Tense and Aspect in Han Period Chinese: A Linguistic Analysis of the ‘Shijì’ 9783110339543, 9783110339321

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
1 General introduction
1.1 Topic
1.2 The text
2 The category tense
2.1 The present tense
2.2 The past tense
2.3 The future tense
3 The category aspect
3.1 Grammatical aspect
3.2 Lexical aspect
3.3 Pragmatic functions of aspectual representation
4 Tense and aspect in Chinese
4.1 Morphological distinctions in the verb in Chinese
4.2 Tense in Chinese
4.3 Aspect in Chinese
4.3.1 Grammatical aspect
4.3.1.1 Perfective and perfect
4.3.1.2 The progressive or durative aspect
4.3.1.3 The experiential aspect
4.4 The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese
4.4.1 State verbs
4.4.2 Activity verbs
4.4.3 Event verbs
4.5 Aspect, temporal relations and adverbs in Chinese
5 The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases
5.1 The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shijì
5.1.1 The semantic analysis of temporal adverbials indicating a point of time
5.1.2 Proper adverbs indicating a point of time
5.1.2.1 Examples for proper adverbs in sentence-initial position
5.1.2.2 Examples for proper adverbs in preverbal position
5.1.3 Noun phrases indicating a point of time
5.1.3.1 Calendar temporal adverbials in sentence-initial position
5.1.3.2 Dependent / anaphoric temporal adverbials in sentence-initial position
5.1.3.3 Dependent temporal adverbials with hòu in sentence-initial position
5.1.3.4 Calendar adverbials in preverbal position
5.1.3.5 Dependent temporal adverbials in preverbal position
5.1.4 Prepositional phrases indicating a point of time
5.1.4.1 Adverbial prepositional phrases referring to a closed domain
5.1.4.2 Adverbial prepositional phrases referring to an open domain
5.1.5 Concluding remarks on point of time adverbials
5.1.5.1 Concluding remarks on proper adverbs indicating a point of time
5.1.5.2 Concluding remarks on noun phrase point of time adverbials
5.1.5.3 Concluding remarks on prepositional phrases referring to a point of time
5.1.5.3.1 Prepositional and related phrases referring to a closed domain
5.1.5.3.2 Prepositional phrases referring to an open domain
5.2 The syntactic and the semantic constraints of duration phrases
5.2.1 The syntax of duration phrases
5.2.2 The semantics of duration phrases
5.2.3 Examples for duration phrases in the Shijì
5.2.3.1 Preverbal duration phrases expressing situational duration
5.2.3.2 Postverbal duration phrases included in the VP [vP DPSubj [V’ Vi [VP DPObj] [V’ ti DPdur]]]
5.2.3.3 Postverbal duration phrases as predicates of the sentence [vP [DP [vP DP VP] [vP DPdur]]]
5.2.3.4 Duration phrases in temporal clauses in topic position
5.2.4 Concluding remarks on duration phrases
6 The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shijì
6.1 The inchoative and the inceptive aspect: The adverbs chu and shi as aspecto-temporal adverbs
6.1.1 The aspecto-temporal adverb chu
6.1.2 The aspecto-temporal adverb shi
6.1.3 Concluding remarks on the aspecto-temporal adverbs chu and shi
6.2 Simultaneity and the Continuous: The adverb fang
6.2.1 The syntactic and semantic constraints of the adverb fang
6.2.2 Examples of fang in combination with the different situation types of the verb
6.2.3 Concluding remarks on fang
6.3 Past tense and Habituality: the adverbs cháng, céng, sù, y', and cháng
6.3.1 The adverb cháng
6.3.2 The adverb céng
6.3.3 The adverb sù
6.3.4 The adverb y#
6.3.5 The adverb cháng
6.3.6 Concluding remarks on adverbs marking past tense and habituality
6.4 Future tense and Modality: the adverbs jiang and qie
6.4.1 The aspecto-temporal adverb jiang
6.4.2 The aspecto-temporal adverb qie
6.4.3 Concluding remarks on the aspecto-temporal adverbs jiang and qie
6.5 Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yi and the negative marker wèi
6.5.1 The aspecto-temporal adverb jì
6.5.2 The aspecto-temporal adverb yi
6.5.2.1 The aspecto-temporal adverb yi in combination with other adverbs
6.5.3 The negative marker wèi
6.5.4 The negative marker wèi in combination with the aspectotemporal adverb cháng
6.5.5 Concluding remarks on the concepts of Completion and Noncompletion: the adverbs jì and yi and the negative marker wèi
6.6 Concluding remarks on aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shijì
7 Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Barbara Meisterernst Tense and Aspect in Han Period Chinese

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs

Editor Volker Gast Editorial Board Walter Bisang Jan Terje Faarlund Hans Henrich Hock Natalia Levshina Heiko Narrog Matthias Schlesewsky Amir Zeldes Niina Ning Zhang Editor responsible for this volume Walter Bisang

Volume 274

Barbara Meisterernst

Tense and Aspect in Han Period Chinese A Linguistic Analysis of the ‘Shĭjì’

DE GRUYTER MOUTON

ISBN 978-3-11-033932-1 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-033954-3 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-039401-6 ISSN 1861-4302 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgments A detailed study of the extended verb phrase with all its arguments and adjuncts in Pre-Medieval Chinese, of which the present study is the first part, was inspired first by my late teacher Ulrich Unger and later by my contact with the researchers at the Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale, CNRS, in Paris. In its initial stage, this study was made possible by a grant from the Lise-Meitner foundation which generously supported the first three years of my research and enabled me to visit several international conferences where I was able to meet with fellow scholars and to discuss with and be advised by them. Without this grant it would not have been possible to continue my research after my Ph.D and I am deeply grateful to the Lise-Meitner foundation for their financial support. The application to the Lise-Meitner foundation was encouraged and supported by Reinhard Emmerich who also gave me the opportunity to teach at the Institute of Sinology in Münster for several years which was a very enlightening experience for me. I would like to express my appreciation for his encouragement. After my grant was finished Alain Peyraube and Redouane Djamouri of the CRLAO in Paris suggested that I apply for a post-doc position in their centre in Paris and gave me all the help and support to continue my research work during my time there and since then. They enabled me to participate in several projects, amongst them one – under the responsibility of Feng Li – which was devoted to the analysis of tense and aspect in Chinese. This project also financed a one-month sojourn at the Beijing Daxue. Between 2005 and 2008 an ACI project under the responsibility of my friend and colleague Walli Paul allowed me to continue my close contact with my friends and colleagues in Paris, in particular with Walli Paul and Redouane Djamouri with who I had many fruitful discussions. It also funded several short stays in China and enabled me to continue to visit international conferences to present my research work there. My particular thanks for all this support go to Walli Paul, Redouane Djamouri and Alain Peyraube, but also to all the other friends and colleagues in the CRLAO who always gave me a warm welcome when I came and always found a desk for me to work at. Without the frequent discussions with Walli Paul on syntactic issues in particular this book would have looked quite differently and I am very grateful for her continuous help. Additionally I would like to thank Alain Peyraube and Xu Dan for giving me the opportunity to present some of my research in their classes. My particular thanks go to the University of Hamburg and especially to Michael Friedrich for accepting this study as a Habilitation thesis in June 2012. The final shape of the book profits greatly from the many discussions I had with my friend Edith Aldridge in particular during

vi | Acknowledgments two stays at the University of Washington in 2012 financed by the German Research Council (DFG) within my project on Aspect and Modality in Pre-Tang Chinese; I profited greatly from her expertise in the syntax of Classical Chinese and from her help and support. I would also like to thank all those who gave me advice at the conferences where I presented first results of my research work. Here I would like to mention in particular Christoph Harbsmeier and Jiang Shaoyu who always made valuable comments on my presentations. I would also like to thank Prof. Jiang Shaoyu for all the help and support he gave me during my stay at the Beijing Daxue in 2005. For the technical preparation of the final version of the book I am particularly grateful to Elisabeth Schulze, secretary in the Seminar of East Asian Studies at the Humboldt University, Berlin and to our student assistant Kai David Olsen who was most helpful in the final stage of the preparation of the manuscript for printing. Finally, I have to thank Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst – who also corrected my English – and my daughters Maria and Charlotte who allowed me to be away so often for my work in Paris and to spend so much time at conferences; without their support it would not have been possible to finish this book. Scientifically I remain deeply indebted to my late teacher Ulrich Unger who always insisted on being precise in the analysis of the grammar of Classical Chinese.

