E-Book Overview
Benefactives are constructions used to express that a state of affairs holds to someone’s advantage. The same construction sometimes also serves as a malefactive, whose meanings are generally not a simple mirror image of the benefactive. Benefactive constructions cover a wide range of phenomena: malefactive passives, general and specialized benefactive cases and adpositions, serial verb constructions and converbal constructions (including e.g. verbs of giving and taking), benefactive applicatives, and other morphosyntactic strategies. The present book is the first collection of its kind to be published on this topic. It includes both typological surveys and in-depth descriptive studies, exploring both the morphosyntactic properties and the semantic nuances of phenomena ranging from the familiar English double-object construction and the Japanese adversative passive to comparable phenomena found in lesser-known languages of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The book will appeal to typologists and linguists interested in linguistic diversity and it will also be a useful reference work for linguists working on language description.
E-Book Content
Benefactives and Malefactives
Typological Studies in Language (TSL) A companion series to the journal Studies in Language. Volumes in this series are functionally and typologically oriented, covering specific topics in language by collecting together data from a wide variety of languages and language typologies.
Editor Spike Gildea
University of Oregon
Editorial Board Balthasar Bickel
John Haiman
Marianne Mithun
Bernard Comrie
Martin Haspelmath
Doris L. Payne
Denis Creissels
Bernd Heine
Franz Plank
William Croft
Paul J. Hopper
Anna Siewierska
Nicholas Evans
Andrej A. Kibrik
Dan I. Slobin
Carol Genetti
František Lichtenberk
Sandra A. Thompson
Leipzig
Leipzig / Santa Barbara Lyon
Albuquerque Canberra
Santa Barbara
St Paul
Leipzig Köln
Pittsburgh Moscow
Auckland
Santa Barbara Eugene, OR Konstanz
Lancaster Berkeley
Santa Barbara
Volume 92 Benefactives and Malefactives. Typological perspectives and case studies Edited by Fernando Zúñiga and Seppo Kittilä
Benefactives and Malefactives Typological perspectives and case studies Edited by
Fernando Zúñiga University of Zurich
Seppo Kittilä University of Helsinki
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdamâ•›/â•›Philadelphia
8
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Benefactives and malefactives : typological perspectives and case studies / edited by Fernando Zúñiga, Seppo Kittilä. p. cm. (Typological Studies in Language, issn 0167-7373 ; v. 92) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Grammar, Comparative and general--Benefactive constructions. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general--Case. 3. Case grammar. I. Zúñiga, Fernando. II. Kittilä, Seppo. P291.27.B46â•… 2010 415--dc22 2010000735 isbn 978 90 272 0673 2 (Hb ; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 8831 8 (Eb)
© 2010 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents Preface List of contributors Introduction. Benefact