Cover not available
Part of
Lost in Change: Causes and processes in the loss of grammatical elements and constructions
Edited by Svenja Kranich and Tine Breban
[Studies in Language Companion Series 218] 2021
► pp. 131–158

A constructional account of the loss of the adverse avertive schema in Mandarin Chinese

Editor
| The University of Edinburgh
This study defines the kind of loss under investigation as schema loss in diachronic construction grammar and proposes that schema loss may be related to change in prototypicality. Using the adverse avertive schema in Chinese as an example, it is shown that while older prototypical members of the schema motivated its composition, newer members demotivated it, because their semantics and pragmatics were not a good match with the form and meaning of the schema. The analysis emphasises that loss, like gain, is multidimensional in that both schematic and substantive patterns need to be considered.
Keywords: diachronic construction grammar, prototype, schema loss, chadian , bleaching
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Constructions and loss characterised
    • 2.1Constructions
    • 2.2Loss as schema loss
  • 3.Prototypicality, construction grammar and diachronic construction grammar
    • 3.1Prototypicality in ASCs
    • 3.2Extending prototypicality in ASCs
    • 3.3Diachronic construction grammar
  • 4.The adverse avertive schema in Chinese
    • 4.1Data sources
    • 4.2Overview of the schema
    • 4.3Slots in the schema
  • 5.The demise of the adverse avertive schema
    • 5.1Qualitative aspects
    • 5.2Quantitative aspects
    • 5.3The demise of the schema: from ‘danger’ to ‘proximity’
    • 5.4A visual summary
  • 6.Generalisation as loss
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 June 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.218.05kuo
References (55)
References
Barðdal, Jóhanna & Gildea, Spike. 2015. Diachronic Construction Grammar: Epistemological context, basic assumptions and historical implications. In Diachronic Construction Grammar, [Constructional Approaches to Language 18], Jóhanna Barðdal, Elena Smirnova, Lotte Sommerer & Spike Gildea (eds), 1–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biq, Yung-O. 1989. Metalinguistic negation in Mandarin. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 7(1): 75–94.Google Scholar
Börjars, Kersti, Vincent, Nigel & Walkden, George. 2015. On constructing a theory of grammatical change. Transactions of the Philological Society 113(3): 363–382. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Breban, Tine. 2015. Refining secondary grammaticalization by looking at subprocesses of change. Language Sciences 47(b): 161–171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Breban, Tine & Kranich, Svenja. 2015. What happens after grammaticalization? Secondary grammaticalization and other late stage processes. Language Sciences 47(b): 129–228. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brems, Lieselotte. 2011. Layering of Size and Type Noun Constructions in English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Casenhiser, Devin & Goldberg, Adele E. 2005. Fast mapping of a phrasal form and meaning. Developmental Science 8(6): 500–508. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chao, Yuen Ren. 1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chappel, Hilary. 1986. Formal and colloquial adversity passives in Standard Chinese. Linguistics 24: 1025–1052. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colleman, Timothy & Noël, Dirk. 2012. The Dutch evidential NCI: A case of constructional attrition. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 13(1): 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fischer, Olga. 2018. Analogy: Its role in language learning, categorisation, and in models of language change such as grammaticalisation and constructionalisation. In New Trends in Grammaticalization and Language Change [Studies in Language Companion Series 202], Sylvie Hancil, Tine Breban & José Vicente Lozano (eds), 75–104. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk. 2006. Words and Other Wonders. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
. 2006. Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
. 2019. Explain me This: Creativity, Competition and the Partial Productivity of Constructions. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E., Casenhiser, Devin & Sethuraman, Nitya. 2004. Learning argument structure generalizations. Cognitive Linguistics 14(3): 289–316. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gries, Stefan T. & Stefanowitsch, Anatol. 2004. Extending collostructional analysis: A corpus-based perspective on 'alternations'. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 9(1): 97–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1999. Why is grammaticalization irreversible? Linguistics 37(6): 1043–1068. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Miyashita, Hiroyuki. 2008. Accounting for a functional category: German drohen ‘to threaten’. Language Sciences 30: 53–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hilpert, Martin. 2015. From hand-carved to computer-based: Noun-participle compounding and the upward strengthening hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics 26(1): 113–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2003. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hundt, Marianne. 2014. The demise of the being to V construction. Transactions of the Philological Society 112(2): 167–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jiang, Lansheng. 2008. Semantic accumulation and constructional integration: An explanation on the asymmetry between affirmation and negation. Zhōngguó Yǔwén 6: 483–497.Google Scholar
Joseph, Brian D. 2014. What counts as (an instance of) grammaticalization? Folia Linguistica 48(2): 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuo, Yueh Hsin. 2016a. A diachronic pragmatic account of chādiǎn’s ambiguity and development. The Proceedings of the 18th Annual Conference of Pragmatics Society of Japan, 155–162.