Contents Acknowledgements | v List of abbreviatons | xi 1 1.1 1.2

General introduction | 1 Topic | 1 The text | 3

2 2.1 2.2 2.3

The category tense | 8 The present tense | 11 The past tense | 12 The future tense | 13

3 3.1 3.2 3.3

The category aspect | 15 Grammatical aspect | 17 Lexical aspect | 20 Pragmatic functions of aspectual representation | 31

4 Tense and aspect in Chinese | 33 4.1 Morphological distinctions in the verb in Chinese | 33 4.2 Tense in Chinese | 39 4.3 Aspect in Chinese | 41 4.3.1 Grammatical aspect | 41 4.3.1.1 Perfective and perfect | 42 4.3.1.2 The progressive or durative aspect | 47 4.3.1.3 The experiential aspect | 51 4.4 The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese | 54 4.4.1 State verbs | 57 4.4.2 Activity verbs | 62 4.4.3 Event verbs | 64 4.5 Aspect, temporal relations and adverbs in Chinese | 71 5 5.1 5.1.1

The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases | 76 The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shĭjì | 82 The semantic analysis of temporal adverbials indicating a point of time | 83

viii | Contents 5.1.2 5.1.2.1 5.1.2.2 5.1.3 5.1.3.1 5.1.3.2 5.1.3.3 5.1.3.4 5.1.3.5 5.1.4 5.1.4.1 5.1.4.2 5.1.5 5.1.5.1 5.1.5.2 5.1.5.3 5.1.5.3.1 5.1.5.3.2 5.2 5.2.1 5.2.2 5.2.3 5.2.3.1 5.2.3.2 5.2.3.3 5.2.3.4 5.2.4

Proper adverbs indicating a point of time | 88 Examples for proper adverbs in sentence-initial position | 90 Examples for proper adverbs in preverbal position | 111 Noun phrases indicating a point of time | 121 Calendar temporal adverbials in sentence-initial position | 122 Dependent / anaphoric temporal adverbials in sentence-initial position | 135 Dependent temporal adverbials with hòu in sentence-initial position | 139 Calendar adverbials in preverbal position | 157 Dependent temporal adverbials in preverbal position | 158 Prepositional phrases indicating a point of time | 162 Adverbial prepositional phrases referring to a closed domain | 163 Adverbial prepositional phrases referring to an open domain | 183 Concluding remarks on point of time adverbials | 211 Concluding remarks on proper adverbs indicating a point of time | 212 Concluding remarks on noun phrase point of time adverbials | 215 Concluding remarks on prepositional phrases referring to a point of time | 217 Prepositional and related phrases referring to a closed domain | 217 Prepositional phrases referring to an open domain | 219 The syntactic and the semantic constraints of duration phrases | 222 The syntax of duration phrases | 225 The semantics of duration phrases | 229 Examples for duration phrases in the Shĭjì | 232 Preverbal duration phrases expressing situational duration | 232 Postverbal duration phrases included in the VP [vP DPSubj [V’ Vi [VP DPObj] [V’ ti DPdur]]] | 245 Postverbal duration phrases as predicates of the sentence [vP [DP [vP DP VP] [vP DPdur]]] | 258 Duration phrases in temporal clauses in topic position | 265 Concluding remarks on duration phrases | 270

Contents | ix

6

The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì | 273 6.1 The inchoative and the inceptive aspect: The adverbs chū and shĭ as aspecto-temporal adverbs | 280 6.1.1 The aspecto-temporal adverb chū  | 282 6.1.2 The aspecto-temporal adverb shĭ  | 288 6.1.3 Concluding remarks on the aspecto-temporal adverbs chū and shĭ  | 294 6.2 Simultaneity and the Continuous: The adverb fang  | 297 6.2.1 The syntactic and semantic constraints of the adverb fang  | 299 6.2.2 Examples of fāng in combination with the different situation types of the verb | 300 6.2.3 Concluding remarks on fang  | 321 6.3 Past tense and Habituality: the adverbs cháng , céng , sù , yǎ , and cháng  | 323 6.3.1 The adverb cháng  | 324 6.3.2 The adverb céng  | 334 6.3.3 The adverb sù  | 337 6.3.4 The adverb yǎ  | 347 6.3.5 The adverb cháng  | 350 6.3.6 Concluding remarks on adverbs marking past tense and habituality | 360 6.4 Future tense and Modality: the adverbs jiāng and qiĕ  | 364 6.4.1 The aspecto-temporal adverb jiāng  | 367 6.4.2 The aspecto-temporal adverb qiĕ  | 381 6.4.3 Concluding remarks on the aspecto-temporal adverbs jiāng and qiĕ  | 391 6.5 Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi  | 394 6.5.1 The aspecto-temporal adverb jì  | 405 6.5.2 The aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ  | 420 6.5.2.1 The aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ in combination with other adverbs | 433 6.5.3 The negative marker wèi  | 436 6.5.4 The negative marker wèi in combination with the aspectotemporal adverb cháng  | 459 6.5.5 Concluding remarks on the concepts of Completion and Noncompletion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi  | 470

x | Contents 6.6

7

Concluding remarks on aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì | 484 Conclusion | 496

Bibliography | 502



,QGH[‫ܡܡܡ‬

List of abbreviations BEG

[+begin]

CON

connector

COP

copula

DUR

duration marker

F

final point

FIN

sentence final particle

FOC

focus marker

FUT

marker of the future

HS

Hànshū

I

initial point

MOD

modal

MS

measure word

NEG

negative marker

NEGasp

aspectual negative marker

NOM

nominalising particle

OBJ

general object pronoun

PASS

passive marker

PL

plural marker

PREP

preposition

PRT

particle

QUEST

interrogative adverb

REL

relative pronoun

SJ

Shĭjì

SUB

subordinating particle

TOP

topic marker

TSL

Thesaurus Linguae Sericae

1 General introduction 1.1 Topic The topic of this book is a thorough investigation of all adverbials expressing temporal and aspectual relations in a Han period text. The intention of this study is to demonstrate that although Classical (6th – 3rd century B.C.) and Han period Chinese (206 B.C.-23 A.D.; 25-220 A.D.) do not show any verbal morphology indicating tense and only a deficient one indicating aspect, temporal relations can, if required, be expressed entirely unambiguously. It will be shown that the employment of temporal and aspectual expressions – which belong to the category of adjuncts – is subject to strict syntactic and semantic constraints, similarly to the arguments of the verb which have a fixed position in an unmarked affirmative sentence; the word order of the Chinese language of all times being S(ubject)V(erb)O(bject). In a language which predominantly depends on lexical rather than morphological means to indicate grammatical relations, the word order is fundamental for the grammatical analysis of a sentence. As will be shown, in accordance to the word order constraints of Classical and Han period Chinese and with particular regard to the relative order of adverbials in a sentence, unambiguous grammatical determination of all lexical elements – including all kinds of adjuncts – is possible without any morphological indications. The function of the different adverbials, e.g. modal, aspectotemporal, manner adverbials, can unambiguously be determined according to their position relative to each other and to the other syntactic elements of the sentence, and fixed positions for point of time adverbials, duration phrases and aspecto-temporal adverbs can be determined for the language during the time under consideration. With regard to the semantic constraints of temporal expressions, the close interrelation of the semantics of the verb particularly with duration phrases and aspecto-temporal adverbs will be revealed and the importance of the category situation type, i.e. lexical aspect (Aktionsart) will be emphasized. The present study on temporality in the Shĭjì is the first part of a comprehensive study on the grammar of Pre-Medieval Chinese which intends to reveal the particular constraints the syntax and the semantics of the Chinese || 1 Comments and modifications on the latter statement regarding the aspectual morphology will be presented in the course of this study. In any case, even if morphogical distinctions of different aspectual values existed at some point of the history of the Chinese language they are not productive any more at the time under consideration.

2 | General introduction language are subject to. The basis of a grammatical study of Chinese is the verb and the extended verb phrase; and of particular relevance in the analysis of the extended verb phrase is the expression of temporal, aspectual and modal relations. Since Classical and Han period Chinese do not have a verbal morphology comparable to that of the Indo-European languages, almost all verbal relations have to be expressed by lexical means. Accordingly, a detailed study of the semantics of the verb and its arguments and adjuncts, i.e. all lexical items which constitute the VP, is required to account for the particular characteristics of the Chinese language. The data is almost exclusively taken from the Shĭjì, a text composed during several decades of the former Han period. As a transition period the Han period is of particular linguistic relevance: the Classical language is still alive in the written documents, but at the same time many syntactic and lexical innovations can be diagnosed, i.e. new passive constructions become prominent, all exceptions from the canonical word order SVO loose their productivity, resultative constructions with two verbs, the second of which expresses the result induced by the first, are attested on a more regular basis, a high increase of bisyllabic words can be observed, etc. Since the Shĭjì derives to a large extent from earlier sources it is linguistically quite heterogeneous; on the one hand it still displays typical Classical features, and on the other hand it already shows many of the grammatical innovations which come into being during the Han period. Some of these grammatical features can be considered the source structures of grammatical constructions still in use in Modern Mandarin. Accordingly, the Shĭjì can be regarded as a perfect mirror of the linguistic situation of the texts transmitted from the Han period and it serves as an ideal basis for a study of the language of the time. Additionally to this, the Shĭjì has been chosen since it – as a historical narrative – abundantly exhibits the entire range of possible temporal markers and is certainly the best source available at the time to study the expression of temporal and aspectual relations. In contrast to the later historiographies from the Hànshū on which are evidently written in the common literary language wényán, the language of the Shĭjì is certainly less codified and more disposed to display elements closer to a highly educated vernacular than e.g. the Hànshū and later historiographies. The linguistic data is analysed from a synchronic point of view, although it has of course to be conceded that the data actually represents different diachronic layers, especially in the quotes from earlier sources. But the author assumes that only grammatical features which are still acceptable at the time of composition have been quoted unchanged. For all passages which have parallels in earlier and later texts these parallels have been indicated to the degree detected by the author. Although no systematic survey of these parallels will be presented, they can certainly serve to demon-

The text | 3

strate to which extent the Shĭjì is related directly or indirectly to earlier and later texts. Different kinds of relations of the Shĭjì with other texts are possible: The authors of the Shĭjì have directly quoted from other texts; the authors of the Shĭjì have relied on the same sources as the authors or compilers of other texts, this could, for instance, be the case for a text such as the Zhànguó cè for which it is well known that a lot of its passages have parallels in the Shĭjì. The Zhànguó cè in its present shape was certainly compiled after the Shĭjì (see Loewe (1993: 406), but because of the great amount of identical or almost identical material in both texts it can be assumed that the Shĭjì has either relied on an earlier version of the Zhànguó cè or on common sources. The Zhànguó cè is explicitly mentioned as one of the sources Sima Qian drew on in the Hànshū (HS: 62; 2737). On the other hand, much of the material attested in the Shĭjì appears again in later texts, such as e.g. the Hànshū (for the supposed relation between the Shĭjì and the Hànshū see below), but also in the Kŏngzĭ jiāyŭ or the Wú Yuè chūnqiū , texts which have either quoted from the Shĭjì or which rely on common sources. The following texts have in particular been checked for parallels with the Shĭjì: 1. The Shísānjīng, the Guóyŭ, the Zhànguó cè, the Hànshū, the Lùnhéng, the Kŏngzĭ jiāyŭ, the Shuō Yuàn, the Wú Yuè chūnqiū. Parallels to the instances quoted from the Shĭjì are only commented on if they display alterations or variants relevant from a linguistic point of view. Historical and philological considerations are in general excluded from the present study which is exclusively devoted to the linguistic analysis of the grammatical features expressing temporal and aspectual relations. Since the linguistic material of the Shĭjì is quite heterogeneous, representing typical Classical features beside genuine Han period ones, this study cannot be considered as a study of Han period Chinese in a strict sense, but rather as a study of temporal expressions in a text composed during a typical transition period. But within the study, particular reference is made to all the grammatical innovations attested in the Shĭjì and to their possible predecessors in earlier texts. However, many of the temporal and aspectual expressions typical for the Shĭjì appear already to different degrees in the earlier Chinese literature.

