Wang et al.’s (2000, 2003) Account

Wang et al. (2000, 2003) conduct quantitative studies on the use of shuo in the BBS and conversation data. They observe that shuo is more likely to be employed as a complementizer in conversation (90.35%) than in BBS (11.04%). They argue that this contrast results from the fact that face-to-face conversations involve interlocutors in a turn-by-turn interaction in which negotiation and face (Brown and Levinson 1987) are engaged, whereas in BBS communication negotiation and face are not the main concern. This suggests that the occurrence of shuo as a complementizer is strongly associated with the concerns of negotiation and face engaged in conversations.

Wang et al. also find that as a complementizer, shuo can follow mental/cognitive verbs and speech-act/reportative verbs.

(75) wo xiang shuo CHANEL keneng hui bang ren xiuli … I think SHUO CHANEL probably would help people fix

“I think that CHANEL can fix their products…”

(76) shanghui tade jinjiren bu shi chulai zhegshi shuo last time her agent not BE go out verify SHUO

ta yijin huaiyun le ma…

she already pregnant ASP QUE

“Didn’t her agent verify that she was already pregnant the last time?”

Wang et al.’s studies differ from the previous ones in that they find that complementizer shuo can also co-occur with other types of verbs aside from mental/cognitive verbs and speech-act/reportative verbs as shown in (77).

(77) ta jiu faxian shuo aiya…

he just find SHUO PAT

“She found that…”

In this sentence, faxian “find” is neither a speech act verb nor a mental verb.

Therefore, it can be observed that the complementizer use of shuo has been extended to verbs other than speech act verbs and mental verbs.

In addition, the co-occurrence of shuo with these types of verbs reveals different distributions in BBS and conversation data. Most of the tokens of shuo in conversation data follow mental verbs (64.08%) while most of the occurrences of shuo in BBS data follow speech-act verbs (73.68%).

Wang et al. maintain that when complementizer shuo is used, a sense of reported speech is derived. Their data shows that most matrix subjects co-occurring with shuo are in the third person, such as ta(men) jiang shuo “he (they) speak(s) say”. By reporting the proposition as stated by the third person, the speaker tries to avoid the responsibility of verifying the information in the proposition. In other words, shuo functions to indicate lower degree of certainty on the part of the speaker.

To summarize, Wang et al.’s studies have shown a tendency that as a complementizer, shuo not only goes with speech-act/reportative verbs and mental/cognitive verbs but also other types of verbs. Their quantitative analysis has proved the different use of shuo in different genres such as face-to-face conversations and BBS communication.

2.3.3.4 Su’s (2002, 2004) Account

Many linguists have attempted to examine the grammaticalization path of the verbs of saying in Mandarin Chinese and in its dialects. Chui (1994) probes into the grammaticalization of the verb of saying wa in Cantonese. Cheng (1997) and Chang (1998) investigate the grammaticalization path of the verb of saying kong in Taiwanese. Su (2002, 2004) focuses on the grammaticalization of shuo and has provided two models of grammaticalization path at three levels:

Along the first path, shuo, as a verb, originally functions to tell something or talk about something with utterances. In the second step of Path I, the hearsay function of

Propositional Level Textual Level Expressive Level

Shuo as a matrix verb

Impersonal reportative 1

2

Sentence-medial complementizer

Sentence-initial Counter-expectation

marker

Hypothetical marker

Sentence-final particle Sentence-final

complementizer

shuo is developed and it behaves like an impersonal reportative marker as termed by Chang (1998). The following example manifests this function of shuo (2002:79).

(78) wo ting renjia shuo guo de, shuo ni you ge nuer I hear people SHUO ASP POSS SHUO you have GE daughter

“I heard people say it is said that you have a daughter.”

There are two choices for Step 3 along the first grammaticalization path. The first type of Step 3 signals the counter-expectation meaning of sentence-initial shuo. When the speaker lacks direct evidence and commitment to the information in the utterance, he/she tends to drop the subject identity, leaving shuo positioned sentence-initially.

Therefore, this type of shuo is reanalyzed as a sentence-initial particle indicating counter-expectation as illustrated in (79).

(79) ba geren chouli chulai hold individual draw out

gei ta renquan gei ta baozhang give he human right give he insurance shuo shi renmin zuo zhu

SHUO BE people make master

“They isolate individuals, give them human right and insurance. It is said to make people the master of the country.”

(Su 2002:79)

The second type of Step 3 serves as a hypothetical shuo. Because the information obtained through speech is not reliable, the reading of hypotheticality is thus yielded.

In this case, shuo can co-occur with hypothetical markers such as ruguo “if” as shown below (2002:80):

(80) ruguo (shuo), wo lai le jiu daibiao wode jingyi…

if SHUO I come ASP just represent my respect

“If my coming represents my respect…”

The other grammaticalization path of shuo explains how verb of saying shuo develops into a sentence-medial complementizer, a sentence-final complementizer and then a sentence-final particle. At the first step, shuo functions as a saying verb.

Then it evolves from a saying verb to a sentence-medial complementizer following saying verbs and mental verbs, as exemplified below:

(81) ni hen keneng bu hui zai jianchi shuo you very possible not will again insist SHUO

zhexie dongxi pingdanwuqi le these things boring ASP

“You may not again insist that these things are boring.”

(Su 2002:80)

Then, resembling the use of kong in Taiwanese, shuo has grammaticalized into a sentence-final complementizer which incorporates more subjectivity into its meaning as shown in (82) (2002:80):

(82) B: Dui a!

yes PAT

Wo juede Xushuyuan hao kelian shuo…

I feel Xushuyuan good pathetic SHUO

“Yes! I feel that Xushuyuan is very pathetic.”

The last step of Path II indicates that a sentence-final complementizer is likely to develop into a sentence-final particle to express epistemicity.

Su (2002, 2004) has conducted a fairly thorough investigation on the grammaticalization paths of shuo at propositional level, textual level and expressive level. Unlike the past studies, she has elaborated the functions of shuo at the textual level and the expressive level and reports that shuo in different positions of a sentence performs different epistemic functions. Furthermore, she also points out the

correlation between conditional conjunction ruguo and shuo. However, she does not attempt to examine the data where shuo is used together with other adverbial conjunctions such as suiran “though,” biru “for example,” souyi “so,” jiushi “that is.”

She merely speculates that these adverbial conjunctions belong to lexicalized usages (2002:81) without further examples or data to support her claim. Hence, how shuo is related to these adverbial connectives should be further studied.