# Descriptive vs. functional verbs?



## ThomasK

In Dutch one can say/write both *'een brief sturen aan' *and *'een brief sturen naar' *(sending a letter to). I now realize that the first one refers to the functional act, the speech (well...) act, if that is a correct description, the other one to the physical act, and that the distinction explains the difference in prepositions. 

It reminds me of speech acts. But it seems to me there is something similar with paying and buying: paying is a factual description of the process, buying is the functional-cultural interpretation of that process. Or that is what I think. There might be something similar with shooting and defending/ attacking, shooting and hunting, etc. 

But is that a accepted distinction? Are those existing categories? Do they have a separate syntax, in some respects at least? Do they 'behave' in different ways? Could the distinction be useful, didactically speaking?


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## berndf

Before we start philosophizing, I'd like to clarify a point: Would you use _een brief sturen naar_ also with a person or only with a location? I ask because this is the distinction in German: _senden an_+person vs. _senden nach_+location.


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## ThomasK

Interesting: we can send a letter _aan _and _naar _a person, but it seems to me that there is some difference the way I said, due to the fact that in one case the person is more like an indication of the physical destination.

I sincerely wonder if there is more to this distinction (and other similar ones) than I know right now. Thanks in advance.


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## berndf

Ok, then it is in principle the same as in German: _aan _indicates a recipient and _naar _a physical destination. The difference is just that a person can be regarded as both. I.e. the difference is only in the preposition not in the verb.


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## ThomasK

I agree, but the verb refers to some other semantic content, I think: physical or functional. Don't you think? Is that a distinction that is made in linguistics?


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## berndf

I honestly don't. The verbs are the same, the pronomial complements simply express different aspects of the action. If Franz lives in München you could say_ Ich sende einen Brief an Franz nach München_ to express both, recipient and destination.


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## ThomasK

Another desillusion then - but of course, that happens regularly, with me ;-)... Yet, we cannot combine the two the way you do in German: it is either _aan _or _naar_, we cannot combine them into one sentence. I am inclined to think that verbs with a different 'valentie/ Valenz' have some different meaning: with us either the sending as such, the other as turning to, addressing someone. In reality it might all boil down to the same thing, but not necessarily - in Dutch, or that is my feeling. 

But how about paying and buying? One is a money transaction, which might mean different things, whereas the other is acquiring. Would there be some way to categorize them differently?


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## e2-e4 X

ThomasK said:


> But how about paying and buying? One is a money transaction, which might mean different things, whereas the other is acquiring. Would there be some way to categorize them differently?


Sure. The practice shows that there is always a way to categorise something differently; it's just a matter of choosing a different point of categorisation… For example, paying is an incomplete action in respect to the expected result, while buying is a complete one. That is, you could pay money and not have anything in return, as it happens sometimes, while buying means both having paid money and having acquired the thing.

You could find very interesting this site on the account of word categorisation (the site is about Ithkuil, which is not only a constructed language, but also a philosophy behind it, which expresses itself in extensive categorisation).


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## ThomasK

Interesting viewpoint: incomplete vs. complete. I think there is something below that, but your reference to the result reminds me of the 'felicitous conditions' of speech acts... Thanks. 

As for the site: where in particular do you see the link? Some things remind me of case grammar, etc., semantic grammar, but do you see a clear link with my observation?


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## arielipi

I know in english this very much distinction exists, between physical and mind - learn vs study. you *learn *to ride a bike but you *study* for a test; though its not completely tied to what you asked.

are you asking about dutch only or in general?


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## e2-e4 X

ThomasK said:


> As for the site: where in particular do you see the link? Some things remind me of case grammar, etc., semantic grammar, but do you see a clear link with my observation?


No, I just see a lot of categorisation in the approach that the author chose; he classifies everything starting from the concepts in the vocabulary (see the introduction for details, as an example) and ending by his approach to morphology, in which, again, a lot of concepts is classified out, so that these concepts are obligatory to be expressed. No direct link to your specific observation.


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## ThomasK

No, Arielipi, trying to be general, very general. Both studying and learning might be descriptive, but something learning [to do something] may not work, I realize, along e2-e4 X's lines.


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## francisgranada

ThomasK said:


> Interesting viewpoint: incomplete vs. complete.


I don't think that paying is necesarilly incomplete and buying is complete. They simply mean two different things, even if it's normally true that the buying includes also the paying. Exaggerating a bit, we could also say that eating is incomplete but living is complete because it includes the eating as well ... 