1.2 The text The Shĭjì shū

(The (Grand Scribe’s Records) originally had the title Tàishĭgōng (Documents (from the Office) of His Honour (the Director of Cos-

4 | General introduction mology). It has first been compiled by Sima Tan (died 110 B.C.) and later by his son Sima Qian (?145-?86 B.C.). The text consists of 130 juǎn divided into five different sections: 1, the bĕn jĭ , the ‘Basic Annals’, consisting of 12 chapters treating of the rulers of the successive dynasties starting with the five mythological rulers wŭ dì and ending with the rulers of the Han dynasty; 2, the 10 synoptic chapters biǎo ‘Tables’ providing chronological tables and genealogies of the rulers of the pre-imperial states starting with the year 841 B.C. (Unger 1997: 143), but also continuing up to families ennobled during the first century of the Han period,; 3, the 8 chapters of shū ‘Documents’, i.e. treatises or surveys of all the topics relevant for good government such as rituals, music, calendar, waterways etc.; 4, the 30 chapters of the shì jiā the ‘Hereditary Houses’, these are the histories of the major states of Pre-Qin China, including the biography of Confucius and some prominent figures from the early Han period; and 5, the 70 chapters of zhuàn ‘Traditions’ which present the biographies of prominent people of different standings, including statesmen, military leaders, scholars, assassins etc., but also reports on the foreign peoples the Han had come into close contact with during the early Han period. The organisation of the Shĭjì became the model for all later historiographies. A bibliographical chapter, listing the literary works known at the time whether still extant or not, as it appears in the Hànshū, is not part of the Shĭjì. Although Sima Qian is often quoted as the sole author of the historiography, the Shĭjì was initiated by his father, Sima Tan, and was completed by Sima Qian after his death. Later on, additions were made to the text, of which only those of Chu Shaosun (?104-?30 B.C.) are marked as such. Already in the first century A.D. it was noticed that ten chapters were missing from the Shĭjì which were also added at a later time. Additionally, the authenticity of some chapters, particularly those dealing with events from the first century of the Han dynasty, has been doubted and it has been suggested that these chapters disappeared and were reconstructed later in the third and fourth century A.D. from the respective chapters of the Hànshū (Loewe 1993: 406). This concerns in particular the chapter 123 ‘The memoir of Dàyuăn’, the authenticity of which has been doubted by Hulsewé (1975). On linguistic grounds, the author shares Pulleyblank’s opinion that chapter 123 belongs to the original chapters of the Shĭjì (Meisterernst 2013c). But for most chapters, scholars agree on the authorship of Sima Tan or Sima Qian. However, there is no general agreement on the specific author of each individual chapter, and a recent debate conducted by Bruce Brooks and his Warring States Project suspects that many more chap|| 2 The translation is taken from Giele (2006: 6).

The text | 5

ters than has been previously assumed can be ascribed to Sima Tan. But the final results of this investigation are unfortunately not yet available. Each chapter consists of a short summary and an evaluation of its most important points by its author; these are introduced by Tàishĭgōng yuē ‘The Grand Historiographer remarks’. Together with the frequent speeches these are the only parts of the text which unambiguously refer to speech time; accordingly they are of particular interest for a linguistic investigation of temporal expressions. As already briefly stated above, the authors of the Shĭjì rely on many different sources for their historiography, not all of which are still extant. These are predominantly the historical texts of the Pre-Classical and Classical period, starting with the Shūjīng (Shàng shū ) and the Shījīng and continuing with the Chūnqiū and its commentary the Zuŏzhuàn , the Guóyŭ , the Shì bĕn , and include a text which resembles to a great extent the present Zhànguó cè . Of great additional relevance has been the history of the state of Qin, which is now lost; material from government archives, such as memorials, imperial edicts etc., and many local sources which Sima Qian collected during his extensive travels have also been included in his historiography (Loewe 1993: 407). An important source for the rise of the Han Dynasty was the Chŭ Hàn chūnqiū which, like the history of Qin, is now lost. An extensive list of the texts consulted by Sima Qian is provided in Zhang (2002: 217ff.). As already stated above, passages quoting or paraphrasing texts from the Classical period naturally rather represent the Classical language than a language typical for the Han period, even if they do not quote literally but paraphrase, but all the chapters dealing with prominent figures and events from the Han period certainly represent genuine Han period linguistic material. Accordingly, the Shĭjì mainly represents two different diachronic layers and if generalisations about any innovations attested in Han period Chinese are made, these can only refer to parts of the text and not to the text in its entirety. The three oldest commentaries on the Shĭjì are the jíjiĕ commentary by Pei Yin (5th century A.D.), the suŏyĭn commentary by Sima Zhen (early 8th century A.D.), and the zhèngyì commentary by Zhang Shoujie th (also dating from the 8 century). These commentaries provide rich information on historical events, place names, phonological information, and lexical glosses etc. and they are included in most editions of the Shĭjì. The present study is based on the Zhonghua shuju edition of 1959 in the reprint of 1985 which includes all three commentaries and which is based on the Jinling shuju edition of 1870. Additionally, particularly for problematic punctua|| 3 For an overview of the editorial history of the Shĭjì see Loewe (1993: 407f).

6 | General introduction tions, the Takigawa Kametarō edition of 1934 (reprint 1998) has been consulted. Despite its drawbacks, the Zhonghua shuju edition is most convenient for linguistic studies, especially since the database of the Academia Sinica which is an invaluable tool for comparative linguistic studies is based on it. Extensive use has been made of this database for comparison with other earlier and later texts. Many translation projects were launched for the Shĭjì; the four most important of these are certainly those conducted by Chavannes, Watson, Vyatkin and by the Nienhauser group. Chavannes provided the first – and very scholarly – translation of parts of the Shĭjì into a European language (he translated chapter 1-52 into French); Burton Watson translated a great number of chapters from all the different sections of the Shĭjì starting with chapter 7 and providing an almost complete translation of the biographical chapters. His translations do not include many scholarly notes, since they are aimed at a more general public, and he rather accounts for the value of the Shĭjì as a literary and historical work than always providing a very literal rendering of the original text. But still, since his translations are supported by a vast historical knowledge and a great experience as a translator, they have a very high value. The translations of Vyatkin into Russian, the completion of which was prevented by his death, cover little more than ninety-five percent of the original text (Nienhauser 2006: 464) including a lot of annotations, and accordingly they are – similarly to Chavannes’ translations – oriented towards the specialist (Nienhauser 2006: 461). The fourth is the still ongoing translation project headed by William Nienhauser which has already provided translations of the Basic Annals (vols. I and II), a first volume on the Hereditary Houses (vol V) and the Memoirs of Pre-Han China (vol VII); a second volume on Pre-Han China (vol. VIII) is forthcoming. These translations are based on extensive philological and historical studies and provide a rich corpus of annotations. Besides these main translation projects, many translations of individual chapters or smaller or larger groups of chapters have been provided into European languages. Additionally, translations into Japanese and Modern Chinese exist. In the present study, mainly the translations by Chavannes, Watson and Nienhauser et al. have been consulted for comparison, but according to the particular focus of the study new translations have been presented by the author with the intention of rendering the linguistic analysis as precisely as possible without becoming ungrammatical. Notes to the other

|| 4 He did not provide a complete translation of all of these chapter, i.e. regarding the tables, he confined his translation to their foreword. 5 For extensive bibliographies of translations of the Shĭjì the author refers e.g. to Loewe (1993: 410f) and to the bibliographies provided in the respective volumes of Nienhauser et al.

The text | 7

translations have only been provided in case the author’s translation differs in the essentials or represents differences in analysis. References to historical or chronological annotations have only occasionally been included. According to its nature as a linguistic study the complex philological studies regarding the history and nature of the Shĭjì and the variety of topics this text treats are not at issue in this book, they will only be referred to when necessary. A linguistic study such as the one presented here is always characterised by the sometimes regrettable fact that it has to confine itself to the analysis of the linguistic data, often divided up into small units, without accounting for the literary, historical or other qualities the text under investigation possesses, qualities which the Shĭjì exhibits in great abundance.

|| 6 For a philological or historical discussion of the respective passages of the Shĭjì the author refers the reader to the extensive notes provided particularly in Nienhauser, but also to those by Chavannes and to the abundant literature on the respective topic.

