LINGUIST List 12.1631

Wed Jun 20 2001

Sum: "Eat" as an Auxiliary

Editor for this issue: Marie Klopfenstein <marielinguistlist.org>

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  • Ashild Naess, "Eat" as auxiliary

    Message 1: "Eat" as auxiliary

     Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 16:38:13 +0200
    From: Ashild Naess <A.Naesslet.kun.nl>
    Subject: "Eat" as auxiliary


    Dear linguists,

    last week I posted a query on the list about languages using the verb "eat" as an auxiliary. I got quite a few responses and would like to thank everyone that took the time to reply. The responses are summarized below for those interested.

    First of all, Miriam Butt pointed out that the Hindi-Urdu example I gave in my original posting is actually a case of an N-V complex predicate construction rather than an auxiliary in the strict sense of the word. She referred me to T.Mohanan 1994, "Argument Structure in Hindi", CSLI Publications for information on this construction type in Hindi and to the handout "The Status of Light Verbs in Historical Change" on her webpage http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/home/butt/ for discussion on the distinction between light verbs and auxiliaries in Hindi-Urdu.

    Mikael Parkvall and David Fertig referred me to the 1990 article "The grammaticization of passive morphology" by Martin Haspelmath, in Studies in Language 14 (1), 25-72. This article mentions the use of "eat" as a passive marker in Korean and the Munda languages Kharia and Juang.

    Katsunobu Izutsu and Jee-Hong Kim also mentioned the construction in Korean, where "eat" seems to contribute a sense of adversativity or unexpectedness/accident, and provided examples. (Since this is becoming a long posting I will not quote any examples here, but I will be happy to provide them on request to anyone interested.)

    Lance Eccles told me Chinese has a number of fixed expressions with "chi" (eat) + noun, such as "chi ku" (eat bitterness) = "suffer", "chi li" (eat surprise) "be surprised" and others. Hsieh Feng-fan said Middle colloquial Chinese used "chi" (eat) as a passive marker.

    Gerjan van Schaaik told me about the use of the verb "yemek" (eat) in Turkish with the meaning of "undergo/get" and provided examples. Ivan A. Dershanski also mentioned Turkish as well as Persian and Bulgarian. I also got information on Persian from Lameen Souag, Ahmad R. Lotfi, and Johannes Reese.

    John Newman told me of the Tibeto-Burman language Chepang which has grammaticalized "je?" (eat) to a verbal suffix denoting either emotion with respect to situation, or completion/finality of the situation. Reference: Caughley, R.C. 1982. "The syntax and morphology of the verb in Chepang". Canberra: Australian National University. He also provided an example of Hausa "shaa" (drink) used as an auxiliary with "frequentive" meaning, quoting the following reference: Jagger, P. 1977. "The nature and function of auxiliary verbs in Hausa". In: P. Newman & R.M. Newman (eds.), "Studies in Chadic Linguistics", 57-87. Leiden: Afrika-Studiecentrum.

    Brenda-Joyce Clark mentioned the use of "eat" as an auxiliary in the Australian language Mara, as noted briefly in Sharpe, M.C. 1976. "Alawa, Mara and Warndarang", in R.M.W. Dixon (ed.): "Grammatical categories in Australian languages", 708-734. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

    Finally, Mark Brand alerted me to the use of "eat" in English expressions such as "to eat humble pie" and "to eat one's hat", all involving various degrees of humiliation.

    Thanks again to everyone who responded.



    �shild N�ss

    University of Nijmegen Erasmusplein 1 6525 GG Nijmegen THE NETHERLANDS

    +31 24 3616028

    a.naesslet.kun.nl