The Zou Construction In Zhongning Dialect

In Zhongning Dialect, zou is a high—frequency word which has two phonetic forms: stressed and light. This paper describes the zou construction (in the light form), and mainly analyzes its pragmatic and semantic features by providing a large number of examples. At the same time, based on the combination of the literature and dialectal datum concerned, the paper reports the investigation of the historical changes of the meaning of zou, of the word-class conversion and of its distribution in Chinese dialects in order to provide an explanation of its grammaticalization.The paper falls into five parts: (1) The usage of zou in Zhongning Dialect. Zou is a verb when it is stressed, and its essential meaning is "to move". As a light syllable, zou is placed at the end of a sentence and expresses an appulsive meaning as well as a certain mood. (2) The structural types of zou construction in Zhongning Dialect. The paper generalizes the types of zou construction according to the properties of VP. (3) The pragmatic and semantic analysis of zou construction in Zhongning Dialect. Zou expresses the meaning of invitation, command and consultation when mainly located at the end of the imperative sentence. The subject of zou construction is the first pronoun or the second pronoun and when the second pronoun acts as the subject, the sentence must has the implied meaning that the subject is to do something with the addressor. The verb before zou is monosyllabled which is simple and mainly used in the oral language. Zou can be translated correspondingly into qu in the mandarin because the" VP zou " in Zhongning Dialect shares the construction and semantic meaning with the " VP qu " in the mandarin. But the construction in which the verb is followed by zou does not express an accomplished action but a non-accomplished action. (4) The historical change of the word zou in terms of meaning and its usage in different Chinese dialects. In Chinese, the original meaning of zou was "to run", then it evolved into the meaning of "to walk" before the Ming Dynasty. In today's Chinese dialects,such as Cantonese(Guangzhou dialect), Min dialects (Fuzhou dialect, Xiamen dialect), Ke dialects (Meixian dialect), zou keeps its ancient meaning, while in other dialects, its meaning is "to walk". Furthermore, in some mandarin (Nanjing dialect, Chendu dialect) and Xiang dialects (Loudi dialect, Changde dialect), zou also can be used as preposition. In some mandarins, zou also expresses imperative mood when located at the end of a sentence and read as a light syllable. It is reported normally only in the dialects of Wanrong, Linyi, Yinchuan and Lingwu. While the distribution range of zou may cover the provinces of Shanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, and the south of Shanxi, according to my initial investigation. (5) The grammaticalization of zou. Grammaticalization is not only a process of acceptation bleaching, but also a prosess of phonetic and pragmatic reduction related to a given structural format. Zou is changed to a preposition in the construction " zou + VP" while it becomes a complete functional word in the construction "zou + temporal noun". The grammatical change of zou to an modal word is relevant to the construction " VP + zou " expressing appulsion. This process is accompanied with the phonetic reduction, acceptation bleached, the disappearance of the function of the complement and as a result zou is tumed into a modal word at the end of the sentence. In Zhongning Dialect, zou indicates the imperative mood as well as expresses a meaning of a tendency when situated after a verb. It shows that the process of the grammaticalization of zou has not yet completed, and gives us an important clue to clarify the grammaticalization of zou.