Chapter published in:
Topics in Theoretical Asian Linguistics: Studies in honor of John B. Whitman
Edited by Kunio Nishiyama, Hideki Kishimoto and Edith Aldridge
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 250] 2018
► pp. 157–179

Chapter 8. Resultative and termination

A unified analysis of Middle Chinese VP-YI

| University of Washington / Humboldt University Berlin
| University of Washington / Humboldt University Berlin

This paper proposes an account of the reanalysis of the Chinese morpheme 已yǐ from an intransitive verb meaning ‘end, terminate’ into a functional category marking completive aspect. We posit that this grammaticalization was triggered by the loss of aspectual affixes, prompting YI to be reinterpreted from a lexical verb to a secondary predicate supplying the endpoint to an event expressed by a preceding predicate. The use of YI as a secondary predicate was made possible in part by changes in Chinese VP structure which allowed an endpoint-denoting secondary predicate to occupy a VP-internal position in this period.

Keywords: Middle Chinese, resultative, telicity, aspect, grammaticalization
Published online: 12 December 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.250.09ald
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