I have the feeling that if we wanted to be _extremely precise_ in categorization then we should arrive to the conclusion that all verbs belong to so many categories that practically each verb represents a unique category _per se._


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## LilianaB

arielipi said:


> I know in english this very much distinction exists, between physical and mind - learn vs study. you *learn *to ride a bike but you *study* for a test; though its not completely tied to what you asked.
> 
> are you asking about dutch only or in general?



You can also learn new words for the test.


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## ThomasK

Thanks for the addition, but it reminds me very much of what e2-e4 suggested. I do realize that verbs can be categorised in so many ways, but starting from the Dutch _een brief sturen naar/ aan_, I thought there might be a substantial difference 'behind' them: as between speaking and promising, baptizing, warning (the so-called speech acts). It reminds me of *literal (naar = direction) vs. figurative (aan = addressing)*. I think eating is basically literal, concrete (descriptive) whereas living in the broad sense is figurative, I think. That seems almost too simple now though... ;-(


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## e2-e4 X

francisgranada said:


> I have the feeling that if we wanted to be _extremely precise_ in categorization then we should arrive to the conclusion that all verbs belong to so many categories that practically each verb represents a unique category _per se._


That's what I meant. Moreover, we can categorise verbs in so many ways, including very bizarre ones, that the question arises, which way is the true one, and the natural answer looks like, no one way is.


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## arielipi

Well, english is too easy for this, sure that many words fall in the same category, but if we look at it as a scale, each word takes a place on that scale.
hideous ugly neutral pretty charming, and so forth and backwards, if you say something is pretty its less than charming.

going to verbs: tell vs talk, the way i see it - talk is more equal level while tell suggests that the one telling is above the told person.

in hebrew this very thing exists in any word-category; perhaps i did not understand what exactly youre asking, if you could translate or explain the difference between the two dutch sentences itll help.


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## ThomasK

I must say I have not thought of the same phenomenon in another word category, wish to focus on verbs, but so far my idea is that this lit./fig. distinction might be of help in Dutch. Just like _zich richten naar/ tot _[to turn to]: they are not quite the same in that _naar _is a literal direction, but does not imply addressing anyone. The _tot _does. 

So that is a difference in meaning, that one could also refer to as descriptive vs. functional. However, I don't know whether something of this kind might be found - and be relevant - in other languages: do verbs behave differently depending on their 'status'??? .


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## arielipi

I still dont understand the difference,perhaps if you give a more concrete, full example.
Tamar, could you elaborate here in hebrew a second?


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## ThomasK

Do you see the difference between me turning to you and me addressing you? The first seems to be required in order to perform the other, but it is not the same. In Dutch there is a difference of preposition, based on the literal (turning to X) and the figurative sense (addressing you, with a particular message).


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## arielipi

what do you mean by turning to x?


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## ThomasK

X = someone. that is: turning one's face, one's body, to him --- but that might just be because s/he heard a noise, not because s/he wanted to address that person, to tell him something.


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## mataripis

ThomasK said:


> In Dutch one can say/write both *'een brief sturen aan' *and *'een brief sturen naar' *(sending a letter to). I now realize that the first one refers to the functional act, the speech (well...) act, if that is a correct description, the other one to the physical act, and that the distinction explains the difference in prepositions.
> 
> It reminds me of speech acts. But it seems to me there is something similar with paying and buying: paying is a factual description of the process, buying is the functional-cultural interpretation of that process. Or that is what I think. There might be something similar with shooting and defending/ attacking, shooting and hunting, etc.
> 
> But is that a accepted distinction? Are those existing categories? Do they have a separate syntax, in some respects at least? Do they 'behave' in different ways? Could the distinction be useful, didactically speaking?


you mean   say  vs   write?    In Tagalog, say is "Sabihan mo"   while   write is "Sulatan mo". Both have messages but the first one might have many ways. (by phone/face to face etc.)


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## ThomasK

That reminds me: there is *saying, speaking *and *telling*. The first two can be described objectively, whereas the essence of what happens in telling is hard to describe. Can you make the distinction?

In some way one might say one tells something in a letter, which shows that it is the function we express, not the means we use.


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## Youngfun

Hi ThomasK,
I've seen that in German and Dutch the verb for "study" is similar to lern-, does it mean both "study" and "learn"?

In my Chinese dialect, there is no distinction between see and look, between hear and listen, between say and speak and tell.

In Italian there's no difference between say and tell. To say "tell somebody" you say "say to somebody" (dire a qualcuno). But there is a specific word for "telling a story" (raccontare una storia).


