Chapter Three Tui in the Database

Chapter Three Tui in the Database

As has been discussed, there are several spatial prepositions in contemporary Taiwanese Southern Min, of which tui is one of the members. In this section, the general distributions of these prepositions will first be surveyed, which verifies the goal bias in language use. We will then focus specifically on tui and examine its distributions and functions in our synchronic data. Then, the semantic functions and the syntactic structures of tui in the historical text Li Jing Ji will also be analyzed.

3.1 Spatial Prepositions in Contemporary Taiwanese

Cheng (1997) reports that the

prepositions in Taiwanese include lai

‘(come) to’, khi ^ ‘(go) to’ and kau ^ ‘(arrive) at’; the

prepositions include tui, ti

^ ‘from’ and an ^ ‘from’; the

prepositions include ng/hiong

 ‘towards’, tui, and an ^ ‘towards’. Our data shows that ti ^ ‘towards’ and ong

 ‘towards’ are also used as

prepositions. The occurrences of each spatial preposition in our data are summarized below

.

1 Ti
‘towards’ is a dialectal variation of tui, which is used in Taiwanese Southern Min dialects of Yilan, Chiayi and Zhanghua.

2 Ambiguous cases of tui are not counted in.

Functions Markers and occurrences Total




GOAL³

178 548 635 1361 (90.5%)

tui/ui ^{   }

DIRECTION

54 6 3 1 0 64 (4.3%)

tui/ui ^{  }

SOURCE

65 13 1 0 79 (5.2%)

Total 1504 (100%)

Table 3.1: Distributions of spatial prepositions in the data

As can be seen in this table,

phrases are the vast majority (totally 90.5%).

Compared to

phrases,

and

phrases are fairly rare, with a total percentage below 10%—

phrases are 4.3% and

phrases are 5.2%. Such distributions suggest that there is a significant preference for encoding

GOAL

phrases in real use of language, which is in line with the goal bias (cf. Ikegami 1987, Ungerer and Schmid 1996, Dirven and Verspoor 1998, Stefanowitsch and Rohde 2004).

Although cognitively a path is conceptualized in its entirety (cf. Ungerer and Schmid 1996), in real language use there is no need to explicitly mention all of them, since some portions of the path can be inferred from the discourse context. As is seen in our data, normally only one of the

,

and

phrases is linguistically encoded. Examine the following example:

3 We only count in the GOAL phrases used in the spatial sense.

4 Tiammay also serve as a SOURCE preposition in some Southern Min dialects.

(1)          , <sup>   



   
  </sup>

kong siaN mih chia seN toaN e long si peN pou a say what these surname PN NOM all COP Pingpu tribes, goan seN toaN e si tui tailiok kangse lai e 1PLE surname PN NOM COP from Mainland Jiangxi come NOM…

‘He said that the people surnamed Toan were all Pingpu tribes, but we actually came from the Jiangxi Province.’

In this sentence, only the

tailiok kangse ^{   } is encoded. Although the

GOAL

is not linguistically encoded, it can be inferred as ‘Taiwan’ in this context.

Similarly,

(2) ^{  } hoN, ^{!  " #} ..hoN ^{" #} , ^{$% & ' (} . tong jian che si chu goan chham ka hoN

Of course this COP volunteer join PART, e tang kok goa.. hoN kau kok goa

will able abroad.. PART to abroad, khi ka lang cho kau liu go DISP people make exchange.

‘Of course this is voluntary, and we are able to go abroad to exchange with people.’

(3) ^{) *  + , - -} , ^{./ 0 12 / 3 & 4} , <sup>56 7 2 8



.9  : ;  <</sup>

=>

tek pai-a chit chiah piN piN bamboo raft one CL flat flat,

chun bin tioh ka chui bin lian cho hoe raft surface TIOH DISP water surface connect together,

so i ho chui phoah tui chun teng therefore river water splash towards raft top si si siong e tai chi

COP common ASSC matter.

‘The bamboo raft is flat, and the surface of the raft joins the surface of the water. Therefore, it is common that the water splashes towards the top of the raft.’

In (2), only the

phrase kok goa ^{" #} ‘abroad’ is overtly expressed; in (3), only

the

chun teng ^.9 ‘the top of the boat’ is encoded.

In our data, it is observed that sometimes there is more than one spatial preposition; that is, the

may occur with the

or the

. However, the occurrences are rather restricted, as shown in the table below.

Type Markers Tokens Percentage

tui…
^

1

tui… ^ 5

tui…
3

SOURCE

+

ui… ^ 4

13 (76.5%)

ui…tui 3

SOURCE

+

ui… ^ 1 4 (23.5%)

Total 17 (100%)

Table 3.2: Distribution of

with

or

There are only 17 instances (out of a total of 1504 tokens of spatial prepositions in our data) in which the

appears with the

or the

. The majority of these cases are the occurrences of the

with the

(totally 76.5%), suggesting that the

and the

rarely occur together in real language use (only 4 tokens in total).

3.2 Tui in Contemporary Taiwanese

In this section, distributions of tui as a

and a

marker in our synchronic data will first be examined. Occurrences of tui in the data will then be further classified into two domains, the spatial domain and the abstract domains.

3.2.1 General Distributions

Although tui in contemporary Taiwanese serves double functions as a

5 Laikhi   ‘(go) to’ is semantically parallel to khi  ‘(go) to’.

and a

preposition, their distributions are widely different

. tui’s functions Occurrences

SOURCE

134 (63.8%)

DIRECTION

60 (28.6%)

SOURCE

/

16 (7.6%)

Total 210 (100%)

Table 3.3: General distributions of tui’s functions

Table 3.3 shows that tui is used predominately as a

marker, with a ratio of 63.8%. Notice that there are 16 instances in which tui is construed ambiguously as

SOURCE

and

.

The two functions of tui do not enjoy the same occurrences in our written and the spoken data. The distributions in these two genres are summarized below.

