Grmmz in Chinese

Elly van Gelderen4 November 2013

What do we know about grammaticalization/cycles?

Lexical > grammaticalloss of semantic featuressome loss of phonological weightin tree:specifier to head

higher up

To be reviewed

Two kinds of leba/jiangbeigeidaomei

Characteristics of East Asian (e.g. Thai and Chinese)

• No specifier > head• Lex > Gramm > more Gramm• Areal similarities• Increase in synthetic

History1200 BCE: Archaic Chinese (oracle bones)

500 BCE-200 CE: Old Chinese (shanggu hanyu)

201 - 1000 CE: Middle Chinese (zhonggu hanyu)

1001 – 1900: Early Mandarin (jindai hanyu)

Present: Modern Mandarin (xiandai hanyu)

Liao > leliao meaning `to complete' among other

meanings, and lai `to come' (Sun 1996: 85; 178; Shi 2002). These are typically elements in the light verb position that come to be generated higher.

In addition to Post, Wu (2000; 2004) provides instances of serial verbs grammaticalizing. Her scenario:

(1) V O liao > V-le OV2 is reanalyzed as aspect marker

Le: V > ASP(1) Zhang San ca-gan-le boli

Zhang San wipe-dry-LE glass`Zhang San wiped the glass dry.'

(Sybesma 1999: 76).(2) VP

V XPca X YP

le DP Yboli gan (Sybesma 1999: 76)

Sun (1996 chapter 4) on le

Two le-elements: aspectual suffix on V and sentential `clitic’:

(1) wo chi le fan leI eat ASP food ASP`I have eaten’.

(2) Negative bu only with final le (p. 84)(3) The first is a suffix and the second a

clitic.

Origin is from: le, ye, liao, lai

- Suffix < liao

- Clitic < lai `come’ (p. 92):

(3) shenmo chu qu lai 12th C

what place go LAI`Where have you been?’ (Sun 98)

Grmmz of the two le-elementsSun (102-107)

loss of phonology specialization bondedness (must be followed by NP)scope

From HuangAspectual suffixes:Mandarin has developed at least 3 aspectual suffixes:zhe, le, guo. Their presence entails an Aspectualprojection with ASP that attracts the verb (V-to-ASP). (auxiliary aspects (mei)you & zai) are also available).

Min-Taiwanese does not have the suffixal aspectmarkers, but uses auxliary aspects (u, te). No V-to-T.

Cantonese has even richer suffixal aspects, including–sai ‘all’, etc. V-to-ASP-to-x, higher than MandarinCantonese > Mandarin > Min

Ba: V > OM(1) zui ba zhu-gen-zi xi kan

drunk BA dogwood careful look`While drunk, I carefully took the dogwood and carefully looked at it', or `While drunk, I carefully looked at the dogwood'.

(2) wo ba shu mai leI BA bookbuy PF`I bought the book' (Li & Thompson 1981: 21)

Old Chinese(1) Yu qing ba tian zhi rui-ling ...

Yu himself take heaven ZHI mandate`Yu himself took the mandate of heaven ...' (Me-zi, Li & Thompson 1974: 202)

(2) ... yin ba jian kanshould hold sword see`I should take the sword and see it' (Tang dynasty poem, Li & Thompson 1974: 202-3)

Chen Chen Sun 2007

(1) vPwo v'

v ASPPba shu ASP'

ASP VPba shu V'

Vmai

Sun 1996: ba and jiang `replace’ yi

Zhu (1957) and Bennett (1981): yi is originally used in Old Chinese and expanded.

(1) yao yi tianxia yu shunYao YI world give Shun`Yao gave the world to Shun’ (Mengzi Wanzhang shang, Sun 59-60)

Grmmz: Sun 78-81Sun uses Lehmann- Phonological reduction- specialization (Jiang no longer ok in

Mandarin; only ba is)- bondedness (must be followed by NP)- scope (only part of VP)

Jiang: Archaic > Tang

(1) Wu jiang da chenot take big wagon`Don’t take the big wagon.’

(2) Jiang tianzi ming yi zongrongjietake emperor order give commander

`He took the emperor’s order to give to …’ (both from Hwang 2000: 27)

To Modern Cantonese

(3) Zhengfu jiang xin jihua gongbu legovernment OM new plan publicize

ASP`The government has publicized a new

plan.’ (Hwang 2000: 29)

(jiang now needs other V and cannot be marked by le)

bei: ‘receive’ > passiveThis is work by Bennett (1981), Sun (1996:

63), Post (2007) etc:(1) bei shui han zhi hai Old Chinese

receive water cold ZHI damage`Receive damage from flood and cold’

(2) bei huo shao-siPASS fire burn-die‘.. was burned to death by fire.’

Gei `give’: Serial V > P(1) ta gei Li Si xie le xin

s/he give LS write ASP letter`S/he wrote a letter to/for Li Si.’ (Hwang 2000: 11)

(le doesn’t appear after gei)

Similar with ho in Southern Min and pun in Hakka (see Ivy’s work)

Old Chinese > Mandarin Chinese

(1) fu yu gui shi ren zhi suo yu yeRiches and honor this men GEN NOM desire P‘Riches and honor, this is men’s desire.’

(Whitman 2000: 234)

(12) jiang shi xiang jing-feijibo ben suowill D CL funding-transfer D

organization‘He will transfer these funds to our organization.’(Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese)

Shi/zhi: dem>copula(15) Shi shi lie gui Old Chinese

this is violentghost ‘This is a violent ghost.’ (Whitman 2000: 234)

(16) Zhe shi lie gui Mandarin‘This is a violent ghost.’ (Mei Ching Ho p.c.)

(17) Shi wo de zuo Mandarin be 1S POSS fault ‘It’s is me (who is) at fault.’ (Hui-Ling Yang, p.c.)

(18) Shi wo Mandarinbe 1S ‘It’s me.’ (Hui-Ling Yang, p.c.)

Chinese and Thai(1) ta dao Zhongguoqu le

he to China go PF`He went to China.' (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 45)

(2) Dεεŋ sɔɔn leeg haj Sudaa haj phyan Dang teach arithmetic give Suda give

friend`Dang taught arithmetic to Suda for his friend'. (Bisang 1998: 771)

Mei(1) wo mei you shu Chinese

I not be book`I don't have a book'.

(2) Yao Shun ji mo ... Old ChineseYao Shun since died`Since Yao and Shun died, ...' (Mengzi, Tengwengong B, from Lin 2002: 5)

(3) yu de wang ren mei kunan, ... Early Chwish PRT died person not-be suffering`If you wish that the deceased one has no suffering, ...' (Dunhuang Bianwen, from Lin 2002: 5-6).

Conclusion

History of Chinese is full of V > AUX, V > P, D > T, (V > Adv)

not of full phrase > head

Adverbs are possibly phrasal?

(1) Shihua shuo zhezi shi ni zuo leHonest say this-time be you wrong LE`Honestly this time you were wrong'.

(Ji 2006)