Journal article
The benefactive construction in South Efate
Nick Thieberger
OCEANIC LINGUISTICS | UNIV HAWAII PRESS | Published : 2006
DOI: 10.1353/ol.2007.0010
Abstract
The benefactive construction in South Efate employs a prepositional phrase in the position immediately preceding the main verb. This position facilitates the expression of an additional participant in a sentence without competing for slots held by other participants (core arguments or adjuncts). Possessive morphology encoding the benefactive has been noted for other Oceanic languages, with distinct word-order marking a final stage of grammaticalization of the benefactive. While South Efate shares features with southern Vanuatu languages, it is shown that a preverbal benefactive is an areal feature of several languages to the north of South Efate, potentially supporting South Efate's position..
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