Functions Occurrences in written data

Occurrences in spoken data

Total

SOURCE

68 (73.9%) 66 (55.9%) 134 (63.8%)

DIRECTION

21 (22.8%) 39 (33.1%) 60 (28.6%)

SOURCE

/

3 (3.2%) 13 (11 %) 16 (7.6%)

Total 92 (100%) 118 (100%) 210 (100%)

Table 3.4: Tui’s functions in written and spoken data

One observation of the distributions is worth discussing. Although the sum of tui’s occurrences in the spoken data (118 tokens) is higher than that in the written data (92 tokens), considering the sizes of the databanks tui in fact has a higher frequency in the written data than in the spoken data. The size of our written data is totally 28,203 words, while that of our spoken data is 255,394 words, which is over 9 times bigger than our written databank. Thus, the ratio of tui’s occurrences in the written data is

6 The occurrences of tui shown in Table 3.3 include those used in abstract domains.

0.33% (92 tokens out of a total of 28203), much higher than that in the spoken data (0.046%, 118 tokens out of a total of 255394). This may be due to the fact that the written discourse, in which the visual contacts and shared knowledge between the writers and the readers are relatively insufficient, requires more directional orientations.

The total of the 210 occurrences of tui can be further classified into two groups, tui in the spatial domain and tui in abstract domains. Tui in the spatial domain refers to the function of marking the

or the

of a concrete, spatial movement, whereas tui in abstract domains is used to indicate the

or the

DIRECTION

of an event in an abstract world, such as temporality. The distributions of tui’s functions in these two domains are presented in Table 3.5.

Functions Occurrences in spatial domain

Occurrences in abstract domains

Total

SOURCE

65 (50%) 69 (86.3%) 134 (63.8%)

DIRECTION

54 (41.5%) 6 (7.5%) 60 (28.6%)

SOURCE

/

11 (8.5%) 5 (6.2%) 16 (7.6%)

Total 130 (100%) 80 (100%) 210 (100%)

Table 3.5: Tui’s functions in spatial and abstract domains

As shown in the table, tui occurs more frequently in the spatial domain (130 out of a total of 210 occurrences). Comparing the functions

and

, we find that

is significantly more predominant than

in abstract domains (86.3% vs. 7.5%), whereas the two functions do not show much distributional difference in the spatial domain (50% vs. 41.5%).

In what follows, we will focus on tui in the spatial domain and then on tui in

abstract domains respectively.

3.2.2 Tui in the Spatial Domain

Tui in the spatial domain occurs with spatial movement verbs, serving as a

SOURCE

and a

marker. In some cases it can be the

and the

DIRECTION

marker at the same time. In this section, we will demonstrate that generally these two functions of tui can be clearly differentiated in context and that the instances in which tui has two functions may suggest that the two notions are in fact cognitively hard to differentiate without profiling.

3.2.2.1 Tui Marking

Cheng (1997b) points out that the

marker tui occurs not only preverbally but also postverbally, such as in (4a) and (4b).

(4) a. ^{?@ % $A} , ^BC , <sup>DE%



F G 
H I</sup> , ^{J  ; %} , ^B0 teN ^{K L} , ^{M NO P 0 Q} .

hit e lang ka i kong that CL person DISP 3SG tell, li ti chia khi

2SG from here go,

khoaN u lang tui chit tiau hang-a lai ia bo see have person towards this CL lane come or not, na peng siong lang

if ordinary person, li tioh teN m chai 2SG TIOH pretend not know, bong kiaN tin tang tioh ho tentatively walk move TIOH good.

‘That person told him, “You go from here to see if there is anybody

coming towards this lane. If there is an ordinary person, you should

pretend you know nothing, and you might as well walk and move.”’

b. ^{R  S T U DVW X Y Z % [ } , ^{[  \]} e ^{^ ^ _} , ^_

` a b  .

a goan goan peng iu sui khoaN tioh DM 1PLE 1PLE friend at once see TIOH goa-e phoe pau khi ho lang chian khi

my purse go PASS people cut go,

chian khi kong nng saN e tit tit thoan cut go DM two three CL directly directly pass,

thoan tui chhia khah loh khi pass towards car foot down go.

‘My friend saw my purse being cut by somebody else, and then it was passed on directly to the end of the train.’

In (4a), tui, which takes the

phrase chit tiau hiang-a ^{F G } ‘this lane’

precedes the main verb lai
‘to come’. In (4b), tui follows the main verb thoan ^_

‘to pass on’. Similar to

phrases in Mandarin Chinese discussed in Section 2.1.4, the flexibility for tui to appear in either position may be due to the lack of an explicit reference point for the notion

.

Our data shows that the

phrases marked by tui in the preverbal and

the postverbal positions display different discourse functions. Specifically, the

preverbal tui phrase acts like a direction orientation for the following propositions,

bearing a more global discourse function, whereas the postverbal tui phrase serves as

the main part of predication, having a more local function. Compare the above

examples (4a) and (4b) again. In (4a), the

phrase tui chit tiau hiang-a ^c

F G  ‘towards this lane’ occupies the preverbal position. It seems to serve as a

direction orientation for the ensuing stretch of discourse, since the following clauses

are related to the location introduced by this

phrase. In other words, the

preverbal tui phrase appears to function as the topic of the discourse. On the other

hand, the

phrase in (4b), tui chhia khah ^{c` a} ‘towards the end of the

train’, occurs postverbally. It serves as the focus, or the new information, of the

discourse, and it does not have any ‘topic persistence’ (cf. Givon 2001 v1:457), since the issue in the following clause has nothing to do with the location chhia khah ^{` a}

‘the end of the train’.

Given that the two positions are possible for tui, why does tui occur preverbally in some cases while postverbally in others? We argue that tui’s position in real language use is determined by discourse-pragmatic considerations. If there is a communicative need for expressing the

phrase as a direction orientation, speakers can choose to place the tui phrase in the preverbal position; similarly, speakers can choose to place tui in the postverbal position if there is a need to express

DIRECTION

as a focus of information. Therefore, it is seen that there is an interaction between cognition and discourse-pragmatics—cognitively the lack of an explicit reference point for the notion

allows it to occur in two syntactic positions, which will then be determined by discourse-pragmatic factors in the speech context.

