Abstract This paper investigates a semantic change from ‘bring’ to ‘give’, and the language-specific factors that determine when it may happen. Drawing on a corpus of blogs and an acceptability judgment experiment, we demonstrate an ongoing change in the meaning of the Hebrew verb hevi, usually glossed as ‘bring’: older speakers are more likely to use hevi for unambiguous bring events, whereas younger speakers are more likely to use it in contexts also compatible with give events, although not in the full range of ‘give’ contexts. We argue that this change is facilitated by the specific discourse profile associated with the verb hevi: (1) frequent uses of hevi in the Goal-theme construction, the Hebrew functional equivalent of the English double object construction, creating a “bridging context” for semantic change (2) frequent uses of hevi in which there is no real-world motion, facilitating the bleaching of the ‘agent motion’ component. We then examine the English verb bring, which is not undergoing a similar change, and demonstrate that it has a different discourse profile (namely, far fewer double object constructions and no-motion uses). Thus, while a ‘bring’>‘give’ change is well-motivated and potentially possible, the factors enabling it to actually happen are determined by the predominant discourse pattern characteristic of the verb.

中文翻译：

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“带来”（不）如何变为“给予”？

摘要本文研究了从“带来”到“给予”的语义变化，以及决定何时发生的特定于语言的因素。借助博客集和可接受性判断实验，我们证明了希伯来语动词hevi（通常被冠以“带来”）含义的持续变化：年龄较大的发言者更可能将hevi用于明确的带来活动，而年龄较小的发言者则更倾向于使用hevi更可能在与Give事件兼容的上下文中使用它，尽管不能在所有“ give”上下文中使用。我们认为，这种变化是由与动词hevi关联的特定语篇轮廓促成的：（1）在目标主题构造中频繁使用hevi，这与英语双宾语构造的希伯来语功能等同，为语义变化创建一个“桥接上下文”（2）hevi的频繁使用，其中没有现实世界的运动，从而促进了“代理运动”组件的漂白。然后，我们检查英语动词带来并没有发生类似的变化，并证明它具有不同的语篇特征（即更少的双重宾语构造和无动词用法）。因此，虽然“带来”>“给予”改变是有动机的，并且有可能发生，但使之真正发生的因素取决于动词的主要语篇模式特征。少得多的双重对象构造和无运动用途）。因此，虽然“带来”>“给予”改变是有动机的，并且可能是可能的，但使之真正发生的因素取决于动词的主要语篇模式特征。少得多的双重对象构造和无运动用途）。因此，虽然“带来”>“给予”改变是有动机的，并且可能是可能的，但使之真正发生的因素取决于动词的主要语篇模式特征。