Language and Linguistics - Volume 23, Issue 4, 2022

The Old Chinese function word 焉 yān is frequently interpreted as a fusion of [於 (‘at/on/in’) + 此 (near demonstrative pronoun)] in terms of its meaning. Ever since Kennedy (1940a, b; 1953) argued that 焉 is a fusion of [於 + *an (third-person pronoun)], it has been controversial as to exactly which third-person pronoun/demonstrative pronoun *an corresponds to in Old Chinese. There is no third-person pronoun/demonstrative pronoun that is appropriate for this reconstruction.

This paper illustrates how 焉 *Ɂan is a fusion of 於 *Ɂa and *niɁ; *nih or *nɔɁ; *nɔh, which means ‘this’ in Proto-Austroasiatic (PAA). The demonstrative is borrowed into Chinese through language contact in the Early Archaic Chinese period (10th to 6th c. BC). This fusion is plausible in historical and phonological terms, while the grammaticalization path of 焉 also accords with that of [於 + demonstrative].

The grammaticalization path of 焉 is examined by analyzing all occurrences of it in the Bronze Inscriptions (BI), The book of odes (Shījīng 詩經), The book of documents (Shàngshū 尚書), and Zuo’s commentary (Zuǒzhuàn 左傳). Also, the usages of its etymological doublet 爰, which is considered to be a fusion of [于 *wa (‘at/on/in’) + near demonstrative pronoun], are analyzed in order to strengthen the argument.

A tensed clause that undergoes nominalization marked with pa (pa-phrase) in Lhasa Tibetan can give either an event reading or a participant reading. A syntactic analysis of the pa-phrase is conducted by proposing the Differential Nominalizer Hypothesis (DNH). Specifically, pa selects an AspP as its complement and projects an NP; pa enters the derivation either as a grammatical item that shifts an AspP to an NP or as a lexical item that binds an empty category in the theme position within the AspP. This categorial difference of pa and the consequent derivational difference of the pa-phrase provide a plausible account of the semantic ambiguity of pa-nominalization. The idea that the nominalizer pa has a double category is supported with an assumption of grammaticalization, as is evidenced by the functional multiplicity of pa in Lhasa Tibetan: it is a productive grammatical marker but still bears lexical content of a lexical formative. The assumption of grammaticalization lends support to the DNH.

This paper studies the “one+verbal classifier” sequence tsi̍t-ē that appears after an indefinite object complement in Taiwanese Southern Min. We call it the post-complement (PC) tsi̍t-ē. While the tsi̍t-ē sequence can be a durative phrase when it is immediately preceded by a verb, the PC tsi̍t-ē cannot be replaced by the durative phrase tsi̍t-ē-á ‘a while’ (tsi̍t-ē plus the diminutive suffix á) or other durative phrases. We show that the PC tsi̍t-ē is a sentence-final particle, not a durative phrase serving as a predicate or complement. Moreover, it marks delimitativity, which means ‘termination in a short time.’ It is the same kind of delimitativity that verb reduplication in Mandarin Chinese expresses despite the fact that the latter targets on the verb and is more selective in terms of the verb types that it can occur with. Moreover, the PC tsi̍t-ē carries the ‘down-play’ meaning. Syntactically, we suggest that it heads an AspP, which occurs above a vP.

The paper explores the formation and constraint of an aspect of scalar structure in Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM). The scale structure as we understand it is realized as a relation between the degree adverb and the gradable predicates it selects. The gradable predicate that the degree adverb selects must bear the feature of degree. There are two approaches to compose the degree adverb and the gradable predicates it modifies: (1) the top-down construal and (2) the bottom-up construal. The first approach is simple and straightforward and applicable in most cases. However, there will be difficulties when the immediate modified element is an ambivalent element. A way out of the dilemma is the second approach. We give a unitary account of u⁷-headed VP constructions in terms of the bottom-up approach, and if viable, it attains a measure of economy. This study also touches on the parametric variations in TSM vis-à-vis Mandarin in the patterns of degree expressions. Such variations in the degree expressions have some implications in the studies of Sinitic languages as well as language universals.

In Modern Chinese, four construction types involving nǐ shuō may be distinguished. In this study, it is argued that the prosodically unseparated speech-quotative nǐ shuō (S1) develops from the prosodically separated speech-quotation nǐ shuō (S3) through a hypothesized complementation pathway which makes the nǐ shuō predicate the matrix clause of the following content clause. Prosodically unseparated feedback-seeking nǐ shuō (S2), in contrast, develops from a prosodically separated feedback-seeking nǐ shuō (S4) via a hypothesized conjoining pathway which involves the loss of a prosodic gap between the feedback-seeking nǐ shuō predicate and the clause that it occurs with. Contrary to the common assumption in the literature, S2 does not develop from S1. Meaning difference influences the selection of each of the two pathways, and in the source construction when an S3 or S4 is prosodically separated from the clause it occurs with, it is not the matrix clause of the latter. The account given in this study may also be used to explain the formation of English parenthetical predicate you say.