Verbs of dividing and sharing: Towards a lexical typology

The paper explores the semantic domain of dividing and sharing from a typological perspective. The domain comprises verbs that encode the result of an action without specifying its manner. Verbs of dividing and sharing have not previously been studied cross-linguistically, unlike verbs with more specific meanings, such as ‘cut’, ‘break’, and ‘tear’. The study aims to describe the internal structure of the semantic domain and to identify its lexicalization strategies. It adopts the frame-based approach to lexical typology, which involves establishing generalized situations within a semantic domain. The analysis is based on a sample consisting of eight languages representing the Indo-European, Turkic, Uralic, and Abkhaz–Adyghe language families. I distinguish twelve generalized situations within the domain of dividing and sharing and present a semantic map of the domain. The central situation is the division of a whole physical object into parts, e.g. ‘to divide the dough into three parts’. It is distinct from (1) situations in which an object consisting of elements is divided into groups (e.g. ‘to divide students into groups’), and (2) situations in which parts of an object are given to a recipient (e.g. ‘to share a cake with a friend’). Two strategies for lexicalizing the domain are identified: (1) the dominant strategy, whereby a single verb covers most situations, and (2) the distributive strategy, whereby the division into parts and groups is lexicalized by one verb, and situations with participants receiving or using the object are lexicalized by another verb. Furthermore, the study shows that verbs of dividing and sharing are characterized by typical metaphorical and metonymic extensions attested across languages.