An Etymological Study of Disposal and Passive Markers in the Hunan Dialects
湖南方言中表处置和表被动的介词词源的研究
Yunji Wu 伍云姬

Abstract 摘要
In Mandarin, the disposal marker is 把 pa3 and the passive marker is 被 pei4. These markers do not derive from the same lexical source. In some localities of Hunan, however, these two types of markers may derive from the same lexical source. Moreover, there are aberrant disposal markers which do not derive from 把 pa3 and passive markers which do not derive from 被 pei4. According to my investigations in 107 localities in Hunan, twenty forms can be employed as disposal markers and thirty five can be employed as passive markers. In this paper, the distribution of disposal and passive markers across dialects in Hunan will be presented. The path of grammaticalization of these two types of markers will be revealed by the analysis of their etymology in the Hunan dialects. There are clear cut distinctions between the two types of markers in the Hunan dialects geographically. In the Mandarin-speaking area, the main pattern is that the disposal ‘to give’ contrasts with passive ‘to suffer’; in the Xiang-speaking area, the main usage is that the disposal and the passive markers derive from a pair of synonyms meaning ‘to give’; in the Gan and Kejia speaking area, the main pattern is that the disposal marker ‘to take’ contrasts with the passive marker ‘to give’; and in the southern area, where both a Mandarin dialect and unclassified local dialects co-exist, the main usage is that the disposal and the passive markers derive from the same form 'to give'. I propose that not only are the lexical sources of the passive/disposal markers in the Hunan dialects different from Mandarin, but also that the path of grammaticalization is also different. The first step of grammaticalization of disposal/passive markers meaning ‘to give’ occurred with a re-analysis that changed the verb ‘to give’ into a preposition indicating relationship between a subject and an object in a double-object construction.

本文旨在通过湖南方言中表处置和被动词的介词词源的研究，探讨这两类介词的语法化进程. 在我所调查的107个方言点中，有20个介词形式可以用来表处置，35个介词形式可以用来表被动。表处置与表被动的介词的词源以及地理分布可粗略地描写如下：在湘北湘西的官话区，表处置的介词来源于表“给予”意义的动词，表被动的介词来源于表“遭受”意义的动词；在湘南中部的湘方言区，表处置和表被动的介词来自一组表“给予”意义的同义词；在湘东的赣客方言区，表处置的介词来源于表“拿取”意义的动词，表被动的介词来自表“给予”意义的动词；在湘南的双语区，表被动和表处置的介词共用一个词形式，这个词形式来自表“给予”的动词。我认为湘南保留了南方方言中较古老的表处置和被动的形式。表“给予”的动词发展为表被动的介词第一步是这个动词在双宾句式中虚化为介词。而这个介词的处置义是后起的。

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