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The diachronic development of the Chinese passive: From the wei … suo passive to the long passive

The diachronic development of the Chinese passive: From the wei … suo passive to the long passive <p>Abstract:</p><p>This article discusses the diachronic development of the Chinese long passive. The diachronic analysis is built on structural analysis of the long passive and the wei … suo passive. I show that both constructions involve a highly restricted embedded clause (a <i>v</i>P) and that both are derived via Aʹ-movement. Based on their structural parallelism, I argue that the wei … suo passive, which first appeared in Late Archaic Chinese (fifth century bce ~ third century bce), is the direct ancestor of the long passive. The long passive inherits its Aʹ properties and biclausal structure from the wei … suo passive. I also show that the diachronic development from the wei … suo passive to the long passive took place in two steps: (i) the loss of suo following a morphophonological change in Early Middle Chinese (second century bce ~ second century ce, and (ii) the replacement of wei by bei in Middle Chinese (third century ce ~ sixth century ce).</p> http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Language Linguistic Society of America

The diachronic development of the Chinese passive: From the wei … suo passive to the long passive

Li, Yin
Language , Volume 94 (2) – Jun 16, 2018
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25 pages

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Publisher
Linguistic Society of America
Copyright
Copyright © Linguistic Society of America.
ISSN
1535-0665

Abstract

<p>Abstract:</p><p>This article discusses the diachronic development of the Chinese long passive. The diachronic analysis is built on structural analysis of the long passive and the wei … suo passive. I show that both constructions involve a highly restricted embedded clause (a <i>v</i>P) and that both are derived via Aʹ-movement. Based on their structural parallelism, I argue that the wei … suo passive, which first appeared in Late Archaic Chinese (fifth century bce ~ third century bce), is the direct ancestor of the long passive. The long passive inherits its Aʹ properties and biclausal structure from the wei … suo passive. I also show that the diachronic development from the wei … suo passive to the long passive took place in two steps: (i) the loss of suo following a morphophonological change in Early Middle Chinese (second century bce ~ second century ce, and (ii) the replacement of wei by bei in Middle Chinese (third century ce ~ sixth century ce).</p>

Journal

Language – Linguistic Society of America

Published: Jun 16, 2018

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