Grammaticalized uses of the postverbal locative prepositional phrase in Lianhua Gan

ABSTRACT: The postverbal locative prepositional phrase “Prep+DemLoc” of Lianhua Gan Chinese has been grammaticalized as a postverbal durative marker and a sentence-final mood particle. This study examines the syntactic and semantic properties as well as the grammaticalization of these two uses. The postverbal durative “Prep+DemLoc” is attached to some resultative verb compounds with phase complements that have the semantic features of [+dynamic], [–durative], and [+telic], and expresses the durativity of the resultant states expressed by these RVCs. It forms a contrastive distribution with the perfective marker li . The sentence-final “Prep+DemLoc” fits with the distributional and functional properties of a typical sentence-final particle in Chinese. It takes the preceding clause in its scope and can co-occur with other sentence-final particles in a restricted order. It is used to express the subjective mood meaning of emphasizing the existence of the state of affairs expressed by the preceding clause and facilitate the conversation by taking on the discourse function of gaining strength to the speaker’s communicative intention that can be implicit or explicit in the conversation. Based on the synchronic data, I reconstruct two probable pathways of the postverbal “Prep+DemLoc” in Lianhua Gan, i.e., “Locative > Durative > Mood” and “Locative > Mood”. The significance of this study mainly lies in its implications for cross-dialectal comparative studies on the counterparts of the postverbal “Prep+DemLoc” in other Chinese dialects. 摘要: 莲花赣语中位于动词后的处所介词结构“介词+处所指示代词”发展出了持续体标记和句末语气词两种虚化用法。本文关注这两个虚化用法的句法语义特征及其语法化过程。持续体标记用法主要依附于一些包含动相补语的动结式，表示动结式所表达的结果状态正在持续。句末语气词用法符合一般句末语气词的句法语义特征，主要用于强调小句所表达的事态，为说话人的交际意图提供依据和增强语力。基于对共时语料的分析，本文构拟出两条可能平行存在的语法化路径：处所>持续>语气、处所>语气。通过对莲花赣语的充分研究，本文希望能为汉语动后处所结构多功能性和语法化的跨方言比较研究提供更细致的描写框架。