On Disambiguating baa sentences in Heyuan Hakka

As a rarely researched Chinese dialect, some interesting phenomena in Heyuan Hakka have not been well investigated. Although previous studies have researched some idiosyncractic markers or constructions in Heyuan Hakka, e.g., the grammaticalised baa, current interpretations of the linguistic phenomena in this Chinese diaclect are superficial. To introduce more up-to-date syntactic theories to the research of Heyuan Hakka, the multifunctional word baa is an ideal window into the combination of theories and concrete examples. Based on previous studies, this paper aims to give a further explanation of how native speakers decipher ambiguous baa sentences, i.e., to identify whether baa is a disposal marker or a passive marker, based on the more recent data collected from 8 native speakers. To achieve this foremost goal, this study investigates the effect of the animacy hieararchy and plausibility on producing baa sentences. For future research, this paper would inspire researchers to study Heyuan Hakka in virture of different theories and even to study other under-researched dialects in China.