Hilary Chappell

The grammar of inalienability : a typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation

The series is a platform for contributions of all kinds to this rapidly developing field. General problems are studied from the perspective of individual languages, language families, language groups, or language samples. Conclusions are the result of a deepened study of empirical data. Special emphasis is given to little-known languages, whose analysis may shed new light on long-standing problems in general linguistics.

Is the get‐passive adversative?

Abstract A new analysis of the get‐passive is advocated in the following paper. It is based on the belief that the study of semantics is fundamental and prior to the study of syntax. This initial assumption leads to the postulation of a discrete number of intuitively‐verifiable interpretations of the get‐passive construction in the main section of the article. Natural language is used as the semantic metalanguage in the analysis of the passive. Bach interpretation is subsequently reduced into less complex but more readily comprehensible units. The article begins with an outline of earlier attitudes towards the use of get, followed by a brief description of several different kinds of passive constructions in other languages. An appraisal of two comparatively recent articles that specifically deal with the get‐passive precedes the presentation of the semantic analysis.

Chinese linguistics and typology: The state of the art

Abstract 1. Introduction China possesses rich linguistic resources which remain relatively untapped: the ten main Sinitic languages or dialect groups account for roughly 93% of the population (Mandarin, Jin, Xiang, Gan, Hui, Wu, Min, Kejia, Yue, and Pinghua); the remaining 7% comprise the many different “minority” languages in long term contact with Sinitic such as Tibeto-Burman, Mongolian, Hmong, and Tai. In an almost unprecedented state of affairs, written records for Chinese extend without a break 3,000 years into the past, furnishing a rich documentation for any kind of historical study.

A comitative source for object markers in Sinitic languages: 跟kai55 in Waxiang and 共kang7 in Southern Min

This analysis sets out to specifically discuss the polyfunctionality of 跟[kai55] in Waxiang (Sinitic), whose lexical source is the verb ‘to follow’. Amongst its various uses, we find a preposition ‘with, along’, a marker of adjuncts and a NP conjunction, thus superficially resembling its Mandarin cognate 跟gēn ‘with’. Curiously, however, it has also evolved into a direct object marker in Waxiang, with a function similar to that of the preposition 把bǎ < ‘hold, take’ as found in the S-bǎ-OVP or so-called ‘disposal’ form in standard Mandarin. The pathways of grammaticalization for 跟[kai55] inWaxiang are thus discussed in order to determine how it has developed this unusual grammatical function in one of the linguistic zones of China where verbs of giving or taking are, in fact, the main source for grammaticalized object markers in ‘disposal’ constructions. On the basis of sixteenth and seventeenth century Southern Min literature (Sinitic), a comparison is also made with analogous developments for comitative 共kang7 (Mandarin gòng) ‘with’ to provide support for our hypothesis that the direct object marking use has evolved from the oblique function of a benefactive or dative, and is clearly separate from the crosslinguistically well-attested pathway that leads to its use as a conjunction. We would thus like to propose that these data contribute a new pattern to the stock of grammaticalization pathways, specifically, comitative > dative/benefactive > accusative (direct object marker).

The History of Chinese Grammars in Chinese and Western Scholarly Traditions

Abstract This article evaluates the scientific contribution of Western scholars and missionaries in the compilation of a large number of descriptive grammars for Chinese languages which appeared during the period from the late sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries. This is all the more interesting, given that the native tradition of grammatical studies only began to develop at a very late period in China’s history, the first real grammar being published in 1898. This was the Mă shì wén tōng 馬氏文通 by Ma Jianzhong, a scholar who had gained a Western education while studying in Paris and was therefore broadly familiar with some of the main European intellectual traditions in linguistics, as well as the Chinese ones, concerned above all with rhetoric and philology. After a presentation of the main grammars of Chinese languages produced by Europeans during this period, the aptness of their theoretical frameworks is tested by analysing the treatment of the numeral classifier, a part of speech not found in European languages. The reasons for the prolonged lack of any theoretical interest in grammar, revealed in the native Chinese linguistic tradition, is speculated upon in an epilogue.