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Effects of constituent orders on grammaticalization patterns of the serial verbs for ‘give’ in thai and mandarin chinese’
Abstract
The verbs meaning ‘give’ across languages are known to be among the most highly grammaticalized verbs, which exhibit a high degree of polyfunctionality. This paper aims to (i) present commonalities and differences in the grammaticalization of the verbs for ‘give’ in Thai and Mandarin Chinese, namely, hây in Thai and gěi in Mandarin Chinese, and (ii) investigate how different constituent orders of the head vis-à-vis the modifier and complement in Thai and Mandarin Chinese bear on patterns of grammaticalization of the two verbs. It is found that the functions that hây in Thai and gěi in Mandarin Chinese share in common are (1) the ditransitive verb use, (2) the dative-marking use, (3) the benefactivemarking use, and (4) the causative-marking use. As for different functions of hây and gěi, hây exhibits the clause connective use, which is lacking in gěi, whereas gěi exhibit the passive-marking use, which is lacking in hây. It is argued that the head-modifier order in Thai seems to be compatible with postverbal grammaticalized morphemes whereas the modifier-head order in Mandarin Chinese seems to be compatible with preverbal grammaticalized ones.
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It is common knowledge that the words corresponding to GIVE in serializing languages like hây and gěi in Thai and Mandarin Chinese, respectively, have multiple uses. Owing to the similarities as well as the differences in the synchronic usage and the diachronic development toward grammaticalization exhibited by the same words, they will be examined comparatively in this study, whose objectives are twofold: (i) to identify the similarities and differences in the usage between hây and gěi at the present time and (ii) to argue that these multiple meanings of hây and gěi are related, i.e. they are cases of polysemy. It has been brought to light that hây in Thai has a number of uses like: (1) a main verb use to indicate an action of possession transfer, (2) a dative use, (3) a benefactive use, (4) a causative use, (5) a malefactive use, and (6) a connective use in purposive, jussive, and complementation constructions. Its Mandarin Chinese equivalent gěi too has a range of uses like: (1) a main verb use, (2) a dative use, (3) a benefactive use, (4) a causative use, (5) a passive use, and (6) a ditransitive use. As is typical of serializing languages, these different, multifarious uses of hây and gěi arguably constitute cases of polysemy. It has also been discovered that the metonymic process, which involves pragmatic inferencing, plays a primary role in semantically extending the meaning of GIVE in both the languages.