e.g., two men exchanging notes on the women whom they fancy).8 Outside this particular context, however, (54) will be regarded as extremely offensive and degrading to the opposite sex (i.e., women as objects to be consumed or relished). The sense of internalization in (54) seems to be straightforward. Newman (this volume) pays special attention to the second sense of destruction embodied in sentences like (54). Having sexual intercourse with someone is having an effect upon that person. From this, Newman draws the sense of destruction or conquest. Having sexual intercourse with someone is conquering, and even ‘destroying’, that person, as it were. In support of this, he points to Hausa, in which ci ‘eat’, not shaa ‘drink’, is used for the metaphorical extension of sexual intercourse. He argues that in eating “there is a clear element of destruction (of the food) which is lacking in [drinking]”. This major point of difference between eating and drinking then “strongly suggests the relevance of the destructiveness of eating in this [Hausa] extension [i.e., sexual intercourse]”. This is a convincing argument, and probably a correct one for Hausa (also see Jaggar & Buba, this volume). However, one cannot help wondering why, if sexual intercourse is a pleasurable experience to internalize, anyone would want to “destroy” the source of that experience rather than protect or at least prolong it. Moreover, having sexual intercourse involves more than a simple act of conquering. It involves other activities, e.g., kissing, biting, licking, holding, clasping, caressing and the like. In other words, sexual intercourse is a multifaceted event that entails not just physical penetration but also other experientially-based acts or activities. This may be a trivial point but it is worth pursuing in the context of the Korean example in (54). First, there is a grammatical restriction on the use of the verb mek- ‘eat’ for the metaphorical extension of sexual intercourse in Korean. Strangely enough, the sentence in (54) cannot be expressed in past tense, as in (55).9

.  Keith Allan (personal communication) points out that there is a tendency for women to eat men in English, and that “sexual eating” is primarily fellatio and cunnilingus. In Theroux (2005), however, all (four) instances of “sexual eating” (i.e., the use of the verb eat and the adjective edible) concern men’s eating women. .  That is, the verb mek- ‘eat’ itself should be in past tense, without the use of any auxiliary verb (e.g., po- ‘see’ or ‘try’ as in (56)). The sentence in (55) would be grammatical if it literally expressed the speaker’s anthropophagic act. Interestingly, John Newman (personal communication) informs me that when he did a Google search (on Monday July 31, 2006), some English eat expressions such as eat humble pie, and eat POSSESSIVE-DETERMINER words in English occurred disproportionally often in the eat forms (e.g., eat humble pie), compared with the ate (e.g., ate humble pie) and eaten (e.g., eaten humble pie) forms.

 Jae Jung Song

(55) ??/*ko nyen-ul mek-ess-ta that broad-acc eat-pst-ind ‘I had sex with that broad.’

It is intriguing why past tense is not accepted in (55). In addition to (54), however, it is possible to report the event expressed in (55) as a prior experience (i.e., the use of the auxiliary verb po- ‘see’ or ‘try’), as illustrated in (56). (56) ko nyen-ul mek-e-po-n cek-i iss-ta that broad-acc eat-pf-see-rel occasion-nom is-ind ‘I have experience of having sex with that broad.’

In other words, to express the idea of having sexual intercourse by means of the verb mek- ‘eat’ is only possible if having sexual intercourse with X is viewed as a desire (i.e., (54)) or reported as a prior experience (i.e., (56)). Past tense does not seem to be allowed with this use of the verb mek- ‘eat’ because the sense of destruction, salient in the meaning of the verb mek- ‘eat’ particularly in past tense (cf. Hopper & Thompson 1980), is not compatible with sexual intercourse as a pleasurable experience (to crave for, remember or cherish or repeat) and thus needs to be suppressed. In other words, the sense of destruction may not be as relevant to this extension as the sense of pleasurable experience pure and simple. Translated into source images, this means that the image of mastication (i.e., destruction) is not as crucial to the nature of the extension in question as the image of enjoyable gustation. To wit, the taste (of food consumed) is a much better source image for the metaphorical extension of sexual intercourse than mastication (of food). Further support of this point comes from sentences like (57). (57) ko nyen cham mas-iss-key sayngki-ess-ta that broad really taste-exist-like seem-pst-ind ‘That broad looks really sexy.’ or lit. ‘That broad looks really tasty.’

The sentence in (57) could easily be uttered just before (54) by the same speaker. What is highlighted in (57) is the imagined or expected “taste” of the woman in question. Sex can thus be more a sensual than a physical or destructive experience (or more than what goes on “below the waist”, as it were). Again, sentences such as (57) are normally exchanged between close male friends. If overheard by women, (57) would be taken as a seriously offensive comment. The sensual basis of the metaphorical extension involving sexual intercourse can be further demonstrated by (58). (58) ko nyen cham kkaymwul-e-mek-ko siph-ta that broad really bite-pf-eat-comp like-ind ‘I really want to have sex with that broad.’



What (not) to eat or drink 

In (58), the act of having sex is literally and metaphorically prefaced by the auxiliary verb kkaymwul- ‘bite’.10 The image that comes to mind in (58) is wishing to enjoy a crispy sweet apple by taking a bite. The other auxiliary verb that can be used in lieu of kkaymwul- is ppal- ‘lick’, which needs no explanation: (59) ko nyen cham ppal-a-mek-ko siph-ta that broad really lick-pf-eat-comp like-ind ‘I really want to have sex with that broad.’

The difference between (58) and (59), however, could be the difference in the duration of sexual intercourse: (58) could refer to short sexual intercourse whereas (59) suggests a prolonged kind of sexual encounter (cf. the image of having a bite of ice cream vs. the image of licking ice cream). 4.4  Why can you eat heat when you can’t eat cold? In 4.1, it was pointed out that the verb mek- ‘eat’ can be metaphorically extended to cover non-physical objects, as in (10), renumbered here as (60). (60) ku salam-un langkhawi-eyse tewi-lul simhakey mek-ess-ta the man-top Langkawi-loc heat-acc seriously eat-pst-ind ‘The man suffered serious heatstroke while visiting Langkawi.’

What is intriguing is not so much why (60) is grammatical as why (61), in which the antonym of tewi ‘heat’, i.e., chwuwi ‘cold’, is used, is ungrammatical. (61) *ku salam-un namkuk-eyse chwuwi-lul simhakey mek-ess-ta the man-top South.Pole-loc cold-acc seriously eat-pst-ind ‘The man suffered serious hypothermia while visiting the South Pole.’

.  It must be mentioned that biting (or kkaymwul-) can be non-sexual in Korean. Thus this verb is also used to compliment other people on their children’s cuteness or prettiness, as in (i). (i) ku ai-ka nemwu kkwiwe-ese kkaymwul-e-cwu-ko siph-ta the child-nom too cute-because bite-pf-give-and like-ind ‘The child is so cute that I wish to bite her.’ There should be no unsavory meaning to be imputed to the use of the verb kkaymwul- ‘bite’ in the context in question. Incidentally, touching young children, whether they are strangers or not, on the hand, the arm, the shoulder, the face or the head is not a taboo in Korean culture but a gesture of affection, especially when the “toucher” is an elderly person. Unfortunately, this cultural behavior has landed some innocent elderly Korean visitors to Western countries in serious trouble (with the local law).

 Jae Jung Song

Hypothermia is as much an unpleasant, painful, and potentially fatal, experience as heatstroke. The former is as much an experience to be internalized as the latter. Nonetheless, (61) is outright ungrammatical, when (60) is grammatical. Therefore, the sense of internalization alone cannot explain the disparity between (60) and (61). Further explanation has to be found somewhere else, and it is based on the physical difference between heat and cold and the physiological effect on our bodies of that difference. The reason why we feel hot, for example, in the sun is that external heat is added to our internal body heat. In other words, we internalize heat from the sun (thereby increasing our body temperature). Thus when we internalize too much heat, we overheat or even suffer heatstroke. Cold, unlike heat, is not something we internalize. Cold works in the opposite manner. It takes away heat (or energy) from us. Therefore, we actually lose what we hold in our bodies through cold. To wit, when it comes to cold, there is nothing to internalize, with body heat (or energy) externalized instead.11 This seems to be the reason why chwuwi ‘cold’ is not compatible with the verb mek- ‘eat’ in (61). There is no sense of internalization in the case of cold, and, therefore, no motivation for a metaphorical extension, based on the verb mek- ‘eat’. The examples involving heat and cold contrast in an interesting way with another antonymic pair, salang ‘love’ vs. miwum ‘hatred’, as illustrated in (62) and (63). (62) ku salam-un eli-ess-ulttay pwumo-uy salang-ul manhi the man-top young-pst-when parent-gen love-acc much mek-ko cala-ss-ta eat-and grow.up-pst-ind ‘The man received a lot of his parent’s love when he was young.’ (63) ku salam-un eli-ess-ulttay pwumo-uy miwum-ul manhi the man-top young-pst-when parent-gen hatred-acc much mek-ko cala-ss-ta eat-and grow.up-pst-ind ‘The man received a lot of his parent’s hatred when he was young.’

Love and hatred are emotions that can be added to our overall emotional state. In this sense, both love and hatred are something to be internalized; we don’t feel other people’s love or hatred unless we internalize (or experience) it. Moreover,

.  This difference between heat and cold is well captured in Aesop’s fable of the sun and wind: the discomfort of heat exceeds that of cold. Moreover, humans have few biological devices to release or eliminate heat, whereas they are able to control cold reasonably well by means of clothing, shelter, fire, etc.



What (not) to eat or drink 

love (or hatred), unlike cold as discussed earlier, does not necessarily eliminate or externalize hatred (or love) that may already exist in us. (For instance, we may harbor hatred even if we receive love from others.) Thus it does not come as a surprise that salang ‘love’ and miwum ‘hatred’ can both appear in conjunction with the verb mek- ‘eat’. The foregoing discussion has an important implication for the metaphorical extension of eating and drinking. While it is important to pay attention to the agent’s internalization of the patient or to the destructive effect on the patient of the agent’s action, it is equally important to pay heed to the nature of the patient itself. Thus the physical difference between heat and cold (and its physiological consequences) give(s) rise to the disparity in grammaticality between tewi ‘heat’ and chwuwi ‘cold’, as shown in (60) and (61) (or the lack of such a disparity between salang ‘love’ and miwum ‘hatred’, as in (62) and (63)). More to the point, the major difference between eating and drinking, namely the presence or absence of mastication, arises ultimately from the physical or qualitative difference between food and liquid, i.e., the nature of the patient. It is the nature of the patient that dictates the presence or absence of mastication in the consumption process.

5.  Social significance of eating and drinking in Korean (culture) In this section, special reference will be made to metonymic processes based on the social or cultural significance of the act of eating or drinking, especially the role of eating in Korean culture (for a general discussion of the language-culture connection, see Enfield 2002; and also Wierzbicka, this volume). This is important for at least two reasons. First, the social or cultural dimension of the act of eating or drinking, although recognized as an important component of the central meanings of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ (e.g., Newman, this volume), awaits close investigation. The significance of the social and cultural dimension in the central meanings of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ suggests strongly that eating and drinking may be involved in metonymic processes, because they can potentially stand for social activities or events themselves. It has already been demonstrated, for example, that pap, which really means ‘cooked rice’, can represent a whole meal, consisting of cooked rice, side-dishes and drinks (e.g., meat, vegetables, wine, etc.). Second, different cultures may have different ways of reflecting the social or cultural significance of eating or drinking. In some cultures, it may be a salient property of the metaphorical extension or metonymic process, while in others it may not be so salient a property. This can be uncovered only if the social dimension of eating or drinking in individual languages is investigated. indeed, by looking at the way the verb mek- ‘eat’, together with different types of food, is metonymically exploited, one may be able not only to

 Jae Jung Song

recognize the social and cultural significance of eating in Korean culture or society but also to understand the way social and interpersonal relationships are established, recognized and maintained in Korean culture and society. Newman (this volume) describes eating and drinking as “vital to humans, … usually enjoyed and … the basis for many social occasions … [emphasis added]”. In Korean culture, eating and drinking constitute the basis for social interaction, indeed. Thus it is not uncommon for someone to break the ice with a stranger, especially in work-related contexts, by saying:  (64) siksa-na kathi ha-si-lkka-yo? meal.hon-delt together do-hon-will-q ‘Why don’t we have a meal together?’

Also, the common expression in Korean with the meaning of ‘paint the town red’ is mek-ko masi-ko nol-, literally ‘eat, drink and play’ (cf. (5) in section 2). Eating and drinking (together) account for two thirds of the act of painting the town red! Eating together is so important a part of social interaction in Korean culture that the strength of people’s friendship is generally thought to be in proportion to the number of times they have eaten together, as can be seen from (65). (65) wuli-nun han sip nyen pap-ul we-top about ten year rice.meal-acc kathi mek-ess-ci together eat-pst-reflECTION ‘We have been mates for about ten years.’ or lit. ‘We have had meals together for about ten years.’

Eating together, metonymically exploited in (65), is one of the things that mates or close friends do on a regular basis. Being (or working) together as mates (or colleagues) is equated with eating together. Moreover, eating is regarded as a measure of one’s life experience. The metonymic motivation for this is transparently mundane. The older we are, the more likely we are to be wise or knowledgeable. Moreover, the older we are, the more meals we must have eaten! Thus it is not uncommon to hear X criticizing Y for Y’s misbehavior, incommensurate with Y’s age, as in (66). (66) chelswu-nun manswu-pota pap han kongki-lul te Chelsoo-top Mansoo-than rice one bowl-acc more mek-ess-nuntey hayngtong-i engmang i-ta eat-pst-although behavior-nom chaotic is-ind ‘Even though he is older than Mansoo, Chelsoo’s behaviour is improper or inappropriate.’



What (not) to eat or drink 

In (66), Chelsoo is not behaving properly or acting his age, although he is supposed to, because he is slightly older than Mansoo (i.e., even if the age difference between the two is equivalent to a mere difference of one bowl of rice eaten!). Eating is also an important, in fact crucial, part of living to the extent that it is also possible to add the verb mek- ‘eat’ to describe living in general, as in (67).12 (67) yocum-un mek-ko sal-ki-ka these.days-top eat-and live-nmlz-nom ‘It’s tough to make a living these days.’

elyep-ta difficult-ind

In (67), the main verb sal- ‘live’ can appear on its own, but the verb mek- ‘eat’, as an auxiliary verb, adds a sense of harsh reality to the comment, that is living reduced to just managing to eat. Barely managing to eat was the reality for many poor Koreans in the not too distant past. South Korea had been a poor country until very recently, i.e., before the 1980s when it started to achieve its economic success. (North Korea is still a very poor country.) Thus it comes as no surprise that in the past what type of grain one ate was actually a measure of one’s wealth. Rice was on the top of this “grain list”, with barley near at the bottom. For example, if X could always afford to eat ssal pap ‘rice meal’ all year round, it would have meant that X was a rich person or from a rich family. If X could only eat poli pap ‘barley meal’, especially during winter, it would have meant that X was a poor person or from a poor family. Nowadays, the general diet of Koreans has changed for health reasons (so that eating grains other than rice is now a fad among health enthusiasts). Thus the socioeconomic class distinctions based on the types of grain consumed may not be relevant any longer (although one could still encounter the “grain-based” socioeconomic class distinctions in historical novels, dramas or movies). Some Koreans, regardless of their socioeconomic status, may now choose to eat poli pap ‘barley meal’, for example (e.g., because of its low Glycemic index). When the poor had to live on barley or grains other than rice, prisoners could only expect much less (i.e., legumes instead of grains). This accounts for the fixed expression khong pap-ul mek-, with a literal meaning ‘eat a bean meal’ but also with an idiomatic meaning, i.e., ‘be incarcerated’. Eating a bean-based meal was,

.  Eating as an important part of living in Korean culture is manifested no better than in a popular Korean proverb: kumkangsan-to sikhwukyeng, which literally means ‘First eating, and then Mt. Kumkang (or Mt. Diamond) sightseeing’. The point of this proverb is that eating is so important that even Mt. Kumkang, which Koreans wish to visit for its breathtaking beauty at least once in their lives, can wait till after one has finished one’s meal! This proverb is thus used to ask people to stop whatever they are doing (e.g., an important business discussion) when it is time to eat or once the food is ready on the table.

 Jae Jung Song

and may still be, part of prison life. This is indeed an interesting example of the metonymic process based on the types of grain consumed. One can also add a temporal adverbial (e.g., sip nyen-tongan ‘for ten years’) to this idiomatic expression to indicate the duration of imprisonment, as in (68). (68) ku salam-un khong pap-ul sip nyen-tongan mek-ess-ta the man-top bean meal-acc ten year-for eat-pst-ind ‘The man was incarcerated for ten years’

Interpersonal relationships can be expressed by referring to the temperature of cooked rice, i.e., warm or cold. Ideally, cooked rice should always be served warm, not cold. Anyone familiar with Korean, or more generally Asian, cooking will be familiar with the convenience of the rice cooker, the function of which is not only to cook rice but also to keep cooked rice warm. Keeping cooked rice warm is indeed a very important task for a Korean housewife or housekeeper. Serving rice warm to a guest is also a sign of respect towards that guest. If X serves rice cold to Y, X is actually violating important social protocol. Of course, there are extenuating circumstances under which rice has to be served cold (because of a lack of time to cook again or because of a power failure). These circumstances demand abject apologies from the host. Against this cultural backdrop, it does not come as a total surprise that ttattushan pap-ul mek- ‘eat warm rice’ and chan pap-ul mek- ‘eat cold rice’ (or ttattushan pap-ul cwu- ‘give warm rice (to X)’ and chan pap-ul cwu- ‘give cold rice (to X)’) have assumed important social or interpersonal meanings (see Yamaguchi, this volume, for a similar situation in Japanese). This is illustrated in (69) and (70). (69) ku ai-nun yangpwumo-alayse ttattushan pap-ul the child-top adoptive.parent-under warm rice-acc mek-ko cala-ss-ta eat-and grow.up-pst-ind ‘The child grew up on his adoptive parents’ love.’ (70) ku ai-nun kyemo-alayse chan pap-ul the child-top stepmother-under cold rice-acc mek-ko cala-ss-ta eat-and grow.up-pst-ind ‘The child grew up under his stepmother’s ill-treatment.’

