Abstract
This thesis investigates the emerging usage pattern in Mandarin Chinese, in which the verb yǒu 有 ‘have/exist’ is followed by a verb (V) or verb phrase (VP), represented as [yǒu VP], from the perspective of the usage-based construction grammar. A typical example of the usage pattern is wǒmen yǒu shōudào zhè yàng de lǐwù 我们有收到这样的礼物 ‘We have received such gifts.’ The study explores the syntactic, semantic, and historical characteristics of this increasingly prevalent spoken pattern in contemporary Mandarin.Based on corpus data, this study examines the [yǒu VP] sequence from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, to address three main questions: 1) What are the syntactic and semantic characteristics of [yǒu VP] in contemporary Mandarin? 2) How did the [yǒu VP] usage evolve historically over time? 3) What distinguishes yǒu from its negative counterparts méi 没 ‘NEG(YOU)’ and méiyǒu 没有 ‘NEG.YOU’?
To address the issues, this study first explores the properties of [yǒu VP] in contemporary Mandarin based on the 13.5-billion-word ZhTenTen 17 Simplified Corpus. It analyzes the usage patterns of [yǒu VP] in relation to aspectual markers, modality, and situation types. The data reveals that the “Event as Entity” metaphor is involved in the extension of yǒu from marking nominal possession to eventive existence.
To trace the diachronic development, the Chinese Text Project Corpus is used to examine the historical path of [yǒu VP] from Old Chinese to Early Modern Chinese. It is proposed that structural ambiguity in the precursor [yǒu XP] constructions such as [(NP) yǒu VPnom] enabled the re-association of form and meaning into the [yǒu VP] construction. The construction emerged through increased usage frequency over time and motivated by the backformation from [méiyǒu VP] to [yǒu VP] as alternative answers to the A-not-A interrogation with [yǒu-méi-yǒu VP] as a typical form of inquiry in Chinese.
To offer more empirical evidence for the analysis, the random forest algorithm and Behavior Profile approach are adopted to compare the usage patterns of the related morphemes, yǒu, méi, and méiyǒu. It is found that as an emerging marker of the existence of an event, yǒu demonstrates greater morpho-syntactic constraints than the two negative markers.
The usage-based constructional analysis proposed in this thesis provides distributional measures of the grammatical pattern in the positive assertion [yǒu VP], as possibly derived from the long prevalent negative usage in [méiyǒu VP]. The proposal attempts to integrate the synchronic and diachronic findings, by elucidating the historical pathways and cognitive mechanisms underlying constructionalization and grammaticalization. In sum, this thesis offers both analytical and quantitative insights into the dynamic shaping of emerging constructions in Chinese.
| Date of Award | 8 Jan 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Meichun LIU (Supervisor) |