In:From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics
Edited by Pieter Muysken
[Studies in Language Companion Series 90] 2008
► pp. 221–274
6. Zhuang: A Tai language with some Sinitic characteristics. Postverbal 'can' in Zhuang, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Lao
Published online: 6 February 2008
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.90.06syb
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.90.06syb
This paper deals with an areal feature shared by languages spoken in Indo-China and Southern China, namely, the presence of a modal element in a for these languages a-typical post-verbal position. In this paper we investigate the properties of this element in Cantonese, Lao, Vietnamese and Zhuang. One of the questions we focus on is the fact that the element in question can be translated with ‘can’, but the languages differ in that only in a subset of them, it can mean ‘can-ability’. It turns out that the interpretational properties of the element is tightly interrelated with both syntactic and interpretational properties of the resultative construction.
Cited by (7)
Cited by seven other publications
Hu, Yehao & Gong Cheng
Chit-yu Lam, Cherry
2023. Rethinking postverbal ‘acquire’ and related constructions in Cantonese. Language and Linguistics. 語言暨語言學 24:4 ► pp. 674 ff.
Huang, Yang & Fuxiang Wu
2018. Central Southern Guangxi as a grammaticalization area. In New Trends in Grammaticalization and Language Change [Studies in Language Companion Series, 202], ► pp. 105 ff.
Cheng, Gong, Zhao-Hui Yi & Jian-Guo Xiong
Ngai, Sing Sing
2015. Giving is receiving. In Causation, Permission, and Transfer [Studies in Language Companion Series, 167], ► pp. 253 ff.
Bit-Chee, Kwok, Andy C. Chin & Benjamin K. Tsou
[no author supplied]
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