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Title:
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The Verb GIVE and the Double-object Construction in Cantonese in Synchronic, Diachronic and Typological Perspectives
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Author:
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Andy Chin
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Homepage:
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http://www.hkseattle.com
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Degree Awarded:
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University of Washington
, Asian Languages and Literature
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Degree Date:
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2009
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Historical Linguistics
Syntax
Typology
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Subject Language(s):
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Chinese, Yue
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Director(s):
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Anne Yue-Hashimoto
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Abstract:
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This dissertation examines the double-object verb [pei] 畀 and the
double-object construction in Cantonese in diachronic, synchronic and
typological perspectives.
Apart from being a verb, [pei] 畀 also performs a number of syntactic
functions as a result of grammaticalization. Our survey on other Chinese
dialects and genetically unrelated languages shows that some of these
functions (i.e. as an indirect object marker and a causative verb) are
cross-linguistically attested while some (i.e. as a passive marker and a
verb introducing instruments) are not. The chronological development of
these functions in Cantonese will also be examined.
As for the indirect object marker function of [pei] 畀, we propose that two
types of indirect object markers can be identified in Cantonese, which are
cross-linguistically attested: The go-type and the give-type. The former is
performed by directional verbs such as 過 in the 19th century Cantonese
dialects while the latter is played by the double-object verb [pei] 畀 in
modern Cantonese. Our survey on the oracle-bone inscriptions and other
dialects shows that the go-type usually predates the give-type.
With reference to the pre-modern Cantonese dialect materials and the recent
field work data on the Conghua dialect, we will explore the syntactic and
semantic factors contributing to the switchover from the go-type to the
give-type.
The major syntactic construction in which GIVE involves is the double-object
construction. Two typological patterns in terms of the word order of the
objects are found across the Chinese dialects: IO DO and DO IO. The former
is found in the Northern dialects while the latter in most of the Southern
dialects. Over the last two decades, the non-native IO DO word order
pattern has been gaining its ascendency in Hong Kong Cantonese due to the
increasing influence of Putonghua and Modern Standard Chinese. A field work
with 40 native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese was carried out to find out
the degree of usage and acceptance of the non-native patterns. We will also
compare the results among the speakers in terms of age and occupation,
which are correlated to their exposure to Putonghua or Modern Standard Chinese.
[The dissertation can be downloaded at http://rlpython.cityu.edu.hk/~andy/ ]
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