LSA.103 | Chinese Historical Syntax

Tsu-Lin Mei and Alain Peyraube
TR 4:50-6:30
location: 32-144

This course will focus on the mechanisms and the motivations of syntactic - and semantic - change in Chinese since the Pre-Archaic period (14th c. BC) to the Modern times (18th c. AD). A typological and parametric perspective will be adopted, as well as the study of the processes of Reanalysis (Grammaticalization), Analogy and External Borrowing from a cognitive-functionalist approach. Three special topics will be taught: resultative constructions, locative structures and passive forms. The whole history (origin and evolution) of these three constructions will be traced back.