Main verb functions

This chapter surveys some functions of Acquire as a main verb in the primary sample languages, partly with reference to the description of main verb usage of Lao daj⁴ , described in §2 of Chapter 3. We begin with the ‘come to have’ meaning of Acquire, which in all the languages has a non-agentive/non-controlled meaning. The languages behave similarly in their application of the ‘come to have’ meaning to more abstract acquisition, such as ‘acquiring’ kin or rank. Differences between the languages become visible when we move into further meanings of Acquire, such as ‘know and have ability for’. We find also that some languages use Acquire with meanings that were not observed in Lao, including some grammatical functions (such as switch-reference in control complementation), and some more generalised meanings (such as ‘have’).