2 The category tense The category tense, the expression of temporality in language, has the function of depicting temporal relations in utterances. In linguistic utterances, situations can be either explicitly located aspecto-temporally or they can be depicted as not embedded into a temporal frame. In any linguistic expression which involves temporal relations the situation referred to is located on the time axis from a particular perspective, usually the perspective of the locutionary agent, whereas in any expression not involving temporal relations the situation is not located on the time axis. Every language has the inherent capacity, independently of its grammatical means and in different grades of precision, to locate a situation temporally. The idea of locating situations in time is a purely conceptual notion and is as such potentially independent of the range of distinctions made in any particular language. It does, however, seem to be the case that all human languages have ways of locating in time. (Comrie 1985: 7)

But languages differ in the way they represent the category tense, and different temporal distinctions are made within this category according to the respective language. In some languages, e.g. the Indo-European languages, different temporal relations within the category tense are represented by a very fine-grained system in the morphology of the verb, whereas in Chinese, temporal relations are not at all expressed in the verbal morphology, but are indicated lexically by

|| 7 This category is defined by Bache (1995: 255) as follows: “TEMPORALITY concerns the assignment of temporal location to situations relative to the time conceived of as present by the locutionary agent at the moment of communication.” According to Bache (1995: 256) temporality is rather an assigned than an inherent quality, and it refers rather to ‘projected world situations’ than to ‘real world situations’. 8 For instance, in the linguistic literature generic expressions are very often regarded as atemporal expressions, expressions which are not embedded in a temporal frame, since they do not include the ‘Davidsonian argument’ (Davidson 1967), i.e., the variable which represents the situation expressed in the sentence is missing. Besides generic expressions, habitual utterances are very often considered as atemporal, too. 9 Bache remarks (1995: 255): “A +TEMPORAL expression assigns a temporal location to a situation relative to the time conceived of as present by the locutionary agent at the moment of communication.” und “A –TEMPORAL expression does not assign a temporal location relative to the time conceived of as present by the locutionary agent at the moment of communication.”

The present tense | 9

different grammatical expressions, such as conjunctions, adverbial phrases, and temporal expressions. Accordingly, in the Indo-European system the category tense is grammaticalised while in Chinese it is not and is expressed by purely lexical means. As a concept, which depicts a situation in relation to a fixed point of reference, the category tense is deictic. In general, the point of time of the utterance, this is the hic et nunc, the ‘here and now’ of the utterance, is regarded as the deictic centre and situations are usually depicted as either preceding or following this point of time. Consequently, three different basic time points can be distinguished: these are speech time corresponding to the present tense, the time preceding speech time corresponding to the past tense and the time following speech time corresponding to the future tense. A logical representation of the temporal relations expressed by the category tense has been developed by Reichenbach (1947). In his representation, the time of utterance, speech time, constitutes the centre to which the other times, event time, the time the situation actually takes place, and reference time, any other time that is referred to, are related (Reichenbach 1947: § 51). These three different categories are conceived by Reichenbach to account for complex temporal systems consisting of more than the three basic tenses (Reichenbach 1975: 288). The three basic tenses can be defined sufficiently by the two categories speech time and event time, whereas the term reference time was introduced by Reichenbach to account for complex tenses such as the Perfect, the Pluperfect, and the Future Perfect, which involve a further point of time different from and addi|| 10 See Comrie (1985: 14): “A system which relates entities to a reference point is termed a deictic system, and we can therefore say that tense is deictic.” Comrie refers to Fillmore (1975) and Lyons (1977: ch.15) for a general discussion on deixis. 11 The moment of speech provides the “deictic origo” according to Klein (2009: 28); and “tense situates some event in relation to the “deictic origo” – which is given by the moment of speech – the linguistic variant of the time of present experience.” But besides the grammatical category tense, many adverbials are also anchored at the ‘deictic origo’ (ibidem). 12 Many linguists and philosophers have taken this distinction as basis of their analyses, but e.g. Dowty (1982: 32) in his analysis distinguishes only speech time and reference time, since according to him reference time and event time have to be considered identical: “So far there has been nothing corresponding to Reichenbach’s event time. Rather, event time is not distinct from reference time. ...” But in the course of his discussion he concedes that this analysis involves certain disadvantages (1982: 48): “The only drawback of this solution is that it no longer permits a theory of time reference in narrative discourse to be based in a simple manner upon the definition of true2 in the way indicated earlier ... The reason is that the ‘event time’ in a past tense main clause is now separated from the ‘reference time i’ of the sentence ...” and (1982: 52), where he tentatively assumes a third category, which he labels quasi-speech time. It has of course to be conceded that in a narrative text it is very difficult to analyse temporal relations merely on the basis of speech time and reference time.

10 | The category tense tional to speech time and event time. Reichenbach developed his conception to represent the different tenses, including the simple and the complex tenses – in English. In the simple tenses Present, Past and Future, event time and reference time are identical while in the complex tenses Perfect, Pluperfect and Future II they are not. In all tenses, event time and reference time are related to speech time. The simple tenses are labelled absolute tense, and the complex tenses are labelled relative tense or absolute-relative tense (Comrie 1985: 36). In the absolute tenses the present moment functions as the centre point the other tenses are related to. The absolute tenses are: Present tense, Past tense and Future tense, with the first two being unanimously considered a temporal category, while the status of the future in a temporal system has been controversially discussed in the linguistic literature. The general axis of time can be depicted as follows: Past time Present moment Past tense Present tense

Future time Future tense

In Reichenbach’s system these different basic tenses are represented and renamed: Structure E–R–S E, R – S R–E–S R – S, E R–S–E E – S, R

New Name Anterior past Simple past

Traditional name Past Perfect Simple past

Posterior past --Anterior present

Present perfect

|| 13 The category Perfect within his system has been discussed in Comrie (1985: 78) who postulates a qualitative difference between the Perfect and the other complex tenses, assuming that the Perfect and the Past tense in English do not differ in their temporal location but in their aspectual representation of a situation. (See also Comrie (1976: chapter 3 on Perfect.)) 14 Reichenbach (1975: 297). Reichenbach assumes 13 possible variants of temporal relations, some of which are not distinguished, resulting in nine fundamental variants. Of these nine variants six are represented in the tense system of English. For these fundamental variants he proposes the following terminology: “The position of R(eferene time) relative to S(peech time) is indicated by the words ‘past’, ‘present’, and ‘future’. The position of E(vent time) relative to R(eference time) is indicated by the words ‘anterior’, ‘simple’ and ‘posterior’, the word ‘simple’ being used for the coincidence of R(eference time) and E(vent time).

The present tense | 11

S, R, E S, R – E S–E–R S, E – R E–S–R S – R, E S–R–E

Simple present Posterior present

Present Simple future

Anterior future

Future perfect

Simple future Simple future Posterior future ---

These are the temporal relations which according to Reichenbach’s system can be represented in the temporal system of a language. In the following, a short analysis of the so-called simple tenses will be given, since they constitute the basis of each temporal system in any language of the world.

2.1 The present tense The present tense locates a situation at the present moment on the time axis, even if this situation already persisted before this moment and continues after the present moment as e.g. in the sentence ‘Paris is in France’, ‘A man is crossing the street’ etc. Speech time, event time and reference time are identical. The present tense can also refer to habitually, regularly re-occurring situations such as ‘This man crosses the street every morning at seven o’clock.’ In some individual languages this fact has led to a distinction of the present tense which refers to a singular situation at the present moment from the present tense that refers to habitually re-occurring situations. According to Comrie (1985: 39), such a distinction of two different variants of the present tense is not necessary, since a habitual situation always also refers to the present moment and accordingly the employment of the present tense to refer to habitual situations is justified. But Comrie concedes that the concept habituality is not only adjacent to the category tense, but also to the categories aspect and modality and that it is rather integrated into an aspectual or modal than a temporal system (Comrie 1985: 40). Accordingly, a separate tense for the category habituality is not to be ex|| 15 Although there is a general consensus that tense and time are related, opinions differ in the linguistic literature with regard to the number and the kind of the tenses actually realised in a particular language (see Bache 1995: 255). Additionally, whereas the location of situations in time can be considered universal, the existence of tense systems is not, and the existence of a grammaticalised category ‘tense’ is not mandatory for the expression of temporal relations. 16 Bache (1995: 257) defines: “A present situation is conceived of as being temporally located in the present.”

12 | The category tense pected. This also holds true for generic predicates for which according to Comrie no separate category has to be assumed. Predicates which express a universal truth and which e.g. in English and German are usually represented by the present tense, are in Classical and Han period Chinese expressed by nominal predicates which have to be defined as atemporal, namely, as not being located on the time axis, but which can refer to a universal truth in the past, the present and the future.

2.2 The past tense The past tense refers to a non-specified point of time, located to the left of the present moment on the time axis. This can be either a singular point of time of very short duration or a span of time, covering a period of time of longer duration which can extend to the present moment, or even exceed it such as in the example ‘The train passed’ in which the verb refers to the short moment of the passing of the train, or in the example ‘John lived in London’, where the verb refers to a longer period of time. In the second example, which locates the living of John in London at a time preceding the time of utterance, it cannot be excluded with certainty that John still lives in London at the time of the utterance as can be seen in the following example ‘John lived in London when he was young and he still lives there.’ In the past tense, event time and reference time are identical and both precede speech time.

|| 17 As will be shown in the following discussion, in the Chinese language of the Han period, just as well as in the Classical period, different linguistic realisations are available to express habituality in the past and the present, and for habitual situations beginning in the past and leading up to the present. 18 Dahl (1975: 103) rejects the concept of a universal timelessness of generic predicates and argues that not only a generic present tense, but also a generic past tense and future tense exist: “Notice that since the validity of a law or norm may very well be restricted in time, there is nothing in this account of generic tense that implies that it is in some way ‘timeless’ or ‘valid for all time’, as is occasionally suggested. ... Notice that there is not only a generic present, but also generic pasts and generic futures ...” 19 Bache (1995: 257) defines: “A past situation is conceived of as being temporally located before the present.”