When tui is used as a

marker, the

part, if not specified, can always be inferred from the context. Consider the following examples (5a) and (5b).

(5) a. preverbal tui:

1. M: ho <sup>R d 

d e</sup> ?

ho a tuaN khi chhit tho anne m PART DM in this way go play this no?

‘So you went there to have fun?’

2. C: hio, ^{I V W} ,

hio bo tioh kong goa khi PART, no TIOH say 1SG go,

‘Yes, he said that if I went there,’

3. ^{A Wf B
g h ?} @@@.

i kong goa chai li lai a-ku hia 3SG say 1SG take 2SG comw uncle there.

‘he said, “I will take you to Uncle’s place.”’

4. M: heN ⁱ , heN la PART PART,

‘Yes,’

5. ^Bj
V ui ^NN e ⁱ .

li na lai tioh ui chia kiaN kiaN e la 2SG if come TIOH towards here walk walk NOM PART.

‘if you come be sure to come here.’

b. postverbal tui:

1. Y: ^{k } <M ^{l m} M> ^{k n o p q} ?

lin e <M sang shen M> lin kam siu seng a 2PL ASSC mulberry 2PL CONC harvest PERF?

‘Have you harvested your mulberries?’

2. F: ^W .. ^{H r s} ,

goa.. ia boe leh, 1SG yet not PART,

‘I haven’t,’

3. ^{A Et + \u } .

i u hoat chit nng chiat -a 3SG have sprout one two CL.

‘but it has one or two sprouts.’

4. Y: ^{v o p w x q d} !

lan sui seng goa che a ne 1PLI harvest so much PERF PART!

‘We have harvested much!’

5. ^{v y z V{ + |} !

lan tak kang tioh ban chit oaN 1PLI every day TIOH pick one CL!

‘We pick one bowl of mulberries every day.’

6. M: <sup> } ~ N



?</sup> ,

goan choh jit kiaN tui hia koe 1PLE yesterday walk towards there pass,

‘We walked towards there yesterday,’

7. ^{$k € DEI} .

ka lim sun khoaN u bo

DISP 2PL check see have not.

‘to see if you had mulberries or not.’

Although not linguistically realized, the

part of the movement in (5a) can be pragmatically inferred as speaker C’s home, since it is where speaker C is situated when the conversation takes place. Similarly in (5b),

can be inferred as speaker M’s home. In these two examples, the

parts—which cannot be inferred under this context—are overtly marked by tui. It is seen that although a path is conceptualized in its entirety which incorporates three roles

,

and

(cf. Ungerer and Schmid 1996), they will not be realized altogether in real use of language. Usually some parts of the path can be pragmatically inferred, while the part which cannot be pragmatically inferred is marked by tui. Therefore, we can say that tui’s function as

is largely determined by context.

3.2.2.2 Tui Marking

As a

marker, tui always occurs preverbally, as is seen in the following example.

(6) ^R ui ^{ ‚ ` ƒN„  …† ‡ K ˆ ‰ Š ‹ Œ} .

a ui taipak chhia thau kiaN kau taitaiiiN DM from Taipei station walk to NTUH chha put to chap hun cheng ku

almost ten minute long.

‘Walking from Taipei Main Station to National Taiwan University Hospital takes about 10 minutes.’

In this example, the preverbal ui, the variant of tui, is a

marker and is

followed by the verb kiaN ^N ‘to walk’ together with a

marker kau ^ ‘(arrive)

at’. Unlike tui marking

, tui marking

can only occur preverbally,

which can be accounted for by the iconicity principle—the notion

refers to a

definite point (i.e. the starting point) which is always prior to the movement, and

therefore the iconic syntactic position for the

phrase is preverbal.

When tui marks

, it may be followed by an explicitly specified, or profiled,

phrase as in (6). In some cases, the

phrase may also be specified, such as in (7).

(7) ^{W  j Ž DVg  ‘) * } ui ^{’ “ ” • – — ˜ ™  2 š} , ^‘

 ›  .

goa chit tang chun na chhin chhiuN khoaN tioh a-pa ISG this moment as if see TIOH father pe tek pai-a

paddle bamboo raft

ui tiongliau hunjiko chhu mngk hau e chui lou from Chungliao PN house doorway ASSC streamway, pe tui sai peng khi

paddle towards west side go.

‘At this moment I seem to see Father paddling the bamboo raft from the streamway in front of the brother’s home in Chungliao Township to the west.’

The

phrase, sai peng ^{ ›} ‘the west’, is explicitly marked by tui.

It is observed in our data that when there are both a

phrase and a

DIRECTION

phrase in a sentence, they will not both be marked by the preverbal tui/ui.

For instance, as is shown previously in Table 3.2, there is one instance in which the

SOURCE

marker ui is followed by the

marker hiong/ng ^ . In addition, there are three instances in which the

marker ui is followed by the

DIRECTION

marker tui. In all the three instances, tui is placed in the postverbal position but not the preverbal one, as is the case in (7). Furthermore, it is seen in these instances that when both

and

appear in a sentence the

phrase will be marked by ui instead of tui. As will be shown in Chapter 4, although the markers tui and ui are largely synonymous, they display functional specializations in the pathway of grammaticalization.

Although the

and the

phrases may be explicitly encoded,

sometimes they may not be specified and need to be inferred from the context. An example is given in (8).

(8) ^{W + œ ?@ S T} hoN, <sup>



ž Ÿ</sup>  
, ^W e, ^{? ‚ ¡ 2 7} hoN,

?% ‘¢ . , ^‘‘ le ^{£ ¤ .} , ^{‘ 
¥ ¦ § @  X ¨ © ª } , ^V X ¨ …i .

goa kong chit pai hit le pen giu hoN 1SG say one CL that CL friend PART, tu tui kohiong khi lai

just from Kaohsiung up come, goa kong e

1SG say PART,

he taipak tam chui ho hoN that Taipei PN river PART, he lang pe leng chun that people row dragon boat,

pe pe le kong soah peng chun row row NOM say CONC turn over boat,

pe khi lai kong lai te kui-e-a phoe hu kha bai e row up come say inside some skin COM bad NOM kong tioh phoe hu peN la

say get skin disease PART.

