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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 1992

Towards a typology of aspect in Sinitic languages

Résumé

This paper sets out to analyse the grammatical category of verbal aspect in representative dialects of three dialect groups within Sinitic, Mandarin, Yue-Guangzhou and Min-Xiamen, in order to investigate what the general grammatical features of aspect in Sinitic are as opposed to the specific and unique features of aspect in each dialect. The syntactic strategies used to encode aspect in Yue and Min are discussed as well as their function and morphological form, contrasting them with the aspect system of Mandarin Chinese in order to set up a typology of Sinitic aspect systems. Diachronic relationships are also considered. Hence, the aim of this study is to unify the two views regarding Chinese grammar by evaluating the categories of aspect in terms of contemporary cross-linguistic and typological studies of aspect, tense and modality such as Bybee 1985; Bybee & Dahl 1989, Bybee, Pagliuca & Perkins (in prep.), Comrie 1976, 1985 and Dahl 1985. Secondly, this paper suggests that the feature of preverbal aspectual marking in Min-Xiamen may prove to be historically significant in terms of the general development of Sinitic aspect systems. An outline of the possible diachronic development of aspect markers in these two dialect groups will be presented and the speculated path of development will be contrasted with that attested for standard Chinese (Mandarin or putonghua). The diachronic outline as well as the synchronic descriptions are based on the following three premises proposed by Bybee (1985): 1)diachronic change proceeds from non-bound lexical morphemes to bound grammatical morphemes 2)similar paths of development of lexical meaning into grammatical meaning can be identified in different languages 3)grammaticized meaning is determined by the original lexical source. Analysis of data for Min-Xiamen, Yue-Guangzhou and Mandarin is carried out in terms of two main categories of aspect - bounded and unbounded. ‘Bounded’ aspect refers to predicates aspectually modified to code events which have or contain a well-defined limit - either a specific beginning or endpoint, such as resultatives, perfectives, inchoatives and perfects of anteriority . In contrast to this, ‘unbounded’ aspect refers to those markers which code the limitless or ongoing nature of an event such as progressive, continuous and habitual aspects.
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hal-03931568 , version 1 (06-02-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03931568 , version 1

Citer

Hilary Chappell. Towards a typology of aspect in Sinitic languages. Editorial Committee of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. Jingnei Yuyan ji Yuyanxue: Hanyu Fangyan (Chinese Languages and Linguistics Volume I: Chinese Dialects), 1 (1), Academia Sinica, pp.67-106, 1992, Symposium series of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 978-95-767-1049-0. ⟨hal-03931568⟩
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