Readers 读者
The polysemous lia̍h 力 in Early Modern Southern Min and its contemporary fate
早期闽南语中“力”lia̍h字之多重功能及其现代命运
Yunfan Lai 赖云帆
Abstract 摘要
Based on Early Modern Southern Min texts from Ming and Qing dynasties, this paper studies the different functions of lia̍h 力in Southern Min and the grammaticalisation pathways that led to the polysemantism. The morpheme lia̍h could appear as a content verb meaning ‘to catch’ or a polyfunctional case marker in Early Modern Southern Min; while in Contemporary Southern Min, its verb use has become overwhelming, and its grammatical uses are mostly fossilised. This paper hypothesises the grammaticalisation pathways of lia̍h by examining ambiguous constructions, and proposes that the fossilisation of the grammatical functions started with South-Western varieties of Southern Min, in which lia̍h was transcribed with the character 掠. The history of this word is worthy of the attention of typological studies.
Subject Keywords 主题词
Early Modern Southern Min 早期闽南语 Lì jìng jì 荔镜记 Object marking 宾语标记 Grammaticalisation 语法化 Affectedness Hierarchy 受动性等第
Journal of Chinese Linguistics vol.47, no.1 (January 2019): 193-226
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