In (69) eating warm rice is interpreted as receiving love, and in (70) eating cold rice as receiving ill-treatment. If X loves Y, X will give Y warm, not cold, rice. The metonymic link between eating cold rice and ill-treatment is so close that the expression chan pap-ul mek- ‘eat cold rice’ has a general meaning of ‘be treated badly’, as in (71).



What (not) to eat or drink 

(71) ponsa-ey ka-l-ttay-mata cicem cikwen-tul-un chan headquarters-loc go-rel-time-each branch clerk-pl-top cold pap-ul mek-nunta rice-acc eat-ind ‘Whenever branch clerks visit the headquarters, they are treated badly.’

When ill-treatment is given to an even higher level, the victim will only be “eating” nwulwun pap ‘rice burned and stuck to (the bottom of) a cooking pot’, as in (72). (72) ku ai-nun kyemo-alayse nwulwun pap-ul the child-top stepmother-under burned rice-acc mek-ko cala-ss-ta eat-and grow.up-pst-ind ‘The child grew up under his stepmother’s maltreatment.’

6.  Conclusion In this chapter, the metaphorical extensions of the two basic verbs of consumption in Korean, i.e., mek- ‘eat’ and masi- ‘drink’, and, to a less extent, the metonymy of mek- ‘eat’ have been investigated in detail. It has been argued that there are at least three motivating factors for the much wider range of metaphorical extensions based on the verb mek- ‘eat’ than based on the verb masi- ‘drink’: (i) the verb masi- ‘drink’ is in a hyponymic relationship with the verb mek- ‘eat’; (ii) the range of entities affected by eating is much greater than the range of entities affected by drinking; (iii) the stage of mastication in eating, as opposed to drinking, provides an additional motivation for metaphorical extensions. To wit, the verb mek- ‘eat’, as opposed to the verb ‘masi- ‘drink’, has a propensity for (metaphorical) extension. Newman’s (1997 and this volume) three categories of metaphorical extensions of eating and drinking have been adopted for purposes of demonstrating how the verb mek- ‘eat’ and, to a less extent, the verb masi- ‘drink’ have been metaphorically extended to cover non-food/non-drink entities. These three categories are based on the agent’s internalization of the patient, the agent’s destructive effect on the patient, and the combination of these two motivations. It has also been pointed out that, while Newman’s categories have much value, it may not always be possible to determine that one motivation drives metaphorical extensions to the exclusion of the other. The rest of the chapter has dealt mainly with the metaphorical extension based on the verb mek- ‘eat’. While internalization and destruction are no doubt two major motivations for the metaphorical extension in question, the nature of the thematic patient must also be taken into account, especially in accounting for the different behaviors of certain antonymic pairs (e.g., heat vs. cold or love vs. hatred).

 Jae Jung Song

Finally, the metonymy of eating has been given a special treatment with a view to highlighting the social or cultural significance of eating in Korean culture. For example, how different types of grain consumed may metonymically express different socio-economic class distinctions, and also how a meal is served in terms of temperature or condition (i.e., warm, cold or burnt) may reflect the way interpersonal relationships are negotiated, established and maintained in Korean culture.

Abbreviations acc = accusative; all = allative; asp = aspect; ben = benefactive; comp = complementizer; delt = delimiter; gen = genitive; hon = honorific; ind = indicative; loc = locative; nmlz = nominalizer; nom = nominative; pass = passive; pf = phonological filler; pl = plural; pst = past; q = question; rel = relativizer; and top = topic.

References Abraham, R.C. 1962. Dictionary of the Hausa language, 2nd edn. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Amberber, Mengistu. This volume and [2002]. Quirky alternations of transitivity: The case of ingestive predicates. In Language universals and variation, Mengistu Amberber & Peter Collins (Eds), 1–20. Westport CT: Praeger. Cherkawska, Catherine. 1990. The golden apple. London: Century. Enfield, Nick J. 2002. Ethnosyntax: Introduction. Ethnosyntax: Explorations in grammar and ­culture, Nick J. Enfield (Ed), 3–30. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goossens, Louis, Paul Pauwels, Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn, Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen & Johan Vanparys (Eds). 1995. By word of mouth: Metaphor, metonymy and linguistic action in a cognitive perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Haspelmath, Martin. 1990. The grammaticalization of passive morphology. Studies in Language 14: 25–72. Hopper, Paul & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56: 251–299. Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York NY: Basic Books. Lakoff, George & Mark Turner. 1989. More than cool reason. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar, Vol. 1, Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



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Næss, Åshild. This volume. How transitive are eat and drink verbs? Newman, John. 1997. Eating and drinking as sources of metaphor in English. Cuadernos de Filología Inglesa (special issue on Cognitive Linguistics) 6: 213–231. Newman, John. This volume. A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. Pauwels, Paul & Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen. 1995. Body parts in linguistic action: underlying schemata and value judgements. By word of mouth: Metaphor, metonymy and linguistic action in a cognitive perspective, Louis Goossens, Paul Pauwels, Brygida RudzkaOstyn, Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen & Johan Vanparys (Eds), 35–69. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Song, Jae Jung. 1988. ‘Newsworthiness’ and the use of active and passive in Korean. Studia Linguistica 42: 49–59. Song, Jae Jung. 2005. The Korean language: Structure, use and context. London: Routledge. Theroux, Paul. 2005. Blinding light. Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1982. Why can you have a drink when you can’t *have an eat? Language 58: 753–799.

Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

SOAS, University of London/Usmanu Danfodiyo University The consumption verbs ci ‘eat’ and shaa ‘drink’ in Hausa are rich sources of metaphorical extensions into a variety of cognate semantic domains (Gouffé 1966; Williams 1991). Prototypical ci ‘eat’ metaphors encode overcoming/control of a patient or theme by an animate/human agent (and part experiencer) functioning as subject, e.g., mun cii sù ‘we beat (ate) them’. Metaphorical transfers of shaa ‘drink’ usually have an undergo interpretation with a non-agential experiencer subject, e.g., sunàa shân wàhalàa ‘they are suffering (drinking) trouble’. Thus, the metaphorical overcome and undergo outputs are often maximally distinct in meaning, and these correlations are directly inherited from their differing physical/ontological properties: the eat act entails a higher degree of subject agentivity/manipulation and object affectedness, and is higher in transitivity than the drink act.

1.  Introduction1 Hausa, an important SVO Chadic/Afroasiatic language spoken to the west of Lake Chad in West Africa, has two lexical verbs of ingestion/consumption – ci ‘eat’ and shaa ‘drink’ (also used for consuming soft fruit). These verbs typically occur in monotransitive clauses where the grammatical subject is animate (human) and combines the semantic roles of both agent and experiencer of the action denoted by the verb, as in (1) and (2).

.  We would like to thank Mustapha Ahmed, Mustapha Gwadabe, Ibrahim Malumfashi, Bello Salihu, Jamilah Tangaza, and Ibrahim Maina Waziri, whose sharp intuitions and nativespeaker knowledge were crucial in assembling and checking the data in our paper.

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

(1) naa ci àyàbà 1sg.pfv eat banana ‘I ate a banana.’ (2) zân shaa ruwaa fut.1sg drink water ‘I’ll drink (some) water.’

As in many languages, these bodily consumption verbs are also sources of metaphorical mappings into a variety of (sometimes overlapping) semantic domains with basic correlates rooted in real-world physical experiences. In this regard, studies such as Lakoff & Johnson (1980, 1999), Johnson (1987), Heine (1997), Gibbs & Steen (1999), and Talmy (2000) provide an explication of the link between human conceptualization, categorization, and the nature of the spatio-physical world we inhabit, and Lakoff & Johnson’s (1980) study is especially relevant in documenting the function and pervasiveness of metaphor and metaphoric categories (in English). With specific regard to metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, whose primary senses are physical, the key question to be answered is: do these two verbs have intrinsic properties which generally exclude each other in metaphorical expressions, and if so what are these properties? Turning to Hausa, there are two previous studies on ci ‘eat’ and shaa ‘drink’– Gouffé (1966) and Williams (1991) – and these works, in particular that of Williams, consider some of the same language facts as we do here, and so represent the startingpoint for our analysis. Gouffé’s (1966: 99ff.) proposed features account has “physiological” ci ‘eat’ expressing an “exercised” role in metaphorical transfers, and shaa ‘drink’ has an “undergone” interpretation, with all such functions subsumed under an umbrella concept he termed “appropriation”. This division basically corresponds to our “agentive subject” vs. “affected subject” dichotomy respectively (as presented below). Williams (1991) argues that Gouffé’s features provide an incomplete explanation of the various metaphorical extensions of the two verbs, and instead he proposes a “radial categories” model (after Lakoff 1987) which assumes that “the various meanings of these two verbs in idiomatic expressions need not have any particular, specific meaning in common” (p. 331), i.e., Williams is essentially a “splitter”, Gouffé more of a “lumper”. Our own semantic classification overlaps partially with Williams’ (and Gouffé’s) model, but differs by showing that a significant number of eat/drink metaphors in Hausa do in fact correlate ontologically with the core meanings of these two bodily consumption verbs, and so have a nonarbitrary, real-world grounding. Although the metaphorical senses are diverse and the divergence increases along a continuum – cf. Gouffé’s reference to “chaos des faits” (p. 106) and Abraham’s (1962: 136–38, 793–94) more than 20 subheadings each for ci and shaa – we believe that Williams’ account is unnecessarily complicated, and that valid semantic generalizations are possible, even at the cost of some



Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa 

oversimplification. Our account also represents a refinement of earlier approaches in that we present a more precise characterization of how the syntactic functions and semantic roles of core arguments line up in ci ‘eat’ and shaa ‘drink’ expressions in Hausa. All the naturally-occurring data in this paper have been rigorously crosschecked for acceptability. Where we encountered inter- and intra-speaker variation and occasional uncertainty in usage – a common problem in metaphor analysis – we decided to go with the mutually supportive majority choices which were accepted by Malami Buba (the second author) (see also Williams 1991 for dialectal variation). Gouffé (1966), we note, relies heavily on data from two earlier dictionaries – Bargery (1934: 154–56, 918), essentially repeated in Abraham (1962: 136–39, 793–95) – but a number of the ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ metaphors they cite are neither used nor even recognized by the speakers we consulted. It is also significant that almost all the ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ Hausa metaphors have direct analogues in Bole, a closely related West Chadic language (Ibrahim Maina Waziri, p.c., 2008).

2.  The hypothesis Despite the fact that the (animate) subjects of both ci ‘eat’ and shaa ‘drink’ combine agential and experiencer roles, they align with different ontological perceptions, so when operating in metaphorical contexts they often select different complement (direct object) arguments, their syntactic subjects often fulfil different semantic roles, and they typically express different but still intuitively verifiable senses. We say ‘often, typically’ etc. because, as is often the case with semantic extensions, the base ⇒ metaphor target mapping is not a perfect oneto-one match, i.e., the two verbs are not always mutually exclusive in their distribution, and in some cases they can be interchangeable for some speakers (§5.1). In spite of this, from a cognitive viewpoint, the basic semantic cut which can be abstracted away in the metaphoric domain is formulated in our working hypothesis (3) as follows: (3) ci ‘eat’ ⇒ overcoming = [+control] shaa ‘drink’ ⇒ undergoing = [– control]

Examples (4–7) illustrate canonical eat- and drink-metaphors: (4) mun cii sù 1pl.pfv eat 3pl ‘We really beat (ate) them.’ (e.g., in a game)

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

(5) ’yan-wàasanmù sun ci kwâf players.of.1pl 3pl.pfv eat cup ‘Our players won the cup.’ (6) sunàa shân wàhalàa 3pl.impfv drinking.of trouble ‘They are really suffering trouble/difficulty.’ (7) mun shaa raanaa yâu 1pl.pfv drink sun today ‘We’ve really suffered (have drunk) the sun today.’

Examples (4–5) and (6–7) differ sharply and obviously in their meanings. These distinct metaphoric elaborations are not accidental, but are deducible from the differing primary senses of the two verbs, reflecting differing conceptualizations of their physical properties (see also Wierzbicka 1982: 774ff.; Newman 1997, Newman in this volume). The unifying principles, based on real-world knowledge and perception, also provide a plausible and coherent explanation for the various collocations (see also Yusuf 1984 for some collocational uses of shaa). Both ci ‘eat’ and shaa ‘drink’, in their central consumption usages, occur in single-participant clauses with animate (human) eater/drinker subjects which are at the same time agents and experiencers of the eat/drink act, i.e., both verbs take “affected subjects/agents”. (As noted by Naess (this volume) the effect on the object/ theme (food/liquid) is of little or no importance in contrast to the impact on the agent/experiencer, i.e., satisfying hunger, quenching thirst, etc.) When extended metaphorically, the roles are still determined by the head verb meaning and the prototypical pattern is identical – single-participant clauses with human subjects and inanimate themes/objects (exx. 5–7), or two-participant expressions with a human patient who undergoes the action (ex. 4). However, the semantic properties of the verb and complement argument mean that the roles of the respective subjects now diverge. The subject referents retain their experiencer roles, and ci ‘eat’ (= metaphorical ‘overcome, win, conquer’, etc.) inherits its agential subject, but the subject of shaa ‘drink’ now takes on a non-agential (= ‘undergo, suffer, endure’ etc.) interpretation, i.e., the two outputs are maximally distinct in meaning. To account for this agential/non-agential semantic opposition, we propose that the core extended meaning of ci ‘eat’ denotes: (a) overcoming/control/ manipulation etc. of an inanimate theme (ex. 5) or patient (ex. 4) by an animate (human) agential subject which is also an experiencer; and that (b) this is a natural reflex of the physiological properties of the eating action itself which entails maximal, high-impact manipulation of the object (solids), which undergoes a physical transformation, a perceptible change of state. The basic eat construction therefore combines a relatively high degree of (subject) agential activity with a



Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa 

similarly strong degree of “object affectedness” (see Newman 1997, this volume, and §3 below). The default derivative sense of shaa ‘drink’, in contrast, is one of a non-volitional sentient (human) subject undergoing/enduring etc. an experience or sensation (the thematic object/stimulus), i.e., non-control, and again this sense is ultimately inherited from the physiological characteristics of the base verb activity – the act of drinking entails minimal impact on the object (liquid), combining a reduced level of agential input with a relatively low degree of object affectedness (see §4). Since both verbs take “affected subjects/agents”, as such they are both less than prototypically transitive (see also Naess in this volume).2 However, as noted above, ‘eating’ is more forceful than ‘drinking’ which is a more passive activity, so they are not symmetrical, and it is these distinctive features which motivate and explain the derivative metaphorical usages of eat ⇒ overcome and drink ⇒ undergo in Hausa. Metaphorical shaa is especially common in adversative contexts, usually to the exclusion of ci, e.g., mun shaa raanaa yâu ‘we’ve really suffered (drunk) the sun today’ (1pl.pfv drink sun today) is felicitous, but not the semantically anomalous #mun ci raanaa yâu. In such expressions with shaa ‘undergo’, the experiencer role is aligned with the subject which has patient-like properties, and the theme (‘sun’) is the stimulus. Conversely, metaphorical ci regularly occurs in constructions where the subject is strongly and primarily agential, where the object has the situational

.  Both verbs also exceptionally permit morphological causatives (so-called “Grade 5” verbs), which usually only apply to base intransitives. Thus: ci ‘eat’ ⇒ ciyar ̃/cii (dà) ‘feed (animals), support, subsidize’, shaa ‘drink’ ⇒ shaa(yar ̃) (dà) ‘water, give water to (animals)’. They share this restricted derivational patterning with a specifiable subset of transitive verbs expressing cognition, perception, communication etc., which can also be causativized, e.g., sanìi ‘know’ ⇒ sanar ̃ (dà) ‘inform’, and the necessary generalization is that all of the above verbs behave like inactive-intransitive verbs in respect of causativization. Examples: naa ci àbinci ‘I’ve eaten (food)’ ⇒ causative dà mèe zân cii dà ìyaalìinaa? ‘what can I support my family with?’; cf. (a) inactive-intransitive Audù yaa taashì ‘Audu got/woke up’ ⇒ causative naa taa dà Audù ‘I got/ woke Audu up’; and (b) with the base cognition verb sanìi ‘know’, sarkii yaa san làabaar ̃ìn ‘the chief has ascertained the news’ ⇒ causative naa sanar ̃dà sarkii làabaar ̃ìn ‘I informed the chief of the news’. This co-distribution is attributable to the fact that both verbs are semantically complex, i.e., the animate (human) agential subject of both ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ fulfils the dual role of an experiencer or affected subject, exactly as it does with inactive cognition verbs like ‘know’ ⇒ causative ‘inform’, ‘understand’ ⇒ ‘explain’, etc. (Amberber 2002 refers to this process as “coindexing” of the agent and goal arguments). The co-patterning of verbs of ingestion/consumption and cognition/perception in causative constructions is well-documented crosslinguistically, e.g., in related Afroasiatic languages like Amharic and Berber, and in south Asian languages (see Haspelmath 1994: 159–61; Dixon & Aikhenwald 2000: 64ff.; Amberber 2002; Shibatani & Pardeshi 2002; Naess, this volume).

