1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Functions of Language
  4. Volume 24, Issue 3
  5. Article
Volume 24, Issue 3
  • ISSN 0929-998X
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9765
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Modern Chinese confirmative (as in (沒錯，我要毒死你) ‘that’s right. I really wanted to poison you to death’) is not an auxiliary but an adverb. It derives from the adjective ‘true, real’ in Old Chinese ( (偃之言也) ‘what Yan said was true’). The grammaticalization pathway of the Modern Chinese confirmative is different from that of the copula ( (老張貨車司機) ‘Laozhang is a truck driver’) or the auxiliary ( (老張開貨車，我開客車) ‘Laozhang drives a truck and I drive a coach car’). Modern Chinese confirmative , copula , and auxiliary have the same morphological form because they all appear to derive from the adjective or demonstrative ( (可忍，孰不可忍) ‘if this could be endured, is there anything else that could not be endured’) in Old Chinese. Such a pattern of morphological sameness seems to be cross-linguistically rare, if not unique.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/fol.15018.lon
2018-02-09
2021-12-07

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/fol.15018.lon
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Aijmer, Karin
    2008 The actuality adverbs in fact, actually, really and indeed: Establishing similarities and differences. Proceedings of the BAAL Conference2007. 111–120.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Biber, Douglas & Edward Finegan
    1988 Adverbial stance types in English. Discourse Processes11(1). 1–34. doi: 10.1080/01638538809544689
     https://doi.org/10.1080/01638538809544689 [Google Scholar]
  3. Bisang, Walter
    1998 Grammaticalization and language contact, constructions and positions. In Anna Giacalone Ramat & Paul J. Hopper (eds.), The limits of grammaticalization, 13–58. Amsterdam: Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/tsl.37.02bis
     https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.37.02bis [Google Scholar]
  4. Breitbarth, Anne , Karen de Clercq & Liliane Haegeman
    2013 The syntax of polarity emphasis. Lingua128. 1–8. doi: 10.1016/j.lingua.2013.02.004
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2013.02.004 [Google Scholar]
  5. Chan, Marjorie K. M. & Hana Kang
    (eds.) 2008 Proceedings of the 20th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-20). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Chang, Jung-Hsing
    2006 The Chinese copula shi and its origin: A cognitive-based approach. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics4(1). 131–156.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Diessel, Holger
    1999 Demonstratives: Form, function, and grammaticalization. Amsterdam: Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/tsl.42
     https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.42 [Google Scholar]
  8. Duan, Li-Fen 段莉芬
    1989 Excavated materials that contain copula shi (最早出現係詞“是”的地下資料). Studies of Chinese Language (6). 19–21.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Feng, Li
    1993 The copula in Classical Chinese declarative sentences. Journal of Chinese Linguistics21(2). 277–311.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt
    1986 From preposition to copula. In Vassiliki Nikiforidou , Mary VanClay , Mary Niepokuj & Deborah Feder (eds.), Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 371–386. doi: 10.3765/bls.v12i0.3316
     https://doi.org/10.3765/bls.v12i0.3316 [Google Scholar]
  11. He, Ya-Nan 何亞南
    2004 Tentative studies on the formation and developmental hierarchy of copula-overt copulative sentences: Also on the standards to discriminate the maturity of the copula (試論有判斷詞句產生的原因及其發展的層級性——兼論判斷詞成熟的鑒別標準). Research in Ancient Chinese Language (《古漢語研究》) 64(3). 24–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Heine, Bernd , Ulrike Claudi & Friederike Hünnemeyer
    1991 Grammaticalization: A conceptual framework. Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva
    2002 World lexicon of grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511613463
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613463 [Google Scholar]
  14. Hengeveld, Kees
    1992 Non-verbal predication: Theory, typology, diachrony. Berlin: Mouton. doi: 10.1515/9783110883282
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110883282 [Google Scholar]
  15. Hole, Daniel
    2011 The deconstruction of Chinese shì…de clefts revisited. Lingua121. 1707–1733. doi: 10.1016/j.lingua.2011.07.004
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2011.07.004 [Google Scholar]
  16. Hong, Xin-Heng 洪心衡
    1964 Studies on shi in Mencius (《孟子》裡的“是”字研究). Chinese Linguistics (《中國語文》) 133(6). 285–294.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Hopper, Paul J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott
    2003 Grammaticalization, 2nd edn.Cambridge: CUP. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139165525
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165525 [Google Scholar]
  18. Hsu, Yu-Yin
    2008 The sentence-internal topic and focus in Chinese. In Marjorie K. M. Chan & Hana Kang (eds.), 635–652.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Huang, C.-T. James 黃正德
    1988 On be and have in Mandarin Chinese (說“是”和“有”). The Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology59(1). 43–64.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Jacobson, Sven
