The development of the Chinese monosyllabic motion-directional constructions: A diachronic constructional approach

Abstract

There are ten monosyllabic motion-directional verbs (MMVs) in Modern Chinese, all of which indicate directional motion and change of location. Syntactically, they can be followed by a locative NP, and a locative phrase introduced by the preposition dao ‘to’ but not by the preposition zai ‘at’. There have been works focusing on the development of the preposition zai and the following locative phrase, but none of them considers the situations where it co-occurs with the MMVs. This paper identifies the trajectory of the development of the micro-construction [MMV zai NPplace]: emergence, strengthening, weakening, and disappear. The data show that this construction emerged in Middle Chinese (220–960), was frequently used in Early Modern Chinese (960–1900), but became obsolete in Modern Chinese (1900-). It is hypothesized that its emergence may have involved double sources, and its disappearance may have been due to the competition with the other extant micro-constructions [MMV (dao) NPplace].