The Linguistics of Giving

Download or read book The Linguistics of Giving written by John Newman and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1998 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of papers twelve linguists explore a range of interesting properties of 'give' verbs. The volume offers an in-depth look at many morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of 'give' verbs, including both literal and figurative senses, across languages. Topics include: an apparent zero-morpheme realisation of 'give' in a Papuan language; noun plus causative-like suffix expressing the 'give' concept in Nahuatl; 'give' and other ditransitive constructions in Zulu; the complex verbal morphologies associated with 'give' verbs in Chipewyan, Cora, and Sochiapan Chinantec; the elaborate classificatory system found with 'give' verbs in Chipewyan and Cora; 'give', 'have' and 'take' constructions in Slavic languages; the expression of 'give' in American Sign Language; the origin of the German es gibt construction; the extension of 'give' to an adverbial marker in Thai, Khmer, and Vietnamese; the syntax and semantics of Dutch 'give'; first language acquisition of possession terms.