<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In this paper, the lexical semantics of the pre-modal verb 得 <italic>dé</italic> and its development into a modal auxiliary will be discussed. Two different positions are available for the modal <italic>dé</italic>, the default preverbal position of modal auxiliary verbs and a post-verbal position. The analysis of the event and the argument structure of the lexical verb <italic>dé</italic> reveals that the different modal uses of <italic>dé</italic> originate from its functions as an achievement verb. In this regard, <italic>dé</italic> clearly differs from the other verbs of possibility in Late Archaic Chinese. The particular syntacto-semantic constraints of <italic>dé</italic> can account for its development into both a modal auxiliary verb, and for the particular functions it develops in the Modern Sinitic languages as a postverbal modal marker.</abstract>

A semantic analysis of modal DE 得 in pre-modern Chinese

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This study returns to the oft-debated question of grammatical number and plurality in Modern Standard Chinese and attempts to shed new light on the constraints operating on the plural marker <italic>men</italic> by analysing its use in a corpus of half a million characters of spoken data. Data from the present research indicate that the plural morpheme <italic>men</italic> is less sensitive than previously assumed to a number of constraints outlined in the standard literature, including structural constraints involving NPs with quantifiers and explicit number expressions. At the same time, it is also more sensitive to a range of other factors that have hitherto been largely overlooked, including parallelism, the length of NP modifiers and lexical diffusion. The findings also suggest that the morpheme <italic>men</italic> is not used only to indicate plurality and collectivity but may have a number of other roles as well, such as functioning like a diminutive suffix and contributing to the organization of discourse and information structure.</abstract>

Constraints on the use of the plural morpheme men in spoken Mandarin

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Huang (2015) characterizes “Modern Chinese as a language of high analyticity at multiple levels” and demonstrates “a ranking of relative analyticity among the three dialects: Cantonese > Mandarin > TSM”. This paper argues that Teochew (cháoshànhuà, 潮汕話), another variety of Min, different from TSM, shows more synthetic performances than Mandarin. Chomsky’s “productivity” criterion (1970) helps distinguish lexical operations from syntactic ones. In this spirit, this paper will illustrate its arguments from two perspectives -- lexical and syntactic operations. When it comes to lexical operations, analyses on both the semantic changes within the same categories and the categorial shifts will be made. Besides, syntactic discussions on emphatic inflection, bare classifier phrases, verb-object order and other variants of V-movements in Teochew will also be demonstrated. All analyses will be put under the theoretical framework of generative grammar with the help of a cartography approach. For analyses at the lexical layer, this paper adopts Si’s 司富珍 (2012, 2017a, 2017b, 2018) XW structure, trying to capture the synthesis performances of the Teochew lexicon. As for syntactic operations, the split-CP hypothesis of Rizzi (1997, 2001, 2004) and Rizzi and Bocci (2015), the CL-to-D hypothesis of Simpson (2005), the light verb approach of Chomsky (1995) and the split-light verb hypothesis of Si 司富珍 (2018) will be used as references. Through comparative studies with Mandarin, Cantonese and other languages like English, this paper will conclude that Teochew is a dialect with higher synthesis compared with Mandarin.</abstract>

The Synthetic Performances of Teochew

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Lingua sinica

Volume 5 (2019): Issue 1 (January 2019)

A semantic analysis of modal DE 得 in pre-modern Chinese

Constraints on the use of the plural morpheme men in spoken Mandarin

The Synthetic Performances of Teochew

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