Schedule 73. StuTS

This presentation discusses the historical development of ditransitive GIVE constructions in Hainan-Min Chinese. I identified the origin and the historical strata of coexisting GIVE verbs in present-day Hainan-Min Chinese and provided an explanation for their unusual syntactic behaviors from the perspective of language contact.

Ditransitive GIVE-constructions in Sinitic languages can be classified into two types: (1) the “canonical” [V-IO-DO] construction (i.e., “give me a book”), which is found in Mandarin, Northern Chinese and Southern Min-Chinese; and (2) [V-DO-IO] construction (i.e., “give a book me”), which is common in Southern Chinese (Hashimoto 1976). Hainan Min-Chinese is a variety of Southern Min-Chinese consisting of various dialects. It has undergone intense language contact with the indigenous Kra-Dai languages (Hlai and Be) and other Chinese varieties on the Hainan Island for more than one millennium (Liu 2006). Cao (2008) claims that Hainan Min differs from other Southern Min varieties in employing the [GIVE-DO-IO] construction, as well as using the verb /ʔio/ ‘take’as a GIVE verb. Zhang (2011) further argues that this is the result from the omission of dative markers in prepositional dative constructions (i.e., “take a book (to) me”) under the pressure of contact with [V-DO-IO]-type Cantonese.
This paper presents evidence from three Hainan Min dialects (Haikou, Qionghai, Gangmen) showing that [GIVE-IO-DO] (Southern Min) construction is strongly preferred, and that the [GIVE-DO-IO] (non-Southern Min Southern Chinese) construction is still in its infancy of development. By comparing ditransitive GIVE-constructions in the three Hainan Min dialects, with reference to other Southern Min varieties, early modern vernacular Southern Min texts, other Southern Chinese varieties and the indigenous Be language, I have identified the origin and the historical strata of GIVE verbs. In present-day Hainan Min, bun ‘distribute’, ʔio ‘take’ and khi ‘beg/give’ all coexist as GIVE verbs. I argue that Hainan Min inherited khi and [GIVE-IO-DO] construction from Southern Min, while the sememe {GIVE} of bun and ʔio were introduced through language contact with Hakka (Sinitic) and Be (Kra-Dai) respectively at different stages of historical development.
Previous studies have also proposed an implicational universal about ditransitive constructions in Sinitic languages: “absence of [GIVE-IO-DO] constructions  absence of R-type GIVE verbs” (Zhang 2011; Phua 2015; Phua and Xiang 2020). R-type GIVE verbs refer to GIVE verbs that introduce recipient argument (Li and Wu 2015; cf. Margetts and Austin 2010). It is further postulated that for a verb meaning TAKE/HOLD/DISTRIBUTE to be used as a ditransitive GIVE verb in the [GIVE-IO-DO] construction, it has to undergo DO-fronting and preposition incorporation to be a R-type GIVE verb (Li and Wu 2015; Xia 2017).
These proposals are challenged by the Haikou and Gangmen dialects of Hainan Min, which use bun ‘distribute’ and ʔio ‘take’ as ditransitive GIVE verbs in the [GIVE-IO-DO] construction, as they do not allow bun and ʔio to introduce recipient argument without preposition in between. Preposition incorporation is either in progress (Haikou dialect), or has not begun (Gangmen dialect). I argue that these unusual syntactic behaviors of bun and ʔio are due to the fact that they did not undergo the development from DISTRIBUTE/TAKE verbs into GIVE verbs through DO-fronting and preposition incorporation. Instead, the polysemous patterns of bun (‘distribute’/ ‘give’) and ʔio (‘take’/ ‘give’) were copied into Hainan Min at the time of contact, despite that the corresponding morpheme of ʔio in Be only appears in [GIVE-DO-IO] construction. bun and ʔio replaced the native GIVE verb khi and occupied its position in the inherent [GIVE-IO-DO] constructions, making Hainan Min a rare exception to established patterns. The findings illustrate examples of polysemous pattern being transferred in contact situation regardless to the mismatch in syntactic structures, and it is mapped onto the inherent structures in the recipient language without causing change in word order.

References
Cao, Zhiyun. ed. 2008. Hanyu fangyan dituji (Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects). Beijing: Commercial Press.
Hashimoto, Mantaro. 1976. Language diffusion on the Asian continent: problems of typological diversity in Sino-Tibetan. Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages 3:49–65.
Li, Xuping and Yicheng Wu. 2015. Ditransitives in three Gan dialects: valence increasing and preposition incorporation. Language Sciences 50:66-77.
Liu, Xinzhong. 2006. Hainan minyu de yuyin yanjiu (Phonetics and phonology of the Min dialect in Hainan). Beijing: China Social Sciences Press.
Margetts, Anna and Peter K. Austin. 2007. Three Participant Events in the Languages of the World: Towards a Crosslinguistic Typology. Linguistics 45 (3), 393–451.
Phua, Chiew Pheng and Mengbing Xiang. 2020. Liancheng xinquan kejiahua de jiyu dongci he jiyulei shuangjiwu jiegou (The GIVE verbs and ditransitive give-type construction in Liancheng Xinquan Hakka dialect). Yuyanxue Luncong 61:50-91.
Phua, Chiew Pheng. 2015. Shanggu hanyu yuge jushi yanjiu (Study in dative constructions in archaic Chinese). Beijing: Commercial Press.
Xia, Liping. 2017. Jufa kucang liebian: cong liandongshi dao jiyulei shuangjiwu jiegou (Syntactic inventory fission: from serial verb construction to ditransitive GIVE-construction). Bulletin of Linguistic Studies 18:25-46.
Zhang, Min. 2011. Hanyu fangyan shuangjiwu jiegou nanbei chayi de chengyin: leixingxue jianjiu yinfa de xinwenti (Revisiting the alignment typology of ditransitive constructions in Chinese dialects). Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics 4 (2), 87–270.

Info

Day: 2023-05-27
Start time: 11:05
Duration: 00:30
Room: SH 0.106
Track: Historical Linguistics

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