Cantonese GIVE and Double-Object Construction

Grammaticalization and word order change

Andy Chi-on Chin | The Education University of Hong Kong

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027211040 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027257802 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

GIVE is a versatile morpheme in many languages. While there have been extensive studies on the interplay between the syntax and semantics of GIVE in many languages, not much has been done in a similar manner on Cantonese, a member of the Yue dialect group of the Chinese language family. This monograph reports on the study of GIVE and its associated functions and syntactic constructions in Cantonese from diachronic, synchronic, and typological perspectives. Drawing on cross-linguistic data, and 19th century Cantonese dialect materials, this study first traces the chronological development of the various functions played by GIVE in Cantonese. It then examines the double-object construction. Besides the typological features of this construction in Cantonese, this study investigates the use of the northern pattern in Cantonese as a result of the increasing influence of Putonghua and Modern Standard Chinese by means of a sociolinguistic survey with 40 native speakers of Cantonese.

[Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse, 15] 2022. xiv, 266 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/scld.15

Table of Contents

Abstract | pp. ix–x

Glossary and transcriptions | pp. xi–xii

Acknowledgements | pp. xiii–xiv

Part I. Grammaticalization of give in Cantonese

Chapter 1. Introduction | pp. 3–16

Chapter 2. Multi-functionality of give in Chinese dialects and neighboring non-Sinitic languages: An areal-typological perspective | pp. 17–38

Chapter 3. Grammaticalization of give in Cantonese | pp. 39–54

Chapter 4. Diachronic development of give and its functions in Cantonese | pp. 55–102

Part II. Word order change in Cantonese double-object construction

Chapter 5. Word order typology of the double-object construction in Chinese dialects | pp. 105–124

Chapter 6. Relationship between IO DO and DO IO patterns | pp. 125–136

Chapter 7. On-going word order change in Cantonese double-object construction | pp. 137–172

Chapter 8. Concluding remarks and future work | pp. 173–176

Notes

References | pp. 177–204

Appendices

Appendix 1. Survey of the syntactic functions of give in Chinese dialects and neighboring non-Sinitic languages | pp. 205–234

Appendix 2. List of pre-modern Cantonese dialect materials | pp. 235–236

Appendix 3. Frequency distribution of double-object patterns in Wang Shuo’s corpus | pp. 237–238

Appendix 4. Double-object sentences with the IO DO pattern found in pre-modern Cantonese dialect materials | pp. 239–246

Appendix 5. Sentences used in the production task | pp. 247–254

Appendix 6. Sentences used in the perception task | pp. 255–256

Appendix 7. Information sheet for the fieldwork of the double-object construction in Hong Kong Cantonese | pp. 257–260

Appendix 8. Non-native double-object sentence patterns used by the informants in the production task | pp. 261–262

Index | pp. 263–266

“This book is one of the most valuable references on Cantonese linguistics. Simply looking at the table of contents, the eight (!) appendices, and the bibliography, one could already sense the tremendous amount of work that the author has conducted for this study. The amount of historical Cantonese texts consulted and analyzed is second to none, the range of Chinese dialects consulted is impressive, and the experiment stimuli were cleverly thought out.”

Hilário de Sousa, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, in Asian Languages and Linguistics 4:1 (2023)

Subjects