‘Once my friend just came from Kaohsiung. I told him that in Danshui River people were rowing the dragon boat but however the boat was turned over. After the rowing some people who did not have healthy skin got skin diseases.’

In this example, the

of the movement can be pragmatically inferred as the Taipei city since it is the place where this utterance takes place. The

portion which is not readily accessible, i.e. kohiong ^{ž Ÿ} ‘Kaohsiung’, is overtly specified and is marked by tui.

It can be observed from our discussions in this section and the previous one that

although tui has two functions (i.e. marking

and

they can be

clearly specified by the speech context. Since in real language use usually only one

part of the path needs to be specified and the others can be pragmatically inferred, the part which needs to be specified is marked by tui. That is, tui marks

when

SOURCE

can be pragmatically inferred from context, and vice versa. In this way, context plays a significant role in determining the realization of the two functions of tui.

3.2.2.3 Tui as both

and

We have seen that tui in the preverbal position has two functions

and

DIRECTION

which can be specified in context. However, in our data there are 11 instances in which tui is ambiguous, i.e. having two functions at the same time. An example of the preverbal tui serving as both

and

is seen below.

(9) ^{« ¬ ƒi} ! ^? .. ^­



.. ^{® ¯} phoe ^?b heN ⁱ ! iong to thau la

use inverse head PART!

he.. ai tui.. kha chhng phoe hia loe heN la that need TUI bottom there down PART PART!

‘You need to place it (the chicken) upside down. That (the knife) needs to go from/towards the bottom part of the chicken.’

Example (9) describes a chicken-baking situation in which the speaker suggests a stick (referred to by he ^? ‘that’) be pierced into the chicken through the region kha chhng phoe ^{® ¯} phoe

‘the bottom’, as schematized below.

7 The character for the morpheme phoe is unavailable.

Figure 3.1: The entire image schema of the ambiguous tui

In Figure 3.1, the landmark represents the bottom part of the chicken and the trajector indicates the stick which pierces through the chicken. The path signals the moving process which the trajector undergoes.

However, the bottom part of the chicken is possibly viewed as either the starting point or the direction of the movement, which can be captured by different profilings of the image schema in Figure 3.1. Consider the following Figure 3.2 first,

Figure 3.2: Tui marking a profiled

The above figure shows that the trajector moves in the direction towards the landmark, and therefore the landmark is regarded as the direction of movement with respect to the profiled movement indicated by the solid lines. In this case, tui is construed as a

DIRECTION

marker. On the other hand, tui may have the

reading provided the following schema.

landmark

path tr

path

tr

landmark

Figure 3.3: Tui marking a profiled

In terms of this profiled movement, the trajector moves in the direction away from the landmark, and thus the landmark is considered as the starting point of this movement.

That is, concerning where the stick touches the chicken, the bottom part is taken as the source point. Therefore, tui is interpreted as a

marker. As can be seen here, the two functions of tui are motivated by cognition; that is, since the profilings in Figure 3.2 and Figure 3.3 are cognitively equally possible, tui in example (9) has two functions as

and

.

The two functions of tui in (9) suggest that the notions of

and

SOURCE

are cognitively so closely related that they are to some extent undistinguishable. As demonstrated in Figure 3.2 and Figure 3.3, the landmark serves as both the

and the

of the movement at the same time. These two functions, however, are hard to differentiate without profiling, since they both are components of the same image schema.

The cognitive undistinguishability of

and

without profiling is further verified by the functional contrast of tui in the following sentences which have parallel syntactic representations, as shown in (10a) and (10b).

path

tr

landmark

(10) a. ^{W° + @ %} , ^{± + b ² ³ —} , ^{´ µ ¶ I ·} . ^{¸ ¹} ui ^{º » ¼ ½¾}
, ^½

V¿ À ƒÁ½VWÂà  Ä Å .

goa ko chit e lang ISG alone one CL person, toa chit loh gou keng chhu live one CL five CL house, hi bi iu bo phoaN

lonely also no company.

goeh sek ui po le thang chiau jip lai moonlight TUI glass window shine in come, chiau tioh bin chhng thau

shine TIOH bed head ^Á

chiau tioh goa ta san e heng iaN shine TIOH ISG dry thin ASSC figure.

‘I am all by myself, living alone in a five-roomed house and having no company. Moonlight shines through the window pane, shines at the head of the bed, and shines at my skinny figure.’

b. ^{J  VÆ Çb È É Ê} , ^Ç ui ^{Ë Ì Í ¾}
, ^{Î Ï Ð Ð Ñ} , ^{j Ò  s} Ó . ^È ui ^{Ô — 9 Õ b}
, ^{Ö ×ØÙ} chhe chhe, ^{ÚI + Û Ü Q Ý} . na si tu tioh thau hong loh hou e am mi if COP meet TIOH blow wind drop rain NOM night, hong ui piah phang koan jip lai

wind from wall crevice penetrate in come, siaN im hiu hiu kio

sound sound of wind call, na kui-a le hau as ghost DUR cry.

hou ui phoa chhu teng tih loh lai, rain from broken roof drop down come kui gu tiau lau chhe chhe

whole cowshed leak seriously,

chhoe bo chit ta tang ho bi find no one place able good hide.

‘On the windy and rainy day, the wind came from the crevice in the wall,

and the sound of the wind was loud, as if ghosts were crying. The rain

came from the broken roof, making the cowshed leak seriously, but I

could not find a place to hide myself.’