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## ThomasK

I would not say they are similar. Their meaning is similar, but strictly speaking _people can be studying but not learning _a thing (because they don't understand for example). Can you make that distinction?

Say/ tell: _people say a lot, but they tell very little_. Can(not) you make that distinction? And can you apply the distinction to _listening and not hearing_, _watching and not seeing_??? 

I am looking forward !


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## Outsider

ThomasK said:


> In Dutch one can say/write both *'een brief sturen aan' *and *'een brief sturen naar' *(sending a letter to).


_Naar_ in that construct reminds me of the English word _near_ (I'm guessing it's _not_ a cognate of German _nach_, in spite of the possible syntactical similarity...) Do you think its meaning resembles that of _chez_ or _vers_ in French?


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## Youngfun

ThomasK said:


> I would not say they are similar. Their meaning is similar, but strictly speaking _people can be studying but not learning _a thing (because they don't understand for example). Can you make that distinction?


Yes, I do distinguish the two meaning.
I was asking for Dutch, because my cousin from Holland always puts "leren" (or something like that) on MSN status when she is studying.



ThomasK said:


> Say/ tell: _people say a lot, but they tell very little_


Italian only distinguish between say and speak/talk. I translate it as: _la gente parla un sacco, ma dice poco_. (people *talk* a lot, but *say* very little)
Unless, you want people telling stories or anedoctes, then you could also say: _la gente dice un sacco, ma racconta poco_. (_raccontare_ = tell, as in tell a story)

Mandarin Chinese has the word 告诉 that is similar to the English tell, so I think you can use it to translate this sentence: 人们说很多，但告诉很少。 
My dialect doesn't distinguish between _speak, talk, say _and_ tell_; so you have to rephrase it in a different way. For example: 伊俫人讲很多话，但是有用的话讲少显。(these people "say" a lot, but "say" very few useful things). 



ThomasK said:


> And can you apply the distinction to _listening and not hearing_, _watching and not seeing_???
> I am looking forward !


In Mandarin the distinction exists. Seeing is 见. Then you add 见 to listening and watching and form the other two verbs:
看 watching/looking + 见 = 看见 seeing*
听 listening + 见 = 听见 hearing

*So there is a doublet for seeing: 见 or 看见. Compare Chinese pidgin English _look-see_ = to see, which is a direct calque from Chinese.

You can also add 到 and form 看到 seeing  (lit. get to look) and 听到 hearing (lit. get to listen).

In my dialect "hearing" is rendered as 听着 (lit. get to listen), and "seeing" is rendered as 看着 (lit. get to look).

In Chinese see and hear are not distinct verbs, but are formed by look / listen + sort of preposition. 

Happy new year!


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## ThomasK

Outsider said:


> _Naar_ in that construct reminds me of the English word _near_ (I'm guessing it's _not_ a cognate of German _nach_, in spite of the possible syntactical similarity...) Do you think its meaning resembles that of _chez_ or _vers_ in French?


It certainly resembles _vers_, but not _chez_,I'd say, because _vers _refers to direction, whereas _chez _refers to location, I think... _(Thanks and a happy New Year full of discoveries)_


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## ThomasK

Youngfun said:


> Mandarin Chinese has the word 告诉 that is similar to the English tell, so I think you can use it to translate this sentence: 人们说很多，但告诉很少。
> My dialect doesn't distinguish between _speak, talk, say _and_ tell_; so you have to rephrase it in a different way. For example: 伊俫人讲很多话，但是有用的话讲少显。(these people "say" a lot, but "say" very few useful things).


I see, so there is a lexical addition explaining the other meaning... 



Youngfun said:


> In Mandarin the distinction exists. Seeing is 见. Then you add 见 to listening and watching and form the other two verbs:
> 看 watching/looking + 见 = 看见 seeing*
> 听 listening + 见 = 听见 hearing
> 
> *So there is a doublet for seeing: 见 or 看见. Compare Chinese pidgin English _look-see_ = to see, which is a direct calque from Chinese.
> 
> You can also add 到 and form 看到 seeing (lit. get to look) and 听到 hearing (lit. get to listen).
> 
> In my dialect "hearing" is rendered as 听着 (lit. get to listen), and "seeing" is rendered as 看着 (lit. get to look).
> 
> In Chinese see and hear are not distinct verbs, but are formed by look / listen + sort of preposition.
> 
> Happy new year!


But then: what is the meaning of 见 ? It cannot really be seeing, I think, because you can combne it with listening. Could it not be understanding rather? Like: listen = hearing + understanding, see = watching + understanding. The other one is perfectly clear: adding a perfective aspect (get to) to the verb. 

