标签 · 形式结构
多动词结构
一个小句中两个及以上动词描述同一事件：副动词、连动、助动词链。
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How does a language say an action was done for someone?
English hangs a beneficiary on the end of the clause with “for”, or slips it in front of the object: cook a meal for her, cook her a meal. Elsewhere the verb itself carries the news. Swahili lengthens the stem, Tagalog rebuilds the clause around the person who profits, and across East and Southeast Asia into West Africa a second verb meaning “give” follows the first. Japanese splits that second verb three ways, so one act of cooking is worded differently depending on who ends up better off — and uses the passive when the answer is nobody.
How does “see” come to mean “try”?
Verbs of seeing repeatedly become markers of attempting. Japanese 食べてみる “eat and see”, Korean 먹어 보다, Mandarin 試試看, and the Turkic converb + kör- constructions all say “do it and see” for “try doing it”; Voinov (2013) traces the co-lexification across Eurasia, New Guinea, India, and West Africa.