Sunday, December 13, 2015

Detail #244: Verbs of Movement, Pseudoreflexives and Shenanigans therewith

Many languages have reflexives originating with body-parts, such as 'head', 'body', or even 'bone' or the somewhat  "not quite there" 'soul'. 

Now, consider how many languages have many intransitive verbs of movement formed by the same pattern as reflexive verbs, c.f. Swedish röra sig, flytta sig.

Now, let's imagine that verbs of movement  take particular body-parts instead of the 'generic reflexive' body part: walk legs, jump hands (in the case of jumping forward, when the hands are flung back), rise head. Dance ass.

However, the meaning of some might have evolved over time so the connection between the body part and the verb isn't all that obvious any longer: turn belly, creep hands, lie face (from a verb meaning 'to direct upwards', and refers, of course, to lying on one's back).


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