On "V Ta Ge X" Construction In Mandarin Chinese

In vernacular mandarin Chinese,structures like "he ta ge tongkuai(?????)","shui ta ge santian sanye(???????)�abound.This structure,formally represented as "V ta ge X",is unique for the following three reasons:firstly,the third person singular "ta(?),is non-referential;secondly,the general classifier "ge" does not serve as a classifier;thirdly,though none of the syntactic constituents denotes a meaning of 'many',the whole structure itself implies a meaning of excessiveness.Due to its syntactic and semantic peculiarities,this language phenomenon has drawn a great deal of attentions.A multitude of researchers have been devoted to its ontological study.Among those scholars,quite plenty of them focus on the study of its structure type,formation,and the grammatical features of "ge(?)" and "ta(?)".In recent years,with the emergence of cognitive linguistics,more and more researchers have turned their attentions to exploring the cognitive mechanism and subjectivity of human language.Under the framework of cognitive linguistics,this paper attempts to make a further investigation on this construction from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives.Synchronically,based on Goldberg's construction grammar and coercion theory,its constructional meaning and cognitive mechanism are studied.Diachronically,based on grammaticalization theory,the grammatical development and evolvement of "V ta ge X" construction are explored.In this paper,it claims that "V ta ge X" construction should be considered as a distinctive construction,which implies a meaning of excessiveness,that the emergence of "V ta ge X" construction is the result of construction coercion,and that its meaning of excessiveness is the embodiment of the speaker's subjective perspective.The grammaticalization path of "V ta ge X"construction can be summarized as the following:"V +(ta1+ QP)"?"(V +ta2)+ QP";"(V + ta2)+ QP"?"(V + ta2 + QP)";"(V + ta2+ QP)"?"(V + ta2+ NP)";"(V + ta2+NP)" ?"(V + ta2 + ge X).Its grammaticalization mechanisms are reanalysis and analogy.Its grammaticalization motivation is subjectivisation.