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Article published In:
Chinese Language and Discourse
Vol. 11:2 (2020) ► pp.335–354

The placement of co-verb gěi in spoken Mandarin varieties

A study on regional influences

| Borough of Manhattan Community College

Many spoken Mandarin varieties allow for the oscillation of the co-verb gěi ‘give’ between the pre- and post-verbal positions. Much attention has been directed to semantic and syntactic factors that constrain its placement. However, language external factors remain under-researched. This study examines sociolinguistic including regional influences on the variable placement of the co-verb gěi in spoken Mandarin. Data is collected at both production and perception levels to investigate the regional and social distributions of the gěi-phrase. At the production level, the data suggests that substrate influences from a speaker’s home vernacular play a crucial role. Results at the perception level remain inconclusive, and more research is required to unpack the complex role of sociolinguistic factors in such variation.

Keywords: gěi , co-verb, constituent order, geographical distribution, regional variation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Syntactic properties of gěi
    • 1.2Sociolinguistic hypotheses
  • 2.Data and methods
    • 2.1Informant
    • 2.2Procedure
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Elicitation task
    • 3.2Acceptability judgment task
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 November 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.18006.pen
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