Chapter 10. From injecting to planting
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James Essegbey
Abstract
Ewe, like many Kwa languages, has very few verbs. Some of them are said to be meaningless or light because they either do not have a translation equivalent in Standard Average European languages (SAE) or, where they do, they appear on the surface to have several meanings. In this paper, I discuss one of these verbs, namely dó. Although Westermann (1933) has only one entry for dó, he provides more than 20 subentries all with different categories of internal arguments. The entries include ‘to stretch out’, ‘trade’, ‘lend’, ‘fix a price’, and ‘plant. Rongier (2015), on the other hand, has more than a hundred entries for dó. Following Ameka (2019), I argue that while the multiple interpretations are presented in the dictionaries as though they are different meanings, they are actually contextual interpretations. I argue that when the argument structure constructions in which the verb occurs, and the semantics of the arguments with which it occurs are taken into consideration, many of the different interpretations that are provided for dó fall out from one invariant meaning.
Abstract
Ewe, like many Kwa languages, has very few verbs. Some of them are said to be meaningless or light because they either do not have a translation equivalent in Standard Average European languages (SAE) or, where they do, they appear on the surface to have several meanings. In this paper, I discuss one of these verbs, namely dó. Although Westermann (1933) has only one entry for dó, he provides more than 20 subentries all with different categories of internal arguments. The entries include ‘to stretch out’, ‘trade’, ‘lend’, ‘fix a price’, and ‘plant. Rongier (2015), on the other hand, has more than a hundred entries for dó. Following Ameka (2019), I argue that while the multiple interpretations are presented in the dictionaries as though they are different meanings, they are actually contextual interpretations. I argue that when the argument structure constructions in which the verb occurs, and the semantics of the arguments with which it occurs are taken into consideration, many of the different interpretations that are provided for dó fall out from one invariant meaning.
Chapters in this book
- 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgement vii
- Foreword ix
- Introduction 1
-
Section 1. Fieldwork
- Chapter 1. Linguistic fieldwork as team science 20
-
Section 2. Locative predication
- Chapter 2. Locative expressions and their semantic extensions in Tima 44
- Chapter 3. A comparative study of the basic locative construction in Gurenɛ, Asante-Twi, and Tongugbe 74
- Chapter 4. Adposition classes in Tafi and Sɛlɛɛ 99
- Chapter 5. Moving from verbs to prepositions in Gbe 128
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Section 3. Tense, aspect, mood and serialization
- Chapter 6. Lost siblings 154
- Chapter 7. The eventive functional sequence 189
- Chapter 8. Reduced complements 222
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Section 4. Verb semantics
- Chapter 9. Caused accompanied motion in a direction 238
- Chapter 10. From injecting to planting 263
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Section 5. Nominalization
- Chapter 11. Constructions with verbal nouns in Iraqw 286
- Chapter 12. Remarks on nominalised adjectives in Gã 314
- Author index 339
- Language index 341
- Subject index 343
Chapters in this book
- 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgement vii
- Foreword ix
- Introduction 1
-
Section 1. Fieldwork
- Chapter 1. Linguistic fieldwork as team science 20
-
Section 2. Locative predication
- Chapter 2. Locative expressions and their semantic extensions in Tima 44
- Chapter 3. A comparative study of the basic locative construction in Gurenɛ, Asante-Twi, and Tongugbe 74
- Chapter 4. Adposition classes in Tafi and Sɛlɛɛ 99
- Chapter 5. Moving from verbs to prepositions in Gbe 128
-
Section 3. Tense, aspect, mood and serialization
- Chapter 6. Lost siblings 154
- Chapter 7. The eventive functional sequence 189
- Chapter 8. Reduced complements 222
-
Section 4. Verb semantics
- Chapter 9. Caused accompanied motion in a direction 238
- Chapter 10. From injecting to planting 263
-
Section 5. Nominalization
- Chapter 11. Constructions with verbal nouns in Iraqw 286
- Chapter 12. Remarks on nominalised adjectives in Gã 314
- Author index 339
- Language index 341
- Subject index 343
