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A Life in CognitionPreposition Stranding in Archaic and Medieval Chinese

A Life in Cognition: Preposition Stranding in Archaic and Medieval Chinese [Preposition stranding (sometimes called orphaned preposition) refers to a syntactic construction in which a preposition is left without a following object. It is more often found in spoken language than in formal written language. This kind of construction is commonly found in English (where it usually occurs at the end of the sentence), but also in other Germanic languages or dialects, and also in some languages belonging to the Niger-Congo family, but it is almost non-existent in standard Mandarin. However, we can find stranded, hanging or dangling prepositions in contemporary various dialects, such as in the Zhangjiakou dialect (Hebei province). See, among others, the research works of Zong (Zhongguo Yuwen (Chinese Language) 5:532–543, 2019), Guo (Zhongguo Yuyanxue (Chinese Linguistics) 2:23–36, 2009), and Zhang (Yuyan Kexue (Language Sciences) 3:288–303, 2009). It is also assumed that preposition stranding was quite common in Archaic Chinese (especially for the prepositions yǐ and wéi) and also in Medieval Chinese as well, but in lesser proportions. However, no systematic analysis has been done yet on these former stages of the Chinese language, and especially for Early Medieval and Late Medieval Chinese, when the Classical Chinese prepositions (comitative, instrumental, locative, ablative, allative, dative, etc.) yǐ and yú have become obsolete and have been replaced by other prepositions. See Liu (Yufa diaocha yanjiu shouce (Handbook of grammatical fieldwork). Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 2017). This article tries to fill this gap and to show that there has been the following typological evolution from Archaic to Medieval and later Modern Chinese: [more preposition stranding] > [less preposition stranding].] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Life in CognitionPreposition Stranding in Archaic and Medieval Chinese

Part of the Language, Cognition, and Mind Book Series (volume 11)
Editors: Gervain, Judit; Csibra, Gergely; Kovács, Kristóf
Peyraube, Alain; Xiao, Lin
A Life in Cognition — Dec 3, 2021
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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
ISBN
978-3-030-66174-8
Pages
81 –91
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-66175-5_7
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Preposition stranding (sometimes called orphaned preposition) refers to a syntactic construction in which a preposition is left without a following object. It is more often found in spoken language than in formal written language. This kind of construction is commonly found in English (where it usually occurs at the end of the sentence), but also in other Germanic languages or dialects, and also in some languages belonging to the Niger-Congo family, but it is almost non-existent in standard Mandarin. However, we can find stranded, hanging or dangling prepositions in contemporary various dialects, such as in the Zhangjiakou dialect (Hebei province). See, among others, the research works of Zong (Zhongguo Yuwen (Chinese Language) 5:532–543, 2019), Guo (Zhongguo Yuyanxue (Chinese Linguistics) 2:23–36, 2009), and Zhang (Yuyan Kexue (Language Sciences) 3:288–303, 2009). It is also assumed that preposition stranding was quite common in Archaic Chinese (especially for the prepositions yǐ and wéi) and also in Medieval Chinese as well, but in lesser proportions. However, no systematic analysis has been done yet on these former stages of the Chinese language, and especially for Early Medieval and Late Medieval Chinese, when the Classical Chinese prepositions (comitative, instrumental, locative, ablative, allative, dative, etc.) yǐ and yú have become obsolete and have been replaced by other prepositions. See Liu (Yufa diaocha yanjiu shouce (Handbook of grammatical fieldwork). Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 2017). This article tries to fill this gap and to show that there has been the following typological evolution from Archaic to Medieval and later Modern Chinese: [more preposition stranding] > [less preposition stranding].]

Published: Dec 3, 2021

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