The future tense | 13

2.3 The future tense The future tense as a tense refers to a non-specified point of time located to the right of the present moment on the time axis. The categorical status of the future as a linguistic concept has been controversially discussed in the linguistic literature without providing a final solution to the question. According to the literature two different categorisations are possible for the future: 1, the future is characterised as deictic, namely, as belonging to the category tense; 2, the future is characterised as non-deictic, namely, as belonging to the category modality. Although the future is represented equivalently to the past on the time axis, both categories differ considerably. The past tense always refers to a situation which in fact happened in the real world without being subject to any influences from the present moment, whereas the future always refers to a situation that has not yet happened in the real world. Consequently, the realisation of a future situation is uncertain and necessarily subject to different influences from the real world as can be demonstrated by the following example ‘Peter will go to Paris’. The realisation of the situation referred to by the predicate is not at all certain in the real world; many different circumstances can prevent the realisation of a situation which is intended or assumed to happen in the future. Hence, from an objectivistic perspective, the future cannot be associated with the category tense; since the truth value of a situation that did not happen (yet) in the real world is not immediately verifiable, it rather has to be associated with the concept of modality. In the concept of modality, epistemic notions such as possibility, probability or certainty are involved, and there is an evident difference between the speaker’s – the locutionary agent’s – certainty with regard to a future event and the speaker’s commitment to the truth of a past or a present event. From a more subjective perspective, the future can be associated with the category tense without any difficulties, since the locutionary agent simply predicts what he considers the future reality, namely, the actual happening of the situation in the real world at a point of time following the time of utterance. In this concept no such notions as possibility or certainty are involved. In the future tense event time and reference time are identical and both follow speech time. || 20 Bache (1995: 257) defines: “A future situation is conceived of as being temporally located after the present.” 21 The analysis of the future as a temporal category in English has been supported e.g. by Comrie (1985: 43f) and Bache (1995: 266f). The hypothesis that the future has to be analysed as a modal category has been maintained e.g. by Perkins (1983: 42) (cf. Lampert, Günther, Lampert, Martina. 2000).

14 | The category tense In general, a basic distinction in a binary system of past/non-past or future/nonfuture can be assumed (Comrie 1985: 48f), but apparently a tendency to develop a more refined system for the distinctions of different forms of the past can be perceived in languages (Comrie: 1985: 85). Besides those languages that possess a basic distinction of different tenses, languages also exist – e.g. Chinese – that do not grammaticalise temporal distinctions. This does not mean however, that languages lacking a grammaticalised system for temporal reference are not able to express and to differentiate temporal distinctions. The grammaticalisation of the category tense is merely one possibility among others of expressing temporal relations and the temporal succession of situations, and frequently more fine-grained distinctions can be made by means of temporal adverbials and other lexical devices as can be well demonstrated in the language of Classical and Han period Chinese.

3 The category aspect The category aspect is another verbal category which can be grammaticalised, i.e. realized in the morphological system of the verb. Aspect can be divided into grammatical aspect and lexical aspect, a distinction which is often, but not always, made in the linguistic literature. Within the framework of a distinction between grammatical and lexical aspect, the category grammatical aspect, which is usually realised in the morphology of the verb, includes the imperfective and the perfective aspect, whereas the lexical aspect concerns the situation types (Aktionsarten) of the verb, i.e. it is inherent to the semantics of the verb. In some languages the lexical aspect, the situation type, is realised in the primary structure of the lexeme, e.g. state verbs and dynamic verbs can be distinguished by the morpho-lexemic structure of the verb; in other languages, the lexical aspect is realised by secondary morphological structures of the lexeme, these are e.g. derivational morphemes as used in German and other modern European languages such as German ‘er-, auf-, aus-‚ which derive a telic from an atelic verb; but languages also exist in which the lexical aspect, the situation type, is merely derivable from the semantics of the verb or the verb phrase, namely, the entire predicate. In the linguistic literature aspectual systems are very often regarded as universally basic and primary and it has been assumed that they are learned earlier in the acquisition of language than tense systems, and that languages in general are more likely to develop aspectual than tense systems. Regarding the lexical aspect / situation type (Aktionsart) of the verb, it can certainly be assumed that it is a basic verbal category, since it is – whether  || 22 Smith (1997: 1) defines the distinction between both categories as follows: “Aspect traditionally refers to grammaticized viewpoints such as the perfective and imperfective. Recently, as people have come to appreciate the relation between viewpoint and situation structure, the range of the term ‘aspect’ has broadened. The term now includes temporal properties of situations, or situation types. Viewpoints and situation types convey information about the temporal aspects of situations such as beginning, end, change of state, and duration ...” 23 This distinction is provided in Sasse (1991: 7): “Formale lexikalische Differenzierungen liegen z.B. dann vor, wenn eine Sprache etwa statische und dynamische Verben durch unterschiedliche Lexemstruktur unterscheidet, wie dies offenbar im Abchasischen (Lucassen 1985: 259) ... der Fall ist. Neben solchen primären morpholexikalischen Differenzierungen sind vor allem sekundäre, durch Derivationmechanismen erzeugte Kategorisierungen weit verbreitet. Das Deutsche (ebenso wie andere moderne europäische Sprachen) besitzt z.B. eine Anzahl von Präverbien, wie er-, auf-, aus- u.a., zur Terminativierung nicht-terminativer Verben, ...”

16 | The category aspect marked or unmarked – present in each language, independent of the extent to which the other verbal categories are grammaticalised in the respective language. In contrast to the category tense which has to be considered deictic, the category aspect is not deictic: the situation is not located on a particular point on the axis of time, but its inner temporal and viewpoint structure is represented by aspect: “aspects are different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation.” The category lexical aspect / situation type, deals with the semantic structure of the verb or verb phrase and the distinction of different semantic classes of verbs. Although they are obviously distinct, there is a close relation between the verbal categories tense and aspect on the one hand and the categories grammatical aspect and lexical aspect on the other hand. In contrast to the definition of the category tense, the basic definition of which has not been subject to a controversial debate in the linguistic literature, no terminology generally agreed upon regarding the category aspect has been developed yet. Different approaches to distinguishing the categories grammatical and lexical aspect have been made: for instance, Comrie (1976: 7), based on the divergent employment of the term Aktionsart, does not distinguish between the categories grammatical and lexical aspect (aspect and Aktionsart). Contrastively, e.g. Smith (11991, 1997) clearly distinguishes the lexical aspect ‘situation type’ and the grammatical aspect ‘viewpoint’, and also Bache (1995) differentiates the two different categories aspect and Aktionsart. According to him, Aktionsart has to be regarded as the central category, followed by tense

|| 24 As will be shown in the following discussion, although there is general agreement that in Chinese a certain derivational morphology existed also and in particular with regard to aspectual distinctions, no coherent derivational system as e.g. in German has as yet been established to distinguish situation types of the verb and accordingly the lexical aspect of the verb has at present to be derived from the syntacto-semantic constraints of the relevant verb or verb phrase. 25 Comrie’s definition (1976: 3) is based on a definition by Holt (1943: 6, cf. Comrie): “les manières diverses de concevoir l’écoulement de procès même”. 26 A definition of these different verbal categories has e.g. been provided in Kortmann (1990: 19): ”TENSE: grammatical category; deictic; concerned with situation-external time; location of some situation on the time line relative to coding time; ASPECT: grammatical category; nondeictic; concerned with situation-internal time; presentation of some situation as incomplete/in progress/ existent (“from within”) or complete (“from without”) at a given point / period in time; AKTIONSART: lexical category; non-deictic; concerned with situation-internal time; temporal constitution inherent in the meaning of the verb (whether simplex, complex, or verbal syntagma) or predicate.” 27 Different opinions in the linguistic literature mainly concern the definition of the future as a temporal or modal category.

Grammatical aspect | 17

and aspect. All three categories share the same characteristic, namely, they are closely related to the way the situation expressed by the verb is depicted. Although grammatical and lexical aspect are not always distinguished in the linguistic literature, to my view this distinction is basic in the analyses of the temporal and aspectual system of a language and it is in particular relevant for the analysis of the temporal system of Classical and Han period Chinese which, apparently, is rather based on the lexical aspect of the verb – whether originally morphologically marked or not – than on any grammaticalised aspectual or temporal distinction. Accordingly, the lexical aspect, the situation type of the verb and its interplay with all the relevant grammatical and lexical means to indicate temporal and aspectual relations in Chinese will be the main subject of the following investigation.

3.1 Grammatical aspect All languages can distinguish different situation types on the lexical, the morpho-syntactic and the semantic level, although not all languages possess the grammatical category aspect as a grammaticalised distinction between the perfective and the imperfective aspect within the morphology of the verb. The investigation of aspectual systems has been a particular issue in the linguistic analysis of the Slavonic languages where a distinction of a bounded situation from an unbounded one is fully grammaticalised. Different approaches have

|| 28 Bache (1995: 219) distinguished three different categories: TEMPORALITY, ASPECTUALITY and ACTIONALITY and defines these categories as follows: “As we have seen, TEMPORALITY concerns the location in time of situations, ASPECTUALITY the focus with which the locutionary agent represents situations, and ACTIONALITY the type of situation expressed.” In this categorisation ACTIONALITY is the central category (1995: 219): “In other words, I shall argue that action is more central than tense, which, in turn, is more central than aspect.” Bache discusses his hypothesis in detail and he argues (Bache 1995: 225) that ACTIONALITY has to be considered central, since it is the most independent of the three categories – it is also present in non-finite and nominalised expressions. This category is followed by the category tense, TEMPORALITY which depends conceptually on ACTION, but which is relevant in both [– ACTIONAL] expressions, these are stative and habitual expressions, and in [+ACTIONAL] expressions. This is followed by the category aspect which depends conceptionally on the actional interpretation of a situation. 29 Bache (1995: 220): “Action, tense, and aspect, different as they are, share one such property, namely what might be termed ‘situation-bound’: they are all three somehow concerned with the locutionary agent’s expression of situations in some projected world, though of course in very different ways.”

