Cover not available

In:Give Constructions across Languages
Edited by Myriam Bouveret
[Constructional Approaches to Language 29] 2021
► pp. 97–119

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Chapter 4
The French ditransitive transfer construction and the complementarity between the meta-predicates give, take, keep, leave

The hypothesis of a grammatical enantiosemy

 | Clesthia, Sorbonne Nouvelle University-Paris 3
Published online: 10 March 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.29.04leg
We revisit in this chapter the status and meaning of the French Ditransitive Transfer Construction. We show that the construction allows four interpretations that can be accounted for by the antonymous Meta-Predicates give, take, leave and keep. But how can the same construction be at the origin of contrary and even contradictory interpretations? The answer, in our opinion, lies in a particularity of the lexicon that is seldom taken into account in semantics and lexicology, namely enantiosemy, a property by which a lexical unit has two opposite meanings. Thus, we formulate the hypothesis that the Ditransitive Transfer scheme itself is an enantiosemic construction.
Article outline
  • 1.The problem
  • 2.Lexical dative and non lexical dative
    • 2.1Datives of equivalence
    • 2.2Lexical attributive datives
    • 2.3Non-lexical attributive datives
    • 2.4Lexical partitive datives or epistemic datives
    • 2.5Non-lexical partitive dative
    • 2.6Distinction between lexical dative and non-lexical dative
  • 3. Constructional approach and meta-predicates
    • 3.1Scenario 1: give
    • 3.2Scenario 2: take
    • 3.3Scenario 3: keep
    • 3.4Scenario 4: leave
    • 3.5Discussion
  • 4.The enantiosemic hypothesis
    • 4.1Lexical enantiosemy: Very brief historical overview
    • 4.2Lexcial enantiosemy: Some examples
    • 4.3Undifferentiated meaning
    • 4.5Consequences
      • 4.5.1Cognitive status of the ambivalent construction
      • 4.5.2Grammatical construction and ambivalence
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (37)
References
Abel, C. (1882). Linguistic Essays. London: Trubner & Co., Ludgate Hill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1884). Über den Gegensinn der Urworte. Leipzig: W. Friedrich.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benveniste, E. (1966). Remarques sur la fonction du langage dans la découverte freudienne. Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard, 81–82.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bleuler, E. (1911). Dementia praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien. Leipzig und Wien: F. Deuticke.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bohas, G. (1997). Matrices, étymons, racines: éléments d’une théorie lexicologique du vocabulaire arabe. Louvain-Paris: Peeters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cadiot, P. and Tracy L. (2003). Sur le sens opposé des mots. Langages, 150: 31–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caffi, C. (2010). Weakening or strengthening? A case of enantiosemy in Plato’s Gorgias. In G. Kaltenböck, W. Mihatsch & S. Schneider (Eds), New Approaches to Hedging. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 165–191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dat, F.M. (2009). Métathèse et homonymie en Hébreu biblique. Suvremena lingvistika, 67, 1–21.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Clerck, B., Bloem, A. & Colleman T. (2012). Transfer verbs with prepositionnal themes in English, Dutch and French: a contrastive analysis. In M. Van Peteghem, P. Lauwers, E. Tobback, A. Demol & L. De Wilde (Eds.). Le verbe en verve. Ghent: Academia PressGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foolen, A. (2004). Expressive binominal NPs in Germanic and Romance languages. In: G. Radden & K.-U. Panther (Eds.). Studies in Linguistic Motivation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 75–100.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1910 [1933]). Du sens opposé des mots primitifs. Essais de psychanalyse appliquée. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 59–67.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. (1995). Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hagège, C. (1985). L’homme de parole. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hamelin, L. and Legallois D. (2016). Une approche sémantique non prototypique de la construction transitive. Faits de Langue 45, 119–140. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haspelmath, M. (2005). Argument marking in ditransitive alignment types. Linguistic Discovery, 3. 1–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Henault, Ch. (2008). Eating beyond certainties. In M. Vanhove (Ed), From polysemy to semantic change: Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 291–301. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Herslund, M. (1988). Le datif en français. Louvain-Paris: Peeters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huguet, E. (1967). L’évolution du sens des mots depuis le XVIe siècle. Genève: Droz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kay, P. (2005). Argument structure constructions and the argument/adjunct distinction. In M. Fried & H. Boas (Eds.), Grammatical constructions: Back to the roots. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 71–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kemmer, S. & Verhagen A. (1994). The grammar of causatives and the conceptual structure of events. Cognitive Linguistics 5, 115–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klégr, A. (2013). The limits of polysemy: enantiosemy. Linguistica Pragensia 23(2), 7–23.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koch, P. (2016). Meaning change and semantic shifts. In P. Juvonen & M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm (Eds.). The Lexical Typology of Semantic Shifts. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, 21–66.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. (Theoretical Prerequisites, 1.) Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langacker, R.W. (1988). A usage-based model. In Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn (ed.), Topics in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 127–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leclère, Ch. (1978). Sur une classe de verbes datifs. Langue française, 39, 66–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Legallois, D. (2017) Pour une conception constructionnelle de la transitivité. Langages 194, 15–31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malchukov, A, Haspelmath, M. & Comrie, B (2010). Studies in Ditransitive Constructions: A Comparative Handbook. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Melis, L. (1996). The dative in Modern French. In W. Van Belle & W. Van Langendonck (Eds.). The dative. Descriptive studies, vol. 1, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 39–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ngai, S.S. (2015). Giving is receiving: the polysemy of the GET/give verb [tie53] in Shaowu”. In B. Nolan, G. Rawoens, E. Diedrichsen (Eds), Causation, Permission, and Transfer Argument realisation in GET, take, PUT, give and LET verbs. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 253–269.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rooryck, J. (1988). Critères formels pour le datif non lexical en français. Studia neophilologica, 60: 97–107. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shmelev, A. (2016). Semantic shifts as sources of enantiosemy. In P. Juvonen & M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm (Eds.) The Lexical Typology of Semantic Shifts, Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, 67–93.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Šercl’, V. ([1884] 1977). O slovax s protivopoložnymi znače-nijami. In Xrestomatija po istorii russkogo jazykoznanija, Sostavitel’ F.M.Berezin. Moskva: Vysšaja škola, 242–246.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tarde, G. (1897). L’opposition universelle. Paris: Félix Alcan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Teubert, W. (2010). Meaning, Discourse and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Velmezova, E. (2005). Les “lois du sens diffus” chez N. Marr. Cahiers de l’ILSL, 20: 343–361.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue