Verbs with the meaning of ‘falling’ in Cambodian

The paper proposes a description of modern Cambodian verbs with meanings that involve situations of falling. Lexemes with similar meanings are fairly numerous in Cambodian. The most frequent of these is thleak ‘fall’ which can be used to describe a majority of situations with objects falling down from a height. Situations of vertical objects falling can be described by two basic verbs (probably, quasi-synonyms): duəl and rɔlum. Another verb of falling is srɒk ‘drop’ with a limited scope of reference, as it can only describe falling drops of liquids. Cambodian has an extremely intricate lexical and semantic zone to reflect chaotic falling of a large number of uniform objects (meanings like ‘scatter’, ‘spill’, or ‘fly away in various directions’). Similar situations can be described by a group of conceivably synonymous lexemes (kɒmpʊɔp, kcat kcaːy, etc.).

All ‘falling’ verbs show a strong inter-combinability potential and can co-occur in serial constructions for various situations of falling. The most indicative is the verb thleak ‘fall’ found in serial constructions with all other ‘falling’ verbs. These serial constructions often include direction (coh ‘descend, move down’, ce:ɲ ‘go out’) or orientation (təw ‘go’, maok ‘come’) verbs. Also, serial constructions can be used where Cambodian lacks specific single lexemes for corresponding situations.

Metaphoric use of ‘falling’ verbs is not characteristic of Cambodian. The only verb demonstrating (rather infrequent and typologically predictable) metaphorization is thleak. Idiomatic phrases with thleak are fairly scarce.