Grammaticalization and Language Change in Chinese
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GRAMMATICALIZATION AND LANGUAGE CHANGE IN CHINESE This innovative study of grammaticalization in Chinese offers a highly accessible and comprehensive overview of both the diachronic development and current syntactic status of a wide variety of grammatical morphemes in Chinese. Approaching the issue of grammaticalization from a formal, theo retical point of view, but also making use of traditional insights into language change, Xiu-Zhi Zoe Wu shows how a range of syntactic mecha nisms have conspired to result in the grammatical constructions and functional morphemes of modern Chinese. Patterns from Chinese and an in depth analysis of the development of functional categories in the language are also used to argue for more general, cross-linguistic principles of language change, and provide valuable insights into the principled ways that grammatical words evolve across languages. Grammaticalization and Language Change in Chinese is a bold and inspired attempt to apply formal, Chomskyean syntactic theory to the tradi tional area of the study of language change. Although the analyses of the book are cast within such a theoretical approach to language, the data and generalizations brought to light should be of considerable interest to linguists from quite different backgrounds, and the central ideas and intu itions of the various chapters are presented in a way that makes them accessible to a wide and varied readership. The book is not only a highly informative and useful resource on Chinese but also clearly indicates what Chinese is able to show about language change and the phenomena of gram maticalization in general. Xiu-Zhi Zoe Wu is a Lecturer in the Chinese Program, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. ROUTLEDGECURZON ASIAN LINGUISTICS SERIES Editor-in-Chief: Walter Bisang, Mainz University Associate Editors: R. V. Dhongde, Deccan College Pune and Masayoshi Shibatani, Rice University, Texas Asia is the world's largest continent, comprising an enormous wealth of languages, both in its present as well as in its eventful past. The series contributes to the understanding of this linguistic variety by publishing books from different theoretical backgrounds and different methodological approaches, dealing with at least one Asian language. By adopting a maxi mally integrative policy, the editors of the series hope to promote theoretical discussions whose solutions may, in turn, help to overcome the theoretical lean towards West European languages and thus provide a deeper under standing of Asian linguistic structures and of human language in general. VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH BILINGUALISM Patterns of code-switching Ho-Dae Tue LINGUISTIC EPIDEMIOLOGY Semantics and grammar of language contact in mainland Southeast Asia Nick J. Enfield AGRAMMAROFMANGGHUER A Mongolic language of China's Qinghai-Gansu Sprachbund Keith W. Slater FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURE(S), FORM AND INTERPRETATION Perspectives from East Asian languages Edited by Yen-hui Audrey Li and Andrew Simpson FOCUS AND BACKGROUND MARKING IN MANDARIN CHINESE System and theory behind cai, jiu, dou and ye Daniel Hole GRAMMATICALIZATION AND LANGUAGE CHANGE IN CHINESE A formal view Xiu-Zhi Zoe Wu GRAMMATICALIZATION AND LANGUAGE CHANGE IN CHINESE A formal view Xiu-Zhi Zoe Wu First published 2004 by RoutledgeCurzon Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Publisher's Note This book has been prepared from camera-ready copy provided by the author. Copyright © 2004 Xiu-Zhi Zoe Wu The Open Access version of this book, available at www.tandfebooks.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 978-0-415-33603-1 (hbk) CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix I. INTRODUCTION 1 1.0 Overview 1 1.1 Background: Grammaticalization as an Area of Study 2 1.2 A Formal Approach to Grammaticalization 5 1.3 Patterns to Be Examined in the Work 8 2. THE CLASSIFIER GE: MOVEMENT AND REANALYSIS 13 2.0 Introduction 13 2.1 Ge as a General Classifier for Nouns 13 2.2 Ge as a Classifier for Events Denoted by the Predicates 14 2.2.1 Occurrence Between a Verb and Its Cognate Object 14 2.2.2 Occurrence Between a Verb and an Indefinite Object 15 2.2.3 Ge Introducing a Simple Resultative/Descriptive Adjective 18 2.2.4 Ge Introducing an Idiom or Fixed Expression 21 2.2.5 Ge with Perfective but not Imperfective Aspect 21 2.2.6 Apparent Constraints on Verb Selection 22 2.3 Syntactic