A Typological Study On The Antecedent Aspect Markers In Chinese Dialects

This paper takes antecedent aspect markers in Chinese dialects as the research object,comprehensively uses descriptive linguistics,historical linguistics,language typology and other related theories and methods,from the dimensions of phonetic form,grammatical meaning,syntactic distribution and evolution path,combines cross-dialect comparison and case study,analyzes and summarizes multidimensional type features of antecedent aspect markers.The full text is divided into five chapters.Chapter one,“Introduction”: firstly,introduces the reasons for choosing the topic and the research value of antecedent aspect markers,and summarizes the current research situation of antecedent aspect in Chinese dialects as comprehensively as possible;then defines the concepts of antecedent aspect and aspect markers,and clarifies the purpose and methods of this research,and explains the source of the corpus and the style of the paper.Chapter two,“The phonetic type and geographical distribution of antecedent aspect markers”: firstly,starting from the marker word order of antecedent clauses,divides the antecedent aspect markers into three types: prepositional,postpositional and framed.Secondly,focuses on the discussion of postpositional type,and summarizes the phonetic forms of postpositional type into seven categories: D series,G series,J series,L series,Z series,zero-sound mother line,and others,and sorts out the geographical distribution of each type one by one.From an overview,concludes that the northern dialects are dominated by the Z and D series,and that the southern dialects generally have the distribution characteristics of the east-west complement or north-south intersection in each area of the southern dialect.Thirdly,from the perspective of word order typology,proposes that the combination of VP and postpositional markers belongs to the word order of “core language-dependent language”,which is in harmony with VO word order,and postpositional markers are more in line with the word order characteristics of southern dialects.Chapter three,“Syntactic and semantic types of antecedent aspect markers”: firstly,points out that the semantic basis of forming antecedent aspect is “reference time” and“relative sequence”,and according to “sequence without event connection” and“precondition of event connection”,subdivides the semantic category of antecedent aspect into “order first” and “reason first”.Secondly,subdivides the VP attached to the antecedent aspect markers into seven structural types,including “V”,“VV”,“VO”,“VC”,“V+particle”,“NP”,and “AP”,and points out that its core feature is that VP is “bounded”,and examines the use of antecedent aspect markers in negative and interrogative sentences.Thirdly,through synchronic analysis,finds that multiple markers used together in the same dialect can present a distribution pattern of opposites and complementarities in terms of syntactic structure,sentence polarity,frequency of use,and semantic category.Through an in-depth case study of the antecedent aspect markers “Lai(来)” and “Duo(哆)” in Chengdu Hakka dialect,concludes that “Duo(哆)” is used more widely than“Lai(来)”.Later,pays attention to the appearance and causes of the frame type of antecedent aspect markers,the overlapping form of antecedent aspect markers,and the compound antecedent aspect markers,points out that both the frame type and the superimposed form reflect the overlapping of different historical levels in the contact process,while the compounding of antecedent aspect markers has three formation paths:grammaticalization after phrases becoming words,cross-layer structure lexicalization,and overlapping co-occurrence and solidification.Chapter four,“The source type and grammatical investigation of antecedent aspect markers”: summarizes the sources of antecedent markers into the type derived from auxiliary words,the type derived from verbs,and the type derived from adverbs.Firstly,discusses the type derived from auxiliary words,points out that the grammaticalization of such markers is mostly associated with the use of “Zhe(着)” in imperative sentences,which indicates the realization or continuation of the action state.Through the case study,concludes that the grammaticalization path of “Duo(哆)” in Chengdu Hakka dialect is as follows : perfect/continuation aspect particle > imperative particle > antecedent aspect marker.Secondly,discusses the type derived from verbs,the formation of such markers is mostly closely related to the metaphorical relationship between space and time of functional words indicating the category of direction and location.Through the comparative analysis of synchronic and diachronic,concludes that the grammaticalization path of “Lai(来)” in Chengdu Hakka dialect is as follows: tendency verb > “near past” aspect marker > antecedent aspect marker.Thirdly,discusses the type derived from adverbs,argues that the “Xian(先)” type markers and the “Zai(再)”type markers have developed the same marking function across dialects based on the relative relationship of semantic orientation.Afterwards,through the method of verification,finds the grammaticalization path of “Zheng(正)” in Sichuan Hakka dialect is as follows: adjective > adverb of “just” time meaning > associated adverb of “Cai/Zai(才/再)” meaning >(syntactic adjustment and contextual meaning omission)>antecedent aspect markers.Finally,combining typology and dialect contact theory,explores the grammaticalization-related issues involved in the dialect distribution of antecedent aspect markers.Chapter five,“Conclusion”: summarizes the basic viewpoints and conclusions of this paper,points out the possible innovations of this paper,reflects on the shortcomings of this paper,and puts forward the outlook for future related research.