Metaphorical extensions of 'eat' --> [OVERCOME] and 'drink' --> [UNDERGO] in Hausa

The consumption verbs ci ‘eat’ and shaa ‘drink’ in Hausa are rich sources of metaphorical extensions into a variety of cognate semantic domains (Gouffé 1966; Williams 1991). Prototypical ci ‘eat’ metaphors encode overcoming/control of a patient or theme by an animate/human agent (and part experiencer) functioning as subject, e.g., mun cii sù ‘we beat (ate) them’. Metaphorical transfers of shaa ‘drink’ usually have an undergo interpretation with a non-agential experiencer subject, e.g., sunàa shân wàhalàa ‘they are suffering (drinking) trouble’. Thus, the metaphorical overcome and undergo outputs are often maximally distinct in meaning, and these correlations are directly inherited from their differing physical/ontological properties: the eat act entails a higher degree of subject agentivity/manipulation and object affectedness, and is higher in transitivity than the drink act.