Language and Linguistics - Volume 24, Issue 2, 2023

Previous studies of the grammaticalization paths of Chinese Noun-Phrase Conjunctions (NP-AND) have mainly focused on their development from comitative verbs, as in the cases of 與 yú ‘to be together with’, 共 gòng ‘to share’, 和 hé ‘to mingle’, and 同 tóng ‘to be the same’ > ‘to accompany’. This study focuses on the development of NP-AND from verbs of location movement (位移動詞, with the feature set [+verb, +motion, +goal]), such as 于 yú ‘to go to’, 越 yuè ‘to jump over to’, 暨 jì ‘to arrive at’, and 及 jí ‘to reach’, identifying changes that occurred in pre-Archaic Chinese (used from the 14th to the 11th c. BC), early Archaic Chinese (used from the 10th to the 6th c. BC), and late Archaic Chinese (from the 5th to the 2nd c. BC).

To elucidate the origin and the grammaticalization path of each verb indicating goal of motion, this study examines their occurrences in excavated texts, such as the Oracle-Bone Inscriptions and Bronze Inscriptions, and in Archaic Chinese transmitted texts, such as The book of documents (Shàngshū 尚書), The book of odes (Shījīng 詩經), and Zuo’s commentary (Zuǒzhuàn 左傳). Based on this data, the study analyzes the core meaning of each verb and their grammaticalization paths. In addition, possible etymological relationships among 于, 越, 暨, and 及 are investigated. The grammaticalization path of each verb into an NP-AND can be formulated as V [+motion, +goal] > end point of a scope (from X to Y) > additive particle > NP-AND. Finally, cross-linguistic parallels are adduced to support the plausibility of the proposed grammaticalization path.

This paper studies the morpho-semantics of a particular class of scalar focus adverbs called Superlative Modifiers (SMs). One key feature of these scalar focus adverbs is that they bear degree morphology, along with gradable adjectives involved. Most analyses of SMs in the market do not take into consideration the semantic contributions of their morphology. However, the cross-linguistic facts strongly suggest that the morphological makeup of SMs cannot simply be a linguistic coincidence. Thus, SMs have posed a long-standing and intriguing morpho-semantic puzzle: Why do SMs morphologically involve a quantity adjective (Q-adjective) and the superlative morpheme? What is the role of Q-adjectives and the superlative morpheme inside SMs? How are these morphological pieces of SMs connected with their semantics? This paper is dedicated to these questions by focusing on two expressions of Mandarin SMs, zui-duo and zui-shao (which morphologically consist of only the superlative morpheme zui and a quantity adjective duo ‘many/much’ or shao ‘few/little’), and presents a decompositional analysis of both expressions as modified superlatives.

If the proposed analysis is on the right track, it shows that insights and tools developed in studies on gradability (Kennedy 1999) can be applied to those on scalarity. Recently, Greenberg (2016; 2017) has argued for a gradability-based semantics of English even. This paper contributes to this growing research agenda, through a detailed case study of SMs, a class of scalar focus adverbs but bearing degree morphology and gradable adjectives. Moreover, this paper also deepens our understanding of the semantics of Q-adjectives. By studying SMs, this paper shows that the measured domain of Q-adjectives need not be structured by the part-of relation, but rather the natural ordering on the relevant domain. Crucially, this updated view on Wellwood’s (2014; 2015) semantics of Q-adjectives leads us to their differential uses and ultimately a unified account of Q-adjectives.

Assigning you constructions in Mandarin Chinese are special in that they often read like passives. With this in mind, the goal of this paper is twofold. First, I aim to compare assigning you constructions with typical passive constructions of bei in Mandarin Chinese. Second, I attempt to seek an approach that may derive assigning you constructions desirably. The research results are as follows. I have found that assigning you constructions and bei passives differ both semantically and syntactically. I argue, contrary to Xiong (2010), that you is not a passive morpheme since, unlike Mandarin bei passives or English be passives, assigning you constructions do not always exhibit the initial NP as a Patient or Theme. I also argue against the traditional treatment of you as a preposition and instead propose that you is a three-place predicate taking an IP complement. I show that the bi-clausal structure deriving from the verb analysis receives empirical support from binding phenomena.