    1978 On the use, meaning, and syntax of English preverbal adverbs. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell International.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Li, Charles N. & Sandra A. Thompson
    1977 A mechanism for the development of copula morphemes. In Charles N. Li (ed.), Mechanisms of syntactic change, 419–444. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Li, Kening
    2008 Contrastive focus structure in Mandarin Chinese. In Marjorie K. M. Chan & Hana Kang (eds.), 759–774.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Liang, Dong-Qing 梁冬青
    2002 New interpretation of shi-shi sentences in excavated files (出土文獻“是是”句新解). Chinese Linguistics (《中國語文》) 287(2). 130–136.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. 2007 Re-examining shi-shi sentences in excavated ancient documents (出土文獻“是是”句的再探討). Research in Ancient Chinese Language (《古漢語研究》) 74(1). 57–62.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Liang, Yin-Feng 梁銀峰
    2012 Mechanism for the formation of Mandarin copula shi (漢語係詞“是”的形成機制). Studies in Language and Linguistics (《語言研究》) 32(4). 43–49.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Liu, Min-Zhi 刘敏芝
    2006a New usages of the structural particle de in the Song Dynasty and their origins (宋代結構助詞“底”的新興用法及其來源). Chinese Linguistics (《中國語文》) 310(1). 59–64.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Liu, Yue-Xiao 刘悦霄
    (ed.) 2006b Mozi, selections of the essence of Chinese classics (《国学精华读本·墨子》). Hohhot: Inner Mongolian People’s Press (呼和浩特: 内蒙古人民出版社).
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Long, Hai–Ping 龙海平
    2011 Observing the “ta shi tou de zanchengpiao” construction from the indefiniteness of focus (从焦点不确定性看“他是投的赞成票”句式). Journal of Chinese (《汉语学报》) 34(2). 71–77.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Long, Hai-Ping
    2013 On the formation of Mandarin VdeO focus clefts. Acta Linguistica Hungarica60(4). 409–456. doi: 10.1556/ALing.60.2013.4.2
     https://doi.org/10.1556/ALing.60.2013.4.2 [Google Scholar]
  30. Long, Hai-Ping 龙海平 & Xiao-Ping Xiao 肖小平
    2009 Grammaticalization of achieved (shi)…de sentences in Mandarin Chinese (已然義“是……的”類句式的語法化). Language Teaching and Research (《語言教學與研究》) 136(2). 23–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. 2011 On “wo shi zuotian mai de piao” sentences and some related issues (“我是昨天買的票”句式及其相關問題). World Chinese Teaching (《世界漢語教學》) 25(3). 305–317.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Lorenz, Gunter
    2002  Really worthwhile or not really significant? A corpus-based approach to the delexicalization and grammaticalization of intensifiers in Modern English. In Ilse Wischer & Gabriele Diewald (eds.), New reflections on grammaticalization, 143–162. Amsterdam: Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/tsl.49.11lor
     https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.49.11lor [Google Scholar]
  33. Lü, Shu-Xiang 呂叔湘
    1987 On bushi that denotes reminding (談表提醒的“不是”). Chinese Linguistics (《中國語文》) 197(2). 320.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. (ed.) 1999 The eight hundred words in Modern Chinese (revised) (《現代漢語八百詞(增訂本)》). Beijing: Commercial Press (北京: 商務印書館).
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Mao, Yu-Lin 毛玉玲
    1994 More on copula shi and demonstrative shi (判斷詞“是”和指示代詞“是”再探討). Journal of Yunnan Normal University (Issue for Philosophy and Social Sciences) (《雲南師範大學哲學社會科學學報》) 26(3). 82–87.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Matthews, Peter Hugoe
    1997 Oxford concise dictionary of linguistics. Oxford: OUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Mei, Zu-Lin 梅祖麟
    1998 Several pathways that repeated in the history of Chinese grammar (漢語語法史中幾個反復出現的演變方式). In Xi-Liang, Guo 郭錫良 (ed.), Essays on the grammar of Ancient Chinese (《古漢語語法論文集》), 15–30. Beijing: Chinese Linguistics Press (北京: 語文出版社).
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Meisterernst, Barbara
    2010 Object preposing in Classical and Pre-Medieval Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics19(1). 75–102. doi: 10.1007/s10831‑010‑9056‑x
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s10831-010-9056-x [Google Scholar]
  39. Paul, Waltraud & John Whitman
    2008  Shi...de focus clefts in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistic Review25(3/4). 413–451.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Peyraube, Alain & Thekla Wiebusch
    1994 Problems relating to the history of different copulas in Ancient Chinese. In Matthew Y. Chen & Ovid J. L. Tzeng (eds.), In Honor of William S-Y. Wang: Interdisciplinary studies on language and language change, 383–404. Taipei: Pyramid Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Progovac, Ljiljana
    1994 Negative and positive polarity: A binding approach. Cambridge: CUP. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511554308
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511554308 [Google Scholar]
  42. Pustet, Regina
    2003 Copulas: Universals in the categorization of the lexicon. Oxford: OUP. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199258505.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199258505.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  43. Qigenhu 七根胡 2006 Puti beauty (《菩提美人》). Shijiazhuang: Huashan Arts and Literature Press (石家庄: 花山文艺出版社).
