Contents › Section 4: Typology › answer 8 of 16
Do other languages distinguish the verbs "to drink" when talking about alcohol?
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The verb 'to drink' is polysemous in English with the senses being at least
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to consume any liquid; in this sense, the verb can be used both transitively (I drink water) and intransitively (when somebody's thirsty, they drink). This sense is also available in any tense/aspect ('I drink water every day' and 'I'm drinking water right now.')
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to consume alcohol; in this sense the verb can only be intransitive and used in habitual aspect only ('He drinks' vs. '*He's drinking right now')
These different senses will be differentiated in English by context. There are also other words that refer to drinking that add some additional meanings (e.g. quaff).
Other languages will differentiate between these different senses lexically and others will do both.
For instance, Czech has two sense of the word drink: 'Franta pije vodu' vs. 'Franta pije'. But it also has the verb 'chlastat' that only means 'to drink alcohol excessively'. 'Chlastat' is lower register so the neutral 'pít' would be used in more formal situations.
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