. 2016b. A Diachronic Constructional Investigation into the Adverse Avertive Schema in Chinese. MSc by Research dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
. 2018. The development of three classifier constructions into degree adverbs in Chinese. In New Trends on Grammaticalization and Language Change [Studies in Language Companion Series 202], Sylvie Hancil, Tine Breban, & José Vicente Lozano (eds), 315–331. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuteva, Tania. 2001. Auxiliation: An Enquiry into the Nature of Grammaticalization. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vol. I: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.
Li, Charles N. 1976. A functional explanation for an unexpected case of ambiguity (S or -S). In Linguistic Studies Offered to Joseph Greenberg on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, Alphones Juilland (ed.), 527–535. Saratoga CA: Anma Libri.Google Scholar
Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Norde, Muriel & Trousdale, Graeme. 2016. Exaptation from the perspective of construction morphology. In Exaptation and Language Change [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 336], Muriel Norde & Freek Van de Velde (eds), 163–195. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Petré, Peter. 2010. The functions of weorðan and its loss in the past tense in Old and Middle English. English Language and Linguistics 14(3): 457–484. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peyraube, Alain. 1979. Les “approximatifs” Chinois: Chàbuduō, jīhū, chàyidiănr . Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 6: 49–62.Google Scholar
Reinöhl, Uta & Himmelmann, Nikolaus. P. Renewal: A figure of speech or process sui generis? Language 93(2): 381–413. DOI logo
Rosemeyer, Malte. 2014. Auxiliary Selection in Spanish: Gradience, Gradualness, and Conservation [Studies in Language Companion Series 155]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shuai, Zhisong. 2014. The evolution of ‘chādiǎn’r mei’ from the perspective of lexical semantic information. Yǔyán kēxué 13(6): 615–631.Google Scholar
Smirnova, E. 2015a. When secondary grammaticalization starts: A look from the constructional perspective. Language Sciences 47(b): 215–228. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smirnova, Elena. 2015b. Constructionalization and constructional change: The role of context in the development of constructions. In Diachronic Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language 18], Jóhanna Barðdal, Elena Smirnova, Lotte Sommerer & Spike Gildea (eds), 81–106. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sweetser, Eve E. 1988. Grammaticalization and semantic bleaching. In The Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Shelley Axmaker & Helen Singmaster (eds), 389–405. Berkeley CA: BLS. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Torres Cacoullos, Rena. 2015. Gradual loss of analyzability: Diachronic priming effects. In Variation in Language: System-and Usage-based Approaches, Aria Adli, Marco García García & Göz Kaufmann (eds), 265–288. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1993. The conflict promises/threatens to escalate into war. In The Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Joshua S. Guenter, Barabara A. Kaiser & Cheryll C. Zoll (eds), 348–358. Berkeley CA: BLS.Google Scholar
. 2016. Do semantic modal maps have a role in a constructionalization approach to modals? Constructions and Frames 8(1): 97–124.
. 2018. Modelling language change with constructional networks. In Beyond Grammaticalization and Discourse Markers, Salvador Pons Bordería & Óscar Loureda Lamas (eds), 17–50. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Trousdale, Graeme. 2013. Constructionalization and Constructional Changes. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trousdale, Graeme. 2008. Words and constructions in grammaticalization: The end of the English impersonal construction. In Studies in the History of the English Language, IV: Empirical and Analytical Advances in the Study of English Language Change, Susan Fitzmaurice & Donka Minkova (eds), 301–326. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van de Velde, Freek. 2014. Degeneracy: The maintenance of constructional networks. In Extending the Scope of Construction Grammar, Ronny Boogaart, Timothy Colleman & Gijsbert Rutten (eds), 141–179. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xu, Shi-yi. 2003. On the evolution of the negative mei and meiyou . Journal of Huzhou Teachers College 25: 1–6.Google Scholar
Zhou, Yiming. 2003. Cha dian er mei VP Sentences in Pekingese. Yǔyán jiàoxué yǔ yánjiū 6: 24–30.Google Scholar
Zhu, Dexi. 1959. Shuō chàyīdiǎn . Zhongguo Yuwen 9: 435.Google Scholar
Ziegeler, Debra. 2006. Interfaces with English Aspect: Diachronic and Empirical Studies [Studies in Language Companion Series 82]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2016. Intersubjectivity and the diachronic development of counterfactual almost . Journal of Historical Pragmatics 17(1): 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Castro-Chao, Noelia
2022. The Emergence and Loss of the English Minor Complementizerstillanduntil. Journal of English Linguistics 50:4 ► pp. 354 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.