LINGUIST List 17.1664

Thu Jun 01 2006

Qs: 'Give Fear' ('Frighten')-type Expressions

Editor for this issue: Jessica Boynton <jessicalinguistlist.org>

---

Directory         1.    Josep Alba-Salas, 'Give Fear' ('Frighten')-type Expressions

---

Message 1: 'Give Fear' ('Frighten')-type Expressions
Date: 28-May-2006
From: Josep Alba-Salas <jalbaholycross.edu>
Subject: 'Give Fear' ('Frighten')-type Expressions


I am studying certain Spanish expressions formed with the verb dar ‘give’plus a noun designating a psychological state or condition, as in (1).Their typical use is illustrated in (2).

(1) a. dar miedo ‘frighten’ (literally ‘give fear’) b. dar envidia ‘make (someone) envious’ (lit. ‘give envy’) c. dar asco ‘disgust’ (lit. ‘give disgust’) d. dar alegría ‘make (someone) happy’ (lit. ‘give happiness’) e. dar tristeza ‘sadden’ (lit. ‘give sadness’) f. dar vergüenza ‘shame’ (lit. ‘give shame’)

(2) A Lola le dan miedo las arañas. to Lola to-her give-3pl fear the spiders ‘Spiders frighten Lola.’

Two quick notes. First, some of these ‘give’ expressions can also be formedwith other verbs (e.g. meter miedo ‘frighten’ literally put ‘put fear’),and they can be paraphrased with ‘heavy’ verbs that are morphologicallyrelated to the nouns combining with dar (e.g alegrar ‘make (someone)happy’, cf. (1d)), but these alternatives are not my main concern here.Second, in French, Italian and Catalan, the equivalents of (1) typicallyinvolve the verb ‘make’, rather than ‘give’, e.g. Italian fare paura‘frighten’ (literally, ‘make fear’).

I would like to know how these expressions are formed in other languages. Iam particularly interested in Basque, Arabic, Latin (Classical and/orMedieval), Portuguese and Galician, but any information about otherlanguages, both within and outside the Romance family, will be greatlyappreciated.

Specifically, I would appreciate it if you could

a. Indicate whether cases like (1) in your language(s) involve the verb‘give’ or ‘make’, providing a few relevant examples (ideally, withglosses). [If you want to, you can also indicate whether such ‘give’/’make’expressions can be paraphrased with other verbs, just as in Spanish.];

b. Provide any information about their historical origin (do they seem tobe ‘genuine’ language-internal developments, or calques from anotherlanguage?), as well as their use (e.g. in which varieties and/orregisters?); and/or

c. Indicate any sources (e.g. on-line corpora, historical dictionaries)that I could use to answer these questions in your language(s).

Obviously, I will post a summary of all contributions.

Thank you very much for your help.

Josep

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics                             Typology