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Historical development of ba and jiang in the Tang Dynasty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

One-Soon Her
One-Soon Her
Affiliation:
Executive Communication Systems, Provo, UT
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Abstract

Based on evidence in Zen dialogues, Bianwen and Chuanqi texts in the Tang Dynasty (a.d. 618–907), and other sources from earlier and later periods, this article, after dismissing the common misconception that during Tang ba () was frequently used in the disposal and serial-verb constructions, proposes that the grammaticalization of the jiang () serial-verb construction was encouraged by yi (), but jiang's disposal characteristic was modeled after its passive counterpart bei, and that it is via the process of lexical replacement that ba replaced jiang's prepositional functions in instrumental and disposal constructions. Ba later lost its instrumental function to na (). We thus resolve the debate between Huang (1986) and Bennett (1981). Moreover, from the recurring pattern of change in the historical development of yi, jiang, ba, and na, we observe two counteracting principles at work: functional refinement, which forces a one-to-one correspondence between a form and its function, and analogous development, which does just the opposite to create a one-to-many relationship.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , October 1990 , pp. 277 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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