Effects of constituent orders on grammaticalization patterns of the serial verbs for ‘give’ in thai and mandarin chinese’

Kingkarn Thepkanjana, Satoshi Uehara

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

The verbs meaning ‘give’ across languages are known to be among the most highly grammaticalized verbs, which exhibit a high degree of polyfunctionality. This paper aims to (i) present commonalities and differences in the grammaticalization of the verbs for ‘give’ in Thai and Mandarin Chinese, namely, hây in Thai and gěi in Mandarin Chinese, and (ii) investigate how different constituent orders of the head vis-à-vis the modifier and complement in Thai and Mandarin Chinese bear on patterns of grammaticalization of the two verbs. It is found that the functions that hây in Thai and gěi in Mandarin Chinese share in common are (1) the ditransitive verb use, (2) the dative-marking use, (3) the benefactivemarking use, and (4) the causative-marking use. As for different functions of hây and gěi, hây exhibits the clause connective use, which is lacking in gěi, whereas gěi exhibit the passive-marking use, which is lacking in hây. It is argued that the head-modifier order in Thai seems to be compatible with postverbal grammaticalized morphemes whereas the modifier-head order in Mandarin Chinese seems to be compatible with preverbal grammaticalized ones.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication27th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information, and Computation, PACLIC 27
PublisherNational Chengchi University
Pages18-26
Number of pages9
ISBN (Electronic)9789860385670
Publication statusPublished - 2013
Event27th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information, and Computation, PACLIC 2013 - Taipei, Taiwan, Province of China
Duration: 2013 Nov 212013 Nov 24

Publication series

Name27th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information, and Computation, PACLIC 27

Other

Other27th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information, and Computation, PACLIC 2013
Country/TerritoryTaiwan, Province of China
CityTaipei
Period13/11/2113/11/24

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Computer Science(all)

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