A constructional account of the development of the Chinese stance discourse markerběnlái

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines the emergence of the Chinese adverbběnláiand its further development into a stance discourse marker (sdm). Most previous studies consider the epistemic modal adverbběnlái(‘indeed, truly’) to have originated from the temporal adverbběnlái(‘originally’). Based on the framework of constructionalisation (Traugott and Trousdale 2013) andVan de Velde et al.’s (2013)idea of multiple sources, I argue that the temporal adverb might not have been the only source for the modalběnláito occur. Furthermore, the modal adverb changed into ansdm, thereby signaling the speaker’s subjective evaluation while linking the coherence of the discourse. I argue that the change was enabled by both subjectification and analogisation. The exemplars to whichběnláiwas by hypothesis analogised include the extant discourse connectives (e.g.,kěshì) and the extant commentary pragmatic markers (e.g.,kěliánandsuǒxìng) (Fraser 2009).