Kousatiefwerkwoord in Afrikaans as 'n sensor-motoriese metafoor

Abstract

Every human language provides a set of conventions for the mapping of communicative intentions unto utterances. According to J. H. Greenberg these encoding conventions are constrained by human tendencies to think and talk about images in certain set ways. This article looks into a very interesting case of the sensory-motor metaphor in Afrikaans - i.e. the way in which specific causative constructions in Afrikaans reflect the basic metaphor of a concrete human actor. It will be argued that the choice between a complex causative construction such as Hy laat die vleis ontvries and the corresponding simplex construction Hy ontvries die vleis is determined by the potential of the complex construction to express two salient events - the initiating and the resulting events - whereas the simplex construction expresses only one conceptual event.