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Article published In: Journal of Historical Pragmatics
Vol. 23:2 (2022) ► pp.245–284

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A constructional account of the development of the Chinese stance discourse marker běnlái

ORCiD logo with link | Nanyang Technological University National Institute of Education
Published online: 11 November 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.19008.zha
Abstract
This paper examines the emergence of the Chinese adverb běnlái and its further development into a stance discourse marker (sdm). Most previous studies consider the epistemic modal adverb běnlái (‘indeed, truly’) to have originated from the temporal adverb běnlái (‘originally’). Based on the framework of constructionalisation (Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Graeme Trousdale. 2013. Constructionalization and Constructional Changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and Van de Velde, Freek, Hendrik De Smet and Lobke Ghesquière. 2013. “On Multiple Source Constructions in Language Change”. Studies in Language 37 (3): 473–488. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar idea of multiple sources, I argue that the temporal adverb might not have been the only source for the modal běnlái to occur. Furthermore, the modal adverb changed into an sdm, thereby signaling the speaker’s subjective evaluation while linking the coherence of the discourse. I argue that the change was enabled by both subjectification and analogisation. The exemplars to which běnlái was by hypothesis analogised include the extant discourse connectives (e.g., kěshì) and the extant commentary pragmatic markers (e.g., kělián and suǒxìng) (. 2009. “An Account of Discourse Markers”. International Review of Pragmatics 1 (2): 293–320. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Some basic concepts of the framework
    • 2.1Constructionalisation and constructional changes
    • 2.2Diachronic pragmatics
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Běnlái in Modern Chinese
  • 5.Běnlái in the history of Chinese
    • 5.1Běn and lái in Old Chinese
    • 5.2The development of běnlái
  • 6.The constructional account of the development of běnlái
    • 6.1Subjectification
    • 6.2Analogisation
      • 6.2.1The extant discourse connectives
      • 6.2.2The extant commentary pragmatic markers
    • 6.3The constructional network of the stance discourse marker
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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