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

role of theme or a human patient, and where shaa would be inadmissible, e.g., mun cii sù ‘we beat (ate) them’ (1pl.pfv eat 3pl), but not #mun shaa sù. These examples satisfy our working definitions as formulated in (3) and the correlations are direct and understandable (bearing in mind that the boundaries are not always clearcut).3 The correlations are also consistent with a number of the Hopper and Thompson (1980) diagnostics for transitivity. Since ci in its source ‘eat’ sense entails both a higher degree of agential involvement and a greater measure of physical/kinetic activity directed at its object than does shaa ‘drink’, so ciclauses rank higher than shaa-constructions on the transitivity scale. Neither verb is maximally transitive (as noted above), but ci ‘eat’ is more transitive than shaa ‘drink’. Table 1 summarizes the salient semantic facts:

Table 1.  Hausa ‘eat’ and ‘drink’: Prototypical syntactic functions and semantic roles in metaphorical extensions Base S = A/E O affected ⇒ meaning ‘eat’ yes yes++ A++

‘drink’

yes

yes

Metaphor

S=A

S=E

O = P/T

O = STIM

overcome ‘overcome’ ‘control’ ‘conquer’ ‘dominate’ undergo ‘undergo’ ‘endure’ ‘suffer’

yes

yes

yes

no

no

yes++

no

yes

Key: A = agent; E = experiencer; O = object; P = patient; S = subject; STIM = stimulus; T = theme ++ = relatively high value for semantic role

.  In the interests of completeness, we list several lexically-determined exceptions to the canonical usages. In naa ci kurèe ‘I made a mistake’ (1sg.pfv eat mistake), ci occurs even though the subject is clearly not volitional. Conversely, idiomatic taa shânyee shi ‘she bewitched him’ (3fsg.pfv drink up 3msg), with a derivative form of shaa, has an agential subject, as it does in the collocational taa shaa kân màtsalàr ̃ ‘she solved the problem’ (lit. ‘she drank head of problem’), in addition to yaa shaa minì kâi ‘it irritated me/got on my nerves’ (lit. ‘it drank to/ for me head’), where the subject is the causer or stimulus. In the context of our own explanatory model, such idiosyncratic variation, though marginal, remains unexplained. One of the limitations of metaphor methodology is that definitions rarely, if ever, provide necessary and sufficient conditions for category membership, and Hausa is no exception (see also §5.1).



Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa 

3.  Prototypical ci metaphors = ‘overcome’ In order to organize the corpus into approachable categories, we begin with the simplest and clearest cases – metaphorical contexts where only ci is admissible and so is in sharp contrast. There are several closely related metaphorical clusters in which only ci ‘eat’ is licensed, typically with ‘overcoming’, ‘winning’, ‘conquering’, ‘taking (over)’, ‘acquiring’, etc. semantic predicates, and we group these cognate control/domination functions under the cover-term overcome (cf. Williams 1991:  332–33).4 The examples below illustrate canonical ci-based metaphors – one- or two-participant clauses with human agents (also experiencers) as clausal subjects, and either inanimate themes (representing a material object or abstract entity) or human patients as object arguments. The representative examples we cite, some of them idiomatic, are based on the judgements of Malami Buba (the co-author) and our other Hausa-speaking consultants (allowing, as ever, for possible idiolectal and localized differences).

(8) zân ci kwalàr~kà fut.1sg eat collar.of.2msg ‘You’ll regret it.’ (lit. ‘I’ll eat (i.e., grab) your collar.’)



r àbâawaa (9) zaa tà ci jar~~ fut 3fsg eat exam ‘She will pass the exam.’

(10) naa ci caaca 1sg.pfv eat gambling ‘I won (at) gambling.’

.  There is a parallel relationship in the formation of English binomials, where Benor and Levy (2006: 239ff.) show that the ordering in complementary pairings can be determined by, inter alia, a real-world “power” constraint which places the more central (powerful) element in first position, e.g., ‘eating and drinking’, ‘cat and mouse’, ‘man and boy’, etc. The fixed phrase mun ci mun shaa mun yi bànƙas ‘we’ve eaten, drunk and are completely stuffed’ (1pl.pfv eat 1pl.pfv drink 1pl.pfv do being stuffed) illustrates. The ordering of such conjoins in English is therefore governed by similar real-world constraints as the occurrence of eat and drink metaphors in Hausa – eating requires a larger measure of potency, intensity and control and so typically expresses ‘overcome, conquer’ etc. in metaphors, and this relationship is analogous to the binomial sequencing requirement that the more powerful element normally occurs initially. The same (or similar) underlying extralinguistic constraint motivates distinct but related linguistic phenomena.

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

Example (11) adds a human patient to (10): (11) naa cii shì caaca 1sg.pfv eat 3msg gambling ‘I beat him (at) gambling.’ (12) ɗaalìbii yaa ci littaafìi student 3msg.pfv eat book ‘The student read the book thoroughly.’ (13) ɗan sarkii zâi ci sàrautàa son.of emir fut.3msg eat kingship ‘The emir’s son will get/secure the kingship.’

Examples (14–15), inter alia, nicely illustrate the control/overpowering dimension (being overpowered by a river, human mastery over iron ore):  (14) kòogii yaa cii shì river 3msg.pfv eat 3msg ‘He drowned.’ (lit. ‘The river ate him.’) (15) yanàa cîn tamaa 3msg.impfv eating.of iron ore ‘He’s a blacksmith.’ (lit. ‘He is eating iron (ore).’) (16) wasu ɓàràayii sun ci kàasuwaa jiyà some thieves 3pl.pfv eat market yesterday ‘Some thieves cleaned up (in) the market yesterday.’ (17) mun ci rabìn hanyàa 1pl.pfv eat half.of way ‘We’ve completed half the journey.’ (18) an cii mù tàarar ̃ nair̃àa dubuu 4pl.pfv eat 1pl fine.of naira thousand ‘We’ve been fined one thousand naira.’ (lit. ‘One has eaten us fine of … ’) (19) mazaa dà maataa duk zaa sù ci mòoriyar ̃ wannàn maagànii men and women all fut 3pl eat benefit.of this medicine ‘Men and women will all gain the benefit of this treatment.’ (20) ’yan-wàasanmù sun ci kwâf players.of.1pl 3pl.pfv eat cup ‘Our players won the cup.’ (cîi, the verbal noun of ci ‘eat’, can also mean ‘goal’ in football.) (21) maayèe yaa ci kùrwar ̃ yaaròo sorcerer 3msg.pfv eat spirit.of boy ‘The sorcerer has taken over the boy’s spirit.’



Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa 

(22) zaa mù ci nasar ̃àa fut 1pl eat success ‘We will succeed.’ (23) yaa ci naamàanaa 3msg.pfv eat meat.of.1sg ‘He talked about me behind my back.’ (lit. ‘He ate my meat.’) (24) yaa cii mîn àlbasàa 3msg.pfv eat 1sg.io onion ‘He queered my pitch.’ (i.e., ‘spoiled my chances’)

(lit. ‘He ate my onion’, i.e., he interfered by approaching someone with a matter before I could)

ci laadan kuturuu (25) kaa 2msg.pfv eat money.of leper ‘You’ve taken on the task (so you should see it through).’

(lit. ‘you have eaten the money of the leper’, i.e., you (the barber) have taken the leper’s money so you must shave his head)

ci kwaakwàa (26) mun 1pl.pfv eat coconut ‘We’ve had a hard time.’ (lit. ‘We’ve eaten coconut.’ , which is hard and so difficult to eat)

Example (27) illustrates the related “appropriation” sub-domain: (27) yaa ci kuɗin jàma’àa 3msg.pfv eat money.of people ‘He embezzled the people’s money.’

Example (28) contains the complex verb cim mà (= cii mà) with the semantically analogous meaning ‘accomplish, fulfil’: (28) naa cim mà buurìinaa 1sg.pfv eat iom ambition.of.1sg ‘I fulfilled my ambition.’ Ci can be used for (usually aggressive) sexual conquest: (29) Muusaa yaa ci yaarinyàr ̃ Musa 3msg.pfv eat girl.the ‘Musa had sex with the girl.’

The clausal subject can be the inanimate (non-agential) causer of an action or event, in which case the consequences are typically negative, e.g., (30) wannàn shirìn zâi ci kuɗii dà yawàa this plan.the fut.3msg eat money with much ‘This plan will eat up/consume lots of money.’

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

(31) ruwaa sun ci gàrii water 3pl.pfv eat town ‘Water has flooded the town.’ (32) taa ci gidaa 3fsg.pfv eat home ‘It (e.g., the plan) has backfired.’ (lit. ‘She has eaten home.’) (33) ciiwòo/yunwàa nàa cîinaa illness/hunger impfv eating.of.1sg ‘The illness/hunger is eating (at) me.’

In (34) the derived polysynthetic (“Grade 4”) form cînyee ‘destroy (eat up)’ (< ci) is unusual in that ci (and shaa) normally only occur in their base monomorphemic form in metaphorical transfers (cf. also exx. 28, 84–85). (34) wutaa taa cînyee gidaa ƙùrmus fire 3fsg.pfv eat up house completely ‘The fire consumed/destroyed the house completely.’

As proposed in §2, ci ‘eat’ has developed this metaphorical control reading because the extralinguistic physical activity itself involves: (1) the application of causal force and direct manipulation in the crushing, biting, chewing etc. (with teeth) of (2) heterogeneous atomic substances which (3) thereby undergo an observable physical transformation. Lakoff & Johnson (1980:  69ff.) characterize such actions, i.e., human agents consciously inducing a physical change of state on the part of the theme (or patient), as “prototypical” examples of “direct causation”. A sub-set of the overarching overcome domain entails the use of ci with an abstract complement noun such as ‘trust’, ‘honour’ to indicate the destruction or degrading of a positive human attribute, e.g., where ‘eat honour of X’ = ‘humiliate X’. Once again this abstract extended meaning is not arbitrary, but is motivated by the ontological fact that food is destroyed in the act of eating. The resulting expression therefore has a negative/malefactive interpretation, e.g., (35) ɗaalìbii yaa ci ir ̃ìlin maalàminsà student 3msg.pfv eat honour.of teacher.of.3msg ‘The student humiliated his teacher.’ (lit. ‘… ate the honour of his teacher.’) (36) kaa ci àmaanàataa 2msg.pfv eat trust.of.1sg ‘You have betrayed (eaten) my trust.’ (37) kâr ̃ kà cii mîn zar ̃àfii neg 2msg.sjnctv eat 1sg.io time ‘Don’t humiliate me.’ (lit. ‘Don’t eat my time.’)

Cf. too the ci-headed metaphor with fuskàa ‘face’ as the complement noun in:



Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa 

(38) Muusaa yaa ci fuskàr ̃ àbookinsà Musa 3msg.pfv eat face.of friend.of.3msg ‘Musa humiliated his friend.’ (lit. ‘ … ate the face of his friend.’)

Notice that most of the ci (and shaa) metaphorical expressions exemplified so far occur with a (preceding) Perfective tense-aspect marker (infl), and many of them are in fact illustrated with a Perfective form throughout this paper. This cooccurrence is especially common when the metaphor contains an (animate) experiencer, and probably relates to the fact that such constructions typically denote resultative change-of-state occurrences, where the Perfective aspect encompasses the transitional phases affecting the experiencer. Thus, suffering (lit. ‘drinking’) the sun induces a change-of-state to fatigue, exhaustion etc. on the part of the experiencer, and winning (‘eating’) a prize results in a transitional change of emotion, psychological state, etc. in the agent/experiencer. There are, however, environments where ci can be used (in verbo-nominal cîi form) with an Imperfective aspect to express a stative meaning, usually denoting undesirable/aggressive human characteristics, e.g., (39) yanàa cîn mutuncìn mutàanee 3msg.impfv eating.of dignity.of people ‘He offends (eats) people’s dignity.’ (40) sunàa cîn zaalii 3pl.impfv eating.of oppression ‘They are oppressive.’ (41) yanàa dà cîi dà zuuci 3msg.impfv with eating with in heart ‘He is impatient.’ (lit. ‘He has eating with in heart.’) (42)

sunàa cîi dà gùmin leebur ̃oor ĩ nsù 3pl.impfv eating with sweat.of labourers.of.3pl ‘They are exploiting (and prospering from) their labourers.’ (lit. ‘They are eating with sweat of their labourers.’)

There are also a number of common lexical compound NP’s containing various derived forms of the base verb ci where, depending on the noun object, the extended meaning inherits either the ontological destructive or achievement construal of the act of eating/devouring (see also Ahmad 1994:  146, and McIntyre 1995, 2006: Chap. 6). Examples: cîn-àmaanàa ‘betrayal’ (eating.of-trust), cîn-fuskàa ‘insult, humiliation’ (eating.of-face), cîn-hancìi ‘taking bribes’ (eating.of-nose), cîn-mutuncìi ‘humiliation’ (eating.of-dignity), cîn-râi ‘boredom, agony’ (eating.ofmind), cîn-zaalii ‘bullying, oppression, unjust treatment’ (eating.of-oppression); cîi-dà-cèetoo ‘fraud by trusted person(s)’ (eating-and-rescuing, referring to aid

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

agency fraud); cìi-dà-ƙarfii ‘hard task’ (eat-with-strength), cìi-raani ‘dry-season work’ (eat-dry season). Derivative (short-form) agential nouns, formed with a ma- prefix + a long low tone vowel on the stem, e.g., ma-cìi, can occasionally be used in metaphorical contexts, e.g., macìi àmaanàa ‘traitor’ (eater trust), as can the related formation with agential mài ‘doer of ’, e.g., mài cîn àmaanàa ‘traitor’ (doer of eating.of trust). (See §4 for similar formations with shaa.) The more productive (expanded) agential formation (also with the ma- prefix) can also be used, e.g., macìyin àmaanàa ‘traitor’ (eater.of trust). These usages are highly restricted however (see also Yusuf 1984: 345ff.). Proper names (nicknames) can also instantiate the metaphorical meaning, e.g., Cìi-gàri (conquer-town, given to a person with the Muslim name ‘Ibrahim’). Another common extended usage is in the phrasal verb ci gàba ‘continue, proceed’, composed of ci and the locative adverbial form gàba ‘in front’ (lit. ‘eat in front’) – with alignment of subject and agent again. Note too cîn-gashìn kâi ‘(achieving) independence’ (eating of-roasting.of self, i.e., you are free to ‘roast your own meat’), where the accomplishment semantics of the verbal noun are determined by the meaning of the following NP in the compound – ‘independence’ imposes this selectional restriction. In metaphorical contexts, ci ‘eat’ (but not shaa ‘drink’) is labile and can also occur in one-argument intransitive constructions with inanimate non-agentive subjects, expressing either a successfully completed resultative action (= Perfective, ex. 43) or an ongoing dynamic process (= Imperfective, exx. 44–45, complement of agential mài ‘doer of ’ in 46): (43) maagànii/baabaa yaa ci dà kyâu medicine/indigo dye 3msg.pfv eat well ‘The medicine/indigo dye has worked (eaten) well.’ (44) kàasuwaa tanàa cîi market 3fsg.impfv eating ‘The market is in full swing.’ (lit. ‘… is eating.’) (45) fìtilàa tanàa cîi lamp 3fsg.impfv eating ‘The lamp is burning (eating).’ (46) gwamnatì mài cîi government doing eating ‘The government in power (eating).’

Although such examples are restricted, this ambitransitive property of ci is somewhat anomalous, and there is no transparently obvious connection with the literal



Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa 

sense. One would expect shaa ‘drink’ to exhibit the same dual transitivity, especially as, in contrast to ci ‘eat’, it combines reduced agentivity with lesser impact on its theme/object in transitive clauses.

4.  Prototypical shaa metaphors = ‘undergo’ When shaa ‘drink’ is extended metaphorically to mean ‘undergo, suffer, endure’, selectional restrictions require that the first argument (the surface subject) must be a sentient animate being (normally human) capable of carrying the experiencer role, and the second argument (formally the direct object) usually expresses a sensory experience which induces the state (the stimulus), e.g., ‘trouble’, ‘difficulty’, ‘(excessive) heat’, etc. The complement stimulus in the shaa-predicate can be a sensory noun or a common (concrete) noun, and the experience/emotion is typically (though not exclusively) negative-oriented. We assume that this construal follows from the extralinguistic fact that the animate subject experiencer has little or no control over the situation or emotional/psychological state, a property ultimately motivated by the ontological nature of drinking, i.e., minimal physical manipulation of a homogeneous liquid substance. (Cf., though, Hook & Pardeshi in this volume for examples of the converse – eat verbs developing an undergoing sense in some Indo-Aryan languages.) Compare these properties with maximally distinct ‘overcome, control’ etc. extensions of ci ‘eat’, where the subject is either an agent or an (inanimate) causer, e.g., ‘river’ in (14). Stereotypical and unambiguous examples of shaa-metaphors with nonvolitional subjects and object stimuli, some idiomatic, are provided in (47–55) (where appropriate, we have included the degree adverb ‘really’ to capture the intensification entailment):  (47) sunàa shân wàhalàa 3pl.impfv drinking.of trouble ‘They are really suffering trouble/difficulty.’ (48) yaa shaa kaashii 3msg.pfv drink shit ‘He had a hard time of it.’ (lit. ‘He suffered (drank) shit.’) (49) mun shaa raanaa yâu 1pl.pfv drink sun today ‘We’ve suffered the sun today.’ (50) mun shaa hàsaar̃àa 1pl.pfv drink serious loss ‘We’ve suffered a serious loss/blow.’