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Qiu, Xi-Gui 裘錫圭
    1979 On the importance of Ancient Chinese writings to Ancient Chinese research (談談古文字資料對古漢語研究的重要性). Chinese Linguistics (《中國語文》) 153(6). 437–442.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Ramón García, Noelia
    2008  Really in an English-Spanish parallel corpus. In Luis Pegenaute , Janet Decesaris , Merce Tricás & Elisenda Bernal (eds.), Actas del III Congreso Internacional de la Asociación Ibérica de Estudios de Traducción e Interpretación (volume II), 113–124. Barcelona: PPU.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Ren, Xue-Liang 任學良
    1980 The hypothesis that copula shi appeared in Pre-Qin Era (判斷詞“是”見於先秦說). Journal of Hangzhou Normal College (Issue for Social Sciences) (《杭州師範學院學報（社會科學版）》) 2. 40–45.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Rullmann, Hotze
    1997 Review of The syntax of negation . Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics1(2). 157–176. doi: 10.1023/A:1009784217541
     https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009784217541 [Google Scholar]
  48. Sheng, Yi-Min 盛益民
    2014 A reference grammar of the Shaoxing Keqiao Wu Dialect (《吳語紹興柯橋話參考語法》). Tianjin: Nankai University PhD thesis.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Shi, Dingxu
    1994 The nature of Chinese emphatic sentences. Journal of East Asian Linguistics3(1). 81–100. doi: 10.1007/BF01733150
     https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01733150 [Google Scholar]
  50. Shi, Yu-Zhi 石毓智
    2005 The relationship between copula, focus, emphasis and comparison: The function and usage of shi (論判斷、焦點、強調與對比之關係——“是"的語法功能和使用條件). Studies in Language and Linguistics (《語言研究》) 25(4). 43–53.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Shi, Yu-Zhi 石毓智 & Jie Xu 徐傑
    2001 The typological changes of question forms in the history of Mandarin and their mechanisms: The formation of focus marker shi and its influence (漢語史上疑問形式的類型學轉變及其機制——焦點標記“是”的產生及其影響). Chinese Linguistics (《中國語文》) 284(5). 454–465.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Soh, Hooi Ling
    2007 Ellipsis, last resort, and the dummy auxiliary shi ‘be’ in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistic Inquiry38(1). 178–188. doi: 10.1162/ling.2007.38.1.178
     https://doi.org/10.1162/ling.2007.38.1.178 [Google Scholar]
  53. Stassen, Leon
    1994 Typology versus mythology: The case of the zero-copula. Nordic Journal of Linguistics17(2). 105–126. doi: 10.1017/S0332586500002961
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586500002961 [Google Scholar]
  54. Sun, Chaofen
    2006 Chinese: A linguistic introduction. Cambridge: CUP. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511755019
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511755019 [Google Scholar]
  55. Tan, Guo-Qing 譚國清
    (ed.) 2003 Four books and five classics of Chinese classics (I) (《中華藏典·四書五經（一）》). Beijing: Xiyuan Press (北京: 西苑出版社).
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Tang, Yu-Ming 唐鈺明
    1991 Studies on the transformation of Archaic Chinese copulative sentences (上古判斷句的變換考察). Chinese Linguistics (《中國語文》) 224(5). 388–389.
     [Google Scholar]
  57. 1993 Discriminating copulative sentences in Archaic Chinese (上古判斷句辨析). Research in Ancient Chinese Language (《古漢語研究》) 21(4). 10–12.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Richard B. Dasher
    2002 Regularities in semantic change. Cambridge: CUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Wang, Jian 王健 & Jin-Song Gu 顧勁松
    2011 Copula dou in the Lianshui Mandarin dialect (漣水話的系词“鬥”). Chinese Linguistics (《中國語文》) 345(6). 532–535.
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Wang, Li 王力
    1989 History of Chinese grammar (《漢語語法史》). Beijing: Commercial Press (北京: 商務印書館).
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Wang, Wei-Hui 汪維輝
    1998 The time that the copula shi develops into maturity (係詞“是”發展成熟的時代). Chinese Linguistics (《中國語文》) 263(2). 133–136.
     [Google Scholar]
  62. Wang, Wei-Hui 汪維輝 & Bo Hu 胡波
    2013 The issue of corpus application in the study of Mandarin history: Also on the time for the maturity of copula shi (漢語史研究中的語料使用問題——兼論係詞“是”發展成熟的時代). Chinese Linguistics (《中國語文》) 355(4). 359–370.
