Re: Go and come

Jean-François Colson wrote:

> The verbs "go" and "come" have very similar meanings.
>
> Are they really indispensable?
>
> For example if a lang has the following words:
> - dep = to move
> - da = to (direction)
> - xi = here
> - mow = home
> it would be possible to use "dep da xi" for "come here" and "dep da mow"
> for
> "go home".
Yes, such verbs are very interesting. In the case of go/come, however, I
think the important distinction (as with many other "reciprocal" verbs) is
"toward speaker ~toward focus of discourse" vs. "away from speaker ~focus".

Maybe too there could be an affix that "undoes" the action, so "sit down"
and "get up" would use the single root "sit"; similarly "go to bed : get
up", or "sleep : wake up"

Note "enter" = go in, come in; "exit" = go out, come out

Others with a similar focus distinction would be lend/borrow, buy/sell,
give/receive, bring/take (=carry), maybe put/take(away). Some Austronesian
languages use the same bases for some of these pairs, usually with different
verbal affixes.
>
> Are there natlangs which don't use different words for "go" and "come"?
Don't know of any, but it wouldn't surprise me :-)