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UMI A Bell & Howell Infonnadon Company 300 North Zed) Road, Ann Aibor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 •ZAI’, DAO', AND 'GEI' CONSTRUCTIONS - A STUDY OF CHINESE WORD ORDER DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Xiaoqi Wu The Ohio State University 1996 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Dr. James H-Y Tai Dr. Galal Walker Advi^r I Department of East Asian Dr. Marjorie KM.Chan ^ Languages and Literatur es U M I Number: 9639381 Copyright 1996 by Wu, Xiaoqi All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9639381 Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Xiaoqi Wu 1996 ABSTRACT The three coverbs zai, dao andgei have been found exhibiting unique word orders by Yuen Ren Chao and other Chinese linguists. The distribution patterns of zai, dao and gel identify sentence initial, preverbal, and postverbal positions. Occurrences of zai, dao and gei phrases in these positions are associated with aspectual situations and verb types. In each position, zai, dxuo and g d phrases manifest distinctive semantic functions. Zai / dao phrase indicates the locational status of participants; and gei phrase indicates giving / receiving and benefactive status of participants. Distribution patterns of zai, dao and gei phrases and their semantic functions associated with sentence positions can be accounted for by diagramatical iconicity proposed by Haiman (1980: 515) and a series of word order principles based on motivation, one kind of diagramatical iconicity, developed by Tai (1985,1989). These include Principle of Temporal Sequence, Whole-before-Part, and motivation of conceptual distance. The erosion of iconicity (Haiman 1983, 1985) accounts for ambiguities occurring with preverbal zai / gei phrase and semantic function of zai / dao phrase in static situation. The word order features can also be viewed in the light of the theoiy of markedness. Preverbal and postverbal distribution features of the three coverbs have been observed in the history of the Chinese language development. Dialectal variations help understanding some distribution features as well as ii uses in the Standard Modem Mandarin. It has been observed that the three coverbs are still under the process of grammaticalization. This process can be viewed not only from their status changing from a full verb to a preposition, then to a marker of certain grammatical concept throughout time, but also from their functions developing from concrete to abstract uses. m To my parents IV ACKNOWLEDGMENT First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor James H- Y Tai, the chair of my dissertation committee, for his guidance, insights, and critique throughout the writing of this dissertation with his expertise on the Chinese syntax and semantics. His writing and teaching on linguistics in general and Chinese gram m ar in particular have greatly shaped the thinking of my work. Special thanks go to Professor Galal Walker and Professor Marjorie K.M. Chan for their services as members of my dissertation committal, and for their encouragement and support during the whole process. I have benefited firom their valuable comments and suggestions on the draft of this dissertation. I would like to thank Jack Rouzer for carefully proofreading the manuscript. Thanks also go to Professor Yan-shuan Lao, Timothy Wong, Frank Hseuh, David Ch'en, secretaries and fellow students firom the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at The Ohio State University, for their moral support during my graduate study. My deepest gratitude belongs to my father, whose selfless love and unshakable faith in me paved the way for the completion of this dissertation. VITA 1976 ..................................................... B.A., Guizhou University, Guiyang, P. R. China 1989 ..................................................... M.A., San Jose State University, San Jose, California, U.S.A. 1993 ..................................................... M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. FIELD OF STUDY Major Fields; East Asian Languages and Literatures Chinese Linguistics Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages VI LIST OF FIGURE AND TABLES HGURE & TABLES PAGE Figure 1 Order of Signs in Time and Space ..................................... 21 Table 1 Location of Participants and Positions of Zai Phrase 108 Table 2 Location of Participant and Positions of Dao Phrase 117 Table 3 Verbs, Thematic Roles, and Sentence Positions ofGei Phrase 129 vu LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLF = classifier CON = conjunction L = location LOG = locative Nl = place noun PRT = particle PTS = principle of temporal sequence PTSC = principle of temporal scope NNR = object /object /action RYC = resultative verb compound SUR = suffix vm PERIODICIZAHON OF CHINESE Archaic Chinese: 14th c. to 3rd c. B.C. Oracle Bone Period: 14th c. to 11th c. B.C. Early Archaic Chinese: 11th c. to 6th c. B.C. (Shang and Western Zhou dynasties) Late Archaic Chinese: 5th c. to 3rd c. B.C. (Warring States period) Pre-Medieval or Han Chinese: 2nd c. B.C. to 3rd c. A.D. (Qin and Han dynasties) Former Han Later Han Medieval Chinese: 3rd c. to 13 th c. Early Medieval Chinese: 3rd c. to 6th c. (Northern and Southern dynasties) Late Medieval Chinese: 7th c. to 13th c. (Tang and Song dynasties) Pre-Modem Chinese: 1250 to 1400 (Yuan and early Ming) Modem Chinese: From 15th c. (late Ming) on (Peiiodicization based on Peyraube 1994) IX Contents Page Dedication .................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgments...................................................................................... v Vita.............................................................................................................. vi List of Figures and Tables .......................................................................... vii List of Abbreviations.................................................................................. viii Peiiodicization of Chinese ........................................................................... be CHAPTERS: 1 Introduction ................................................................................ 1 1.0 Word Order Studies ......................................................... 1 1.1 Studies on Chinese Word Order ......................................... 3 1.2 The Theme of Present Study .............................................. 7 1.3 Word Order of Zai, Dao andGez Phrases ........................... 8 1.3.1 Coverbs and Coverbal Phrases .............................. 8 1.3.2 Zai, Dao, and Gei Phrases ................................... 9 1.4 Organization of the Study ................................................... 17 2 Theoretical Background ............................................................. 18 2.0 Cognition-Based Functional Approach .............................. 18 2.1 Visualization and Word Order ........................................... 20 2.2 Iconicity ............................................................................. 24 2.2.1 Time and Space: Order Motivation .................... 25 2.2.2 Conceptual Distance and Linguistic Expressions.. 29 2.3 Erosion of Iconicity ............................................................ 30 2.4 Markedness........................................................................ 35 2.5 Verbal Semantics............................................................... 38 2.6 Grammaticalization............................................................ 41 2.7 Information Structure......................................................... 46 Zai, Dao, Gei Constructions ..................................................... 49 3.0 Introduction....................................................................... 49 3.1 Distribution Patterns ofZai, Dao, and Gei Phrase ............... 50 3.1.1 Distribution Patterns ofZai Phrase ....................... 50 3.1.2 Distribution Patterns