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Article published In:
Journal of Historical Linguistics
Vol. 11:1 (2021) ► pp.60–101

Clitic pronouns in Archaic Chinese

| CNRS-EHESS-INALCO, Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l’Asie orientale , France
| CNRS-EHESS-INALCO, Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l’Asie orientale , France

This article provides evidence for the so far neglected existence of two clitic pronouns, yǐ 以 and yǔ 與, in Archaic Chinese (10th c. – 3rd c. BC) in immediately verb-adjacent position: ‘yǐ/yǔ-V’. While yǔ only encodes the comitative/associative, yǐ encodes all kinds of (argument and adjunct) roles, depending on the semantics of the verb involved. We argue that the clitic pronouns yǐ and yǔ can neither be analysed as stranded prepositions left behind after extraction of their complement (as, e.g., in English) nor as orphan prepositions, i.e., PPs with an in situ null pronoun as complement (as, e.g., in French). This ties in with the general ban against prepositions lacking an overt complement, observed throughout the history of Chinese.

Keywords: Archaic Chinese, syntax, ban on preposition stranding, orphan preposition, applicative, 以 yǐ
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Overview of the numerous different items yǐ: How many yǐ’s are there?
    • 2.1The treatment of yǐ and yǔ in the philological tradition
    • 2.2A comprehensive diachronic study of yǐ in Early Archaic Chinese
      • 2.2.1Different types of verbs emerging at different periods: ‘To lead, bring along someone’; ‘to carry, take along, hold sb. by the hand sb.’; ‘to use’
      • 2.2.2The preposition yǐ
      • 2.2.3The preverbal clitic pronoun: yǐ-V
      • 2.2.4The coordinating conjunction yǐ ‘and’
      • 2.2.5The infinitival T-head yǐ ‘to’
      • 2.2.6Purposive conjunction yǐ ‘in order to’
      • 2.2.7The verb yǐ ‘use’ in the construction ‘yǐ DP wéi XP’ = ‘use DP to serve as XP’
    • 2.3Interim summary
  • 3.The syntax and semantics of the prepositions yǐ and yǔ
    • 3.1The preposition yǐ
    • 3.2The preposition yǔ
    • 3.3The distribution of PPs headed by yǐ and yǔ
  • 4.The clitic pronouns yǐ and yǔ
    • 4.1Previous studies: von der Gabelentz (1881) and Ma Jianzhong (1898)
      • 4.1.1 Von der Gabelentz (1881)
      • 4.1.2 Ma Jianzhong (1898)
    • 4.2Ban on preposition stranding
    • 4.3 Yǐ and yǔ are not orphan prepositions
      • 4.3.1Orphan prepositions in French
      • 4.3.2Syntactic evidence against yǐ and yǔ as orphan prepositions
    • 4.4The clitic pronouns yǐ and yǔ and their antecedents
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 16 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.19024.dja
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