Research On A Grammatical Marker "Ke" In Nanhui Dialect

This paper discusses the grammatical marker“Ke”in Nanhui dialect of Shanghai,which is a phonetic variant of“Kan[k~h?]”.It is generally agreed that“Kan”used after VV,VO,VC construction means attempt.“Kan”in Nanhui dialect has a distinct sound change.[k~h?]which is a the phonetic form of“Kan”has been reduced to[k~he].Then the vowel of“kan”became an entering tone which has different phonetic variants as[k~he?]/[k~h??]/[k~h??]/[k~h??].They are all marked“Ke”in this paper.Based on the field study,this paper describes the two grammatical meanings and corresponding functions of"Ke"and tries to explain the grammaticalization mechanism of"Ke"with the methods of synchronic and diachronic description.This paper is divided into six chapters.Chapter one is the introduction part,which gives an overview of Nanhui dialect and introduces the research content,research methods,source of corpus and current research status of“Kan”.Chapter Two is about the investigation,including the reason of investigation and the survey design.By using the questionnaires and interviews,we investigate the sound change of"Kan"in Nanhui dialect and sort out the sound change rate of"Kan"in two different syntactic structures in Nanhui dialect.It is concluded that"Ke"used after VV construction is a variant of"Kan"in the corresponding one because they coexist in the same language system and have the same meaning and function,while the ones in"VP+Kan"construction respectively cannot be substituted for each other.Chapter Three mainly describes the syntactic expression and grammatical meaning of aspectual marker"Ke 1"in“attempt”category,and finds that the grammatical meaning of"Ke 1"in Nanhui dialect is to express the meaning of attempt.Chapter Four continues to describe the syntactic environment and modal meaning of the modal particle"Ke 2"at the end.It is found that the basic mood of the modal particle"Ke 2"at the end of Nanhui dialect is imperative mood which means command,reminding,and request in different intonations and contexts.Chapter Five analyzes the grammaticalization of"Ke".By analyzing the semantic foundation of the meaning of“attempt”of"Kan",this paper explains the grammaticalization mechanism of"Ke 2"which is mainly the vacancy of the aspectual meaning of“attempt”,that is the semantic foundation of the meaning of“attempt”disappears.On this basis,we have concluded a slope of the grammaticalization of“Kan”and described“Ke 1+2”in Nanhui dialect.The sixth chapter is the conclusion,which summarizes the conclusions of this paper and the unresolved issues.