Study Of The Chinese Construction "you+VP" From The Perspective Of Grammaticalization Theory

The present study is mainly about a Chinese language phenomenon, the “you+vp”(有+vp) construction, and takes the grammaticalization theory as theoretical basis, aiming tohave a theoretical and systematical explanation of the grammaticalization process of “you”.In modern Chinese, the usage of “you” has changed a lot, for example, in cases such as我有吃饭(wo you chi fan.);他有来(ta you lai.), the usage of “you” is totally differentfrom its original usage as a possessive verb which means possessing and existing. In thesecases, which are regarded as “you+vp” constructions by the author,“you” has grammaticalfunction. Both the grammatical category it belongs and the meaning sense it conveys havechanged a lot. The other reason for choosing this language phenomenon as the object ofstudy is that both in ancient and in modern Chinese,“you” plays an important role as a highfrequency vocabulary and people are very familiar with this word, so even the smallestchange about the word will be caught and put on the studying level by language researchers.Therefore, especially after the western linguistic theories are brought into our country, manymore researches on “you+vp” construction begin to appear. Different people have differentexplanations about this phenomenon. However, their researches are partial to be descriptive,which are lack of theoretical basis and theoretical analysis.Based on the present researches of “you”, especially on the plenty descriptions andstudies of this linguistic phenomenon by previous scholars, this thesis tries to provide anall-sided and systematic study on the question of the grammaticalization of “you” in “you+vp” construction using grammaticalization theory, which is the orientation of this thesis.The theoretical basis of this thesis is the grammaticalization theory, especially theapplying of the reanalysis and analogy mechanisms of this theory. Among various theories of different linguistic schools, grammaticalization theory is one of those that take the synchronicand diachronic change of the language as their object of research.Grammaticalization is “the attribution of grammatical character to an erstwhileautonomous word”(Meillet1912:131; Hopper and Traugott,2003: p.19). Strictly speaking,what is grammaticalized in this process is not the word itself, but the whole system ofstructures and usages about that word. The grammaticalization process is a unidirectional one,which is from a content word to a grammatical one, from a grammatical one to a moregrammatical one.The reanalysis and analogy are the two important internal mechanisms in thegrammaticalization of content words and they work at different stages in thegrammaticalization process and together put forward this process. Reanalysis, which alwayshappens in the early stage of the grammaticalization process, causes the change of thesentence structure which is shown clearly in the bracketing of the sentence. The changecaused by reanalysis is a covert one which cannot be figured out in the surface, but thingsbehind the words, including the structure, the constituents, the usage, and the function ofsome words have all changed. On the contrary, changes caused by analogy are overt. Changesabout this kind are based on some certain rules and inferred under these rules, so we also callthis mechanism rule generalization. The analogy makes changes caused by reanalysis obviousin the surface structure. In the process of the grammaticalization of a certain content word, thereanalysis and analogy may not happen only one time or two, but many times maybe. Thedetailed contents about reanalysis and analogy are in chapter three.In chapter four, the author has a general description and classification about “you+vp”constructions. The author describes the usage change of “you” diachronically from ancientChinese to modern Chinese. These usages are divided into usages of “you” in ancient timeand usages in present Chinese. The purpose of this description is to let people have a general understanding about the diachronic change of “you”, and also lay the foundation for thefollowing analysis.Chapter five is the central part of this thesis. In this part, the author gives a detailedanalysis of “you+vp” in the theoretical level. The analysis is carried out from theperspectives of reanalysis and analogy, and the whole grammaticalization process is shownout. According to the analysis, there are two obvious times of reanalysis and two obvioustimes of analogy in the grammaticalization of “you”. Even though these changes seem like theobvious ones, they are also based on several times of minor change.In this process, at the work of analogy,“you” can not only be followed by noun phrases,but also can be followed by the nominalized verb phrase, and then can also be followed byverb phrase. But in these situations, the status of “you” as a main verb in the sentence hasbeen weakened and grammaticalized a lot. Through the work of reanalysis,“you” becomes abound morpheme with empty meaning in one aspect, such as “有待”,“有违”; and anauxiliary used in the perfective aspect of verbs in the other aspect.As a conclusion, the author points out in chapter six that in this thesis, through plenty ofdescriptions and studies on “you+vp” construction under grammaticalization theory,especially the applying of reanalysis and analogy mechanisms, the analysis is going in stepsand logically, and gives the reasoning and explanation of the whole change of this linguisticphenomenon.Based on this analysis, there are two characteristics of the Chinese grammaticalizationfound in this thesis, namely: language change is of no relation to the change of the word form;and the change of Chinese language is meaning centered. What’s more, about the method ofreasoning, the author proposes that we’d better carry out the analysis from two levelsrespectively, which are the meaning level and the structure level.In one word, this thesis is working on the explanation of the Chinese construction,“you +vp”, from the perspective of grammaticalization theory. And the author hopes this study isof even a little help to the research of the language change of Chinese.