TY - JOUR
T1 - The verb of giving in Thai and Mandarin Chinese as a case of polysemy
T2 - A comparative study
AU - Thepkanjana, Kingkarn
AU - Uehara, Satoshi
N1 - Funding Information:
This research is supported by a Basic Research Grant from the Thailand Research Fund (No. BRG 4780019) and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (No. 15520241). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS) in Bangkok, May 2004. We are grateful to the three anonymous reviewers and the audience at our presentation for their valuable comments and suggestions. We also thank Suree Choonharuangdej and Zhang Qingxu for information and data about Mandarin Chinese.
Copyright:
Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2008/11
Y1 - 2008/11
N2 - It is common knowledge that the words corresponding to GIVE in serializing languages like hây and gěi in Thai and Mandarin Chinese, respectively, have multiple uses. Owing to the similarities as well as the differences in the synchronic usage and the diachronic development toward grammaticalization exhibited by the same words, they will be examined comparatively in this study, whose objectives are twofold: (i) to identify the similarities and differences in the usage between hây and gěi at the present time and (ii) to argue that these multiple meanings of hây and gěi are related, i.e. they are cases of polysemy. It has been brought to light that hây in Thai has a number of uses like: (1) a main verb use to indicate an action of possession transfer, (2) a dative use, (3) a benefactive use, (4) a causative use, (5) a malefactive use, and (6) a connective use in purposive, jussive, and complementation constructions. Its Mandarin Chinese equivalent gěi too has a range of uses like: (1) a main verb use, (2) a dative use, (3) a benefactive use, (4) a causative use, (5) a passive use, and (6) a ditransitive use. As is typical of serializing languages, these different, multifarious uses of hây and gěi arguably constitute cases of polysemy. It has also been discovered that the metonymic process, which involves pragmatic inferencing, plays a primary role in semantically extending the meaning of GIVE in both the languages.
AB - It is common knowledge that the words corresponding to GIVE in serializing languages like hây and gěi in Thai and Mandarin Chinese, respectively, have multiple uses. Owing to the similarities as well as the differences in the synchronic usage and the diachronic development toward grammaticalization exhibited by the same words, they will be examined comparatively in this study, whose objectives are twofold: (i) to identify the similarities and differences in the usage between hây and gěi at the present time and (ii) to argue that these multiple meanings of hây and gěi are related, i.e. they are cases of polysemy. It has been brought to light that hây in Thai has a number of uses like: (1) a main verb use to indicate an action of possession transfer, (2) a dative use, (3) a benefactive use, (4) a causative use, (5) a malefactive use, and (6) a connective use in purposive, jussive, and complementation constructions. Its Mandarin Chinese equivalent gěi too has a range of uses like: (1) a main verb use, (2) a dative use, (3) a benefactive use, (4) a causative use, (5) a passive use, and (6) a ditransitive use. As is typical of serializing languages, these different, multifarious uses of hây and gěi arguably constitute cases of polysemy. It has also been discovered that the metonymic process, which involves pragmatic inferencing, plays a primary role in semantically extending the meaning of GIVE in both the languages.
KW - Grammaticalization
KW - Inferencing
KW - Metonymy
KW - Polysemy
KW - Verb of giving
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U2 - 10.1016/j.langsci.2007.04.001
DO - 10.1016/j.langsci.2007.04.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:51749121001
VL - 30
SP - 621
EP - 651
JO - Language Sciences
JF - Language Sciences
SN - 0388-0001
IS - 6
ER -