ABSTRACT
Across the peninsula of mainland Southeast Asia, languages again and again display a complex grammatical pattern involving a word which we may label ‘Acquire’. Here are the features of the pattern, in schematic terms: a verb meaning ‘come to have’ (as in (1)) is used as a postverbal modal element (as in (2)), a marker introducing a postverbal adverbial phrase (as in (3)), and a preverbal aspectual marker of ‘attainment’ (4):
He Acquire fish. ‘He got fish.’
He fry fish Acquire . ‘He can fry the fish.’ ‘He managed to fry the fish.’
He fry fish Acquire fast. ‘He fried the fish fast.’
He Acquire-fry fish. ‘He did fry the fish.’ ‘He got to fry the fish.’