18 | The category aspect been made to differentiate the semantic implications of the two contrastive aspects. Very often the definition of the perfective and the imperfective aspect refers to the different perspectives from which a situation is represented: From an imperfective perspective, the internal structure of the situation is viewed from the inside, without any focus on the initial or final point of the situation; from a perfective perspective, the situation is viewed in its entirety, including its initial and its final point from an external perspective: ... the perfective looks at the situation from the outside, without necessarily distinguishing any of the internal structure of the situation, whereas the imperfective looks at the situation from inside, and as such is crucially concerned with the internal structure of the situation... (Comrie 1976: 4)

Regarding the completeness of the depiction of a situation Comrie (1976: 16) defines: perfectivity indicates the view of a situation as a single whole, without distinction of the various separate phases that make up the situation; while the imperfective pays essential attention to the internal structure of the situation. In this definition of the perfective aspect not only the external perspective, but also the depiction of the situation in its entirety, as a single unanalysed whole, is focused on. In other definitions, the boundedness of the situation is at issue.

|| 30 Although Bache (1995: 269) quotes Comrie’s definition as one of the best available in the linguistic literature, he criticises a certain lack of precision, since according to him, it is not the aspect but the locutionary agent that depicts the situation from a particular perspective. Accordingly, he defines aspect: “ASPECTUALITY concerns the situational focus with which the locutionary agents represents (sic!) situations.”, and furthermore the perfective aspect (1995: 270): “A perfective representation conveys an external situational focus, i.e. the locutionary agent looks at the situation from the outside, as a whole situation.” and the imperfective aspect: “An imperfective representation conveys an internal situational focus, i.e. the locutionary agent looks at the situation from the inside, as something in progression.” 31 A comparable definition has been provided in Smith (1997: 3) “Perfective viewpoints focus a situation in its entirety, including both initial and final endpoints. Imperfective viewpoints focus part of a situation, including neither initial nor final point.” Smith (1997: 3) distinguishes a third aspect ‘viewpoint’, namely, the neutral aspect: “Neutral viewpoints are flexible, including the initial endpoint of a situation and at least one internal stage (where applicable).” Other definitions are based on the relation between event time and reference time such as the one given by Klein (1994) quoted e.g. in Hacquard (2006: 50): “The difference between the two aspects is that perfective locates the time of the event within the reference time, while imperfective locates the reference time within the event time (cf. Klein 1994).” 32 For instance in Dahl (1985: 78) the following definition of the perfective aspect is provided: “A PFV (= perfective) verb will typically denote a single event, seen as an unanalyzed whole, with a well defined result or end-state, located in the past. More often than not, the event will

Grammatical aspect | 19

According to Sasse the dual aspectual system mirrors the “dichotomic conceptualisation of situations and changes in situations … on an abstract grammatical level”. The perfective and the imperfective aspect can be represented by the following formulae: 1. General representation of the perfective aspect: I F //////////// 2. General representation of the imperfective aspect: .............. or: I .. ///// .. F The imperfective aspect can be divided into several subcategories, the most typical of which are according to Comrie (1976: 25) the habitual aspect and the continuous aspect, the continuous aspect is further subdivided into the nonprogressive and the progressive aspect. The grammatical and the lexical aspects, the situation type, of the verb exhibit a close relation of mutual compatibility to the effect that the respective situation type of the verb enhances or prevents a particular aspectual representation. For instance, telic verbs, these are event verbs, are generally compatible with the perfective aspect, and atelic verbs, these are state verbs and activity verbs, are generally compatible with the imperfective aspect, though many verbs can shift from the telic to the atelic category and vice versa when modified accordingly, which also effects the aspectual representation.

|| be punctual, or at least, it will be seen as a single transition from one state to its opposite, the duration of which can be disregarded.” 33 In Sasse (1991: 11) the following definition of aspect is provided: “Der imperfektive Aspekt stellt einen Sachverhalt als Situation, unter Ausschluß all seiner Grenzen, dar (“S-Aspekt”); Der perfektive Aspekt stellt einen Sachverhalt als Situationsveränderung, unter Bezugnahme auf all seine typischen Grenzen, dar (“SV-Aspekt”).” 34 This representation follows Smith (1997: 66). 35 Smith (1997: 73). I refers to the initial point of a situation and F to the final point. The dots in the representation of the imperfective aspect refer to the different phases of the situation, whereas the slashes refer to those phases of the situation which are actually represented in the sentence.

20 | The category aspect

3.2 Lexical aspect The lexical aspect, also situation type or Aktionsart of the verb concerns the semantic categorisation of verbs and predicates according to the situation they represent: it classifies different types of situations according to the way in which they proceed in the projected world: ACTIONALITY concerns the classification of situations into types according to the procedural characteristics assigned to them in the projected world Bache (1995: 227).

An important characteristic for the distinction of different situation types is the telicity or boundedness of the situation, the verb or the verb phrase refers to. This semantic feature refers to the temporal boundaries of a situation, namely, whether or not it is presented with its natural initial and final point. Starting with Aristotle, many attempts have been made to distinguish the different ways in which verbs depict different situations; for instance, basic distinctions are made between static and dynamic situations, or bounded and unbounded situations. Many recent linguistic studies are based on the famous quatripartition of verbs proposed by Vendler (1967), which can be regarded as one of the classical categorisations of situation types. In his categorisation, Vendler distinguishes states, activities, accomplishments and achievements. || 36 Bache’s definition is formulated within a framework which assigns situations rather to a projected than to a real world (Bache 1995: 226). 37 Bache describes telicity as follows (1995: 249): “A telic situation is a durative situation leading up to and including a terminal point beyond which the situation cannot progress unless redefined.” and “An atelic situation is a durative situation realized in the projected world in terms of its extension in time rather than a criterial terminal point.” And he comments on the two definitions (ibidem) “Usually the terminal point of a telic situation is a natural or logical completion of the situation, or it is a quantified expression with a defined limit, and thus often represents a transition or leap into a new situation.” But the relevance of the term telicity is not uncontroversial, as can be seen in the discussion provided e.g. in Verkuyl 2002. 38 A modification of Vendler’s categories has been proposed e.g. by Sasse (1991) for Modern Chinese. He distinguishes five different categories: “1) “Total stative” Sachverhalte (total stative) ...; 2) “Inchoativ-stative” Sachverhalte (inchoative stative) ...; 3) “Aktions”-Sachverhalte (activities) ...; 4) “Graduell terminative” Sachverhalte (accomplishments) ...; 5) “Totalterminative” Sachverhalte (achievements)...”. Smith (1997: 3) also assumes a fifth category besides Vendler’s categories, the Semelfactive, and she provides the following definitions: “States: static, durative (know the answer, love Mary); Activity: dynamic, durative, atelic (laugh, stroll in the park); Accomplishment: dynamic, durative, telic, consisting of process and outcome (build a house, walk to school, learn Greek); Semelfactives: dynamic, atelic, instantaneous (tap, knock); Achievement: dynamic, telic, instantaneous (win the race, reach the top). The distinction between telic and atelic events turns on whether an event has a natural final

Lexical aspect | 21

State and activity verbs focus on the situation itself without its initial and / or final point, and accordingly they are atelic; accomplishment verbs focus on both the process and the final point of the situation, whereas achievement verbs only focus on the final point of the situation. Both accomplishments and achievements are telic. More recent analyses distinguish only three different categories: states, processes and events with states and processes being atelic or unbounded on the one hand and events being telic or bounded on the other hand. Accomplishments and achievements are subsumed under events. Situation types are compositional (Verkuyl e.g. 1993, 2002); they consist of individual, i.e. simple, verbs just as well as of complex verb phrases, namely, verbs with their arguments and adjuncts, which can be represented by various noun phrases, prepositional phrases and adverbs and which contribute to the overall structure of the sentence. The interplay of the verb and its arguments, particularly its inner argument, plays a prominent role in the determination of the situation type of a verb or a verb phrase and its possible shift from atelic to telic and vice versa. Therefore, the semantic analysis of the isolated verb very often does not suffice to determine the situation type of the predicate; and a distinction has to be made between those situation types which are exclusively determined by the semantics of the verb, and those which can only be derived from the analysis of the verb and its inner argument, or the entire predicate or sentence. The different situation types can be distinguished according to the part || endpoint: a goal, outcome or other change of state. Telic events have natural final endpoints whereas atelic events do not.” Examples for the different situation types are e.g. given in McClure (1995:29f), “(30) Aspectual types (Dowty (1979), and many others): a. Achievements: die, break, sneeze, recognize; b. Activities: swim, push a cart, run, write papers; c. Accomplishments: build a house, write a letter, read a book, perform a symphony; d. Statives: stink, belong, seem, love school.” 39 This definition is given in Lyons (1977:707) and has subsequently been adopted by many other authors (e.g. Filip 1999:15). The three categories which are considered universal are states (atelic), changes (telic) und processes (atelic) (McClure, 1995:32f). 40 For instance Ross (2002) and Bache (1995: 249) argue: “In English, the terminal point is often specified by the direct object or by adverbials manifested by definite or bounded phrases. ... With atelic situations, the emphasis is thus on the activity or process itself. Often the predicator in such sentences takes indefinite plural or unbounded objects and adverbials, if any.” The particular relation of the internal argument with the situation type of the verb is discussed e.g. in many publications by Dowty (e.g. 1991), Krifka (1998), Tenny and Pustejovsky (2000), Verkuyl (e.g. 2002), and others. 41 As e.g. examples listed in Smith (1997: 3) demonstrate, very often, a distinction between those situation types determined by the verb alone and those which necessitate the analysis of the entire verb phrase is not made. A clear distinction between verbs that independently can be assigned to a particular situation type and those that cannot is also missing in Vendler.

