Cognate object: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:29, 27 May 2013

Revision as of 14:29, 27 May 2013

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===English===

In English, the construction can occur with a number of intransitive verbs:

*''He slept a troubled sleep.'' (i.e., He slept, and his sleep was troubled.)

*''He laughed a bitter laugh.'' (i.e., He laughed bitterly.)

*''He died a painful death.'' (i.e., He died painfully.)

*''He dreamed a strange dream.'' (i.e., He dreamed, and his dream was strange.)

** (Note: This seems to be the only example that has a more natural-sounding sentence that would be used in everyday conversation, i.e., ''"He had a strange dream."'')

*''He walked their walk and talked their talk.'' (i.e., He walked and talked as they did.)

*''He smiled a charming smile.'' (i.e., He smiled, and his smile was charming.)

*''He danced a cheerful dance.'' (i.e., He danced, and his dance was cheerful.)

In some of these cases, the cognate object allows for a simpler construction. In others, it may simply be chosen for [[idiom]]atic or [[rhetoric]]al reasons. In general, the cognate object's modifiers are in some sense modifying the verb: for example, ''He slept a troubled sleep'' tells how he slept. Semantically, many of these verbs denote modes of nonverbal expression (laugh, smile) and bodily actions or motions (dance, walk, sleep), specifically including what Levin calls "waltz verbs," those that are [[Conversion %28linguistics%29#Verbification|zero-related]] (i.e., identical) to the names of dances. <ref>{{cite book

| last = Levin

| first = Beth

| title = English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation

| publisher = The University of Chicago Press

| ___location = Chicago and London

| pages = 95-6

}}</ref>

==See also==

*[[Pleonasm]] (the use of more words than necessary to express an idea)

*[[Polyptoton]] (a stylistic scheme in which words derived from the same root are repeated)

==References==