언어유형론적 관점에서 본 중국어 방언의 결과상/진행상 표지의 변이 유형과 발전 기제 : 동사에 후행하는 ‘着’류와 ‘在’류 형식을 중심으로

Abstract

In this paper, we have investigated the variations of resultative and progressive aspect makers in 153 Chinese dialects corresponding to ‘zhe(着)’ and ‘zai(在)’ following the verbs in Mandarin. This study shows that there are various asymmetrical phenomena of ‘zhe(着)’ and ‘zai(在)’ in terms of their distributions, functions or usage overlapping, and that there are many different types of aspectual systems in different dialects: the same form can function as a resultative aspect or a progressive aspect while several different forms in a dialect can have the same aspectual function.BR In Chinese dialects, ‘zhe(着)’-type markers commonly indicate a state resulting from a preceding action, referred to as ‘resultative aspect’. They are grammaticalized from the verbal complement, and in many Chinese dialects ‘zhe(着)’-type markers are developed to progressive aspect makers through metaphoric semantic expansion. It’s why many dialects including Mandarin have ‘zhe(着)’-type markers indicating stative resultative meaning and active progressive meaning.BR In many Chinese dialects, ‘zai(在)’-type markers following verbs denote the state resulting from action. In some dialects, there may be cases that ‘zai(在)’-type markers are not followed by the locative phrases. It shows that ‘zai(在)’ can be regarded as an resultative aspect maker functionally equivalent to ‘zhe(着)’. In Mandarin, “Zai chifan ne(在吃饭呢)” and “Chi zhe fan ne(吃着饭呢)” have similar aspectual meanings which are layered into the same aspectual category through the grammaticalization process.BR In Chinese dialects, ‘zhe(着)’-type markers which are grammaticalized from the verb with the meaning of ‘attachment’ always follow verbs, whereas ‘zai(在)’-type markers can either precede verbs or follow verbs. It is due to the structural and semantic constraints. Both ‘zhe(着)’ and ‘zai(在)’ preceded by a verb follows the Principle of Temporal Sequence. But ‘zai(在)’ preceding a verb is grammaticalized from the verb that took the whole verb phrase as its object, while ‘zhe(着)’ can not have such a structural origin.BR In this paper, we have classified and analyzed the various aspectual types and systems of ‘zhe(着)’ and ‘zai(在)’ in Chinese dialects. This study on the resultative aspect and progressive aspect with empirical evidence and theoretical explanation shows that the development of the Chinese aspectual system has been following the universal tendency of human language evolution along the path of grammaticalization of aspect markers.