Research Express@NCKU - Articles Digest
Research Express@NCKU Volume 20 Issue 6 - November 11, 2011 [ http://research.ncku.edu.tw/re/articles/e/20111111/2.html ]
Ka…hoo Constructions in Taiwan Southern Min
Hui-chi Lee
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, College of Liberal Arts, National Cheng Kung University
hclee6@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Taiwan Journal of Linguistics, vol. 7, no.2, pp. 25-48
T
aiwan Southern Min ka and hoo have been broadly investigated in the literature (e.g., Cheng et al. 1999, Lien 2002, Tsao 2005). However, very little of the previous research has focused on the interaction between these two functional words. The word ka can also perform several functions, a patient marker, a benefactive marker, a source marker and a goal marker (cf. Tsao & Lu 1990, Tsao 2005). The word hoo is also a multifunctional word which can occur in a double object construction, a dative construction, a serial verb construction, a passive construction and a causative construction (cf. Cheng et al. 1999).This paper probes into the ka…hoo construction in Taiwan Southern Min (TSM). The corpus data show that the configuration ka…hoo appears with the patterns [ka…hoo + NP], [ka…hoo + NP VP], and [ka…hoo + resultative complement]. Although the two function words can perform multi-functions, the word ka in ka…hoo structures always serves as a patient marker. The word hoo, on the other hand, performs its ditransitive and causative
functions. The present study employs the constructional approach to analyze the TSM ditransitive construction and four sentence patterns are discovered to differentiate verb types. The four TSM ditransitive patterns are as shown in (1).
(1) a. The double object construction [S V OI OD]
b. The V hoo double object construction [S V-hoo OI OD]
c. The hoo object construction [S V OD hoo OI] d. The purposive hoo construction [S V OD hoo OI V2]
In addition, an overt hoo in the resultative constructions will change the telicity. The event structure account of the resultative ka…hoo construction is explored. Sentences with an overt hoo are mostly associated with an atelic event. For instance, in the example (2a), the event tends to be telic; in the example (2b) with the word hoo, the event is an atelic event.
(2) a. Goa2 ka7 thng1 thng7 sio1
1SG KA soup warm hot
b. Goa2 ka7 thng1 thng7 hoo7 sio1
1SG KA soup warm HOO hot
‘I warmed the soup.’
The addition of hoo in a V-hoo-RC form is assumed to change the telicity; from the syntactic point of view, the
Research Express@NCKU - Articles Digest
explicit hoo is posited to exhibit the high analyticity of the language. This classification helps identify and distinguish data. Lin (2006) compared two constituents, phah4 hoo7 si2 ‘hit to death’ and chhiunn3 hoo7 thiann1 ‘sing (for him) to listen to.’ She pointed out that the two elements are both morphological causatives. However, only phah4 hoo7 si2 allows a resultative counterpart, phah4 si2 ‘hit-dead.’ The resultative counterpart of chhiunn3 hoo7 thiann1 is not acceptable, *chhiunn3 thiann1 ‘sing-listen.’ Her paper attributed this discrepancy to the verb type of the second predicate, V2. She claimed that when V2 is an intransitive stative verb and is predicated of the
object of V1, the morphological causative compounds can have resultative counterparts. Lin’s assumption focuses
on the property of the second verb, while it is believed in this paper that the two constituents belong to different constructions, resultative and ditransitive. A resultative construction accepts a result complement and V1 and V2
can form a resultative compound. On the other hand, a ditransitive construction does not need a resultative complement and thus a resultative compound is not formed.
References:
Cheng, Lisa L.-S., James C.-T. Huang, Audrey Y.-H. Li and Jane C.-C. Tang. 1999. Hoo, hoo, hoo: Syntax of the causative, dative and passive constructions in Taiwanese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, ed. by Pang-Hsin Ting, Monograph 14: 146-203.
Lien, Chin-fa. 2002. Grammatical function words乞, 度, 共, 甲, 將and 力 in Li4 Jing4 Ji4 荔鏡記and their development in Southern Min, Papers from the Third International Conference on Sinology: Linguistic Section. Dialect Variations in Chinese, ed. by Dah-an Ho, 179-216. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Preparatory Office.
Tsao, Feng-fu. 2005. On ka in Taiwanese Min and object fronting. Chinese Linguistics. 2005, 1:21-30. Tsao, Feng-fu and Ching-ching Lu. 1990. Ka as a source marker and a patient marker in Taiwanese. Paper
presented at the First International Symposium on Chinese Linguistics, July 20-22, Academia Sinica. Lin, Huei-ling. 2006. Morphological causatives versus resultative compounds in Taiwan Southern Min. On
and Off Work: Festschrift in Honor of Professor Chin-Chuan Cheng on His 70th Birthday, ed. by Raung-fu Chung, Hsien-chin Liou, Jia-ling Hsu and Dah-an Ho, 113-126. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.
