Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale
Journal issue | 50 | 2014
Research Article | The Numeral Construction (一 yī) + Classifier in Chinese Copulative Sentences: an Indefinite Article?
The Numeral Construction (一 yī) + Classifier in Chinese Copulative Sentences: an Indefinite Article?
Abstract
The increase in frequency of the numeral construction 一 yī «one» + Classifier functioning as a marker of indefiniteness, observed in written Chinese in the first decades of the last century, is considered a product of the influence of the European languages. Actual data, however, seem to reject the hypothesis of a pure grammatical borrowing and demonstrate that the construction has undergone the full process of grammaticalization through which the numeral «one» has developed into the indefinite article in other languages. The function of the numeral construction in copulative sentences, where its increase has been particularly relevant, is here analyzed in order to understand what triggers its presence, being the choice of a bare NP always available in Chinese in these contexts. Data suggest that it is used when the speaker's stance is involved, a pragmatic feature at least partially shared by the indefinite article of some European languages.
Published Dec. 1, 2014 | Language: it
Copyright © 2014 Maria Gottardo. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2385-3042/10p
