[Papuanlanguages] 'Eat' and 'burn'

[Karl_Franklin at sil.org]

The article by Deibler (Deibler, Ellis W. 1971. "Uses of the verb ‘to say’ 
in Gahuku." Kivung 4: 101-10) may be helpful. Gahuku, also Alekano is a 
Papuan language spoken in the Goroka, EHP area.

Karl Franklin



Stuart Robinson <stuart at zapata.org> 
Sent by: papuanlanguages-bounces at anu.edu.au
12/13/2006 07:50 PM
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Re: [Papuanlanguages] 'Eat' and 'burn'






In relation to Alex Francois' post from a few months ago, I wanted to ask
about another type of 'colexification'/polysemy--namely, between 'say' and
'make/do'. I have found that in Rotokas (East Papuan, Bougainville) there
is a single verb stem (pura) which means either 'to say' when it is
intransitive or 'to make' or 'to do' when it is transitive. I am wondering
how common this sort of things is in the region. Can people steer me to
some examples of other languages in the region that also have a single
term covering both meaning?

Thanks in advance,
Stuart Robinson

> I am an Austronesianist/Oceanist specializing in the Oceanic languages
> of north Vanuatu -- as well as the languages of Vanikoro, spoken in the
> easternmost Papuan-speaking area (Temotu/ Santa Cruz, Solomons).  The
> languages I have data on (full list here) all distinguish 'eat'
> (generally a reflex of POc *kani) from 'drink' (generally <POc *inum),
> as well as 'hungry' from 'thirsty', or 'eat' from 'smoke'.
> 
> However, it is common for them to lexify in the same way 'eat' and
> 'burn', the latter always with 'fire' as its subject -- e.g. "My house
> has been burnt" will be Lit. 'My house, fire has eaten it'
>         "He died in a fire"  => Lit. 'A fire ate him dead'
> 
> In this case, 'eat' may be either transitive (the fire consumes s.th. or
> s.o.) or intransitive ("the fire's eating" = it is lighted). However,
> unlike Ku Waru, 'eat' cannot be used with other subjects than the fire,
> to translate the causative/agentive meanings of Eng. 'burn' (e.g. They
> burnt my house)
> 
> As far as I can remember, I found the same polysemy in Teanu, spoken on
> Vanikoro. [a language supposedly Austronesian, but which might be in
> fact Papuan (?)]
> 
> If this case of "colexification" (as I call it) of 'eat' and 'burn' is
> common in PNG and in north Vanuatu, of course it would be interesting to
> know if this is also the case in the area in-between (i.e., Eastern PNG
> + Solomons) -- in which case this would be a nice case of a lexical
> isogloss encompassing a large area of the Pacific.


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