Article published In:
Language and LinguisticsVol. 23:2 (2022) ► pp.191–211
Temporal partitions in the grammaticalization of imperfective aspect markers
A formal semantic approach
This article proposes a new account for the typologically uncommon grammaticalization path from an adjective meaning ‘tight’ to a progressive aspect marker in Cantonese. I take a formal approach to explain the cognitive foundations in such a grammaticalization path by using formal semantic theories and tools. There are two components in the meaning of the progressive aspect, i.e. temporal inclusion and dynamism. The meaning ‘tight’ is transferred from the spatial domain to describe the close succession of events, which gives rise to the dynamic meaning component. Furthermore, this eventual dynamism is mapped to the temporal domain, which corresponds to the regular partition of the time interval with an infinitesimal measure in the semantics proposed by Deo (2009). My analysis is extended to explain the Cantonese habitual marker with an original meaning ‘open’, and to the use of morphological reduplication to express the imperfective aspect in languages from the Austronesian and Pama-Nyungan families. The theoretical contribution of this article is that the grammaticalization paths of certain aspect markers share a common cognitive foundation in terms of space, events, and time, but they may take different trajectories of evolution that target different parts of a functional morpheme with complex meanings.
Keywords: imperfective aspect markers, progressive aspect markers, typology, Cantonese, Austronesian languages, Pama-Nyungan languages
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Cantonese aspect markers
- 3.Formal semantic analyses of the grammaticalization of -gán and -hōi
- 4.Reduplication and morphological iconicity
- 5.Theoretical implications and conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].
References (26)
Bonomi, Andrea. 1997. Aspect, quantification and when-clauses in Italian. Linguistics and Philosophy 20(5). 469–514. 
Bybee, Joan & Perkins, Revere & Pagliuca, William. 1994. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chappell, Hilary. 1992. Towards a typology of aspect in Sinitic languages. Zhongguo jingnei yuyan ji yuyanxue diyiji: Hanyu fangyan [Chinese languages and linguistics I: Chinese dialects] (Symposium Series of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, No. 2), 67–106. Taipei: Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica.
Cheung, Hung-nin Samuel. 1972. Xianggang Yueyu yufa de yanjiu [Studies on Cantonese grammar as spoken in Hong Kong]. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect: An introduction to the study of verbal aspect and related problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Deo, Ashwini. 2009. Unifying the imperfective and the progressive: Partitions as quantificational domains. Linguistics and Philosophy 32(5). 475–521.
. 2015. The semantic and pragmatic underpinnings of grammaticalization paths: The progressive to imperfective shift. Semantics and Pragmatics 81. 1–52. (Article 14.)
de Swart, Henriëtte. 1998. Aspect shift and coercion. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 16(2). 347–385.
Dong, Hongyuan. 2018. Semantics of Chinese questions: An interface approach. New York: Routledge.
Eckardt, Regine. 2006. Meaning change in grammaticalization: An enquiry into semantic reanalysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Graff, Delia & Williamson, Timothy. 2017[2002]. Vagueness. Abingdon: Routledge. (First published in 2002 by Dartmouth Publishing Company and Ashgate Publishing.)
Hershberger, Ruth. 1964. A tentative grammatical statement of the simple clause in Gugu-Yalanji. In Oates, William J. & Oates, Lynette F. (eds.), Gugu-Yalanji and Wik-Munkan language studies (Occasional Papers in Aboriginal Studies 2), 24–48. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
Johnston, Raymond Leslie. 1980. Nakanai of New Britain: The grammar of an Oceanic language (Pacific Linguistics Series B-70). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University.
Kennedy, Christopher & McNally, Louise. 2005. Scale structure, degree modification, and the semantics of gradable predicates. Language 81(2). 345–381.
Kwok, Helen. 1971. A linguistic study of the Cantonese verb (Centre of Asian Studies Occasional Papers and Monographs 5). Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.
Lin, Jo-Wang. 2006. Time in a language without tense: The case of Chinese. Journal of Semantics 23(1). 1–53.
Lister-Turner, R. & Clark, J. B. n.d. A grammar of the Motu language of Papua. 2nd edn. Sydney: A. H. Pettifer, Government Printer.
Matthews, Stephen & Yip, Virginia. 1994. Cantonese: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.
Mei, Tsu-Lin. 1981. Xiandai Hanyu wanchengmao jushi he ciwei de laiyuan [The origin of the sentence-type of perfective aspect and the perfective suffix in Modern Chinese]. Yuyan Yanjiu [Studies in Language and Linguistics] 1980(1). 65–77.
Moravcsik, Edith A. 1978. Reduplicative constructions. In Greenberg, Joseph H. & Ferguson, Charles A. & Moravcsik, Edith A. (eds.), Universals of human language, vol. 3: Word structure, 297–334. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Palmer, Bill. 2009. Kokota grammar (Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication 35). Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.
Patz, Elisabeth. 2002. A grammar of the Kuku Yalanji language of north Queensland (Pacific Linguistics 527). Melbourne: Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University.
Sayers, Barbara J. & Godfrey, Marie P. 1964. Outline description of the alphabet and grammar of a dialect of Wik-Munkan spoken at Coen, North Queensland. In Oates, William J. & Oates, Lynette F. (eds.), Gugu-Yalanji and Wik-Munkan Language Studies (Occasional Papers in Aboriginal Studies 2), 49–78. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
Spaelti, Philip. 1997. Dimensions of variation in multi-pattern reduplication. Santa Cruz: University of California, Santa Cruz. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Dasher, Richard B. 2001. Regularity in semantic change (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 97). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zeitoun, Elizabeth & Chu, Tai-hwa & Lalo a tahesh kaybaybaw. 2015. A study of Saisiyat morphology (Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication 40). Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.