The development of the Chinese multifunctional construction V+qilai : From a complement-taking predicate to a discourse marker

Fangqiong Zhan
Nanyang Technological University National Institute of Education

This paper examines the multiple functions of the construction V+qilai as a discourse marker (DM) in Modern Chinese, as well as its historical development. I argue that V+qilai serves various functions in Modern Chinese, including as an elaborative, contrastive, inferential, and topic shift marker. While some research has explored the evolution of the chunked V+qilai, none have approached it from a diachronic constructional perspective or provided a convincing developmental trajectory of the DM. Drawing on extensive classical data, I maintain that the DM V+qilai originated from a directional verbal phrase used as a complement-taking predicate, evolved into a circumstantial adverbial, then into a conjunct, and finally into a DM. This trajectory aligns partially with the Trajectory Hypothesis proposed by Traugott (2022) for the evolution of DMs in English. This study contributes to cross-linguistic typological research on the emergence of pragmatic and discourse devices and how text coherence develops in human languages.

Publication history

Date received: 9 January 2024

Date accepted: 28 October 2024

Published online: 27 May 2025

Table of contents

Conjuncts and discourse markers (DMs) function as connectors, allowing the speaker/writer (SP/W) to indicate the desired relationship they want the addressee/reader (AD/R) to infer from the connection of discourse segments in a non-subordinate manner. Traugott (2022) considers both conjuncts and DMs as discourse structuring markers (DSMs) and proposes a continuum for DSMs: on one end are partially contentful and monofunctional expressions (conjuncts, e.g., ‘in addition’), while on the other end, there are highly multifunctional expressions (DMs, e.g., ‘after all’). Markers like ‘incidentally’ fall in between. In the historical context, many English DSMs have their origins in circumstance adverbials (CircAdvs) of location and temporality. Traugott (2022) presents the Trajectory Hypothesis of DSMs in English, maintaining that there is a change from CircAdv to conjunct in terms of form, and the shift in meaning ranges from [+contentful] through partially contentful to largely pragmatic features. It is worth noting that the latter shift is not obligatory, as not all conjuncts evolve to be used as multifunctional DMs.

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