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

(51)

ɗàalìbai sun shaa sùur̃uutùn maalàminsù students 3pl.pfv drink telling off.of teacher.of.3pl ‘The students got a real telling off from their teacher.’ (lit. ‘… they drank telling off …’)

(52) jàakii yaa shaa kaayaa yâu donkey 3msg.pfv drink loads today ‘The donkey has suffered (carrying) loads today.’ (53) taa shaa banzaa 3fsg.pfv drink uselessness ‘She got off scott-free.’ (lit. ‘she drank uselessness’, i.e., there’s nothing that can be done about it) (54) sun shaa jinin jìkinsù 3pl.pfv drink blood.of body.of.3pl ‘They were really terrified.’ (lit. ‘They drank the blood of their bodies.’) (55) ɗan-kòokawàa yaa shaa ƙasaa wrestler 3msg.pfv drink earth ‘The wrestler hit the ground.’ (i.e., has been defeated, lit. ‘… has drunk earth.’)

In (56) the subject ‘Bala’ is non-volitional (he is the accidental causer of the crash but also suffers the consequences), and the object is a concrete noun: (56) Bàlaa yaa shaa mootàr ̃ wani Bala 3msg.pfv drink car.of someone ‘Bala (accidentally) hit (drank) someone’s car.’

In (57) the external stimulus is daaɗii ‘enjoyment, happiness’, and the experience is positive:5 (57) yâaraa sun shaa daaɗii children 3pl.pfv drink happiness ‘The children had a really good time/enjoyed themselves.’ (lit. ‘… drank happiness.’)

A cognate metaphorical function of shaa involves its extension to denote a process of taking in, incorporating or absorbing (Newman’s term “internalization” probably covers this domain). In this alignment, shaa takes an inanimate subject theme, i.e., the entity which undergoes the change in state, and the object argument is

.  The default experiential/sensory verb in Hausa is ji, which has a wide range of cognate meanings, e.g., ‘feel, smell, perceive, hear, understand’, and where the subject aligns with the experiencer role. It heads the central ENJOY verb ji daaɗii ‘feel enjoyment/enjoy oneself ’.



Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa 

the activity or material entity which is the source/cause of the change (through unspecified agential action). Examples: (58) mootàa taa shaa guugàa car 3fsg.pfv drink polishing ‘The car is bright and shiny.’ (lit. ‘… has drunk polishing.’) (59) wàndoo yaa shaa guugàa trousers 3msg.pfv drink ironing ‘The trousers look nicely ironed.’ (60) rìigar ̃kà taa shaa bulàa gown.of.2msg 3fsg.pfv drink washing blue ‘Your gown looks really nice.’ (because ‘It has drunk …’, i.e., you have washed it in washing blue) (61) tufaafii sun shaa jìkii clothes 3pl.pfv drink body ‘The clothes have worn out.’ (lit. ‘… have suffered (drunk) body.’)

Hausa also uses shaa ‘drink’ to express inhaling air and smoking, e.g., (62) zân fìta shân iskàa fut.1sg go out drinking.of air ‘I’m going out for some fresh air.’ (lit. ‘… drinking of air.’) (63) kin dainà shân taabàa? 2fsg.pfv stop drinking.of tobacco ‘Have you stopped smoking?’ (lit. ‘… drinking of tobacco?’)

Cf. too the nominal compounds headed by some form of shaa: shàa-gàari ‘wastrel’ (drink-flour), shàa-jìɓi ‘type of undershirt’ (drink-sweat), shàa-kiɗ  ì ‘guitar string’ (drink-strumming), shàa-sànda ‘ridge of plaited hair’ (drink-stick), shàa-taleetàlêe ‘roundabout route’ (drink-roundabout), and the nicknames Shàa-ɗaarii (drinkcold) = name given to a child born in the cold season, and Shàa-yàbo ‘popular’ (drink-praise) (Ahmad 1994: 157–58). Shaa can (like ci, §3), sometimes occur in agential formations with a metaphorical sense, e.g., mashàa wàhalàa ‘sufferer of trouble’ (drinker trouble), mashàa ruwaa ‘rainbow’ (drinker water), mài shân iskàa ‘one who goes for a stroll (takes the air)’ (doer of drinking.of air). 4.1  Shaa ‘drink’ ⇒ quantificational ‘do X frequently, regularly’ Polyfunctional shaa ‘drink’ has become grammaticalized as a degree verb expressing the quantificational notion ‘regularly, continuously, frequently, a lot’. Syntactically it is parallel to aspectual verbs, and takes a complement consisting of a subjectless nonfinite clause with a verb, verbal noun or activity noun. If there is syntactic

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

embedding then both the matrix and nonfinite embedded clauses have samesubject control (Jaggar 1977, Jaggar, 2001: 546ff.; Williams 1991: 335). As a quantificational verb, shaa occurs in expressions indicating multiple/habitual occurrences of an event or situation, where the subject is a volitional agent. Depending on the pragmatics of the situation, the reading can be ‘to excess’. Examples:  (64) yaa shaa zuwàa nân 3msg.pfv drink coming here ‘He comes here regularly.’ (lit. ‘He has drunk coming here.’) (65) mun shaa kallon talàbijìn 1pl.pfv drink watching.of television ‘We’ve watched a lot of TV.’ (66) naa shaa jîi 1sg.pfv drink hearing ‘I’ve heard (it) so many times.’ (67) naa shaa gayàa makà 1sg.pfv drink tell 2msg.io ‘I’ve told you so many times.’

Cf. too the idiomatic usage with an adverbial complement: (68) mun shaa bambam 1pl.pfv drink different ‘We differ substantially.’ (e.g., in our views, lit. ‘We have drunk different.’)

When the complement contains an emotional stimulus, e.g., an involuntary bodily response, the subject assumes the role of non-controlling experiencer, e.g., (69) taa shaa dàariyaa/kuukaa 3fsg.pfv drink laughing/crying ‘She laughed/cried a lot.’ (70) yâaraa sun shaa daaɗ ii children 3pl.pfv drink happiness ‘The children had a really good time.’ (lit. ‘… drank happiness.’) (more commonly ji daaɗii ‘enjoy oneself ’, ‘feel enjoyment’)

Example (71) illustrates metaphorical extensions of both verbs: (71) Audù yaa shaa cîn baashìi Audu 3msg.pfv drink eating.of debt ‘Audu is always in debt.’ (lit. ‘Audu has drunk eating debt.’)

This metaphorical mapping of ‘drink (water)’ onto a quantificational ‘do X frequently’ sub-domain is not random, but is plausibly motivated by a conceptualization



Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa 

which associates the common non-bounded features (Williams 1991: 333ff. uses the term “diffuse” to capture this feature). Specifically, the conceptual relationship links: (1a) the intrinsic non-bounded properties of a mass substance like water (any subdivision is still water), plus (1b) the experiential correlation with quantity and the unobstructed ingestion of the liquid, with (2) the equivalent non-bounded duration of a sequence of multiple frequency events (see also Wierzbicka 1982: 774ff.; Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 118ff.; and Newman in this volume). A semantically analogous quantitative construction uses the verbal noun shâa as an additive in numerals 11–19, e.g., goomà shâa shiddà ‘16’ (lit. ‘ten drinking six’). In some cases the shaa-construction seems to be on the boundary between a quantificational ‘do X a lot, continually’ and the metaphorical ‘undergo, suffer X’ reading detailed above, i.e., where the clausal subject could be construed either as the volitional agent of an activity or the non-volitional participant. In such cases, the role of the subject essentially depends upon the lexical semantics of the complement and/or the manner in which the event is conceptualized. With a dynamic process noun such as aikìi ‘work(ing)’, for example, both construals are possible – thus, we can gloss naa shaa aikìi yâu (1sg.pfv drink work today) as either ‘I’ve worked a lot today’ or ‘I’ve suffered work today’, where the undergoing sense is not clearly separable from the quantificational reading, and where the interpretation is heavily dependent on situational pragmatics. If we select a more negative experience noun, however, then an undergo/suffer reading becomes progressively more natural, e.g., with gwàgwàrmayàa ‘struggle, struggling’ as in mun shaa gwàgwàrmayàa dà mutàanee (1pl.pfv drink struggle/struggling with people), the salient reading would be ‘we have suffered (in) struggling with people’.

5.  ci [punctual] + x vs. shaa [durative] + x For the most part, metaphorical ci and shaa are mutually exclusive. There are a few exceptions however, and where selectional restrictions allow, they can take the same predicate argument (= X above). In such cases, the two variants usually have contrasting interpretations which are inherited from the differing primary senses and so are consistent with the mappings we have proposed, i.e., ci [overcome, + control] vs. shaa [undergo, – control]. Thus, ci meaning ‘overcome’ is a punctual verb, and ci-predicates typically express bounded achievements; shaa in its derived ‘undergo’ sense, on the other hand, is a durative verb, and shaa-predicates basically denote unbounded processes, a meaning component which is also a

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

property of the quantificational function of shaa (see §4.1).6 Using the Hopper & Thompson (1980) parameters, ci ‘eat’ [+ punctual] is prototypically higher in transitivity than shaa ‘drink’ [- punctual], and this correlation lines up with the earlier observation that ci ‘eat’ is also more agentive, more kinetic and affects its object more radically (§3). Examples: (72) sun ci yaaƙìi 3pl.pfv eat war ‘They won the war.’ (73) sun shaa yaaƙìi 3pl.pfv drink war ‘They have endured the war (for some time).’

In (72) the subject of ci ‘win (eat)’ is a volitional agent, and the act of winning the war has a terminal point – it comes to an end when the war is won, so the war is itself bounded. Because (72) expresses a singular situation, it could not therefore take an unbounded duration adjunct such as ‘for three years’, i.e., #sun ci yaaƙìi har ̃ na tsawon shèekaràa ukkù #‘they won the war for three years’. In (73), on the other hand, the subject of shaa ‘endure (drink)’ is as much an experiencer as an agent, and the process of undergoing/enduring the war is perceived as durative and unbounded, reflected in the fact that sun shaa yaaƙìi har ̃ na tsawon shèekaràa ukkù ‘they have endured the war for three years’ is perfectly acceptable. Because of its more robust agential/control properties, moreover, ci ‘eat’ (but not shaa ‘drink’) can freely combine with a preceding matrix clause in which the verb expresses the notion of ‘intention, commitment’, i.e., where the subject-referent is assumed to be in control, as in (74): (74) sun kafèe sai sun ci yaaƙìi 3pl.pfv be determined until 3pl.pfv eat war ‘They were determined to win the war.’

Substituting shaa ‘drink’ in (74), however, would produce the semantically anomalous expression in (75):  (75) #sun kafèe sai sun shaa yaaƙìi 3pl.pfv be determined until 3pl.pfv drink war ‘They were determined to endure the war (for some time).’

Further punctual/durative contrasts are illustrated in (76–79).

.  Williams (1991: 330) does not propose an explicit semantic characterization of this function but some of his English glosses are at least suggestive.



Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa 

(76) yaa ci duuniyàa 3msg.pfv eat world ‘He’d seen and done it all (good and bad).’

In (76) the ci-metaphor expresses a strongly agential punctual occurrence with a terminal phase, implying that the experience has been a single distinguishable phase which is now terminated (one salient interpretation is that the subject referent has in fact died). In (77), on the other hand, we have a low-degree agent shaaconstruction which is stative-like, entailing no distinct phases: (77) yaa shaa duuniyàa 3msg.pfv drink world ‘He has had a long life.’

Example (78) expresses a “singulary” punctual situation (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 119), i.e., a one-off event with ci:  (78) naa ci karòo dà suu 1sg.pfv eat encounter with 3pl ‘I bumped into them.’

In contrast, the corresponding shaa metaphor in (79) encodes multiple instances of the same event:  (79) naa shaa karòo dà suu 1sg.pfv drink encounter with 3pl ‘I bumped into them regularly.’

Example (79) with shaa, unlike the ci-version, could also co-occur with the Imperfective aspect, e.g., inàa shân karòo dà suu ‘I bump into them regularly’ (1sg.impfv drinking.of encounter with 3pl). Finally in this section, the ci-expression in (80) is telic, implying, unlike (81), that the subject has taken punishment which is now terminated:  (80) yaa ci wùyaa/wàhalàa 3msg.pfv eat trouble/difficulty ‘He suffered trouble/difficulty.’ (but has paid his dues) (81) yaa shaa wùyaa/wàhalàa 3msg.pfv drink trouble/difficulty ‘He suffered trouble/difficulty.’

5.1  Possible neutralization: metaphorical ci + x = shaa + x The last dimension of this finely-nuanced continuum shades into the preceding one, the principal difference being that the characteristic [± control] correlations

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

are neutralized (at least for some speakers), leaving a non-canonical residue of metaphorical expressions which can take either verb without any effective meaning difference. In the first set the surface subject is a volitional-agential, so we would predict (wrongly!) that only ci should occur, but shaa is perfectly acceptable, and the two variants seem to be more or less interchangeable, e.g., (82) yaarinyàa taa ci/shaa adoo girl 3fsg.pfv eat/drink decoration ‘The girl got really dressed up.’

Both verbs combine collocationally with the lexical noun kâi ‘head’ to express the agential notion of ‘winning over (person)’, or ‘(re)solving a problem’, e.g., (83) ɗaalìbii yaa ci/shaa kân lìssaafìi student 3msg.pfv eat/drink head.of maths ‘The student solved the maths (problem).’

Examples (84–85) include the semantically equivalent derivative (“Grade 6”) forms ci-woo (< ci), and shaa-woo (< shaa) (cf. ex. 34): (84) zaa mù ciwoo/shaawoo kân wannàn àl’amàr ̃în head.of this matter.the fut 1pl eat/drink ‘We will resolve this matter.’ (85) mun ciwoo/shaawoo kânsù 1pl.pfv eat/drink head.of.3pl ‘We won them over.’ (lit. ‘We ate/drank their head.’)

The second set, where both outputs are essentially non-control/undergo, is more idiosyncratic, but we note here for completeness. In this case, ci/shaa substitutability, though relatively uncommon (contra Abraham 1962: 793), seems to be admissible particularly when the complement contains a stimulus noun expressing an unpleasant or negative experience/emotion, i.e., adversative [subject = experiencer] contexts where the animate (human) subject has little or no control over the experience, and where we would predict that only the [shaa ‘drink’ ⇒ undergo] pattern should occur. This is in fact the strongly preferred or indeed required construction for most speakers, but some can use ci ‘eat’ as a lexically-determined (secondary) alternative, and this variation indicates that there are different ways of conceptualizing situations in addition to variation in the lexical properties of these verbs. Substitutability does not appear to be total, however (contra Williams 1991: 330), since some speakers who do allow both verbs feel that in the shaa ‘drink’ versions the emphasis is on the durative (“continual”) nature of the activity (as in §5), and/or that the use of ci ‘eat’ is more punctual/terminal and/or equates with a more casual and informal style of speech. If there are any systematic meaning differences



Metaphorical extensions of ‘eat’ ⇒ [overcome] and ‘drink’ ⇒ [undergo] in hausa 

they are very subtle, however, and any attempted characterizations are vague and general at best, so we leave clarification of this variation for possible future investigation. For present purposes, therefore, we simply list some of the more common examples with just a single English equivalent for each pair. (86) mun ci/shaa zamaa yâu 1pl.pfv eat/drink waiting today ‘We’ve suffered a long wait today.’ (87) yaa ci/shaa duukàa 3msg.pfv eat/drink beating ‘He’s taken a beating.’ (88) taa ci/shaa zaagìi 3fsg.pfv eat/drink abuse ‘She suffered abuse.’

Finally, both verbs (with shaa again preferred by most/all speakers) can be used to express the process whereby materials take/absorb dyes (see also exx. 58–60 for similar ‘absorb’ metaphors):  (89) zanèe yaa ci/shaa baabaa cloth 3msg.pfv eat/drink indigo dye ‘The cloth has taken/absorbed the indigo dye well.’

6.  Summary eat/drink-based metaphors in Hausa present a plethora of subtly distinguishable but relatable meanings. In this exploratory account we have organized the various metaphorical elaborations of ci ‘eat’ and shaa ‘drink’ into approachable categories and explained their distribution, showing that the extensions are not randomly assigned, but in general form reasonably coherent and principled sub-systems. The boundaries are sometimes fuzzy, however, and the residue of idiosyncratic and dialectal variation has forced us to regularly turn to “prototypical” instances, where we have demonstrated that the meaning transfers are directly and naturally grounded in physiological realities. Thus, in metaphorical contexts ci canonically expresses the notion of overcoming (control and manipulation) because the real-world act of eating involves a strongly agential subject applying high-impact manipulation to a stronglyaffected object (food) – it is prototypically more transitive than ‘drink’. undergo shaa, in contrast, has a reduced degree of control/manipulation, because the act of drinking involves a lesser degree of both agential intervention/force and of impact on the object (liquid) – it has weaker transitivity. An interesting semantic consequence of

 Philip J. Jaggar & Malami Buba

the transfers is that, in canonical cases, the respective metaphorical overcome vs. undergo meanings are maximally distinct. We have also documented the quantificational (‘do X frequently’) function of shaa, alongside the basically durative sense of its metaphorical undergo usage, two semantic extensions which are plausibly related and attributable to the fact that shaa-predicates often denote unbounded on-going processes, in contrast to metaphorical ci ‘win, defeat, etc.’ which is basically a punctual verb compatible with bounded achievements. These various correspondences are not accidental – humans utilize metaphorical concepts to understand and express abstraction through the medium of experiential concretes.

