On the syntactic and semantic characteristics of the bun1gi5-related causative constructions in modern Taiwanese Hakka

Abstract

Through the investigation of the data gleaned from modern Taiwanese Hakka, this paper explores the causative constructions consisting of bun1gi5and the V(erb)-R(esultative) construction. We focus specifically on the cases where bun1gi5occurs in between and after the VR construction. Our major findings are as follows. First, the bun1gi5causative constructions express subjectivity and profile speaker's volition. Such interpretations are part of the constructional semantics and have nothing to do with the implicit 'self ' voice. Second, the bun1gi5causative constructions are bi-clausal in nature, although it also allows a mono-clausal analysis in some cases. The key, we suggest, lies in the referentiality of gi5, which has gone through the following stages: singular > singular/plural > plural > generic > non-referential. This results in generalization of subjects. With the increased frequency of use, bun1gi5further undergoes phonological fusion and comes to be processed as a single grammatical marker, which tightens clausal integration and hence makes these constructionsmono-clausal. Third, these bun1gi5constructions are not morphological causatives, but are analytic causatives. Fourth, the word order of bun1gi5in the V-R construction is determined by the word order of the recipient in the double object construction headed by the general-purpose verb of giving bun1in Taiwanese Hakka and does not correlate with the free alternation due to semantic redundancy, the semantic host of R, or the positions of bun1+object in the dative construction and the Vbun1DO construction. Such a proposal is advanced based on our examination of give-type ditransitive constructions in early Hakka texts and on the cross-dialectal observations of the ditransitive constructions in Chinese dialects made in the literature.