Example (10a) is an objective description of the night scene. As is the case shown in Figure 3.2, the subject goeh sek ^{¸ ¹} ‘the moonlight’ (indicated by the trajector in Figure 3.2) may shine towards the object po le thang ^{º » ¼} ‘the window pane’

(represented by the landmark in Figure 3.2), or it may penetrate into the room from the window, as is the case represented in Figure 3.3. In this way, the landmark po le thang º » ¼ ‘the window pane’ may be viewed as either the direction or the source of the movement; ui in (10a) thereby functions either as a

or as a

marker, which evidences that these two notions are hard to differentiate. Notice that due to the presence of the verb complex jip lai ^¾
‘to come in’ after the main verb chiau ^½ ‘to shine’, the preferred reading of ui in (10a) may be

, although the

reading is also considered to be plausible in this context.

On the other hand, although example (10b) has a similar syntactic representation to example (10a), ui in (10b) may only be construed as

, which is due to the pragmatic profiling in this context. The passage in (10b) is the writer’s illustration of his sufferings in the cowshed during the rainy days. In terms of the movements of the two objects hong ^Ç ‘the wind’ and hou ^È ‘the rain’, they come towards the place gu tiau ^×Ø ‘the cowshed’ and then enter into the room from piah phang ^{Ë Ì} ‘the crevice in the wall’ and phoa chhu teng ^{Ô — 9} ‘the broken roof’. However, in this context the writer’s emphasis is on the contact of the wind and the rain with himself, which may highlight, or profile, the latter part of the movement, as is illustrated by the thick lines in Figure 3.3. The object hong ^Ç ‘the wind’ or hou ^È ‘the rain’ is represented by the trajector in Figure 3.3. The landmark signals the location piah phang ^{Ë Ì} ‘the crevice in the wall’ or phoa chhu teng ^{Ô — 9} ‘the broken roof’.

Within this profiled movement, the landmark is viewed as the starting point of the

action, which results in the

reading of ui. As can be seen here,

discourse-pragmatic factors may contribute to the profiling of a movement and thereby determine tui’s function in a certain context. In a word, examples (10a) and (10b) serve as evidences supporting that without profiling the notions of

and

DIRECTION

are hard to differentiate and thus tui may have both functions at the same time.

As communicative intents are concerned, there may not be a need to differentiate

SOURCE

and

in some contexts. Consider example (9) again, which is repeated in (11) for convenience’s sake.

(11) ^{« ¬ ƒi} ! ^? .. ^­



.. ^{® ¯} phoe ^?b heN ⁱ ! iong to thau la

use inverse head PART!

he.. ai tui.. kha chhng phoe hia loe heN la that need TUI bottom there down PART PART!

‘You need to place it (the chicken) upside down. That (the knife) needs to go from/towards the bottom part of the chicken.’

As discussed above, tui here can be construed as either

or

by different profilings. However, considering the speaker’s intended message in this context, the distinction between

and

may not be essential. The speaker simply intends to convey that the stick should pierce through the bottom part of the chicken and that the chicken should be placed upside down. This is where the pragmatic principle of Relevance comes into play—in this context, what is considered as relevant by the speaker is that the action of piercing should go through the bottom part instead of through the head. In this case, the differentiation of

and

SOURCE

is irrelevant; that is, it does not make any difference under this context to distinguish whether the bottom part of the chicken is the

or the

with respect to the movement of the stick.

3.2.3 Tui in Abstract Domains

In addition to the spatial domain, tui in our data also occurs in non-spatial, more abstract domains. The abstract domains include the temporal domain and other domains like the social, conceptual and logical domains (cf. Anderson 1971).

However, as Kabata and Rice (1995:119) comment, these domains—especially the social and the conceptual domains—may not be distinct and may have overlappings.

Since the division of the domains is by no means clear-cut and since classifying tui into separate domains is not the focus of this study, we will simply center on tui’s functions in abstract domains without subdividing the domains.

Tui in abstract domains occurs preverbally. Similar to tui in the spatial domain, tui in abstract domains also has two functions, serving as

or

. The functions in abstract domains are metaphorical shifts from the spatial domain; that is, the functions in abstract domains are mapped onto those in the spatial domain. The mapping occurs through tui’s collocation with verbs of more abstract movement. In what follows, we will discuss the types of verbs with which tui serves to mark the non-spatial

and

.

3.2.3.1 Tui Marking

In our data, the verbs with which tui functions as a non-spatial

marker inherently involve either a physical or an abstract action of facing. The verbs are listed in (12).

(12) a. verbs involving physical facing:

toaN (chut) Þ ( ^ß ) ‘to play the instrument (to sb.)’

kiu ai ^{à ­} ‘to pay court (to sb.)’

the khi á   ‘to mention (to sb.)’

sin chheng â ã ‘to apply for’

be ä ‘to buy’

siu siau ^{o å} ‘to collect rentals’

b. verbs involving abstract facing:

u keng giam ^{Eæ ç} ‘to be experienced (in sth.)’

kam kak ^{è é} ‘to feel’

u i gi Eê ë ‘to be significant’

u kau tai E' < ‘to has a duty (to sb.)’

Take the verb the khi ^á   ‘to mention (to sb.)’ for example which involves a physical action of facing.

(13) <sup> ì í



W  î ì ï
ð % ñ ƒ  ò ó  :</sup> …

tong hak seng tui goa the khi beh oh chit siu when student towards 1SG mention want learn this CL siang lang chim thau e tai gi koa e si double person pillow ASSC Taiwanese song NOM time

‘When students mentioned to me that they wanted to learn the Taiwanese song “Double pillow”…’

Tui here serves as a marker of

, marking the addressee goa ^W ‘me’. In the action of addressing, the addressee is faced with by the speaker in the process of communication. Therefore, tui is used as a

marker.

Similarly, with verbs involving abstract facing, tui serves as a

marker, as shown below.

(14) ^{?ô õ ö z ÷ ÷ø6 ù  ú ¥ û û Z % ü ý} ,

<sup>þ

 < =
E</sup> æ ç .

he long heng hoa kang chhiuN e chhiuN tiuN that PN chemical factory ASSC director

i cheng si ti chhi lai tiaN tiaN hou lang si ui

before COP at city inside often PASS people demonstrate, tui chit khoan e tai chi chiaN u keng giam

towards this CL ASSC matter very have experience.

‘The factory director used to be protested by people in the city, and he is quite experienced at handling this matter.’