But can you also use either of those prepositions/... in other cases? That might be quite interesting !!! Happy - and creative, healthy - New Year to you too !


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## Youngfun

ThomasK said:


> I see, so there is a lexical addition explaining the other meaning...
> 
> 
> But then: what is the meaning of 见 ? It cannot really be seeing, I think, because you can combne it with listening. Could it not be understanding rather? Like: listen = hearing + understanding, see = watching + understanding. The other one is perfectly clear: adding a perfective aspect (get to) to the verb.
> 
> But can you also use either of those prepositions/... in other cases? That might be quite interesting !!! Happy - and creative, healthy - New Year to you too !


见 alone means already "to see". Although it's used more often in the meaning "to meet someone", or in phrases such as "refer to the table/see page 4".
Compound words in Chinese don't always have a logic. Most often two synonyms are put together to form a third synonim.
I forgot to say that you can also say 见到 for "to see".
I would say that there isn't much difference between 看见/看到/见到，or between 听见/听到.
The only sfumature is that the forms with 到 put more emphasis on "manage to see/manage to hear".


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## myšlenka

ThomasK said:


> In Dutch one can say/write both *'een brief sturen aan' *and *'een brief sturen naar' *(sending a letter to). I now realize that the first one refers to the functional act, the speech (well...) act, if that is a correct description, the other one to the physical act, and that the distinction explains the difference in prepositions.
> 
> But is that a accepted distinction? Are those existing categories? Do they have a separate syntax, in some respects at least? Do they 'behave' in different ways? Could the distinction be useful, didactically speaking?


 The distinction you suggest is probably more confusing than helpful. I am not sure how flexible the Dutch verb 'sturen' is, but the English verb 'send' can be used in various ways:
send money (transfer)
send for someone (to request that someone come to you)
send a letter
send an email (would that be different from sending a letter?)
send flowers (order flowers from a shop and have them delivered somewhere)

What is physical and what is functional here?


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## ThomasK

At least I do not wish to make things more confusing than helpful.

In this case 'to send for someone' is the only functional one here, as the rest refer to physical actions the function of which can be guessed whereas it is not unambiguous... I think I am looking for a parallel with speech acts, which must meet 'felicity conditions' for example in order to work.


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## Youngfun

Hi Thomas, you didn't answer my question by the way 


> I was asking for Dutch, because my cousin from Holland always puts  "leren" (or something like that) on MSN status when she is studying.


How do you say "study" and "learn" in Dutch?


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## myšlenka

ThomasK,
I can kind of understand what you mean when you claim that *een brief sturen aan* is 'functional' in that it involves a recipient (the whole letter sending frame is opened: sending, receiving, opening, reading) while the other is physical. I could easily send a letter to Amsterdam, a purely physical location with no recipient. But I have to say, I really don't see how the meaning of the verb changes. berndf is right when he says that it's the preposition that changes the whole thing. Didactically speaking, it's probably a lot easier to deal with *sturen aan + person* and *sturen naar + place* rather than some abstract concept of functional vs physical.


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## ThomasK

@Youngfun: please forgive me, I read your answer, but did not have the time to answer. Give me another 12 hours please... ;-(

@Myslenka: my point is didactic, you know --- in the long run! ;-) I found out that some prepositions imply a figurative interpretation, which seems to be 'functional' at the same time. And so I am now exploring whether this distinction has been made already and/or whether this distinction might account for certain syntactic and other phenomena, which I have not discovered (!). It must be a matter of (semantic) pragmatics, I guess; just like speech acts.

The background is: this distinction (fig./ lit.) helps learners of Dutch, but I was hoping/ supposing/... the distinction might prove useful in more ways...


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## myšlenka

Is it a distinction that is used when teaching Dutch?

I can construct similar examples in Norwegian, but the choice of prepositon is context-specific so there is no straightforward way to classify prepositions as this or that. I suspect the same is true for Dutch.


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## ThomasK

It is not a straightforward way perhaps, but this difference between _schrijven naar/ aan _seems fairly 'regular', the one between _zich richten naar/ tot _also. So I think it might be useful, whereas it is not one that is being used as far as I know --- but it would be more interesting if that distinction proved useful in other ways. So I am just exploring that hypothesis, seeing whether something useful can come out of that... (One of my starting points was that learners of Dutch find prepositions difficult - and so I do some research...)


