Preposition Stranding in Archaic and Medieval Chinese

Abstract

AbstractPreposition stranding (sometimes called orphaned preposition) refers to a syntactic construction in which a preposition is left without a following object. It is more often found in spoken language than in formal written language. This kind of construction is commonly found in English (where it usually occurs at the end of the sentence), but also in other Germanic languages or dialects, and also in some languages belonging to the Niger-Congo family, but it is almost non-existent in standard Mandarin. However, we can find stranded, hanging or dangling prepositions in contemporary various dialects, such as in the Zhangjiakou dialect (Hebei province). See, among others, the research works of Zong (Zhongguo Yuwen (Chinese Language) 5:532–543, 2019), Guo (Zhongguo Yuyanxue (Chinese Linguistics) 2:23–36, 2009), and Zhang (Yuyan Kexue (Language Sciences) 3:288–303, 2009). It is also assumed that preposition stranding was quite common in Archaic Chinese (especially for the prepositions yǐ and wéi) and also in Medieval Chinese as well, but in lesser proportions. However, no systematic analysis has been done yet on these former stages of the Chinese language, and especially for Early Medieval and Late Medieval Chinese, when the Classical Chinese prepositions (comitative, instrumental, locative, ablative, allative, dative, etc.) yǐ and yú have become obsolete and have been replaced by other prepositions. See Liu (Yufa diaocha yanjiu shouce (Handbook of grammatical fieldwork). Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 2017). This article tries to fill this gap and to show that there has been the following typological evolution from Archaic to Medieval and later Modern Chinese: [more preposition stranding] > [less preposition stranding].