Transcription and Abbreviations Transcription: à(a) = Low tone, â(a) = Falling tone, High tone is unmarked; aa, ii, etc. = long; a, i, etc. = short; ɓ, ɗ = laryngeal implosives; ƙ = ejective; r ̃ = apical tap/ roll; c and j = palato-alveolar affricates. Abbreviations: f = feminine; fut = future; impfv = imperfective; io (m) = indirect object (marker); m = masculine; neg = negative; pfv = perfective; pl = plural; sg = singular; sjnctv = subjunctive; 1/2/3/4 = first/second/third/fourth person; # = semantically anomalous.

References Abraham, R.C. 1962. Dictionary of the Hausa language. London: University of London Press. Ahmad, Mustapha. 1994. Aspects of Hausa compounding. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University. Amberber, Mengistu. This volume and [2002]. Quirky alternations of transitivity: The case of ingestive predicates. Originally published in Language universals and variation, Mengistu Amberber & Peter Collins (Eds), 1–19. Westport CT: Praeger. Bargery, G.P. 1934. A Hausa-English dictionary and English-Hausa vocabulary. London: OUP. Benor, Sarah Bunin & Roger Levy. 2006. The chicken or the egg? A probabilistic analysis of English binomials. Language 82(2): 233–78. Dixon, R.M.W. & Alexandra Y. Aikhenwald (Eds). 2000. Changing valency: Case studies in transitivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, Raymond W. & Gerald J. Steen (Eds), 1999. Metaphor in cognitive linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gouffé, Claude. 1966. ‘Manger’ et ‘boire’ en haoussa. Revue de l’École Nationale des Langues Orientales 3: 77–111. Haspelmath, Martin. 1994. Passive participles across languages. Voice: Form and function [Typological Studies in Language 27], Barbara A. Fox & Paul J. Hopper (Eds), 151–77. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Heine, Bernd. 1997. Cognitive foundations of grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.



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Hook, Peter Edwin & Prashant Pardeshi. This volume. The semantic evolution of EAT-expressions: Ways and byways. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56(2): 251–99. Huddleston, Rodney & Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jaggar, Philip J. 1977. The nature and function of auxiliary verbs in Hausa. In Papers in Chadic Linguistics, Paul Newman & Roxana Ma Newman (Eds), 57–87. Leiden: AfrikaStudiecentrum. Jaggar, Philip J. 2001. Hausa [London Oriental and African Language Library 7]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Johnson, Mark. 1987. The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York NY: Basic Books. McIntyre, Joseph A. 1995. It’s still NAg-ging: Compounds in Hausa. Afrika und Übersee 78: 239–59. McIntyre, Joseph A. 2006. Hausa verbal compounds. Köln: Rüdige Köppe Verlag. Næss, Åshild. This volume. How transitive are eat and drink verbs? Newman, John. 1997. Eating and drinking as sources of metaphor in English. Cuardernos de Filología Inglesa (special issue on Cognitive Linguistics) 6(2): 213–31. Newman, John. This volume. A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. Shibatani, Masayoshi & Prashant Pardeshi. 2002. The causative continuum. In The grammar of causation and interpersonal manipulation, Masayoshi Shibatani (Ed.), 85–126. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1982. Why can you have a drink when you can’t *have an eat?. Language 58(4): 753–99. Williams, Kemp. 1991. Radial structuring in the Hausa lexicon: A prototype analysis of Hausa ‘eat’ and ‘drink’. Lingua 85: 321–40. Yusuf, H.R. 1984. Collocational use of the Hausa word sha. Studies in Hausa language, literature and culture: Proceedings of the first Hausa international conference, July 7–10, 1978; Ibrahim Yaro Yahaya & Abba Rufa’i (Eds), 342–68. Kano: CSNL, Bayero University.

Amharic eat and drink verbs John Newman & Daniel Aberra University of Alberta

‘Eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs in Amharic (Semitic) have a number of interesting linguistic properties. The basic morphosyntactic properties of these verbs in Amharic are reviewed, including the unusual patterning of these verbs in causative constructions, as remarked upon by Amberber (this volume) and others. Figurative extensions of the two verbs are prolific and an attempt is made to give a coherent account of these extensions drawing upon ideas from Newman’s (1997) account of the English eat and drink extensions. In particular, it proves useful to distinguish figurative extensions based on the sensation of the consumer from figurative extensions based on the image of destruction or disappearance of the consumed entity. These two separate aspects of ingestive acts inform both the account of the figurative extensions of Amharic ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ as well as the morphosyntax associated with these verbs.

1.  Introduction In this paper we review a number of properties associated with the Amharic verbs bәl- ‘eat’ and t’әt’- ‘drink’.1 We begin, in Section 2, by noting aspects of the form and meaning of the verbs. The two verbs exhibit a similar irregular phonotactic structure shared with other frequent and “basic” verbs. We also describe the basic morphology and morphosyntax associated with the verbs bәl- and t’әt’-, as used in the literal senses of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ respectively. In Section 3, we consider the figurative extensions of these verbs, as evidenced in a variety of constructional types (active, passive, causative etc.). In some cases, the semantics of the figurative uses is relatively transparent and exemplifies common cross-linguistic metaphorical extensions as discussed in Newman (1997, this volume), e.g., the ‘eat something’ sense extended to mean ‘kill something/someone’. In other cases, the figurative use is not so obviously relatable to the literal sense. A causative of the reciprocal form of t’әt’- ‘drink’, for example, is used in Amharic to mean ‘settle a debt with a person’. Extensions such as this one pose real challenges when we come to seek

.  Amharic is a member of the Semitic family, spoken by about 20 million people in Ethiopia.

 John Newman & Daniel Aberra

motivations for the semantic shift involved. Some of the figurative meanings are only found in quite specific constructions, e.g., the causative, and it is necessary to refer to the relevant constructions throughout, rather than just working with the verb forms themselves, consistent with the constructional approach found, for example, in Croft (2001). We conclude in Section 4 with some reflections on the significance of the Amharic data.

2.  Form, meaning, and morphosyntax of literal bәl- and t’әt’2.1  Form Amharic, true to its Semitic affiliation, forms its verbs from consonantal roots representing lexical meanings and a pattern of infixed vowels more associated with grammatical meanings. The typical Amharic verb root is triconsonantal (cf. Hudson 1997: 468). However, a number of Amharic verbs which are very frequent in discourse and are conceptually “basic” (cf. Newman, ms) have biconsonantal roots: /hd/ ‘go’, /mt’/ ‘come’, /k’m/ ‘stand’, /sm/ ‘hear’, /st’/ ‘give’, as well as the pair of verbs which are the focus of interest here, /bl/ ‘eat’ and /t’t’/ ‘drink’. The biconsonantal forms also exhibit a distinctive phonotactic structure (C1әC2C2V) in their past forms, where the last vowel in this structure represents a subject suffix, e.g., bәll-a ‘he ate’, t’әt’t’-a ‘he drank’. bәlla and t’әt’t’a are, in fact, the traditional citation forms of these verbs representing the past perfective, 3rd person, masculine, singular construct form. These are the Amharic verb forms of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ as used, for example, in dictionary entries. The Amharic verb has an imperfective vs. perfective aspectual distinction which we register in the glosses to our examples.2 In addition to changes in the verb stems, the conjugations are differentiated by the use of prefixes and suffixes. The various conjugational paradigms can be quite complex as a result. In order to help the reader through the data of this paper, we will present examples in the past perfective forms where possible. Past and perfective paradigms each utilize personal suffixes for subject and object and show agreement with the subject in number and person. In addition, we find gender agreement (masculine and feminine)

.  Our sketch of the morphosyntax of Amharic follows Hudson (1997), unless stated otherwise. Hudson recognizes a past vs. non-past distinction, in addition to the aspectual distinction perfective vs. imperfective. The exact status of the tense distinction as a separate category to the aspectual distinction is not clear and we will simply note the aspectual distinction in glosses.



Amharic eat and drink verbs 

with the subject in the 2nd and 3rd singular forms. Table 1 summarizes the subject and object forms of the personal suffixes found with bәl- and t’әt’-. Table 1.  Amharic subject and object suffixes in the past and perfective paradigms Subject -hu -h -aš -a -ačč -n -aččīhu -u

Object 1sg 2sg.m 2sg.f 3sg.m 3sg.f 1pl 2pl 3pl

-ňň -h -š -u, -w, -t -at -n -aččīhu -aččәw

1sg 2sg.m 2sg.f 3sg.m 3sg.f 1pl 2pl 3pl

Note that the 3rd person, singular, masculine form of the verb is used for impersonal subjects, as is found with zәnnәb- ‘rain’, a triconsonantal root with -ә as its 3rd person, masculine, singular suffix, as shown in (1). (1) zәnnәb-ә rain.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘It rained.’

2.2  Meaning In attempting to motivate the many and varied uses of bәl- and t’әt’-, it will be useful to bear in mind the different components of eating and drinking events. Although we are able to experience the eating and drinking as whole gestalts, it is also possible to separate out the phases which make up the whole experience. In the case of eating, one may identify the following facets (adapted from Newman 1997): (a) intake of food into the mouth, (b) mastication of the food involving mainly teeth, tongue, and roof of the mouth, (c) swallowing of the masticated food, and (d) sensory experiences on the part of the consumer. One or more of these facets can be relevant when it comes to motivating linguistic behaviors of the ‘eat’ verbs. Note, in particular, that sensory experiences accompany eating and these can be experiences relating to the effect of the food coming into contact with taste buds in the mouth or the feeling of satisfaction after digestion. Eating, of course, is biased in favor of good experience and we seek out food that will create this effect. Drinking is somewhat similar and we can identify the following facets: (a) intake of liquid into the mouth, (b) swallowing of the liquid, and (c) (usually positive) sensory experiences on the part of the consumer. A person drinking a beverage, especially

 John Newman & Daniel Aberra

one that is associated with distinctive and pleasant taste effects, may well allow the liquid to rest in the mouth, or swirl it around in the mouth, in which case there is some delay before the liquid is swallowed. Still, there is none of the mastication, biting, and chewing that we find with eating. The preceding descriptions of eating and drinking refer to the biologically determined aspects of these events and would be true across all cultures. When we turn to Amharic bәl- and t’әt’-, however, we may take note of some culturally determined aspects of eating and drinking which form part of the larger “sociocultural domain” (cf. Newman this volume) of usage of these verbs. Eating, for example, is typically something carried out in an unhurried manner, using the right hand to bring food to the mouth. Alcoholic beverages may be consumed and one should note that, as in English, t’әt’- ‘drink’ can also mean ‘drink alcoholic beverages’. The verb bәl- also means ‘sting, bite’ as in (2) below: (2) a. bimbi bәll-a-ňň mosquito sting.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘A mosquito stung me.’ b. zimb bәll-a-ňň fly bite.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘A fly bit me.’

One could construe this meaning as an extension from the meaning of a person eating something, building upon the biting phase of human eating. However, stinging and biting by insects seems as concrete as human eating and its use in (2) does not seem particularly “figurative”. We just note the polysemy of the ‘(human agent) eat’ and ‘(insect) bite, sting’ meanings here. 2.3  Morphosyntax In this section we consider morphosyntactic properties associated with a range of construction types in which bәl- and t’әt’- may occur. The figurative extensions to be discussed in Section 3 are associated with particular construction types and it is helpful to review the key properties of these constructions independently of the figurative extensions. Amharic ingestive verbs can be transitive or intransitive, as shown in (3) and (4), with the verb agreeing with the subject (or, alternatively, containing a subject suffix where there is no overt subject phrase), in person, number, and gender. Direct objects are marked for case in their definite forms. (3) a. bәll-ačč eat.perf-3sg.f.sbj ‘She ate.’



Amharic eat and drink verbs 

b. bīrtukan bәll-ačč orange eat.perf-3sg.f.sbj ‘She ate an orange.’ c. bīrtukan-u-n bәll-ačč orange-def-acc eat.perf -3sg.f.sbj ‘She ate the orange.’ d. set-itu bīrtukan bәll-ačč woman-f.def orange eat.perf-3sg.f.sbj ‘The woman ate an orange.’ e. set-itu bīrtukan-u-n bәll-ačč woman-f.def orange-def-acc eat.perf-3sg.f.sbj ‘The woman ate the orange.’ (4) a. t’әt’t’-a drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He drank.’ b. bira t’әt’t’-a beer drink.perf -3sg.m.sbj ‘He drank beer.’ c. bira-u-n t’әt’t’-a beer-def-acc drink.perf -3sg.m.sbj ‘He drank the beer.’ d. sәw-yәw bira t’әt’t’-a man-m.def beer drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘The man drank beer.’ e.

sәw-yәw bira-u-n t’әt’t’-a man-m.def beer-def-acc drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘The man drank the beer.’

In cases such as (5b) below, we see an optional object suffix appearing with the verb in the presence of an independent noun phrase functioning as the direct object. On the basis of this example alone, one might argue for optional object agreement on the verb in person and number. However, example (5d) shows that it can not be that simple. In (5d), the object suffix on the verb is 1sg, whereas the lexical, accusative object is 3sg. That is, where there is a possessive form as part of the object noun phrase, the object suffix can agree with the possessor, rather than the head noun of the noun phrase. It is still possible to have 3sg marking as the object suffix, as in (5e), but this is the more marked construction and is used to draw attention to the body part as the only affected part (cf. the discussion of ‘active zone’ in Langacker’s

 John Newman & Daniel Aberra

1991:  189–201). The construction in (5d), which is the more usual construction encountered, construes the whole person as the target of the action.3 (5) a. dabo-u-n bәlla-hu bread-def-acc eat.perf-1sg.sbj ‘I ate the bread.’ b. dabo-u-n bәlla-hu-t bread-def-acc eat.perf-1sg.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘I ate the bread.’ c. ījj-e-n mәtt-a hand-my-acc hit.perf -3sg.m.sbj ‘He hit my hand.’ d. ījj-e-n mәtt-a-ňň hand-my-acc hit.perf -3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘He hit my hand.’ e. ījj-e-n mәtt-a-w hand-my-acc hit.perf -3sg.m.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘He hit my hand.’

Amharic has two causatives formed by the prefixes a- and as-. At a relatively simplistic level of description, a- is used to form the causatives of intransitives, and asis used to form causatives of transitives and instransitives. Hudson (1997: 477–8), however, observes “some transitive verbs whose meanings involve benefit to the self, e.g., ‘eat’ and ‘dress’ also form causatives with a- …”. Amberber (2002: 2–3) also draws attention to the exceptional behavior in Amharic (and some other languages) of ingestive verbs, including ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ with respect to the causatives of such verbs. Even when used transitively, with an overt direct object, then, bәland t’әt’- may occur in both a- and as- causative constructions, as illustrated for bәl- in (6) below. Where the a- causative in (6a) and (6c) is used to suggest that the causee derives benefit from the eating or drinking, this nuance can be conveyed in English through the use of a help someone to do x construction.4 The as- ‘factitive’ causative, on the other hand, does not carry this nuance and is better translated in English as a make/force someone to do x, as in (6b) and (6d). (6) a. dabo-u-n a-bәlla-hu-t bread-def-acc caus-eat.perf-1sg.sbj-3sg.f.obj ‘I helped him to eat the bread.’

.  This is what has been called “possessor ascension” in a Relational Grammar framework (cf. Bell 1983: 191–195 for an early treatment of this phenomenon). .  Hudson (1997: 478) refers to this nuance as ‘adjutative’.



Amharic eat and drink verbs 

b. dabo-u-n as-bәlla-hu-t bread-def-acc caus-eat.perf-1sg.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘I made/forced him to eat the bread.’ c. mәt’әt’ t’ a-t’әt’t’-a a drink caus-drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He offered alcoholic drinks.’/‘He invited people to alcoholic drinks.’ d. mәt’әt’ t’ as-t’әt’t’-a a drink caus-drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He forced someone to drink alcoholic drinks.’

While the a- causative may be closely associated with the causee deriving benefit in cases such as (6a) and (6c), the idea of the causee benefiting from the action does not apply to many of the figuratively used a- causatives discussed in Section 3 (see, in particular, (23b–g)). It seems, rather, that it is the fact that the causee is a (strongly) “affected agent” that makes bәl- and t’әt-’ eligible to participate in the acausative. The facts, then, are reminiscent of how predicates involving an “affected agent”, especially ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs, may behave more like intransitive predicates in some languages, as discussed at length in Næss (this volume). Factitive causative constructions with bәl- and t’әt’- are further illustrated in (7). Note that the subject and object arguments of the embedded clauses each appear in the causative construction as direct objects, with accusative marking for nouns. The causative constructions require that the causee be marked as an object suffix on the verb, regardless of whether or not there is an overt causee NP such as meri-n ‘Mary-acc’ in (7a–b). (7) a. meri-n as-bәll-a-t Mary-acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.f.obj ‘He made Mary eat.’ b. meri-n as-t’әt’t’-a-t Mary-acc caus-drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.f.obj ‘He made Mary drink.’ c. bīrtukan-u-n as-bәll-a-t orange-def-acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.f.obj ‘He made her eat the orange.’ d. wīha-u-n as-t’әt’t’-a-t water-def-acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.f.obj ‘He made her drink the water.’ e. meri-n wīha-u-n as-t’әt’t’-a-t Mary-acc water-def- acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.f.obj ‘He made Mary drink the water.’