22 | The category aspect of the situation which is focused on by the verb. Each situation theoretically consists of an initial point, the process of the situation and its final point, and, according to the situation type the verb belongs to, either one or several parts of the situation are under focus. I //////////// F With state and activity verbs the situation itself without its initial and its final point is focused on: 1. States 2. Activities

(I) _____ (F) a)

(I) ///////// (F); b) (I ///////// F)

State verbs express a situation that is unchangeable, neither initial nor final points are focused on; no input of energy is necessary to maintain the situation. Contrastively, activity verbs express a process which theoretically can start and end, and which needs an input of energy to be maintained. Accomplishments focus on the situation itself including its final point, i.e. they consist of an activity part and a final point the activity is directed to; while achievements focus on the final point of the situation alone, i.e. the entire situation merely consists of the final point, the initial point and the process are irrelevant for the situation and accordingly achievements are sometimes considered punctual: 3. Accomplishments

I ////////// F

4. Achievements

(I //////////) F

|| 42 In Smith (1997: 23) Activities are depicted I … FArb and defined as follows: “The arbitrary final point of an Activity is temporal bound, explicit or implicit. Activities terminate or stop, but they do not finish: the notion of completion is irrelevant to a process event.” The two different depictions of activities given above try to account for this particular feature of activities. 43 This analysis is presented in Comrie (1976: 46f). 44 Smith (1997: 30) depicts achievements as follows: … ER … and defines “Achievements are instantaneous events that result in a change of state.” The dots in Smiths depiction symbolise the preliminary and resultant stages, since these are included in the concept of achievements for many languages.

Lexical aspect | 23

Besides these verbs, there are semantic variants which only focus on the initial point of a situation, these are state verbs which can attain an inchoative reading and activity verbs which can attain an inceptive reading. Not all linguistic approaches to the analysis of situation types follow Vendler’s quadripartition, for instance, the one proposed by Bache (1995) has to be distinguished from this classical categorisation: he divides the category situation type, ACTIONALITY in his terminology, into two different types, [+ACTIONAL] and [ACTIONAL] which are defined as follows (Bache 1995: 238): A +ACTIONAL situation is conceived of as taking place, or happening, at a particular time and place in the projected world. A –ACTIONAL situation is not such a particular occurrence situation.

According to this definition, stative situations, habitual situations, characterisations and scenic descriptions all belong to the category –ACTIONAL, whereas events, actions and activities all belong to the category +ACTIONAL (Bache 1995: 238f). In his categorisation (1995: 241f), the –ACTIONAL situations are not further subdivided while the +ACTIONAL situations are distinguished into complex and simplex situations. Complex situations are identical or related situations realised several times or at one and the same time by several agents such as e.g. iterative situations, and simplex situations are singular situations realised just once by one and the same agent (Bache: 242f). Simplex situations are further subdivided into ‘punctual’ and ‘durative’ situations, durative situations are further subdivided into ‘telic’ and ‘atelic’ situations, and atelic situations are further subdivided into ‘directed’ and ‘self-contained’ situations (1995: 251). Apart from the complex-simplex distinction, most of Bache’s categories can be translated into Vendler’s system, although in Bache no comparison with Vendler’s system and with those that were inspired by Vendler is provided. || 45 In Verkuyl (e.g. 2002) a distinction of [+ADDTO] and [-ADDTO] properties as semantic characteristics of the verb is : “The [+ADDTO] property of the verb expresses dynamic progress, change, non-stativity or whatever term is available to distinguish it from stative verbs which have a minus value.” (Verkuyl 2002: 203) 46 Punctual situations correspond to Vendler’s achievements, durative-telic situations to Vendler’s accomplishments and durative-atelic situations correspond to activities. These correspondences are all quite straightforward. The only category that is somewhat more difficult to translate into Vendler’s system is that of ‘atelic-directed’ situations, which seems to correspond to Vendler’s accomplishments, but accomplishments are telic. According to Bache’s examples, this semantic category concerns those predicates which are particularly marked as focussing

24 | The category aspect In a syntactic approach to the structure of events or situations as it has been pursued, for instance, by Ritter and Rosen (2000), Travis (e.g. 2010) and many others it has been claimed that “Vendler’s predicate classes are represented in a predictable way in the configuration and features of phrase structure” (Travis 2010: 93). Travis’s approach is based on the semantic decomposition of event structure proposed e.g. by McCawley (1968), Dowty (1979), and Pustejovsky (1991), in which an event is decomposed into several sub-events. This is exemplified by the verb ‘kill’ which is decomposed into the sub-events CAUSE BECOME NOT-ALIVE (cf. Travis 2010: 94). Travis, amongst others (e.g. Ritter and Rosen 2000, and many others) takes this kind of decomposition as a point of departure for her mapping of event structure to phrase structure claiming that the complex semantics of verbs are to be represented in the syntax of an articulated VP, the different heads of which all contribute to the meaning of the verb (Travis 2010: 101). In this Travis follows Hale and Kayser (1993, 2002) who assume that heads of an articulated VP have semantic content; however, she reformulates their approach according to her hypothesis. Travis’s analysis is of relevance for the present study, because she assumes that the semantic elements the syntactic component makes use of are actually “those elements of semantics that distinguish aspectual verb classes”. To demonstrate her claim Travis assumes that the semantic operators established by Dowty in order to represent the different aspectual verb classes “suggest a mapping of event structure to phrase structure”; to this purpose she reorganises Dowty’s (1979: 123f) analysis (Travis 2010: 103) of the semantic decomposition of verb classes in the following way: “states Activities do Accomplishments do (…V (…) cause become Achievements become

V(…) (… V …)) (V (…)) (V (…))”

Within this framework all telic predicates with an agentive subject, i.e. all predicates which include a CAUSE sub-event in their structure, are labelled accom|| on the process of the situation and not on its final point as in ‘Sally was building a small garden shed.’ The atelic notion in examples like these is due to the presentation of the situation in the progressive aspect; in a predicate without this aspectual marking the atelic reading would be excluded, accordingly this category refers to particularly marked cases. 47 Travis demonstrates that a syntactic approach helps to distinguish between the two causatives ‘kill’ and ‘cause to die’ (Travis 2010: 105f). 48 “Agents will always be the subject of V1P, while the Theme will be the subject of V2P” (Travis 2010: 102).

Lexical aspect | 25

plishments; achievements are characterised by the lack of the sub-event CAUSE and are assumed to include only the event BECOME. In the syntactic framework, too, it has been assumed that the event structure of a predicate is determined by its verb, its arguments, and adjuncts, and that both the initiation and termination of an event are represented by its arguments respectively (Borer 1994, cf. Ritter and Rosen 2000: 194). For those event verbs which include an agent and a theme argument (these are transitive accomplishments in Ritter and Rosen’s, but also in Travis’s terminology), the agent, ‘the logical actor’ is identified with the subject, and “the terminal bound with the patient or affected object” Ritter and Rosen, ibidem). Ritter and Rosen’s transitive accomplishments partly include achievements according to Smith’s (1997) framework who claims that “Achievements are typically controlled by an agent” (1997: 31). However, as Ritter and Rosen concede, this approach is not unproblematic and does not account for those subjects that do not initiate and those objects that do not delimit. According to them the event status of transitive accomplishments is uncontroversial, they include an initial and a terminal bound. But the status of activities and of intransitive accomplishments and achievements is not so clear, according to Ritter and Rosen “they are bounded, but only on one end (2000: 194).” They propose a distinction into languages which grammaticalise events with an initial and those which grammaticalise an event with a final bound. In the first group, activities and accomplishments pattern together as events, and states and achievements pattern together as non-events (ibidem). In languages which grammaticalise events via the final point, accomplishments and achievements pattern together as events and states and activities pattern together as non-events. Their proposed typology of languages according to the point (initial or final) which determines an event, is based on the syntactic property of accomplishments (which can be constituted as an event by either their initial or their final points), and they assume that the different categories of languages – I(nitiation) and D(elimination) languages show distinctive features with regard to their objects when the final point con-

|| 49 Klein (2009: 64) assumes that achievements (his example is ‘She opened the window for two hours’, an event in combination with a duration adverbial) include two qualitatively distinctive states – a “source state”, in which the window is not open, and a “target state”, at which it is open”; the first stage includes an activity on the side of the agent. 50 Smith (1997: 26) depicts accomplishments with a natural final point: I …. FNat R and notes “The result state of an Accomplishment may or may not continue.”

26 | The category aspect stitutes an event (D-languages), and with regard to their subjects when the initial point constitutes an event (I-Languages). In a way comparable to that in Ritter and Rosen, Travis locates both the initiator – the agent – and the theme as a terminal bound in the specifier position of a functional projection and she proposes (2010: 117) the following phrase structure to represent event structure: EP  VP  Agent

V’  V

AspP

CAUSE

 Asp

VP 

Theme

V’  V

Goal/State

√ In Travis’s representation of the domain of Inner Aspect which is particularly relevant for the present study, the first VP is labelled V1P and the second V2P. || 51 The distinctive morphological features Ritter and Rosen list in their table (2000: 195) are difficult to confirm in Han period Chinese; however, for syntactic reasons and due to the fact that Accomplishments and Achievements usually seem to pattern together and final points can be marked by several syntactic means, it can be assumed that it corresponds to D-languages, comparable to Modern Mandarin which is actually discussed as a D-language in Ritter and Rosen (2000: 207f). Ritter and Rosen support their claim with the ba-construction of Modern Mandarin which they take as an argument for a change of position of a delimited object. For Han period Chinese syntactic studies focussing on the relation between event structure and the features of the object do not exist as yet. However, an additional argument for the analysis of Han period Chinese as a D-language is provided by the fact that the subject may only be interpreted as an initiator with an eventive predicate (Ritter and Rosen 2000: 196), whereas in an Ilanguage, delimination, i.e. an eventive reading, depends on the presence of an initiator. As the present discussion will show, event readings do not depend on the presence of an initiator in Late Archaic and in Han period Chinese; and event predicates do have unmarked theme subjects on a regular basis.

