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Article In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics: Online-First Articles

What happened to the “TAKE” category?

A diachronic study of multifunctionality of the ná-construction in Chinese

ORCiD logo with link | Henan University
 | University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
ORCiD logo with link | Beihang University
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Abstract
Adopting a corpus-based multivariate approach, this study examines the diachronic development of the multifunctionality of the ná-construction (ná ‘take’ NP VP). Based on the thematic roles assigned to the NP, eight functional uses have been identified, including patient, theme, companion, instrument, agent, manner, material and accord. Integrating Himmelmann’s context expansion with Hilpert’s constructional change, we establish a fine-grained analytical framework whereby the diachronic development of the ná-construction proceeds along four dimensions of context expansion — host-class, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic — offering empirical support for a context-driven account of constructional grammaticalization. Specifically, concurrent changes in both NP and VP slots reveal a semantic shift from the physical to the social, perceptual, and psychological domains. This study further proposes a three-pathway grammaticalization hypothesis of ná, challenging the canonical single-pathway view. Typologically, ná grammaticalizes into seven distinct prepositional markers, extending current accounts of the grammaticalization of the TAKE concept in Chinese.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1The multiple functional uses of ná-construction
    • 2.2The grammaticalization of ná in the ná-construction
  • 3.Theoretical framework
    • 3.1From grammaticalization to context expansion
    • 3.2From grammaticalization to diachronic Construction Grammar
    • 3.3Constructional change and context expansion
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Data collection
    • 4.2Data annotation
    • 4.3Statistical methods
  • 5.Changes in the multifunctionality of the ná-construction
    • 5.1Multifunctionality of the ná-constructions
      • 5.1.1Instrument use
      • 5.1.2Patient, theme and agent uses
      • 5.1.3Companion and manner uses
      • 5.1.4Material and accord uses
    • 5.2Diachronic changes in the multifunationality of the ná-construction
      • 5.2.1Diachronic distribution of the eight uses
      • 5.2.2The NP and the VP slots in the ná-construction
  • 6.Constructional grammaticalization of the ná-construction
    • 6.1The grammaticalization of ná across different functional uses
    • 6.2Constructional grammaticalization: The ná-construction
      • 6.2.1Host-class expansion
      • 6.2.2Syntactic context expansion
      • 6.2.3Semantic context expansion
      • 6.2.4Pragmatic context expansion
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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