 John Newman & Daniel Aberra

A tә- prefix with verbs has both passive and reciprocal functions, as shown in (8a–b) and (8c–d) respectively. In addition to the prefix, the first vowel of the verb stem must be /a/ in the reciprocal construction. (8) a. dabo-u tә-bәll-a bread-def pass-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘The bread was eaten.’ b. wīha-u tә-t’әt’t’-a water-def pass-drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘The water was drunk up.’ c. tә-ball-u recip-eat.perf-3pl.sbj lit. ‘They ate each other.’/fig. ‘They were fighting each other.’ d. tә-t’at’t’-u recip-drink.perf-3pl.sbj lit. ‘They drank with each other.’/‘They settled their accounts with each other.’

(9) is an impersonal passive: “it was drunk/there was drinking, there were lots of drinks served”. The gloss “3sg.m.sbj” follows Amharic linguistic convention, though the -a suffix is here used for an impersonal 3sg subject. (9) tә-t’әt’t’-a pass-drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘There were a lot of drinks served.’

Amharic has very productive total and partial reduplication processes spreading across its major lexical and phrasal classes and these processes are illustrated for bәl- and t’әt’- in (10). The functions of the reduplication are mainly indicating frequency, attenuation (intensity of the action) and speed of the action expressed by the verb. (10) a. bәla bәla b. t’әt’a t’әt’a c. bәlalla d. t’әt’at’t’a e. bīlītlīt f. t’īt’īt’īt

‘He ate faster than the usual pace (hastily).’ ‘He drank faster than the usual pace (hastily).’ ‘He ate lightly/half-heartedly.’ ‘He drank lightly/half-heartedly.` ‘eating intensely and everything’ ‘drinking intensely and everything’

It is of interest to compare the different behavior of bәl- and t’әt’- with respect to nominalization. Both verbs enter into an agentive construction with a nominalizer -i: bәll-i → bәyyi ‘someone who eats regularly, or someone who enjoys eating’ and t’әt’t’-i → t’әčč’i ‘someone who drinks regularly, or someone who enjoys drinking’. There exists another nominalizer suffix, -tәňňa. According to Fulass



Amharic eat and drink verbs 

(1966: 87), an agentive formed from -tәňňa refers to ‘an animate being that does the action stated by the underlying verb’. While we do find bәll-a-tәňňa there is no corresponding *t’әt’t’-a-tәňňa. Literally, bәll-a-tәňňa refers to ‘someone who eats (regularly, habitually)’ as might be expected from Fulass’ comment. In addition, bәll-a-tәňňa is used to refer to someone who is dependent on another person for their accommodation, food, drink etc. or for someone who is a regular customer of a particular restaurant. Finally, we may note the existence of verbal complexes consisting of two verbal predicates. One such verbal complex involves bәl- shown in (11), albeit used in a figurative manner which we will not try to explicate here. (11) sәrto-bәlla worked.3sg.m–eat.perf.3sg.m.sbj ‘He worked as a daily laborer.’

3.  Figurative extensions of bәl- and t’әt’The figurative extensions of bәl- and t’әt’- are extensive and it might seem unrealistic to try to offer an account for each and every extension. However, by breaking down the eating and drinking events into their different phases, as outlined in Section 2.2, we can make considerable progress towards this goal. We find it useful to proceed by recognizing three main classes of extensions: internalization, destruction, and affected agent. 3.1  Internalization Extensions relating to internalization are those uses which appear to be based on the image of food or drink being taken into the mouth and, eventually, moving down through the digestive system. Both these facets of the digestive process involve an entity moving into the inside of a person. Both eating and drinking events offer strong, culturally universal images of internalization. We begin with the bәl- examples in (12), in which the subject referent comes into possession of some item of monetary value or item of some significance, e.g., a sporting trophy. In these cases, the source domain of taking in food into the body is mapped onto a target domain in which an entity moves into the sphere of possession of a person. It is significant that in all these cases the subject referent stands to gain through receiving the item. This suggests that the positive sensory experience associated with eating is also relevant to a full understanding of this usage. The pleasant taste associated with eating is mapped onto a pleasant experience or feeling associated with the new possession. As such, this set of extensions

 John Newman & Daniel Aberra

might also have been included under Section 3.3 where sensory perception seems most relevant. In all these examples, the clause-initial bare noun is an indefinite direct object. (12) a. k’umar bәll-a gamble eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He won a bet.’ b. dәmoz bәll-ačč salary eat.perf-3sg.f.sbj ‘She received her salary.’ c. kasa bәll-ačč compensation eat.perf-3sg.f.sbj ‘She received compensation.’ d. gubbo bәll-a bribe eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He took a bribe.’ e. wanč’a bәll-ačč cup eat.perf-3sg.f.sbj ‘She won a cup.’

We also find t’әt’- extended to internalization metaphors in (13). In (13a–c) an inanimate subject referent benefits from the absorption or addition of a liquid entity. In these examples, the clause-initial definite forms are the subjects of their clauses. (13d) is similar in that the inanimate subject referent, dress (applicable here to either men or women’s clothing), absorbs butter smeared on it, a practice designed to maintain or enhance the quality of the dress.5 (13e) is an a- causative construction, literally ‘one causes the plant to drink water’. In all these cases, there is indeed a benefit to the object which takes in the other entity, reflecting the positive and beneficial effect in these extensions, as noted above for bәl-. This is not a necessary condition on such extensions, however, as shown by (13f). In this example, the subject referent does not presumably benefit from being covered with the dust, where awara ‘dust’ is an indefinite direct object. Although the dust is not internalized, as such, by the subject referent, the meaning is close to other internalization extensions and it seems reasonable to include it in this set. (13) a. k’oda-u zәyt t’әt’t’-a hide-m.def oil drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘The hide absorbed oil.’/‘The hide was soaked with oil.’

.  In Ethiopia the practice of applying butter to objects to enhance their quality can even extend to certain precious trees, e.g., oaks, for religious reasons.



Amharic eat and drink verbs 

b. motәr-u zәyt t’әt’t’-a motor- m.def oil drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘The motor was lubricated.’ c. bәr-u k’әllәm-u-n t’әt’t’-a-u door-def paint-def-acc drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘The door consumed the paint.’ d. lībs-u k’ībe t’әt’t’-a dress-m.def butter drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘The dress was soaked with butter (to make it soft, to help preserve it, etc).’ e. atīkīlt-u-n wīha a-t’әt’t-’a plant-m.def-acc water caus- drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He watered the plant.’ f. awara t’әt’t’-a dust drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He was covered with dust.’ g. sigara t’әt’t’-a cigarette drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He smoked cigarette.’

(14a–b) may also be considered as examples of internalization. In (14a), the warp (the longer strands of fabric) is understood as receiving the shorter weft (perpendicular to the warp) easily and without obstruction. Presumably, the relatively unobstructed flow of liquid through the mouth and digestive system, as part of the act of drinking, is the motivation for this figurative usage. In (14b), it is the hole on the board (in a pebble game sometimes referred to by the name oware) which receives and “internalizes” the pebble. (14) a. šәmane-u mag-u-n dir a-t’әt’t’-a-w weaver-m.def warp-m.def-acc weft caus-drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj- 3sg.m.obj lit. ‘The weaver caused the warp to drink a weft.’/‘The weaver passed a weft through the warp (in weaving activity).’ b. wīg-u-n t’әt’әr a-t’әt’t’-a hole-def-acc pebble caus-drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj lit. ‘He caused the hole to drink a pebble.’/‘He deposited a pebble in the hole (as part of a pebble game).’

The example in (15) illustrates a variation on the internalization idea in so far as the tears are held inside, rather than flowing into the person from the outside. There is still a strong sense of a final interior location of the tears. One could also view (15) as an example of the ‘destruction’ extension of t’әt’-, discussed in Section 3.2, i.e.,

 John Newman & Daniel Aberra

the tears are destroyed. Both categorizations would be equally appropriate since by keeping tears inside, the tears are in effect destroyed. (15) a. īmba-w-n t’әt’t’-a tears-m.def-acc drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He held back his tears.’

In (16), the ‘drink’ sense is extended to refer to the internalization and experiencing of an object designed to kill, i.e., a bullet. (16) t’īyyīt t’әt’t’-a bullet drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He committed suicide (by shooting himself through the mouth).’

3.2  Destruction The examples of figurative extensions relating to “destruction” almost all concern the use of bәl- ‘eat’. The metaphorical extensions involve mapping from the domain of masticating, biting, chewing food to various other domains whereby some entity (corresponding to the eater in the source domain) has an adverse effect on some other entity (corresponding to the thing eaten). We begin with extensions of bәl- in (17) with an inanimate direct object which represents the thing that is destroyed or somehow used up. Note that in (17f–g) there is object agreement with the head noun of the object phrase, rather than the ‘my’ possessor. i.e., the object agreement is with bīrr- ‘money’ in (17f) and nībrәt- ‘property’ in (17g). This is appropriate, since it is indeed the money and the property which are affected in the events described. (17) a. mәkina-ye nedaj bәll-a car-my fuel eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘My car consumes a lot of fuel.’ b. adәra bәll-a trust eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He failed to keep money safe.’/‘He broke a promise.’ c. yә-sәw bīr bәll-a ‘of-human money eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He lost/spent someone’s money.’ d. lībs-u tә-bәll-a dress-m.def pass- eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘The dress is worn out.’ (does not have an active equivalent) e. s’әgur-īh-īn mīn bәll-a-w hair-2sg.m.poss-acc what eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.m.obj lit. ‘What ate your hair?’/‘What made you bald?’



Amharic eat and drink verbs 

f. sәw-yәw bīrr-e-n bәll-a-u man-that.def money-my-acc eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘That man denied/disowned me.’ g. nībrәt-e-n bәll-a-u property-my-acc eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘He destroyed my property.’

In the next set of examples, the direct object referent (or subject referent of a passive) is a person who is physically or psychologically affected. In (18a), the sense is ‘defeat’ or ‘kill’, a common extension of ‘eat’ across languages. (18b), an intransitive construction, has the closely related sense of ‘win’. The effect on the object referent can be psychological, as well, as in (18c), where the direct object referent is adversely affected by the subject referent. (18f) is interesting in that it is the water, otherwise closely associated with drinking, which is the figurative eater causing a person to drown. The ‘drown’ sense is then presumably extended to the additional meaning of ‘to be desperately hopeless, useless’, not unlike English she is drowning in all the work. In (18g), the subject ayīn ‘eye’ is metonymic for the attention or scrutiny of others which has an adverse psychological effect on the referent of the direct object. In (18h), the figurative meaning relates to how a certain verbal etiquette, keeping some matter to one’s self, has not been honored, an idea conveyed through the image of one’s mouth being affected and made to function in an adverse, undesired way. In (18i) we see the addition of the object suffix referring to the possessor in the object emphasizing it is ‘me’ who is adversely affected (cf. the discussion of object agreement in Section 2.). (18j) represents a similar kind of figurative extension as well as agreement with the possessor in the direct object phrase. Presumably, the agreement with the possessor in these two cases relates to the more figurative sense in which the head nouns are affected, i.e., neither anjәt- ‘intestine’ in (18i) nor hasab- ‘idea’ in (18j) refers to something that is physically destroyed. (18) a. bәll-ahu-t eat.perf-1sg.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘I defeated him.’ b. b әll-ahu eat.perf-1sg.sbj ‘I won.’ c. bәll-a-ňň eat.pst.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘He made me sick.’/‘I worry about him.’ d. īsat bәll-a-at fire eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.f.obj ‘The fire burnt her.’

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e.

bәrәha-w bәll-a-w desert-m.def eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘He is affected physically by the hot weather.’

f.

wīha bәll-a-at water eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.f.obj ‘She drowned.’/‘She became desperately hopeless.’/‘She became useless.’

g. a yīn bәll-a-ňň eye eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘I became popular in an unwelcome way.’ h. af-u-n bәll-a-w mouth-his -acc eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.m.obj lit. ‘It ate his mouth.’/fig. ‘He blurted out the secret.’ i. sәw-yәw anjәt-e-n bәll-a-ňň man-that.def intestine-my-acc eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘I feel sorry for that man.’ j. hasab-e-n bәll-a-ňň idea-my-acc eat.perf-3sg.sbj-1sg.m.obj ‘He figured out my intention.’

The examples in (19) also involve adverse effects on persons through figurative understandings of bәl- with the direct object sīga ‘flesh’ in (19a) and incorporated objects nәfsә ‘soul’ and sәw ‘man’ in (19b) and (19c) respectively. (19) a. yә-sәw sīga bәll-a poss-human flesh eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He gossiped about people.’ b. nәfsә-bәll-a soul-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He was a cruel person.’ c.

sәw-bәll-a man-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He was a wicked person.’

Although the ‘destruction’ extension is more closely associated with bәl- than with t’әt’-, the latter does show some uses of this type, as shown in (20). In (20a), t’әt’- is used to mean ‘punch’; in (20b) there is a similar sense of the subject referent taking advantage of the object referent, specifically with respect to drinking alcoholic beverages. (20) a. t’әt’t’a-hu-t drink.perf-1sg.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘I punched him.’ (slang)



Amharic eat and drink verbs 

b. t ’әt’t’-a-ňň drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘I paid all his alcohol expenses.’

3.3  Affected agent In the literal senses of bәl- and t’әt’-, the sensory perception of the food or liquid being consumed is an integral part of the whole event being described, as discussed in Section 2.2. There are figurative extensions, too, where the intended meaning builds upon this facet of eating and drinking. In the figurative uses which exploit this aspect of eating and drinking, the subjects of bәl- and t’әt’- are strongly affected by the event. In (21), the subject referent enjoys a strong reputation, derived from the image of someone eating fire, presumably therefore being able to overcome any problem. (21) īsat yә-bәlla fire rel-eat.perf.3sg.m.sbj ‘(someone who) was skilled, knowledgeable’

The experience of weather conditions can be expressed through the image of ‘drinking’ as in (22). It is the affected agent feature of the drinking experience that allows t’әt’- to be extended to this kind of meaning. Other weather nouns, such as s’әhay ‘sun’, awara ‘dust’, and zīnab ‘rain’ may be used in this construction. (22) bīrd-u-n t’әt’t’a-hu-t cold-def-acc drink.perf-1sg.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘I was exposed to the cold.’

The a- causative construction supports a number of figurative uses of bәl- in the category of affected agent. The basic structure of such constructions is ‘someone causes x to eat y’ and in these figurative extensions the x is strongly affected. In all the examples given below in (23), the 1sg subject of the ‘eat’ verb is encoded as the 1sg.obj object -ňň suffix in accordance with the syntax of the a- causative construction. As is typical of the a- causative with embedded transitive verbs, the causee is an affected agent. The construction is associated with a beneficial effect in (23a) where the causer enables the causee to enjoy a dinner. In the remaining cases, however, there is only a harmful effect on the causer and the metonymies which feature in these examples (‘eat misery’, ‘eat hardship’, ‘eat suffering’, ‘eat feces’) make this clear. It should be clear from all these examples that the salient idea being conveyed concerns the affect of the event on the subject of the (figurative) eating, not the effect on the thing being (figuratively) eaten. So, for example, in the ‘eat

 John Newman & Daniel Aberra

feces’ example, we do not care that the feces might be destroyed or disappear; it is the effect of such an event on the eater of the feces that is paramount. (23) a. īrat-e-n a-bәll-a-ňň dinner-my-acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘He paid for my dinner/invited me for dinner.’ b. asar-e-n a-bәll-a-ňň misery-my-acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘He treated me cruelly.’ c. mәkәra-ye-n a-bәll-a-ňň hardship-my-acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘He gave me a hard time.’ d. ar-e-n a-bәll-a-ňň feces-my-acc caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj ‘He beat me badly.’/‘He defeated me.’/‘He made me suffer.’ e. afәr a-bәll-a-at soil caus-eat.perf-3sg.m.sbj-3sg.f.obj ‘He beat her to death.’

The verb t’әt’- can also participate in figurative uses which build upon the affected agent idea, as in (24a–b) where the subject enjoys the experience of the object referent. The causative construction in (24c–d) encompasses both beneficial and harmful effects on the causee. In (24c), the meaning builds upon the enjoyable experience of effect of drinking (the warmed, liquid form of) butter. This practice is considered to be a pleasant one and good for one’s health. In (24d), the meaning relates to the experience of being shot. (24) a. mahībәr t’әt’t’a group drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He joined, formed a relationship with a group.’ b. s’әhay-u-n t’әt’t’a-hu-t sun-def-acc drink.perf-1sg.sbj-3sg.m.obj ‘I enjoyed the sun.’ c.

k’ībe a-t’әt’t’-a-ňň butter caus-drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj-1sg.obj lit. ‘He made me drink butter.’/fig. ‘He made me extremely satisfied.’

d. t’īyyīt a-t’әt’t’-a bullet caus-drink.perf-3sg.m.sbj ‘He killed someone.’



