Formation of Modern Chinese speech-quotativenǐ shuō‘you say’ and feedback-seekingnǐ shuō‘you tell me’

Abstract

AbstractIn Modern Chinese, four construction types involvingnǐ shuōmay be distinguished. In this study, it is argued that the prosodically unseparated speech-quotativenǐ shuō(S1) develops from the prosodically separated speech-quotationnǐ shuō(S3) through a hypothesized complementation pathway which makes thenǐ shuōpredicate the matrix clause of the following content clause. Prosodically unseparated feedback-seekingnǐ shuō(S2), in contrast, develops from a prosodically separated feedback-seekingnǐ shuō(S4) via a hypothesized conjoining pathway which involves the loss of a prosodic gap between the feedback-seekingnǐ shuōpredicate and the clause that it occurs with. Contrary to the common assumption in the literature, S2 does not develop from S1. Meaning difference influences the selection of each of the two pathways, and in the source construction when an S3 or S4 is prosodically separated from the clause it occurs with, it is not the matrix clause of the latter. The account given in this study may also be used to explain the formation of English parenthetical predicateyou say.