Chapter 12
Multiple counterparts of Mandarin qu (go) in
Teochew and their cartographic distributions
A new perspective into its multiple syntactic functions and
grammaticalization process
Qu (lit. go,
去
) in Mandarin is a thorny topic for syntactic
analyses, considering that it has multiple functions but only one
phonetic form, not to mention that Mandarin also has some other
complicated syntactic constructions intertwined in the discussions.
However, in Teochew, a variety of Southern Min, which boasts a
richer phonetic and phonological system, its counterparts of
Mandarin qu have different realizations, each
corresponding to different syntactic functions. Through analyzing
these different phonetic forms in Teochew and exploring their
cartographic distributions, this paper aims to provide a new view
from the perspective of Chinese dialect on the discussions on this
topic. In addition to Zhang’s (2016: 188–197) descriptive observations on two Teochew
counterparts of Mandarin qu – k’a
and k’u, this paper also discusses another
counterpart – k’ə, analyzes their syntactic
characteristics and finds out that their cartographic distributions
are located from the VP layer all the way up to the CP layer –
namely VP, vP, AspectP, TP and SAttP in the CP domain, demonstrating
a grammaticalization process. And k’u and
k’ə are the outcome of
morphological/phonological derivation from k’u.
Some crosslinguistic comparisons between Teochew, Old Chinese,
Mandarin Chinese and English are also made to make the picture
clearer.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical primaries: Cartography approach
- 3.An in-depth analysis of k’u
- 3.1
k’u as Verb head
- 3.2
k’u as Comp of VP
- 3.3
k’u as Aspect head
- 3.4
k’u as Voice head
- 3.5
k’u as v head
- 3.6Interim conclusion
- 4.An in-depth analysis of k’a
- 4.1Progressive aspect
- 4.2Speaker-oriented
- 4.3Interim conclusion
- 5.An in-depth analysis of k’ə
- 6.Conclusion
-
Acknowledgments
-
Notes
-
References