Effect Of 'Ba+NP+dou+VP' Construction On Dou's Grammaticalization And Semantic Orientation

The adverb dou was a noun originally and gradually developed into a verb. Due tothe generalization of its meaning and the changes in its context, the verb dou evolvedinto a scope adverb in Donghan Dynasty. In about Weijin time, the modal adverb douderived itself from the scope adverb.In the grammaticalization of the averb dou, 'Ba+NP+dou+VP' construction hadcaused the scope adverb dou to have the property of the leftward semantic orientation,as such, constituted the syntactic motivation of this property. The scope adverb douand the modal adverb dou had direct and historical relations, reflecting general rulesof grammaticalization.The use of dou as a scope adverb expanded in Song and Yuan era, and graduallyexceeded the use of traditional scope adverb jie. However, the use of dou as a modaladverb did come under the strike by the new Lian structure. In the process ofcompeting with the Lian structure, 'Ba+NP+dou+VP' construction consolidated themodal adverb dou's grammatical status, thus assured the development of the modaladverb dou.In Ming and Qing times, there appeared some cases which were 'dou(the scopeadverb)+Ba+NP+VP' with NP being the target of dou. This pattern is not a generalpattern but a pragmatic variant of 'Ba+NP+dou(the scope adverb)+VP'. The pattern'dou(the scope adverb)+Ba+NP+VP' can be reverted into 'Ba+NP+dou+VP' withoutaltering its original meaning, but with a little pragmatic difference. When the 'NP' isrepresented by Rencheng Daici (personal pronoun), the pattern 'dou (the scopeadverb)+Ba+Rencheng Daici (personal pronoun)+VP ' is different from the pattern'dou+Ba+Yiwen Daici (interrogative pronoun)+VP' which is obligatory. Therefore,the two patterns cannot be merged into the pattern of 'dou+Ba+daici(pronoun)+VP'.In the pattern 'dou+Ba+Yiwen Daici (interrogative pronoun)+VP', Yiwen Daici isrestricted by adjacent VP so that it can associate with the scope adverb dou, whichengenders the scope adverb dou's rightward semantic orientation. That is, RenchengDaici is definite and can be the target of the adverb dou in its own right without thehelp of VP. In a word, the pattern 'dou (the scope adverb)+Ba+Rencheng Daici(personal pronoun)+VP ' bears a superficial resemblance to 'dou (the scopeadverb)+Ba+ Yiwen Daici (interrogative pronoun)+VP ' but differs from the latteressentially.In 'Ba+NP+dou(the modal adverb)+VP', the target of dou can be the object of Baor the unusual event expressed by the whole verb phrase. For the complexity of thesemantic orientation of dou in 'Ba+NP+dou+VP', this construction often can havemore than one possible explanation. To deal with this issue, firstly, the scope adverband the modal adverb must be distinguished from each other according to the context.But to determine the relation between the modal adverb dou and its target, one mustconsider the focus of the whole sentence. In the end, the thesis argues that the scopeadverb dou can be a focus whereas the modal adverb dou a focus marker in the'Ba+NP+dou+VP' construction.