Properties 23 2.3.1 Event Ge Introducing a Non-predicational Adjective 23 2.3.2 Event Ge Licensing an Extra Argument 26 2.3.3 Ge Licensing the Expletive 'It' 29 2.4 The Proposal-Ge as a Weak Unselective Determiner in D0 30 2.4.1 Ge as a Nominalizer 30 2.4.2 Ge as a D0 32 2.4.3 Further Evidence 33 2.5 Grammaticalization, Reanalysis and Ge 37 V 2.6 Concluding Remarks 45 Notes 45 3. RELATIVE CLAUSE DE: DIRECTIONALITY, CLAUSAL RAISING AND SENTENCE-F1NAL PARTICLES 51 3.0 Introduction 51 3.1 Relative Clauses in Government and Binding Theory 52 3.1.1 Chiu (1993/1995) and SuoP; Ning (1993) 53 3.1.2 DE as a Complementizer 56 3.2 Directionality and C-selection-a Theoretical Problem for Standard Analyses 58 3.3 Kayne (1994) and a Uniform Theory of Relativization 61 3.3.1 Determiners, Demonstratives and Definiteness Agreement 65 3.3.2 Further Evidence for the NP-raising Analysis: ( 1) Language Acquisition: Chiu ( 1998); (2) Connectivity and Idiom-chunks 69 3.3.3 Relativization in Japanese, Murasugi ( 1991/1998) 72 3.3.4 Process Nominals and the Structure of Noun-Complement Clause CNPs 77 3.3.5 Other Noun-Complement Clause CNPs 80 3.4 Taiwanese Tone Sandhi and the Clausal Raising Hypothesis 84 3.4.l Tone Sandhi Patterns in Taiwanese 84 3.4.2 Tone Sandhi in Taiwanese Relative Clauses 87 3.5 Extensions: Grammaticalized Complementizers in Taiwanese 90 3.5.1 Tone Sandhi Patterns with Kong 93 3.5.2 Grammaticalization of Kong and Motivations for IP-movement 98 3.5.3 Evidence for PF Movement? 101 3.5.4 An Alternative-Cyclic Spell-Out 103 3.6 Concluding Remarks 107 Notes 108 4. DE IN Focus SENTENCES: FROM D TOT 120 4.0 Introduction 120 4.1 Object-De Repositioning in the Shi-de Construction 122 4.2 Post-object De 128 4.3 The Syntax of Reanalysis in Shi-de Sentences 138 4.4 Summary: D-to-T and Paths of Grammaticalization 149 4.5 Appendix: on the Focus Interpretation of Shi-de Forms 153 vi Notes 156 5. RESULTATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS: DIRECTIONALITY AND REANALYSIS 161 5.0 Introduction 161 5.1 Previous Analyses 163 5.1.1 Resultative Verb Constructions: an introduction 163 5.1.2 The Lexical Approach-Yafei Li (1990) 165 5. 1.3 The Syntactic Approach-'Zou ( 1994) 167 5.1.4 Sybesma (1999), Hoekstra (1992) 170 5.1.5 Objections to the Syntactic Approach 173 5.2 An Alternative Analysis: V2 as Aspect 180 5.2.1 Telicity and Non-predication 180 5.2.2 The Historical Re-positioning of V2 in RVCs: Reanalysis and Aspect 182 5.2.3 Literal Vi and Reanalysis 190 5.2.4 Responses to Apparent Objections 194 5.3 V2 Re-positioning and Directionality 200 5.3.1 Arguments Against a Phonological Explanation 201 5.3.2 Vi Elements as Verbal Suffixes 204 5.3.3 Vi Elements Do Not Undergo Raising to Vi 205 5.4 Consequences Related to Other Structures 216 5.5 English Resultatives: a Speculation 219 5.6 Summary 225 Notes 226 6. VERBAL LE : ASPECT AND TENSE 234 6.0 Introduction 234 6.1 The Re-positioning of Le/Liao 234 6.1.1 The Current Status of Verbal Le and Completive Aspect 236 6.1.2 Smith ( 1997): Two Different Types of Aspect 239 6.1.3 Verbal Le and Perfectivity 244 6.1.4 Grammaticalization and the Dual Status of Verbal Le 250 6.1.4.1 Parallel grammaticalization of independent xO-heads and affixes 250 6.1.4.2 Current distinctions between completive and perfective le: evidence for diachronic development 259 6.2 Verbal Le and Tense 267 6.2.1 Tense, Aspect and Perfectivity 270 vii 6.2.2 Possible Objections to an Analysis of Le as Tense 275 6.2.3 Arguments against the Objections 277 6.2.3.1 Optionality of le 277 6.2.3.2 Lack of generality I: non-occurrence with simple verbs of cognition or communication 280 6.2.3.3 Lack of generality II: le with statives 281 6.2.3.4 Subordinate clauses 288 6.2.3.5 Imperatives 293 6.2.3.6 Matrix jiu sentences 294 6.3 Summary 298 Notes 299 7. POST-WORD 303 BIBLIOGRAPHY 310 INDEX 320 viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people have played an important role in the conception, development and refinement of this book, which is a rewritten and reworked version of the doctoral dissertation I completed at the University of Southern California in 2000. As before, I would like to thank a range of different people for their help and inspiration both during the time I spent in the Linguistics Department in USC, and during the last three years when I have continued to work on the topic of grammaticalization. Among the very many at USC who I owe much gratitude to are the following: Joseph Aoun, Hagit Borer, Hajime Hoji, Audrey Li, Jean-Roger Vergnaud, and Maria-Luisa Zubizarreta.