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Volume 47, Issue 2
  • ISSN 0378-4177
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9978
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Abstract

Abstract

This paper addresses the development of the Chinese V O cleft construction, and how the cleft constructional network was developed in the history of Chinese. It is argued that V O clefts emerged in the 13th century which was about 300 years later than VP clefts. A key factor in their development is the use in Middle Chinese of relative clause in post-copula position. We argue that the emergence of V O clefts also involved analogization to the extant VP clefts as well as deferred equatives. Once V O clefts occurred, they were recruited into the cleft network as a subschema, resulting in the schematic network being augmented and expanded. This study is a contribution to the developing field of constructionalization by making more explicit the way how nodes are created in a constructional network and how the network is reorganized and expanded.

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2022-09-06
2023-09-29

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The development of the Chinese V de O cleft construction
Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” 47, 318 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.21071.zha
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/content/journals/10.1075/sl.21071.zha
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): analogization; Chinese; constructionalization; neoanalysis; the V de O cleft

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