The development of VdeO clefts in Chinese: a diachronic constructionist approach

• Kun Yang ^[1] ; Qingshun He ^[2]
  1. [1] Southwest University

     Southwest University

     China

     
  2. [2] Sun Yat-sen University

     Sun Yat-sen University

     China

     
• Localización: Lingua: International review of general linguistics, ISSN 0024-3841, Nº 270, 2022
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Previous studies of Chinese VdeO clefts mainly focus on the function of shì and attribute the meaning of the VdeO clefts to the focus marking feature of shì without considering their functions and developments as independent constructions. This paper classifies VdeO clefts into specificational VdeO clefts (Variant1) and predicational VdeO clefts (Variant2) and analyzes the formation and development of these two types of Chinese VdeO clefts with a diachronic constructionist approach. The constructionalization of specificational VdeO clefts undergoes a series of function shifts from membership-inclusion to properties-predicating and then to value-specifying. It is the micro-step changes that finally lead to the mismatched pseudo-modifer VdeO element. The context-absorption of contrastive context is the source for the construction meaning specifying an exclusive value for the variable. In contrast, the development of predicational VdeO clefts only involves constructional changes from V-focus to VdeO-focus and then to O-focus. The change of focus is governed by the Focus-Shift Principle, according to which, the focus of a sentence tends to fall on the more complicated and specified information.