Amharic eat and drink verbs 

3.4  Nominalized uses There are some nominal expressions which derive from bәl- and t’әt’- which may or may not involve a nominalizing suffix. The examples in (25) contain nominalizing suffixes: the -i nominalizer in (25a) and an instrumental -iya nominalizer in (25b). (25) a. wīha a-t’at’t’-i (→ at’ač’č’) water caus-drink.recip-3sg.f ‘husband or wife’ b. šīro mә-bl-iya stew (of black eyed beans) inf-eat-instr ‘penis’

In (25a), an expression referring to one’s husband or wife derives from the causative of a reciprocal, i.e., helping each other to drink. (25b), literally ‘an instrument to eat stew’ is a common euphemistic expression for a penis and presumably builds upon the idea of a connection between satisfying a woman sexually in exchange for being fed. There are other (rare) cases where a clausal structure functions as a referential expression, as shown in (26). The literal meaning of (26a) is ‘he ate feast’ which alludes to eating as a salient part of socializing, giving rise to the referential expression ‘close friend’. (26b) is a verbal complex consisting of two verbs zәgto- ‘he closed the house door’ and bәlla ‘he ate’. Here, the idea of seclusion suggested by eating or living behind closed doors has given rise to the meaning of ‘miser’. (26c) is, structurally, the causative of a reciprocal construction ‘you (feminine) made me fight (< ‘eat’) with someone’, which is taken to refer to a season of extreme feminine when fighting over available food resources might be expected. (26) a. gībrә-bәlla feast-eat.perf.3sg.m.sbj ‘close friend’ b. zәgto- bәlla closed (the house door).3sg.m- eat.perf.3sg.m.sbj ‘miser’ c.

a-balla-ššī-ňň caus-eat.recip.perf-2sg.f.sbj-1sg.obj ‘You (female) made me fight with someone.’/‘a season of extreme famine’

4.  Conclusion The Amharic ingestive verbs, bәl- ‘eat’ and t’әt’- ‘drink’ encode similar experiential realities: food or drink is taken into the mouth, the consumer experiences its taste,

 John Newman & Daniel Aberra

and finally the masticated food or the beverage is swallowed and finds its way into the stomach. Not surprisingly, then, the two verbs occur in similar linguistic patterns. They both exhibit a morphological structure typical of the most common “basic” verbs and they occur in identical morphosyntactic patterns. Both verbs give rise to figurative extensions relating to “internalization”, corresponding to the intake of food or drink, and “affected agent”, corresponding to the sensory experience of the consumer during eating or drinking. Clearly, though, there is a difference between eating and drinking in terms of just how the body interacts with the food or drink. Food undergoes changes in its form and texture through repeated biting, chewing, being mixed with saliva etc. which are missing from the process of drinking. This difference in the two types of ingestion manifests itself in different preferences for figurative extension. It is bәl- ‘eat’, rather than t’әt’- ‘drink’, which participates preferentially in figurative extensions relating to “destruction”. There is a tendency to use ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs to illustrate patterns of transitivity in grammars, perhaps arising out of a view that these are “simple” concepts to deal with. While we can conceive of eating and drinking events as simplistic wholes, the events are not as simple as they may first appear. There are multiple, sequential phases to each event and each phase is associated with its own kind of interaction. So, for example, if one focuses on eating as the processing of food within the mouth or body, then eating seems more like a one-participant, bodyinternal process, similar in some ways to thinking about a topic. If one focuses on bringing food to the mouth and then biting on it, eating seems more like a two-participant interaction between a person and the food. Most importantly, though, eating and drinking are accompanied by sensations of taste on the part of the consumer. Indeed, a good deal of cultural ritual, often involving extensive time and effort, surrounds the preparation of food and beverages which are designed to heighten the taste sensation. The sensation of taste accompanying eating and drinking is not some minor by-product of these events; rather it is at the very core of these events. As such, ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ verbs involve an “affected agent”. This facet of eating and drinking has important linguistic consequences across languages, well documented by Næss (this volume). In Amharic, the figurative extensions of bәl- and t’әt’- can not be fully appreciated without acknowledging the presence of an “affected agent” component of the meaning, carried over from the literal meaning of these verbs.

Abbreviations 1 = 1st person; 2 = 2nd person; 3= 3rd person; acc = accusative; caus = causative; def = definite; f = feminine; inf = infinitive ; instr = instrumental; m = masculine;



Amharic eat and drink verbs 

obj = object; pass = passive; perf = perfective; pl = plural; poss = possessive; recip = reciprocal; rel = relativizer; sbj = subject; sg = singular. We use C’ for an ejective stop and ī for the high central vowel.

References Amberber, Mengistu. This volume and [2002]. Quirky alternations of transitivity: The case of ingestive predicates. Originally published in Language universals and variation, Mengistu Amberber & Peter Collins (Eds), 2002, 1–19. Westport CT: Praeger. Bell, Sarah J. 1983. Advancements and ascensions in Cebuano. In Studies in Relational Grammar 1, David M. Perlmutter (Ed), 143–218. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Croft, William. 2001. Radical construction grammar. Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ethiopian Languages Research Center. 2001. Monolingual Amharic dictionary. Addis Ababa: Artistic Printers. Fulass, Hailu.1966. Derived nominal patterns in Amharic. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA. Getahun, Girma. 2003. Advanced Amharic lexicon. Munster: LIT Verlag. Hudson, Grover. 1997. Amharic and Argobba. In The Semitic languages, Robert Hetzron (Ed), 457–485. London: Routledge. Langacker, Ronald W. 1991. Concept, image, and symbol. The cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Næss, Åshild. This volume. How transitive are eat and drink verbs? Newman, John. 1997. Eating and drinking as sources of metaphor in English. Cuadernos de Filología Inglesa (special issue on Cognitive Linguistics) 6(2): 213–231. Newman, John. ms. Basic verbs.

Author index

A Abraham, R.C.  10, 13, 20, 21, 206, 230, 231, 248 Ahmad, M.  239, 243 Aikhenvald, A.Y.  3, 49, 51, 52, 91, 92, 96, 100, 102, 104, 145, 147 Alpher, B.  3, 19 Amberber, M.  6, 23, 30, 31, 45, 47, 93, 197, 209, 233, 253, 258 Anderson, E.N.  191 Andrews, A.  27 Axelrod, M.  114, 130, 134 B Babai, H.  155, 156, 167 Baker, M.  49 Barcelona, A.  189 Bargery, G.P.  231 Basso, K.  117 Bell, S.J.  258 Benor, S.B.  235 Berlin, B.  117 Blake, B.J.  32, 33 Blevins, J.  77 Bloomfield, L.  54 Böhtlingk, O.  171 Bowden, R.  102 Briggs, D.  158 Brown, C.  142 Buba, M.  3, 4, 6, 10, 13–15, 21, 24, 30, 174, 183, 186, 210, 217, 229, 231, 235 Bulmer, R.N.H.  69, 74 C Campbell, L.  55 Candy, T.  168 Carrier, J.  59 Carter, R.  117 Caughley, R.C.  8, 11, 12, 33, 34, 153

Chafe, W.  54 Chelliah, S.  57 Cherkawska, C.  16, 18, 206, 215 Christaller, J.G.  4, 20 Chung, S.  40 Comrie, B.  34, 45, 46, 53 Cook, E.-D.  136, 138 Cooreman, A  39 Croft, W.  145, 254 Crowell, T.H.  32 D Dabirmoghaddam, M.  156 Davidson, W.  117 De Ferrari, G.  11, 18, 19 de Reuse, W.  111, 112, 138–142, 146 Demoz, A.  48 Derr, B.W.  12, 13 Dixon, R.M.W.  30, 34, 49, 52, 102, 105, 106, 145, 233 Dobson, V.  80, 85 Doke, C.M.  11, 16 Donaldson, T.   78 Drabbe, P.  102 Draper, N.  104, 105 Draper, S.  104, 105 E Eather, B.  105 Elbert, S.H.  10 Elford, L.W.  117 Enfield, N.J.  198, 221 Evans, N.  4, 102, 105 F Family, N.  155, 156, 159, 167 Fellbaum, C.  58 Foley, W.A.  103 Folli, R.  156 Forge, A.  95 Franklin, K.J.  102, 104

Freudenburg, A.  102, 104 Fulass, H.  260, 261 G Gair, J.W.  31 Giacon, J.  78 Gibbs, R.W.  189, 230 Givón, T.  40 Glasgow, K.  105 Goatly, A.  174 Goddard, C.  65, 68, 69, 72, 80 Golla, V.  124, 125, 139, 141–143, 147, 150 Goode, P.  111, 112, 138–142, 146 Goossens, L.  196 Gouffé, C.  4, 21, 229–31 Groves, G.W.  4, 7 Groves, T.R.  4, 7 Guerssel, M.  viii, 31, 49, 50, 55, 56 H Haas, M.  117 Hargus, S.  115, 135, 136–138, 140, 144, 150 Harley, H.  156 Harrison, S.J.  94, 95, 97 Haspelmath, M.  13, 14, 33, 46, 60, 211, 233 Haude, K.  31, 32 Heath, J.  105 Heine, B.  230 Henderson, J.  80, 85 Hetzron, R.  47 Hoijer H.  117, 126, 141 Hook, P.  34, 241 Hooper, A.  2, 17 Hopper, P.  6, 39, 218, 234, 246 Housman, A.E.  10, 14 Hovdhaugen, E.  29 Howard, P.  145

  Author index Huddleston, R.  245, 247 Hudson, G.  254, 258 I Ives, J.W.  148 J Jackendoff, R  viii, 56, 61 Jacobs, R.A.  4, 7 Jaggar, P.J.  3, 4, 6, 10, 13–15, 21, 24, 30, 174, 183, 186, 210, 217, 229, 244 Jaxontov, S.J.  33 Jendraschek, G.  100, 102, 106 Jetté, J.  117, 118, 131, 138–140, 144 Joël, J.  126 Johnson, F.A.  191 Johnson, M.  142, 174, 195, 230, 238 Johnson, T.H.  10 Jones, E.  117, 118, 131, 138–140, 144 K Kakumasu, J.  52 Kari, J.  114, 118, 122, 128, 138, 139–143, 147 Karimi, S.  156 Kasuga, K.  180 Kazenin, K.  37 Keen, S.  105 Keenan, E.L.  34 Kemmer, S.  38, 39 Kibrik, A  29, 115 Kikuchi, Y.  181 Kilham, C.  77 Kim, J.  195 Kirsner, R.  46 Kittilä, S.  37 Koehn, E.  52 Koehn, S.  52 Kövecses, Z.  189 Krämer, M.  29 Krauss, M.  138, 148 Kundama, J.  102, 106 L Lakoff, G.  142, 156, 174, 195, 196, 230, 238 Landar, H.  117, 118–122

Lang, A.  10, 12, 17, 101, 102, 104, 105 Langacker, R.W.  2, 4, 5, 39, 201, 257 Laughren, M.  102, 105, 106 Laycock, D.C.  102, 104 Leer, J.  138, 148 Lehrman, A.  68 Leibniz, G.W.  68 Leman, N.K.  105 Leslau, W.  48 Levin, B.  58, 59 Levy, R.  235 Li, F.-K.  125 Lyons, J.  199 M Malcolm, D.M.  Manly, T.  53 Masica, C.P.  153 McDonough, J.  114 McIntyre, J.A.  239 Menning, K.  105 Minami, H.  191 Mithun, M.  117 Mohanan, K.P.  48–50, 58 Molesworth, J.T.  168, 170 Mondloch, J.L.  36 Monier-Williams, M.  171 Monsen, R.B.  4, 21 Morgan, W.Sr.  ix, 110, 115, 120, 123, 127, 135, 138–142, 146 Morice, A.-G.  138, 143 Morphy, F.  105 Mosel, U.  29 Munro, P.  39 N Næss, Å.  5, 6, 23, 27, 28, 30, 32, 34, 35, 38, 39, 110, 112, 153, 187, 197, 209, 259, 270 Nedjalkov, V.P.  33 Newman, J.  1, 4, 29, 33, 34, 36, 91, 93, 173, 174, 181–185, 189–191, 195, 196, 199–201, 204–208, 210, 214, 215–217, 221, 222, 225, 232, 233, 242, 245, 253, 254–256 Noonan, M.  5, 10 Norwegian, A.  145, 150

O Ono, S.  180 P Palmer, F.R.  39 Pardeshi, P.  34, 153, 154, 158, 167, 191, 233, 241 Partanen, J.  190 Patterson, R.  10 Pauwels, P.  195, 196, 206 Pawley, A.  69, 74, 101, 102, 104 Phone, W.  121, 138, 139 Pinnow, H.-J.  14 Polinsky, M.  46 Pullum, G.K.  245, 247 R Radden, G.  189 Randall, J.  59 Rice, K.  113, 114, 125, 132, 133, 142, 145 Rice, S.  4, 36, 92, 106, 113, 127, 137, 146, 148, 189–190 Roberts, J.  28, 98, 102, 104 Rosch, E.  37, 38 Roth, R.  171 Rushforth, S.  117 S Sadock, J.M.  30 Sakel, J.  29 Saksena, A.  33 Sapir, E.  109, 125, 126, 149 Sawagata, H.  180 Shibatani, M.  233 Sikakana, J.M.A.  Simon-Vandenbergen A.-M.  195, 196, 206 Smith, J.  102 Song, J.J.  9, 13, 174, 176, 195, 211, 216 Staalsen, L.  100 Staalsen, P.  100 Steen, G.J.  230 Swadesh, M.  11, 58 T Talmy, L.  230 Theroux, P.  207, 217 Thompson, C.  134

Author index    Thompson, S.A.  6, 39, 218, 234, 246 Timberlake, A.  40 Topping, D.M.  29 Tsujimura, T.  180 Turner, M.  195 Turner, R.L.  171 V Varma, V.   159

W Wadley, S.S.  12, 13 Welmers, W.E.   4, 22, 23 Weston, P.  102 Wierzbicka, A.  3, 6, 33, 58, 65, 68, 69, 72, 76, 80, 88, 123, 210, 221, 232, 245 Williams, K.  4, 21, 171, 229–231, 235, 244–246, 248 Wong, J.  72

Wood, V.  113 Wunderlich, D.  29 Y Yamaguchi, T.  173, 180, 199, 224 Young, R.  ix, 110, 115, 120, 123, 127, 135, 138–142, 146 Young, R.A.  102 Yusuf, H.R.  232, 240

Language index

A Afroasiatic  50, 229, 233 Ahtna  110, 111, 118, 122, 128–130, 133, 138–141, 143 Akan  3, 4, 20, 22, 23 Alamblak  102, 104 Algonquian  54, 109 Ambulas  102, 106 Amele  28, 104 Amharic  8, 12, 16–18, 30, 47, 48, 53, 54, 56–59, 61, 93, 233, 253, 254–256, 258, 260, 269, 270 Apache  111, 112, 119, 121, 138–142, 146 Apachean  110, 111, 118, 119, 123, 131, 136, 140, 149 Apalai  52 Arafundi  103, 106 Arapeshan  104 Arawá  106 Arrernte  80, 84–87 Asmat  102 Asmat-Kamorro  102 Athapaskan  4, 92, 106, 109–119, 122, 125, 126, 133, 134, 137, 138, 142, 144–150 Awiyakay  103, 106 B Babine  111, 136 Baniwa  52 Bare  52 Bear Lake (North Slavey)  132 Benabena  102 Berber  31, 47, 49–51, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 233 Biangai  104 Bininj Gun-wok  105 Boikin  102, 104, 105 Bororo  32 Burarra  105

C Carib  52 Carrier  111, 126, 136, 138, 143 Chadic  229, 231 Chamorro  29 Chepang  7, 8, 11, 33, 153 Chichewa  49 Chipewyan  111, 125 Chitimacha  11, 58 Classical Chinese  10 D Dalabon  105 Dehcho  111, 132 Dene  109–118, 120, 123–128, 130–132, 136–139, 141–150 Dene Sųłiné  111, 115, 116, 125–127, 131, 132, 136, 143 Dene Tha  111 Diné  111 Djapu  105 Dom  104 Dravidian  30, 49, 50 Duna  104 Duna-Bogaya  104 Dutch  46 Dyirbal  34, 106 E Enga  9, 12, 17, 102, 104, 105, 210 Ewe  3 F Far East Arnhem Land  105 G Gahuku-Benabena  102 Gala  104 Galice  111, 126, 141 German  37 Godoberi  29 Goilalan  104

Greek  13 Greenlandic  30 Gun-gurrng  4 Gunwinjgu  105 Gunwinjgu-Gunbarlang  105 Gupapuyŋu  105 H Hare (North Slavey)  132, 133 Hausa  3, 6, 7, 10, 13–15, 19–22, 24, 206, 207, 210, 216, 217, 229–231, 233–235, 242, 243, 249 Hindi-Urdu  60, 153–156, 158–160, 165–170 Hupa  111, 124–126, 139, 141, 143 I Iatmul  99, 100, 102, 106 J Jarawara  49, 52, 53, 106 Juang  14 K Kachin  8 Kalam  65, 69–75, 77–80, 84, 85, 87, 88, 101, 104, 147 Kalam-Kobon  101, 104 Kalkatungu  32, 33, 35 Kapriman  104 Karawari  103 Kayardild  105 Kewa  102, 104 Kharia  14 Kiribatese  4, 7 Kolami  30 Korafe  104 Korean  9, 13, 34, 168, 176, 195–197, 199, 200, 205, 210, 211, 213, 215–217, 219, 221, 222–226

  Language index Koromu  104 Koyukon  110, 111, 114, 117, 118, 122, 126, 130, 131, 134, 135, 138–140, 144 Ku Waru  104, 105 Kuman  102 Kwoma  102, 104 Kwoma-Nukuma  102 Kwusaun  102 Kyaka Enga  105 L Lak  37 Lango  5, 10 Lardil  105 Lower Sepik  102, 103 M Malayalam  47, 48–50, 53, 56, 58, 59 Manambu  91, 92–102, 104–106, 147 Mandarin  7, 9–11, 154, 199 Maningrida  105 Marathi  153, 154, 156, 160, 166–170 Maricopa  30 Mayali  4 Melpa  102 Menomini  54 Mianmin  102 Mon Khmer  53 Mosetén  29 Mountain (North Slavey)  132, 206, 207 Movima  31, 34 Mudbura  105 N Na-Kara  105 Navajo  109–111, 115, 116, 119–123, 125, 127, 135, 138–142, 146, 149, 150