Korean has a reciprocal pronoun that under certain conditions takes on an innovative function as a marker of competition. This meaning emerges when the marker is used in reported speech containing a predicate expressing volition, intention, or speaker-orientation. In such contexts, the marker is reanalysed as co-referential with competing subsets of subject referents. The final stage is the extension of the competition marker to simple clauses and predicates. The empirical part of this research is based on a survey with 23 native speakers. The shift from a reciprocal pronoun to a competition marker will be analysed as an instance of subjectification. The innovative use as a competition marker has led to additional distributional differences between the simple use of the marker and its reduplicated form. The situation in Korean is comparable to that in Japanese, Bulgarian, and Karachay-Balkar, and mirrors the polysemy pattern found in Tuvaluan. This is the first typological study of the relevant domain in Korean, and will be a valuable addition to the list of available studies on reciprocity and subjectification.

This paper attempts to reconstruct the onset of the word for ‘egg’ in Old Chinese (OC). Based solely on Middle Chinese (MC), *rˤonʔ would be the default OC reconstruction. However, philological evidence such as a phonetic relationship (also called Xiéshēng connections), annotations, and variant characters show the relationship between the word for ‘egg’ and words with the velar onset in MC. (Interestingly, most of them belong to the so-called Division-II rhyme in MC.) In addition, comparative data from Proto-Min (*lh-), Proto-Hmong-Mien (*qr-), and Proto-Tai (*qr-) indicate the possibility of reconstructing the consonant cluster *k.rˤ- for the onset of the word for ‘egg’. In § 4, I shall provide some additional evidence from the excavated documents, such as oracle bone inscriptions 甲骨文, Chǔ bamboo slips 楚簡, and Qín bamboo slips 秦簡. In Chǔ bamboo slips, the characters having 䜌 luán as a phonetic element represent the words having onset *k-, such as 關 guān, 卷 juǎn, and 宦 huàn (seen in Ān Dà Jiǎn 安大簡, which is also categorized as Chǔ bamboo slips 楚簡). Furthermore, the character luán, which has 䜌 luán as an additional phonetic element, represents the word for ‘egg’ on Qín bamboo slips 秦簡. As noted above, the character 䜌 luán can represent the words having onset *k-. This all constitutes evidence supporting the reconstruction of the word for ‘egg’ with the initial consonant cluster *k.rˤ- in OC, confirming the reconstruction of T’ung-ho Tung (1944) and Baxter & Sagart (2014).

Gserskad and Rdoskad are two recently uncovered Tibetic dialect chains spoken on the northern border of Rngaba (Aba) and Dkarmdzes (Ganzi) Prefectures in northwestern Sichuan. Despite their many points of difference and only partial intelligibility, Gserskad and Rdoskad show a special affinity to each other, as suggested in Sun (2006). The further idiosyncratic common lexical, phonological, and particularly morphological evidence highlighted in this article vindicate the close ties shared by Gserskad and Rdoskad as a distinct Tibetic language on a par with Amdo.

This paper investigates the syntax and semantics of the third person singular pronoun ɦi⁶ in Shanghainese in its non-referential use. Evidence from its phonological dependence and syntactic integration with the preceding host verb is presented to show that the non-referential ɦi⁶ is a clitic. It is further observed that this use of ɦi⁶ requires licensing from the [+subjunctive] feature, echoing Qian (2004) and Jin (2016). However, my analysis diverges from theirs in treating the ɦi⁶ in question as an expletive licensed by the [+subjunctive] feature, rather than a subjunctive marker itself on grounds that it is not obligatory in a subjunctive sentence and that the subjunctivity must always be encoded by other elements in the sentence. ɦi⁶ in this use serves as an emphatic, strengthening the effect of deontic or imperative force in subjunctive contexts. Furthermore, it is shown that the licensing must obey a locality condition, whereby the expletive ɦi⁶ must be licensed by a c-commanding licenser in its local domain. From the perspective of grammaticalization, I propose that ɦi⁶ is going through an intermediate stage of becoming a purely modal functional marker. A final stage of this “upward” grammaticalization can be found in the expletive use of the third person pronoun keoi in Cantonese, which has become a more grammaticalized marker that has scope over the sentence. It is pointed out that the development of the expletive pronoun suggests that being at the right-periphery is a crucial factor in motivating and facilitating grammaticalization in Chinese. Last, a comparison between the non-referential ɦi⁶ and the Mandarin non-referential third person pronoun ta in the V-ta-ge-NP/AP construction is presented, showing that both cases manifest interactions between VP-internal projections and higher functional categories.