In:The Development of the Chinese Cleft Construction: A diachronic constructional approach
Fangqiong Zhan
[Constructional Approaches to Language 41] 2026
► pp. vii–x
Published online: 5 February 2026
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.41.toc
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.41.toc
Table of contents
List of tablesXI
List of figuresXIII
AbbreviationsXV
AcknowledgementsXVII
Chapter 1.Introduction1
1.1Preliminaries1
1.2Background: The notion of cleft2
1.3The phenomenon of interest: The clefts in Chinese4
1.4Research questions and proposals9
1.5Sources of Chinese data12
1.6Overview of the book13
Chapter 2.The Chinese cleft construction: Synchronic and diachronic perspectives17
2.1The synchronic studies on the Chinese cleft construction17
2.1.1The structure of the Chinese cleft construction17
2.1.2The semantics and pragmatics of the Chinese cleft construction19
2.2The diachronic studies on the Chinese cleft construction20
2.2.1Previous research on the development of the copula shi21
2.2.2Previous research on the development of the cleft construction23
2.3The theoretical framework25
2.3.1Construction grammar25
2.3.1.1Cognitive construction grammar25
2.3.1.2The constructional network26
2.3.2Diachronic construction grammar27
2.3.2.1Constructionalization28
2.3.2.2Constructional changes29
2.3.2.3A comparison between grammaticalization and constructionalization30
2.3.2.4Motivation: Analogy and ‘invited inference’33
2.3.2.5Mechanisms: Neo-analysis and analogization35
2.4Summary37
Chapter 3.A constructional analysis of the cleft construction in Modern Chinese39
3.1Introduction39
3.2The Chinese copular construction41
3.2.1The syntactic concept of “copula”42
3.2.2The semantics of the copula47
3.2.3The constructional network of the copular construction49
3.3Adverb-based analysis of shi in cleft sentences51
3.4A constructional analysis of the Chinese cleft construction56
3.5The relationships between VP
de, V de O, and bare shi clefts59
3.5.1The interchangeability of VP de and V de O60
3.5.2The relationship between VP de and bare shi64
3.6Summary65
Chapter 4.The development of the Chinese copular construction69
4.1Introduction69
4.2Data and methodology69
4.3Classical copular clauses in Old Chinese70
4.4The development of the copula shi construction75
4.4.1The topic-comment construction in Old Chinese75
4.4.2The emergence of the copula shi construction77
4.4.3Probable motivations and mechanisms for constructionalization of shi as a copula79
4.5Expansion of the copula shi construction84
4.5.1The gain of the copula shi construction and reduction of the copula wei construction84
4.5.2The increase of adverbs preceding shi87
4.5.3Generalization of the copula shi construction without final particle87
4.5.4Changes in the type of NP in [NP shi NP]88
4.5.5The intertwining of expansion and reduction89
4.6Summary91
Chapter 5.The development of the VP
de cleft construction93
5.1Introduction93
5.2The rise of the VP
de cleft construction96
5.2.1Shi: The copula in early Middle Chinese96
5.2.2Nominalization in late Middle Chinese100
5.2.3The emergence of the VP de cleft construction104
5.2.3.1The emergence of [NP COP XP
DE]104
5.2.3.2The emergence of the VP de cleft construction105
5.3Modeling the development of the VP
de cleft construction108
5.4Factors leading to and correlated with the rise of the VP
de cleft110
5.4.1Motivations: Analogical thinking and discourse strategy111
5.4.2Mechanisms: Analogization and neo-analysis112
5.4.3Productivity, schematicity, and compositionality113
5.5Summary115
Chapter 6.The development of the Chinese V de O cleft construction117
6.1Introduction117
6.2The rise of the V de O cleft119
6.2.1[Object-RC NP] in late Middle Chinese120
6.2.2The emergence of the V de O cleft123
6.2.2.1The emergence of [NP COP Object-RC NP]123
6.2.2.2The emergence of the V de O cleft125
6.3A constructional account of the development of the V de O cleft127
6.3.1Modeling the development of the V de O cleft construction127
6.3.2The factors enabling the emergence of the V de O cleft128
6.3.2.1Neo-analysis128
6.3.2.2Analogization129
6.3.3The network of the Chinese cleft construction133
6.4Summary134
Chapter 7.Moving beyond the cleft137
7.1Future directions of research on the Chinese cleft construction137
7.2Moving beyond the cleft construction138
7.2.1The shi…de assertive proposition construction139
7.2.2The verum shi construction140
7.3Summary142
Bibliography145
Appendix159
Index