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Waters, Cathleen
    2008  Actually, it’s more than pragmatics, it’s really grammaticalization. Toronto working papers in linguistics: General papers. twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/twpl/article/viewFile/6537/3506.
     [Google Scholar]
  64. Wei, Ting-Chi
    2010 A movement and resumption approach to VP-ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies40(1). 113–158.
     [Google Scholar]
  65. Wu, Chu-Cai 吳楚材 & Diao-Hou Wu 吳調侯
    2010 Guwen guanzhi (《古文觀止》). Hangzhou: Zhejiang Classics Press (杭州: 浙江古籍出版社).
     [Google Scholar]
  66. Wu, Xiao-Ming 鄔宵明
    (ed.) 1986 Interpretation of Yanzi Chunqiu (《〈晏子春秋〉譯注》). Guiyang: Guizhou People’s Press (貴陽: 貴州人民出版社).
     [Google Scholar]
  67. Xiao, Ya-Man 肖婭曼
    2005 The Comparison of shi declarative and ci declarative in Archaic Chinese (上古“是”判斷句與“此”判斷句之比較). Research in Ancient Chinese Language (《古漢語研究》) 68 (3). 11–15.
     [Google Scholar]
  68. Xu, Bai-Ling 許柏齡
    1988 The various functions of shi and their developments (“是”的多種功能及其發展). Social Scientist (《社會科學家》) (2). 58–66.
     [Google Scholar]
  69. Xu, Liejiong
    2003 Remarks on VP-ellipsis in disguise. Linguistic Inquiry34(1). 163–171. doi: 10.1162/ling.2003.34.1.163
     https://doi.org/10.1162/ling.2003.34.1.163 [Google Scholar]
  70. Xu, Xi-Chang 許錫昌
    2011 Readings on the essence of the Analects of Confucius (《論語精華研讀》). Xiamen: Xiamen University Press (廈門: 廈門大學出版社).
     [Google Scholar]
  71. Yen, Sian L.
    1971 On negation with fei in Classical Chinese. Journal of the American Oriental Society91(3). 409–417. doi: 10.2307/600259
     https://doi.org/10.2307/600259 [Google Scholar]
  72. 1986 The origin of the copula shi in Chinese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics14(2). 227–242.
     [Google Scholar]
  73. Yin, Hong-Bo 尹洪波
    2011 Studies on the syntax and semantics for the co-occurrence of negation and adverbs (《否定詞與副詞共現的句法語義研究》). Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (北京: 外語教學與研究出版社).
     [Google Scholar]
  74. Yin, John Jing-hua
    2006 Fundamentals of Chinese characters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  75. Yuan, Yu-Lin 袁毓林
    2004 Cognitive perspective of Mandarin grammar research (《漢語語法研究的認知視野》). Beijing: Commercial Press (北京: 商務印書館).
     [Google Scholar]
  76. Yue, Anne O.
    1998  Zhi in Pre-Qin Chinese. T’oung Pao84(4/5). 239–292. doi: 10.1163/1568532982630660
     https://doi.org/10.1163/1568532982630660 [Google Scholar]
  77. Zhang, He-You 張和友 & Sze-Wing Tang 鄧思穎
    2010 On the syntax and semantics of idiosyncratic copula sentences and empty categories (與空語類相關的特異型“是”字句的句法、語義). Contemporary Linguistics (《當代語言學》) 12(1). 14–23.
     [Google Scholar]
  78. Zhang, Qing-Mian 張慶綿
    1978 On copula shi in Mencius (談《孟子》中的係詞“是”). Journal of Liaoning University (Issue for Philosophy and Social Sciences) (《遼寧大學學報(哲學社會科學版)》) (4). 86–90.
     [Google Scholar]
  79. Zhu, Cheng 朱城
    2004 On the gloss and interpretation of second shi in shi-shi juxtaposition in excavated ancient documents (出土文獻“是是”連用後一“是”字的訓釋問題). Research in Ancient Chinese Language (《古漢語研究》) 65(4). 34–37.
     [Google Scholar]
  80. 2008 Re-examining the glossary and interpretational issue of the second shi in shi-shi sentences in excavated ancient documents (出土文獻“是是”句後一“是”字的訓釋問題再議). Research in Ancient Chinese Language (《古漢語研究》) 81(4). 71–77.
     [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1075/fol.15018.lon
Loading
Modern Chinese confirmative shi
Functions of Language 24, 294 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.15018.lon
/content/journals/10.1075/fol.15018.lon
/content/journals/10.1075/fol.15018.lon
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error