[Papuanlanguages] 'Eat' and 'burn'

[Alex Francois]

Dear Alan, dear all,

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.

Best,

Alex.

********
Alex François
LACITO - CNRS
7 rue Guy Môquet
F - 94801  Villejuif
  FRANCE
tel. priv. +33 (0)1.64.46.61.47.
tel. prof. +33 (0)1.49.58.37.48.

email  <Alexandre.Francois at vjf.cnrs.fr>
http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/membres/francois.htm
http://alex.francois.free.fr/
  ----- Message d'origine ----- 
  De : Alan Rumsey 
  Cc : papuanlanguages at anu.edu.au 
  Envoyé : mercredi 13 septembre 2006 15:20
  Objet : Re: [Papuanlanguages] 'Eating water' and elsewhere: a summary


  A further twist on all this eating and drinking:  as I have pointed out to Sasha, in Ku Waru (Western Highlands Province, PNG) the verb for 'eat'/'drink' (no-)is also the ordinary word 'burn' (in both the intransitive/unergative sense and the transitive/causative one). I would be interested to know how widespread that pattern is. If you have information to offer about this, please post it to the whole list as Martin has suggested.

  Alan

Les Bruce commented: 
'A comparative semantic study of such concepts would be interesting. This summer I have been collecting samples from different languages for concepts for hair (head and body hair), feathers, fur, and grass. Pidgin uses gras for all of these referents. How about starting a database for semantic typology to map different concepts around the world? I'd be interested.'
We would be, too!

Very best wishes

Sasha
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