The verb u keng giam ^{Eæ ç} ‘to be experienced’ describes the person chhiuN tiuN

÷ø ‘the factory director’ as being experienced in terms of handling things like chit

khoan e tai chi ^{þ  < =} ‘this kind of thing’. Tui in this example is used to mark

DIRECTION

since the abstract object chit khoan e tai chi ^{þ  < =} ‘this kind of thing’ can be viewed as something abstractly faced with by the person chhiuN tiuN ^÷ ø ‘the factory director’.

Unlike the

-marking tui in the spatial domain which denotes the direction of movement, the

reading of tui in abstract domains results not from the directionality of the movement described but from the ‘facing’ meaning inherent in the lexical semantics of the verbs. This is due to the fact that in abstract domains there is no concrete, spatial movement, and therefore the notion of directionality may not be significant. This is supported by tui’s divergent distributional frequencies in both domains—as shown in Table 3.5 in Section 3.2.1, the frequency of tui used as

is much lower in abstract domains (7.5%) than in the spatial domain (41.5%).

It is worth noticing that all the instances of

in abstract domains are marked by tui but not by its variant ui. Ui in abstract domains does not collocate with verbs of describing and verbs of addressing and thus cannot be a

marker.

Compare example (13) and (14) with the following sentences which appears implausible.

(15) a. * <sup> ì í

Wá

 î ì ï
ð % ñ ƒ  ò ó  :</sup> … tong hak seng tui goa the khi beh oh chit siu when student towards 1SG mention want learn this CL siang lang chim thau e tai gi koa e si double person pillow ASSC Taiwanese song NOM time

‘When students mentioned to me that they wanted to learn the Taiwanese song “Double pillow”…’

b. *ui ^{þ  < =
Eæ ç}

ui chit khoan e tai chi chiaN u keng giam

towards this CL ASSC matter very have experience

‘(He is) quite experienced at handling this matter.’

3.2.3.2 Tui Marking

The verbs with which tui serves to mark

in an abstract sense mainly fall into two groups, temporal verbs and other more abstract verbs, as listed in (16).

(16) a. temporal verbs:

khi  ^ ‘to start’

khai si   ‘to start’

b. other abstract verbs:

khoaN (chhut/tioh) D ( ^ß / ^V ) ‘to infer’

kong ‘to discuss’

gian kiu (chhut)   ( ^ß ) ‘to figure out’

tam han   ‘to be scared’

hoan siong ‘to imagine’

tiau cha   ‘to investigate’

hong ti  ‘to prevent’

lip hoat   ‘to legislate’

he chhiu   ‘to undertake’

tit tioh  ( ^V ) ‘to gain’

i toan  _ ‘to inherit’

soan poat   ‘to select’

khau khi  ( ^ ) ‘to deduct’

chhut si ß ‘to be born’

Examples of tui co-occurring with the two groups of verbs are shown as follows.

(17) a. ui ^{    0 E  ! ]  Á Á! " Á} Mai ¹ Pang
^{ #}

$ % & g  ' .

tui chhe si khai si from the 4

day of a month start,
tioh u chhoan bin e chhoan TIOH have villager will prepare

sam seng chiu pin nng mai kah pang

three sacrifice wine betel nut rice and cake

lai tai kong kai che pai a lip bu

come PN worship PN.

‘From the 4

day on, some villagers may prepare beef, mutton, pork, wine, betel nuts, rice and cakes to worship Alipbu.’

b. ^{( ) :  Ó* +Á, - .  / 0 1 N2} ui ^{\›  3 4   5}

 Å 6 7

  hian chhu si e hau hai

present this time ASSC cry sea

tiam ti lak chhit chhioh khoah e chhan hoaN ki heng stay at six seven foot wide ASSC farm field hold, ui nng peng e tiu long

from two side ASSC rice wave

hoan siong sian bin e iaN jiah imagine ancestor ASSC shadow trace.

‘Now the ceremony is held at the 6-to-7-foot-wide farmland, from the rice waves on two sides people imagining the traces left by ancestors.’

In (17a), ui serves as a temporal

marker, marking the temporal beginning chhe si   ‘the fourth day of a month’. In (17b), with the verb of non-spatial activity hoan siong ‘to imagine’, tui marks the object nng peng e tiu long ^\›

 3 4  ‘the rice wave on two sides’ which can be viewed as the

of the imagination process.

In addition to the verbs listed in (16), tui marking

in abstract domains may also co-occur with a clause, in which tui is also followed by the deictic expression anne ^d ‘this (way)’, as illustrated below.

(18) ^{8 9  + : CC} , ^{  ; Z < < V} , ^{= > ? ? CD@ A   P B} . ⁵ 6 K L K é \@  C = >  D E £ + ^ ' F C+ @ ê ë G øH I  ’ . ^c?~   , ^{8 9  è é A EJ K @ A  ë L} . ^{@ A  É ’ M è} é ­18 9  ŽN , ^{Ü VA J K  þ O} .



^d , ^{\% è P  Q R} + ^ S T .

enghoka chit kho chhai chhai PN stupefied,

boe su khi hou tian tian tioh

no lose go PASS electrify TIOH,

bak chiu kim kim teh khoaN chhiukiua e tong chok eye absorbedly DUR look PN ASSC action.

so i put ti put kak nng e si lui bak chiu e si soaN thus unconsciously two CL four CL eye ASSC sight soah it tit kau chhe chhai

CONC all along overlap at

chit e i gi chhim tng tiN bit e hoan siong tiong one CL meaning profound sweet NOM imagination inside tui hit jit khi

from that day start,

enghoka kam kak i u po hou chhiukiu e gi bu PN feel 3SG have protect PN NOM responsibility.

chhiukiua am tiong ia kam kak ai ka enghoka chhin kin PN secretly also feel love DISP PN approach, tang tit tioh i po hou e khoan sek

able get TIOH 3SG protection NOM way.

tui anne from this,

nng lang kam cheng e jiat tou two person affection ASSC temperature it tit siong seng

all along rise.

