Journal article
Existential/Possessive Verbs in Early South Central Chinese
中國語言學集刊, Vol.17, pp.187-202
10/01/2024
DOI: 10.30184/BCL.202410_17.0010
Abstract
In the Sinitic language of the Shē minority of Southeastern China, the universally used existential/possessive verb (comparable to yǒu 有 in Modern Standard Chinese), is a word which is reconstructable as Common Shē *ho1. The etymology of this word is obscure, and it has on occasion even been suggested that it is non-Sinitic in origin. Interestingly, far to the southwest, in the border area of southern Húnán and northern Guǎngxī, there are taxonomically unclassified dialects, often called Tǔhuà ＂local patois＂, where one finds words, beginning with initial h- or x- and ending in various monophthongs or diphthongs, which also serve as existential/possessive verbs. The purpose of the present paper is to compare all these forms, both those found in Shē and those in Tǔhuà, and then to reconstruct an ancestral Common Early South Central Chinese form, *ɣueu4, which would account for all of them. In conclusion, it is then suggested that this early southern dialect word may have been cognate to, or perhaps even a varia
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Existential/Possessive Verbs in Early South Central Chinese
- Creators
- W. South Coblin
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- 中國語言學集刊, Vol.17, pp.187-202
- DOI
- 10.30184/BCL.202410_17.0010
- ISSN
- 2405-478X
- Publisher
- 紀念李方桂先生中國語言學研究學會
- Number of pages
- 16
- Language
- Chinese
- Date published
- 10/01/2024
- Academic Unit
- Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures
- Record Identifier
- 9984790993402771
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