Newest trends in the study of grammaticalization and lexicalization in Chinese / edited by Janet Zhiqun Xing.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Xing, Janet Zhiqun.

Series:

Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs ; 236.

Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs, 1861-4302 ; 236

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chinese language--Grammar.

Chinese language.

Chinese language--Lexicology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (312 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin : De Gruyter Mouton, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Grammaticalization and lexicalization have been two major issues in the study of diachronic change in the past few decades. Drawing evidence from Western languages, researchers have uncovered a number of characteristics of the process of grammaticalization and lexicalization, as well as the relationship between the two. However, the question remains whether or not those characteristics are applicable to genetically unrelated and typologically different languages, such as Chinese. The contributors of this volume attempt to answer just this question. Based on Chinese historical data from the past three thousand years, five articles in the volume investigate the development of a certain grammatical category: the definite article (M. Fang), modal verbs of volition (A. Peyraube and M. Li), the classifier class (J.Z. Xing), the repeater class (C. Zhang), and the process of lexicalization (X. Dong), while the remaining four articles are case studies of unique grammatical words which have all undergone a complicated process of grammaticalization and some involved lexicalization: the sentence particle ye (Q. Chen), the versatile directional verb lái (C. Liu), the degree adverb hen (M. Liu and C. Chang), and the giving verb gei (F. Tsao). All these studies have identified tendencies of diachronic change in Chinese and some of them have also revealed certain typological characteristics that Chinese has compared to other languages.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Table of contents

Introduction / Xing, Janet Zhiqun

The development of the Chinese aspectual sentence-final marker yĕ / Chen, Qianrui

The emergence of a definite article in Beijing Mandarin: The evolution of the proximal demonstrative zhè / Fang, Mei

The grammaticalization of the directional verb 'lái': A construction grammar approach / Liu, Cheng-hui

The degree-evaluative construction: Grammaticalization in constructionalization / Liu, Mei-Chun / Chang, Chun

The semantic historical development of modal verbs of volition in Chinese / Peyraube, Alain / Ming, Li

Semantic change in the grammaticalization of classifiers in Mandarin Chinese / Xing, Janet Zhiqun

The repeater in Chinese and other languages / Zhang, Cheng

Lexicalization in the history of the Chinese language / Dong, Xiufang

Argument structure change, reanalysis and lexicalization: Grammaticalization of transitive verbs into ditransitive verbs in Chinese, Japanese and English / Tsao, Feng-fu

Subject index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613626967

9781280597138

1280597135

9783112191941

3112191943

9783110253009

3110253003

OCLC:

784886947