‘Enghoka was stupefied as if he was electrified, looking absorbedly at Chhiukiua’s action. Thus, their sights gathered at a profoundly sweet imagination. From that day on, Enghoka felt that he had the responsibility to protect Chhiukiua. Chhiukiua also loved being close to Enghoka, in order to get his protect in this way. From this, their affection was being heated.’

Unlike the previous examples such as (17a) and (17b) in which tui appears with verbs, tui in (18) is followed by the clause nng lang kam cheng e jiat tou it tit siong seng ^\

% è P  Q R + ^ S T ‘Their affection was being heated’. According to Chang

(2002), the deictic expression anne ^d ‘this (way)’ at the clause-initial position is a

deictic term co-referential with a clausal element or a discourse-level unit of talk in

the preceding discourse. Furthermore, the clause following anne ^d ‘this (way)’

can be viewed as an inference drawn from the preceding discourse unit, and therefore anne ^d ‘this (way)’ bears a consequential reading. The discourse function of anne

d ‘this (way)’, as Chang points out (ibid:110), is a ‘metalinguistic/text-building function’ of connecting clauses or discourse units. In our example, anne ^d ‘this (way)’ refers to the preceding stretch of talk which depicts the details of the two people’s, enghoka ^{8 9 } and chhiukiua ^{@ A } , mutual affinity, and signals what follows is the consequence of their mutual affinity. In this sense, tui denotes the cause, or the

, of an inferential result.

Tui's variant, ui, can also co-occur with the verbs in (16), as demonstrated in examples (17a) and (17b). However, unlike tui, ui may not appear with a clause and thus does not function as a

of an inference, as illustrated in (19b).

(19) a.



^d , ^{\% è P  Q R + ^ S T} . tui anne

from this,

nng lang kam cheng e jiat tou two person affection ASSC temperature it tit siong seng

all along rise.

‘From this, their affection was being heated.

b. *ui ^d , ^{\% è P  Q R + ^ S T} . ui anne

from this,

nng lang kam cheng e jiat tou two person affection ASSC temperature it tit siong seng

all along rise.

‘From this, their affection was being heated.

3.3 Tui in Li Jing Ji

We have seen that tui in contemporary Taiwanese Southern Min functions as a

DIRECTION

or a

preposition. In this section, we will examine the occurrences of tui in the historical text Li Jing Ji, which may shed light on the diachronic development of tui.

In Li Jing Ji, tui always occurs preverbally and has a variety of functions. The distributions of tui’s functions are summarized in Table 3.6, and examples of each function are provided in (20).

Semantic functions

Grammatical

classes occurrences

‘a pair’ noun 16 (32.7%)

‘opposing’ adjective 1 (2%)

main verb 17 (34.7%)

‘to match’

preposition 0

main verb 8 (16.3%)

‘to face’

preposition 7 (14.3%)

Total 49 (100%)

Table 3.6: Distributions of tui in Li Jing Ji (20) a. tui as a noun meaning ‘a pair’:

ð U V , ^{W X p ð p}



. siang hui ian double flying swallow,

boe iah seng siang seng tu tail butterfly make double make pair.

‘swallows flying together and butterflies making a pair’

b. tui as an adjective meaning ‘opposing’:

k Y Z [ K \ , <sup>BM
$ &



ƒ] ^ _</sup> lin a-nia to put taN

your lady all no speak,

li bong lai ka goan cho tui thau mi su you tentatively come DISP 1PLE make opposing headwhat matter

‘Your lady didn’t speak at all; then why did you be my opponent?’

c. tui as a verb meaning ‘to match’:

ŽP



C` — a , ^{Eb M K $A c} .

chhin cheng tui chai lim chhu liau marriage match at PN house PERF, u gin ia put tek ka i cheng have silver also no able DISP 3SG compete.

‘The marriage was matched to the Lin family. Even though you have money, you still cannot compete with him.’

d. tui as a verb meaning ‘to face’:

d e Bf& Î , <sup>g WI h



i j k</sup> . chhat lou li eng cho siang thief servant 2SG idly make sound,

kiau tit goa bo sim tui leng hoe kiaN disturb 1SG no mind face flower mirror.

‘You servant made sounds idly, making me not in the mood to face the mirror.’

Table 3.6 shows that among the 49 occurrences in Li Jing Ji tui is found to function most frequently as the verb denoting ‘to match’ (with a ratio of 34.7%) and the noun meaning ‘a pair’ (32.7%).

With the sense ‘to match’, tui may appear as a main verb followed by a

prepositional phrase such as chai lim chhu ^{C` —} ‘at the Lin family’ in (20c), or it

may take a noun phrase as the complement. For example,

(21) l



`  Že m K  n ! o ß^ . in tui lim toa chhin because match PN master marriage, lou pi bo goan

slave not willing,

chiah e long chhut che su only will make out this matter.

‘Because I was matched to Lin against my will, I made this trouble.’

In (21), tui is followed by the nominal complement lim toa chhin ^{`  Ž} ‘marriage with Lin’ and serves as a main verb. Futhermore, tui may also occur in a serial-verb construction, such as in (22).

(22) ^² Z A  p q r K  ƒ



K s  . gou niu i si thiN sian li, fifth lady 3SG COP angel girl,

put si thau tui put siong tin.

not COP head match not mutually accompany.

‘The fifth lady is an angel; (you two) are not well matched and will not accompany each other.’

In this example, the verb tui, which is preceded by a topicalized nominal complement thau ^ƒ ‘the head’, is followed by another verb siong tin ^{s } ‘to accompany each other’.

Besides the function of ‘to match’, tui is also found to express the meaning of ‘to face’. Tui as ‘to face’ may occur as members of two syntactic categories, i.e. a main verb and a preposition

. As a verb, tui may take a nominal complement, such as in (20d). Tui may also occur in the serial verb construction, in which the verb phrase containing tui is followed by another verb phrase, as is shown below.

