The Boundedness of Adjectival Predication in Chinese: From Diachronic Perspective

Abstract

 By means of diachronic comparative analysis, this paper investigates the boundedness of adjectival predication from a historical perspective. Remarkable differences are observed to exist between modern Mandarin and classic Chinese: firstly, some adjectival-predicates had underwent changes from unmarked to marked form, accompanied by an increase of the number of adjectival-predicate markers; secondly, some adjectival-predicate markers are found in both classic and modern Chinese, however, their different usage in different periods indicates a tendency towards increasing bounded degree; in contrast, there are also some markers that could modify adjectival-predicate independently in early period but lost this function gradually. These diachronic evidences suggest the boundarization of adjectival predication in Chinese. Corpus data and statistic analysis are also used to examine when the boundedness of adjectival predication was established. It is shown that the boundarizing process began in the middle ancient times, then developed rapidly in Song and Yuan Dynasties, and finally completed in Ming and Qing Dynasties.