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## myšlenka

ThomasK said:


> It is not a straightforward way perhaps, but this difference between _schrijven naar/ aan _seems fairly 'regular', the one between _zich richten naar/ tot _also. So I think it might be useful, whereas it is not one that is being used as far as I know --- but it would be more interesting if that distinction proved useful in other ways. So I am just exploring that hypothesis, seeing whether something useful can come out of that... (One of my starting points was that learners of Dutch find prepositions difficult - and so I do some research...)


Adpositions are difficult in all languages and people have probably tried to make a system in the chaos already without succeeding. It seems that you are merely inventing new labels for very generalized meanings. Learners of Dutch will still have to memorize the difference between _schrijven naar/aan_ and _zich richten naar/tot_, and they will probably have to do so on a verb-to-verb basis where this kind of alternation applies because different prepositions are involved.

You also wondered if this distinction, whatever it's basis is, could account for syntactic phenomena too. I personally don't think you find a special syntax related to this. They probably work like any other Preposition Phrase.


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## ThomasK

Well, at least it helps students to understand the meaning of _aan/tot _after/behind a verb, and I also tell them that lots of verbs with _aan/toe_-prefix have a Latin ad-equivalent (_toegang/ access, toegeven/ admit_, etc.). So that is certainly useful, but my underlying hypothesis might not work, quite possible -- too bad then. 

Syntax : I was not thinking of just PNPs, but also about the aspects of the verbs used, etc. --- but it might all turn out to be 'straw', too bad for me then, again.


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## ThomasK

Youngfun said:


> 见 alone means already "to see". Although it's used more often in the meaning "to meet someone", or in phrases such as "refer to the table/see page 4".
> Compound words in Chinese don't always have a logic. Most often two synonyms are put together to form a third synonim.
> I forgot to say that you can also say 见到 for "to see".
> I would say that there isn't much difference between 看见/看到/见到，or between 听见/听到.
> The only sfumature is that the forms with 到 put more emphasis on "manage to see/manage to hear".


I wondered: 
- Seeing is very broad here, very much like the English ‘to see’
- I still wonder about the fact that to hear can get the seeing ideogramme – or does it refer to managing to… ? Or is that what you are hinting at (not always a logic)? 
- The complex seeing 见到is probably the ‘true’, simple seeing _(I see you here_)
- The managing might be a very important element, and reminds me of felicity conditions of speech acts.


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## e2-e4 X

ThomasK said:


> - I still wonder about the fact that to hear can get the seeing ideogramme – or does it refer to managing to… ? Or is that what you are hinting at (not always a logic)?


Why do you think it is illogical? Seeing is the main kind of perception, so this affix might just refer to the perception as a whole when used as an affix. Maybe to the result of generic perception. This seems to be a very natural logic.


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## ThomasK

I understand what you mean, but I was surprised. , and that is why I ask for more information...


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## Youngfun

ThomasK said:


> I wondered:
> - Seeing is very broad here, very much like the English ‘to see’
> - I still wonder about the fact that to hear can get the seeing ideogramme – or does it refer to managing to… ? Or is that what you are hinting at (not always a logic)?
> - The complex seeing 见到is probably the ‘true’, simple seeing _(I see you here_)
> - The managing might be a very important element, and reminds me of felicity conditions of speech acts.



Modern Chinese has just too many irregulaties and idyosincracies, that it's not a very logical language.* 
While 见 has "to see" as the primary meaning, it has an extended meaning of "perceive, realize, find out, etc.".
More rarely, it can also be used with other sensorial verbs, such as 闻见* "to smell" (I don't know if English makes a distinction for smelling, similar to watching/seeing) and 摸见 "to touch and feel, to feel with tact".

*Classical Chinese was more logical on this aspect.
There is a crystalized phrase from Classical Chinese: "视而不见，听而不闻" = "watching and not seeing, listening and not hearing".

To increase the confusion... 闻/闻见 means "to hear" in Classical Chinese, but "to smell" in Modern Chinese.


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## ThomasK

That is all very interesting, and now I understand better. Thanks !


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## ThomasK

The interesting thing is how verbs describing physical activities are often the basis of other verbs, often derivations, ..., referring to abstract _things_. And Germanic languages, to some extent also other INdo-European languages, seem to use that _characteristic _very frequently. But I guess all languages do that to some extent: I guess the physical verbs are about always the basis of _'abstract verbs'_. [By using italics, I am indicating that I am not so sure that is the best term. Feel free to correct.]

I think that is didactically interesting. Should anyone know of *how that insight (basically Lakoff/ Johnson, I think) can be used, further explored*, please tell me.


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