Ndu  91, 97, 99, 102, 104, 106 New Guinea English  95 Ngardi  105 Ngari  84, 105 Nhanda  77 North Slavey  132 Northern Desert Fringe  105 O Ok  102 Onondaga  54 Orokaiva  104 P Palauan  30 Papuan  17, 69, 98, 101, 106, 147 Pipil  55 Puluwat  10 Q Quiché Maya  36 R Ritharngu  105 Roko-Rawo  104 Rumu  3, 7, 16, 19, 216 S Sahtu  111, 132 Samoan  29, 30 Sarcee  111 Sare  104 Sarsi  111, 125, 126 Sepik Hill  102, 104 Sinhala  30, 31, 34, 167 Sino-Japanese  175, 178 Sino-Korean  199, 200, 205 Sko  104 Slave  111, 125, 132, 133, 142, 145 South Slavey  111, 145, 150 Sre  53 Suchou  3

T Tahitian  17 Tangkic  105 Tariana  49, 51–53 Tok Pisin  95, 104, 105 Torricelli  104 Tsuu T’ina  111, 126, 135, 138, 150 Tupí-Guaraní  52 Turkish  34 U Urubu-Kaapor  52, 53 Uto-Aztecan  55 W Walman  104 Walmatjarri  105 Wangaaybuwan  78 Warekena  52 Warlmanpa  105 Warlpiri  65, 77–81, 83–85, 87, 88, 105, 106 Wik-Mungkan  77 Witsuwit’en  111, 115, 126, 134–138, 140, 144 Y Yahang  104 Yapa  105 Yelogu  104 Yengoru  102, 104 Yimas  103 Yir-Yoront  3, 7, 19, 20, 216 Yolngu  105 Yukatek  29 Yukulta  105 Z Zulu  3, 11, 16, 19, 207, 216

Subject index

A active zone  2, 3, 7, 201, 257 adversativity  34 adversity  173, 180, 182–184, 186, 188, 191 affected agent  5, 6, 27, 33, 34, 37, 110, 112, 144, 187, 259, 267, 268, 270 agent  34, 61, 164, 176, 187, 205, 206, 229 agent-oriented extensions  15, 196, 205, 207 ambitransitive  28, 48, 92, 98, 100, 101, 112, 240 antipassive  32, 35, 36, 41, 46 B borrowing  104, 149, 167, 168 C case-marking  31, 32 causative  24, 30, 41, 46, 47–53, 56–58, 61, 115, 126, 127, 149, 233, 253, 254, 258, 259, 262, 267, 268–270 cohyponymy  160, 161, 168, 169 conceptual universals  65 D destruction  1, 15, 16, 18–20, 166, 183, 185, 197, 204, 206, 207, 210, 212–218, 225, 238, 253, 261, 263, 264, 266, 270 diffusion  160, 167, 168  ditransitive  45, 46, 57, 61 E eurocentrism  87 evolution  2, 153, 156, 160, 163, 171 experiential reality  19, 24, 153, 173, 183, 190, 191

F force dynamics  2 frequentative  14, 15 G generic verb  91, 101, 102, 124, 126, 199 H honorifics  174, 180, 181, 190 hunger  9, 35, 106, 142, 144–146, 182, 201, 232, 238 hypernymy  161, 168–170 hyponymy  83, 199, 203 I indefinite object deletion  28, 35, 36 individuation  39 intake (of food/drink)  1, 3, 8, 9, 66, 80, 85–87, 130, 173, 182, 196, 201–203, 205, 255, 270 internal complexity  2, 3 internalization  8–10, 16, 183, 184, 186, 187, 197, 203, 206–210, 212, 213, 216, 217, 220, 221, 225, 242, 261, 262–264, 270 L labile (ambitransitive)  28, 29, 240 language contact  167 Lexical Conceptual Structure (LCS)  45, 46, 60 lexicalization  1, 140 M mastication  16, 119, 182, 183, 201, 202, 204, 214, 218, 221, 225, 255, 256

metaphor  12, 146, 174, 195, 208, 230, 231, 234, 238, 239, 247 metonymy  12, 140, 174, 179, 189, 195, 197, 225, 226 N Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM)  68 nominalization  99, 260 nourishment  9, 81, 182, 189, 191, 201 O object agreement  112, 257, 264, 265 P passive (adversative)  13, 14, 24, 30, 46, 56, 60, 115, 163, 184–186, 191, 211, 212, 216, 226, 233, 253, 260, 265, 271 patient-oriented extensions  19, 197, 205, 207, 212 perfectivity  6, 7 polysemy  1, 4, 8, 20, 22, 67, 71, 91, 102, 104, 105, 153, 163, 164, 199, 256 polysynthetic  30, 110, 238 possessor ascension  258 prototype  4, 27, 37, 38–40, 79 prototypical motivational scenario  72, 73, 75, 76, 79, 80, 83, 84, 86 R reciprocal  38, 253, 260, 269, 271 reduplication  32, 41, 107, 260 reflexive  34, 38, 41, 115, 149, 153 resultative  33, 45, 60, 239, 240

  Subject index S scientification  87 semantic molecules  75, 84 semantic primes  68, 69, 72, 75, 88, 123  suck (in NSM)    81–84

T thematic hierarchy  57 thematic roles  162 transitivity  23, 27, 35, 36, 38–40, 45, 46, 50, 55, 61, 73, 92, 93, 100, 113, 115, 229, 234, 241, 246, 249, 270

U unintransitive  164 W water (in NSM)  74

Typological Studies in Language A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers’ website, www.benjamins.com 87 Cyffer, Norbert (ed.): Negation Patterns in West African Languages and Beyond. Expected Forthcoming 86 Mahieu, Marc-Antoine and Nicole Tersis (eds.): Variations on Polysynthesis. The Eskaleut languages. x, 306 pp. + index. Expected April 2009 85 Givón, T. and Masayoshi Shibatani (eds.): Syntactic Complexity. Diachrony, acquisition, neurocognition, evolution. vi, 543 pp. + index. Expected March 2009 84 Newman, John (ed.): The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking. 2009. xii, 280 pp. 83 Corrigan, Roberta, Edith A. Moravcsik, Hamid Ouali and Kathleen M. Wheatley (eds.): Formulaic Language. Volume 2. Acquisition, loss, psychological reality, and functional explanations. xxii, 344 pp. + index. Expected March 2009 82 Corrigan, Roberta, Edith A. Moravcsik, Hamid Ouali and Kathleen M. Wheatley (eds.): Formulaic Language. Volume 1. Distribution and historical change. xxii, 295 pp. + index. Expected March 2009 81 Corbett, Greville G. and Michael Noonan (eds.): Case and Grammatical Relations. Studies in honor of Bernard Comrie. 2008. ix, 290 pp. 80 Laury, Ritva (ed.): Crosslinguistic Studies of Clause Combining. The multifunctionality of conjunctions. 2008. xiv, 253 pp. 79 Abraham, Werner and Elisabeth Leiss (eds.): Modality–Aspect Interfaces. Implications and typological solutions. 2008. xxiv, 422 pp. 78 Harrison, K. David, David S. Rood and Arienne Dwyer (eds.): Lessons from Documented Endangered Languages. 2008. vi, 375 pp. 77 Seoane, Elena and María José López-Couso (eds.): Theoretical and Empirical Issues in Grammaticalization. In collaboration with Teresa Fanego. 2008. x, 367 pp. 76 López-Couso, María José and Elena Seoane (eds.): Rethinking Grammaticalization. New perspectives. In collaboration with Teresa Fanego. 2008. x, 355 pp. 75 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt and Erin Shay (eds.): Interaction of Morphology and Syntax. Case studies in Afroasiatic. 2008. v, 234 pp. 74 Kurzon, Dennis and Silvia Adler (eds.): Adpositions. Pragmatic, semantic and syntactic perspectives. 2008. viii, 307 pp. 73 Ansaldo, Umberto, Stephen Matthews and Lisa Lim (eds.): Deconstructing Creole. 2007. xii, 292 pp. 72 Næss, Åshild: Prototypical Transitivity. 2007. x, 240 pp. 71 Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. (ed.): Reciprocal Constructions. With the assistance of Emma Š. Geniušienė and Zlatka Guentchéva. 2007. xxiii, 2219 pp. (5 vols.). 70 Zúñiga, Fernando: Deixis and Alignment. Inverse systems in indigenous languages of the Americas. 2006. xii, 309 pp. 69 Aranovich, Raúl (ed.): Split Auxiliary Systems. A cross-linguistic perspective. 2007. vii, 277 pp. 68 Abraham, Werner and Larisa Leisiö (eds.): Passivization and Typology. Form and function. 2006. x, 553 pp. 67 Veselinova, Ljuba N.: Suppletion in Verb Paradigms. Bits and pieces of the puzzle. 2006. xviii, 236 pp. 66 Hickmann, Maya and Stéphane Robert (eds.): Space in Languages. Linguistic Systems and Cognitive Categories. 2006. x, 362 pp. 65 Tsunoda, Tasaku and Taro Kageyama (eds.): Voice and Grammatical Relations. In Honor of Masayoshi Shibatani. 2006. xviii, 342 pp. 64 Voeltz, F. K. Erhard (ed.): Studies in African Linguistic Typology. 2006. xiv, 426 pp. 63 Filimonova, Elena (ed.): Clusivity. Typology and case studies of the inclusive–exclusive distinction. 2005. xii, 436 pp. 62 Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Cecilia E. Ford (eds.): Sound Patterns in Interaction. Crosslinguistic studies from conversation. 2004. viii, 406 pp. 61 Bhaskararao, Peri and Karumuri Venkata Subbarao (eds.): Non-nominative Subjects. Volume 2. 2004. xii, 319 pp.

60 Bhaskararao, Peri and Karumuri Venkata Subbarao (eds.): Non-nominative Subjects. Volume 1. 2004. xii, 325 pp. 59 Fischer, Olga, Muriel Norde and Harry Perridon (eds.): Up and down the Cline – The Nature of Grammaticalization. 2004. viii, 406 pp. 58 Haspelmath, Martin (ed.): Coordinating Constructions. 2004. xcv, 578 pp. 57 Mattissen, Johanna: Dependent-Head Synthesis in Nivkh. A contribution to a typology of polysynthesis. 2003. x, 350 pp. 56 Shay, Erin and Uwe Seibert (eds.): Motion, Direction and Location in Languages. In honor of Zygmunt Frajzyngier. 2003. xvi, 305 pp. 55 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt and Erin Shay: Explaining Language Structure through Systems Interaction. 2003. xviii, 309 pp. 54 Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. and R.M.W. Dixon (eds.): Studies in Evidentiality. 2003. xiv, 349 pp. 53 Givón, T. and Bertram F. Malle (eds.): The Evolution of Language out of Pre-language. 2002. x, 394 pp. 52 Güldemann, Tom and Manfred von Roncador (eds.): Reported Discourse. A meeting ground for different linguistic domains. 2002. xii, 425 pp. 51 Newman, John (ed.): The Linguistics of Sitting, Standing and Lying. 2002. xii, 409 pp. 50 Feigenbaum, Susanne and Dennis Kurzon (eds.): Prepositions in their Syntactic, Semantic and Pragmatic Context. 2002. vi, 304 pp. 49 Wischer, Ilse and Gabriele Diewald (eds.): New Reflections on Grammaticalization. 2002. xiv, 437 pp. 48 Shibatani, Masayoshi (ed.): The Grammar of Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation. 2002. xviii, 551 pp. 47 Baron, Irène, Michael Herslund and Finn Sørensen (eds.): Dimensions of Possession. 2001. vi, 337 pp. 46 Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., R.M.W. Dixon and Masayuki Onishi (eds.): Non-canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects. 2001. xii, 364 pp. 45 Bybee, Joan and Paul J. Hopper (eds.): Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure. 2001. vii, 492 pp. 44 Voeltz, F. K. Erhard and Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.): Ideophones. 2001. x, 436 pp. 43 Gildea, Spike (ed.): Reconstructing Grammar. Comparative Linguistics and Grammaticalization. 2000. xiv, 269 pp. 42 Diessel, Holger: Demonstratives. Form, function and grammaticalization. 1999. xii, 205 pp. 41 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt and Traci S. Walker-Curl (eds.): Reciprocals. Forms and functions. Volume 2. 2000. xii, 201 pp. 40 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt and Traci S. Walker-Curl (eds.): Reflexives. Forms and functions. Volume 1. 2000. xiv, 286 pp. 39 Payne, Doris L. and Immanuel Barshi (eds.): External Possession. 1999. ix, 573 pp. 38 Siewierska, Anna and Jae Jung Song (eds.): Case, Typology and Grammar. In honor of Barry J. Blake. 1998. 395 pp. 37 Giacalone-Ramat, Anna and Paul J. Hopper (eds.): The Limits of Grammaticalization. 1998. vi, 307 pp. 36 Newman, John (ed.): The Linguistics of Giving. 1998. xv, 373 pp. 35 Givón, T. (ed.): Grammatical Relations. A functionalist perspective. 1997. viii, 350 pp. 34 Givón, T. (ed.): Conversation. Cognitive, communicative and social perspectives. 1997. viii, 302 pp. 33 Fox, Barbara A. (ed.): Studies in Anaphora. 1996. xii, 518 pp. 32 Bybee, Joan and Suzanne Fleischman (eds.): Modality in Grammar and Discourse. 1995. viii, 575 pp. 31 Gernsbacher, Morton Ann and T. Givón (eds.): Coherence in Spontaneous Text. 1995. x, 267 pp. 30 Downing, Pamela A. and Michael Noonan (eds.): Word Order in Discourse. 1995. x, 595 pp. 29 Kahrel (PJK), Peter and René van den Berg (eds.): Typological Studies in Negation. 1994. x, 385 pp. 28 Givón, T. (ed.): Voice and Inversion. 1994. viii, 402 pp. 27 Fox, Barbara A. and Paul J. Hopper (eds.): Voice: Form and Function. 1994. xiii, 377 pp. 26 Lord, Carol: Historical Change in Serial Verb Constructions. 1993. x, 273 pp. 25 Svorou, Soteria: The Grammar of Space. 1994. xiv, 290 pp. 24 Perkins, Revere D.: Deixis, Grammar, and Culture. 1992. x, 245 pp.

23 Kemmer, Suzanne: The Middle Voice. 1993. xii, 300 pp. 22 Payne, Doris L. (ed.): Pragmatics of Word Order Flexibility. 1992. viii, 320 pp. 21 Downing, Pamela A., Susan D. Lima and Michael Noonan (eds.): The Linguistics of Literacy. 1992. xx, 334 pp. 20 Croft, William, Suzanne Kemmer and Keith Denning (eds.): Studies in Typology and Diachrony. Papers presented to Joseph H. Greenberg on his 75th birthday. 1990. xxxiv, 243 pp. 19:2 Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Bernd Heine (eds.): Approaches to Grammaticalization. Volume II. Types of grammatical markers. 1991. xii, 558 pp. 19:1 Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Bernd Heine (eds.): Approaches to Grammaticalization. Volume I. Theoretical and methodological issues. 1991. xii, 360 pp. 18 Haiman, John and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.): Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse. 1988. xiii, 428 pp. 17 Hammond, Michael, Edith A. Moravcsik and Jessica Wirth (eds.): Studies in Syntactic Typology. 1988. xiv, 380 pp. 16 Shibatani, Masayoshi (ed.): Passive and Voice. 1988. xi, 706 pp. 15 Austin, Peter (ed.): Complex Sentence Constructions in Australian Languages. 1988. vii, 289 pp. 14 Hinds, John, Shoichi Iwasaki and Senko K. Maynard (eds.): Perspectives on Topicalization. The case of Japanese WA. 1987. xi, 307 pp. 13 Never published. 12 Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. (ed.): Typology of Resultative Constructions. Translated from the original Russian edition (1983). Translation edited by Bernard Comrie. 1988. xx, 573 pp. 11 Tomlin, Russell S.: Coherence and Grounding in Discourse. Outcome of a Symposium, Eugene, Oregon, June 1984. 1987. viii, 512 pp. 10 Ransom, Evelyn N.: Complementation: its Meaning and Forms. 1986. xii, 226 pp. 9 Bybee, Joan: Morphology. A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form. 1985. xii, 235 pp. 8 Slobin, Dan I. and Karl Zimmer (eds.): Studies in Turkish Linguistics. 1986. vi, 294 pp. 7 Craig, Colette G. (ed.): Noun Classes and Categorization. Proceedings of a symposium on categorization and noun classification, Eugene, Oregon, October 1983. 1986. vii, 481 pp. 6 Haiman, John (ed.): Iconicity in Syntax. Proceedings of a symposium on iconicity in syntax, Stanford, June 24–26, 1983. 1985. vi, 402 pp. 5 Rutherford, William E. (ed.): Language Universals and Second Language Acquisition. 1984. ix, 264 pp. 4 Chisholm, William, Louis T. Milic and John A.C. Greppin (eds.): Interrogativity. A colloquium on the grammar, typology and pragmatics of questions in seven diverse languages, Cleveland, Ohio, October 5th 1981-May 3rd 1982. 1984. v, 302 pp. 3 Givón, T.: Topic Continuity in Discourse. A quantitative cross-language study. 1983. vi, 492 pp. 2 Haiman, John and Pamela Munro (eds.): Switch Reference and Universal Grammar. Proceedings of a symposium on switch reference and universal grammar, Winnipeg, May 1981. 1983. xv, 337 pp. 1 Hopper, Paul J. (ed.): Tense-Aspect. Between semantics & pragmatics. 1982. x, 350 pp.