8 Scholars such as Chao (1968) and Li and Thompson (1981) label prepositions in Mandarin Chinese as ‘coverbs’ to stress that most of them have the mixed status as partly verbs and partly prepositions as they have evolved from verbs at earlier stages of the language. However, since such a mixed syntactic status of tui is not the focus of this study, we will simply adopt the widely used term ‘preposition’ here.

(23) ^{Et u v w s x} , <sup>I t



/ K s y</sup> .

u ian chhian li chiong siong kian have lot thousand mile finally mutually see, bo ian tui bin put siong hong

no lot face face not mutually meet.

‘If you have the lot, you will see the other person who is a thousand mile away from you; if you do not have the lot, you will not know each other even if you two are face to face.’

In (23), the two juxtaphosed propositions (i.e. facing each other and meeting each other) are equally prominent. Thus, there seems to be little semantic integration between the two propositions.

As a preposition, tui is followed by a main verb, which can be further categorized into three types, including stative verbs, verbs of addressing and directional verbs. Examples of each type of verbs are illustrated below.

(24) a. with the stative verb:

z {& ] _| } ~ U  E: .

tui keng siong cheng beh cho mi face scene hurt feeling will do what?

hu chhiuN hu sui chiang iu si husband sing wife follow will have time.

‘What for did you face the scene and feel sorrowful? There will be a time for the harmony between husband and wife.’

b. with the verb of addressing:

p €  , ^{ ‚ ² Z J ƒ ` —} , ^{„ … ß} . tui thian tiong hoat goan

face sky heavily vow,

ng si gou niu na ke lim chhu PN surname fifth lady if marry PN house, si khi chai chhut si

die go again born.

‘I vow seriously to the sky, ‘‘If I marry the Lin family, I will die and

then be born again.’’’

c. with the directional verb:

Y Z , <sup>†¥  ‡ ˆ



= > +</sup>  , ^{[ ߉} .

a-nia, hi lai toa te chha tui bak chiu it tok lady, that inside big CL wood face eye one poke, to chhut hoe

all out fire.

‘My lady, use the big chunk of wood in there and poke towards her eyes. They will burn.’

The stative verb siong cheng ^{Š P} ‘to grieve’ in (24a) does not involve any spatial movement. The verb of addressing hoat goan ^t ‘to vow’ in (24b) may involve movement to a certain extent—the doer of the action needs to face the addressee and the utterance may be seen as moving or being transmitted abstractly from the speaker to the hearer. In (24c), the directional verb tok ^‹ ‘to poke’ clearly denotes a spatial motion. With these verbs, tui, besides the prototypical ‘facing’ reading, also has the

DIRECTION

interpretation, which, as we will show in Chapter 4, is a metonymic inference triggered by the directionality of the verbs.

Unlike in the serial-verb construction, in the coverb construction the two propositions expressed by the tui phrase and the following verb phrase do not enjoy equal semantic status. In (24a), for instance, the focus of proposition is placed on the event indicated by the main verb (i.e. the action of grieving) instead of the tui phrase (i.e. the action of facing the scenery). Furthermore, the action of grieving appears to be the intended result of the action of facing the scenery, i.e. one facing the scenery to feel sorry for herself. Therefore, the tui phrase and the following verb are semantically strongly integrated and can be viewed as one event.

Although tui as a

preposition may occur with verbs of directionality

as in (24c), it cannot be used with spatial movement verbs. For instance,

(25) a. ^{Œ  Ž  Ž}

iau ong choan chiu bong chin will towards PN see relative

‘(I) will go to Choanchiu to visit my relatives.’

b. * <sup>Œ



 Ž  Ž</sup>

iau tui choan chiu bong chin want towards PN see relatives

‘(I) will go to Choanchiu to visit my relatives.’

As is seen in the examples, ong ^ ‘towards’

in Li Jing Ji occurs with the spatial movement verbs bong chhin ^{ Ž} ‘to visit one’s relatives’, while tui does not have such a function.

Furthermore, tui is not yet a

preposition in Li Jing Ji, as illustrated in example (26).

(26) a. ^{ ˜ — ¥ ‘} , ^{’p S}
.

koaiN mng chhu lai che close door house inside sit, ho chiong thian siong lai disaster from sky up come.

‘We closed the door, sitting inside the house, but the disaster still came from nowhere.’

b. * <sup>’



p S</sup>

ho tui thian siong lai disaster from sky up come

‘The disaster still came from nowhere.’

The above example show that the prototypical

marker

in Li Jing Ji is chiong “ ‘from’ instead of tui.

9 Ong ^ ‘towards’ is the only DIRECTION marker in Li Jing Ji.

10 The other possible SOURCE marker in Li Jing Ji is taN .

3.4 Interim Summary

In this chapter, we have surveyed the general distributions of all the spatial prepositions in contemporary Taiwanese Southern Min and attested the goal bias in real language use. We have also shown that in the spatial domain the preposition tui has double functions, marking

and

. The two functions are largely specified by context—when

can be pragmatically inferred from the context, tui is used to mark

, and vice versa. As a

preposition, tui has two possible syntactic positions, i.e. preverbal and postverbal, in which tui displays different discourse functions. In the preverbal position, tui serves a more global discourse function, acting like a direction orientation for the ensuing discourse, while in the postverbal position tui has a more local function of marking a focus of information. The flexibility for the

-marking tui to have two syntactic positions is due to the lack of an explicit reference point for the notion

in the cognitive perception of a movement. Unlike when marking

, tui marking

can only occur in the preverbal position, which is also in line with cognition—the notion

refers to a point which is always prior to the movement. However, tui may have both functions at the same time, which demonstrates that cognitively the notions of

and

are closely-related and communicatively they sometimes need not be differentiated. In addition to the spatial domain, tui also occurs in abstract domains, marking

DIRECTION

and

.

In the historical text Li Jing Ji, tui had a variety of functions such as functioning as a main verb or as a preposition denoting ‘to face’. As a preposition, tui derives the

DIRECTION

interpretation from its original ‘facing’ reading. However, unlike in

contemporary Taiwanese, in Li Jing Ji tui as a

preposition did not occur

with verbs of spatial movement and tui was not yet a

preposition.