Re: Translation pattern of `to have'?

Andreas:
> And wrote:
> >Daniel:
> > > 2. Possession. The verb "have" usually comes from a verb meaning
> > >    'to hold' or 'to grasp'. E.g. Sw. _ha_ < _hålla_.
> > >
> > >    I HAVE a dog.
> > >
> > > 3. I'm a bit uncertain about this one. It is supposed to be
> > >    something like Location. IIRC it's "Comitative" or "Movement
> > >    towards/Allative", i.e. "WITH me is a dog" or "TO me is a dog."
> >
> >There are some arguments for analysing possessive HAVE in English as
> >a special way of pronouncing underlying BE WITH. IOW, English
> >superficially looks like a (2) but is in fact a (3).
Actually, "I have a dog" = "I am with a dog", not "A dog is with me".

> Would you care to say what arguments? It sounds interesting ...
In brief, the relevant subtypes of HAVE and WITH have the same
semantics, the same relatively unusual complementation

  the man with his hands in his pockets
  the man has his hands in his pockets

  the man with no clothes on
  the man has no clothes on

and occur in complementary distribution, as in the above exx
and, e.g.

  the man with red hair
  the man has red hair

The "have" = "be with" equation seems a neat explanation and might
also serve to explain such things as *"a dog is had by me" (because
= *"a dog is been with by me", which is predictably ill-formed).

--And.

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