Lexical aspect | 27

The [+/-PROCESS] part, which distinguishes Activities and Accomplishments from States and Achievements is represented in the first VP and the [+/-TELIC] feature which distinguishes Accomplishments and Achievements from Activities and States appears in the AspP. States are assumed to have the simplest structure (maybe merely a V2), but Travis proposes to represent them, too, by two VP shells, with a stative V1 (HAVE), in order to account for the intransitive/transitive distinction of states (ibidem: 118). The same may account for Achievements: an unaccusative achievement consists only of a V2 with the general meaning BECOME, the V1 merely represents the dynamic feature of the VP; a transitive achievement – identical to a state – contains a stative V1 (HAVE). In order to measure out the event, Travis assumes that the Theme has to move from the Spec, V2P to the AspP, because only in this position it is in a checking relation with the event-related head; this position is the Spec, ASP. Consequently, she proposes the following computational domain of Inner Aspect in which the theme “falls out from the event “spine”” (ibidem 119). V1P  Agent V1

V1’  AspP 

CAUSE

 DP

Asp’  Asp

V2P 

Theme

V2’  V2

PP

√

 P

Goal

Within this framework, based on her computation of the Inner Aspect, Travis proposes the following representation of Vendler’s four classes; in her computation she distinguishes between intransitive and transitive states, and unaccusative and transitive achievements. To distinguish transitive from intransitive states she assumes a light verb HAVE in the position of V1. The same light verb is

28 | The category aspect also assumed for transitive achievements which differ from transitive states only by their [+TELIC] feature in the Aspect Phrase. a) State

b) Transitive State

V2P V1P   V2’  

V1’  V1

V2

AspP

HAVE

 V2P  V2

a) Unaccusative Achievement

b) Transitive Achievement

V1P V1P  V1’ V1’   V1

AspP

V1

e



HAVE

Asp

V2P

+TELIC

 V2

AspP  Asp

V2P

+TELIC

 V2

Lexical aspect | 29

a) Accomplishments

b) Activities

V1P V1P   V1’ V1’  V1

AspP

CAUSE,e

V1

AspP

CAUSE, e

 Asp

V2P

+TELIC

 V2

 Asp

V2P

 V2

The last two classes show basically the same structure which accounts for the possibility of a shift from one class to the other by adding a [+DEFINITE] inner argument which is responsible for the [+TELIC] feature of the Aspect Phrase. The operator in V1 represents the “process quality” of both aspectual classes (Travis 2010: 120). As has been demonstrated by the schematic representation of both the grammatical and the lexical aspect, in both categories the different parts of the situation, including its initial and final point are relevant. The compatibility constraints between the grammatical and lexical aspects are subject to the part of the situation that is under focus to the effect that event verbs, i.e. telic verbs are usually restricted in their compatibility to the perfective aspect whereas state verbs are usually restricted to the imperfective aspect and are not available for a perfective representation. In a perfective representation they can only appear when the initial point of the state is focused on; this results in a change from a stative to an inchoative situation and in a shift of the situation type from atelic to telic. Based on its inherent faculty of being bounded, an activity which is usually atelic can be marked as telic by the semantic structure of an internal argument (or by an adverbial phrase) that focuses on one of the inherent boundaries of the situation the verb refers to. Accordingly, it can also be represented in the perfective aspect: in these cases the final point is focused on. But an activity verb can equally – e.g. by a verbal or adverbial modification – refer to the initial point of the situation; in these cases the verb attains an inceptive or inchoative reading. Accomplishments and achievements are distinguished by their compatibility with the imperfective aspect: accomplishments allow the imperfective aspect which focuses on the process of the situation but excludes the final point, while achievement verbs usually cannot be represented in the

30 | The category aspect imperfective aspect. All in all, state verbs and achievement verbs allow fewer aspectual variants than activities and accomplishments: state verbs in general and in an unmarked employment are confined to the imperfective aspect and achievement verbs are confined to the perfective aspect. According to Abraham (2008: XIV) atelic (non-terminative in Abraham’s terminology) predicates are mono-phasic; and telic predicates, i.e. accomplishments and achievements (terminative according to Abraham), are biphasic (Abraham ibidem), including a process and/or a terminal change of state point. The temporal structure of terminative, i.e. telic situations is represented as follows in Abraham (2008: XIV). a) event

| >>>>>>>>> | …………….| t1 E1

tm

E2

tn

In this representation t1 refers to the initial point of the approach/incremental phase which is represented by E1, and the point tm refers to the initial point of the second, the resultative phase, represented by E2; tn refers to a final point of the situation. The point tm belongs to both phases. For non-terminative verbs which are mono-phasic, Abraham gives the following representation. In this representation E1 and E2 are assumed to be identical. b) state/activity

| ~~~~~~~~~~ | ~~~~~~~~~ | t1

E1

tm

E2

tn

In the present study, this representation will be reduced to one phase for activities and one phase for states: || 52 Sasse (1991: 13) assumes that the imperfective aspect is completely unavailable for achievement verbs, since no part of the situation can be conceptualised: “Bei T(otal)TER(minativen)Sachverhalten gibt es dagegen keine Möglichkeit der Anwendung des imperfektiven Aspekts, da kein Stück Situation konzeptualisiert ist (inaktuelle Verwendungen sind natürlich möglich ...).” “Nur der perfektive Aspekt hat Zugriff auf das den alleinigen Sachverhalt bildende SV2.” (SV=Situationsveränderung ‘change of situation’).” A less strict conception is found in Smith (1997: 75). She assumes that marked forms of the imperfective can be compatible with achievement verbs: “In fact the imperfective is often available for Achievements. Imperfectives present the preliminary stages of the event; there is no suggestion in such presentations that the Achievement actually takes place. English, French, Russian and Navajo have imperfectives of Achievements, whereas Chinese does not.” 53 This definition is also provided in Sasse (1991:14).

Pragmatic functions of aspectual representation | 31

b1) activity

| >>>>>>>>> | or b2) state | ~~~~~~~~~~| tm

E

tn

tm

E

tn

Frequently, verbs cannot exhaustively be defined by one situation type, but are subject to different situation type readings. Sometimes two different aspectual readings seem to be inherent in one verb – in these cases the question arises whether one verb can have two different readings or whether in fact two different verbs have to be assumed -, but more frequently the situation type of the verb can be affected by its syntactic environment, e.g. by its arguments and adjuncts (e.g. Sasse 1991: 22): in these cases the situation type of the resulting VP is different from that of the individual verb; this phenomenon can be labelled ‘situation type shift’ (e.g. Smith 1997: 18). Because of the semantic characteristic of verbs, Bache (1995: 230) suggests not assigning a particular actional property to a verb such as ‘punctual’ or ‘durative’, but talking about the actional potential a verb can have.

3.3 Pragmatic functions of aspectual representation The aspectual representation of a situation is not only relevant from a purely semantic or from a syntactic perspective, but also from the discourse-pragmatic point of view to the effect that situations in texts can be distinguished pragmatically in two different ways. The perfective aspect usually serves to depict situations in sequences, it characterises the narrative string in the foreground, whereas the imperfective aspect usually serves to provide descriptions and scenarios in the background. Situations sequentially represented in the perfective aspect are delimited by the respective situation that follows, whereas for situations represented in the imperfective aspect, a chronological ordering is not relevant. While the perfective aspect frequently represents situations that already happened in the past or situations that result from past situations, the imperfective aspect often represents situations that are supposed to happen in

|| 54 Bache (1995: 231): “We shall instead talk about verbs having a certain actional potential. Thus, for example, verbs like HIT, DROP, START, etc. have a clear punctual potential whereas verbs like RUN, WRITE, DISCUSS, etc. have a clear durative potential.” According to Vendler’s categorisation the verbs of the first group are achievement verbs and those of the second group are activity verbs and according to Lyons those of the first group are event verbs, and those of the second process verbs. 55 This is discussed in Hopper (1982: 9f).

32 | The category aspect the future, or situations that already have started but are not finished yet. Based on this function, in many languages the imperfective aspect can also refer to the future or it can obtain modal functions beside the aspectual ones.

4 Tense and aspect in Chinese 4.1 Morphological distinctions in the verb in Chinese Chinese in general is regarded as a language that does not have a verbal morphology to indicate tense or related verbal categories. In fact, in all periods of the Chinese language the morphological category tense does not exist in a grammaticalised way, whereas the category aspect can – in Modern Mandarin – be expressed by different morphemes, usually suffixes, which indicate different aspects. With regard to the early stages of the Chinese language, there is general agreement that a morphological system existed which also affected verbal categories, e.g. the category aspect (possibly in both the grammatical and the lexical spheres), a distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs, but not the category tense. However, many questions with regard to the extent and the productivity of a morphologically marked aspectual system, e.g. comparable to that in Modern Mandarin on the one hand, or to that of e.g. Classical Tibetan, on the other, remain still open for debate. One important question would be whether the employment of the assumed aspectual affixes was constrained by the semantics of the verbs they could combine with, and how productive this system in fact was. In the following a few examples taken from Sagart (1999) will be presented to provide a concise survey of recent research. Sagart assumes different derivational prefixes, e.g. a prefix *s- can have a causative or a denominative function ((1999: 70) as in the following pairs, but also iterative functions as shown in Schuessler (2007: 53): dēng *atɨŋ > tong ‘to ascend, rise, go up’ : zēng *as-tɨŋ > tsong ‘to inb crease, add to’ yŭn * wrɨn > hwinX ‘to drop, fall’ : sŭn *as-hwȪnɁ > swonX ‘to diminish, substract’.58  || 56 Many studies on the morphology of Ancient Chinese exist, among the most recent ones are Sagart (1999), a survey of the morphology of Chinese presented in Baxter and Sagart (1998: 45f), Behr and Gassmann (2005), Jin (e.g. 2005, 2006) and Schuessler (2007). 57 A discussion on the morphology of Old Chinese (OC) is also presented in Schuessler (2007: 18f). 58 In addition to these functions, Sagart (1999: 71f) assumes that the *s- prefix can also occasionally effect directive and possibly also inchoative derivations. All these derivations are also comprehensively discussed in Jin (2006).

34 | Tense and aspect in Chinese The *m- prefix (Sagart 1999: 81f) is associated with modal notions such as control or will in activity verbs; other prefixes are associated with mainly intransitive or transitive verbs. The *k- prefix is assumed (Sagart: 1999: 100f) to have the function to derive different kinds of action verbs; occasionally it also occurs with state verbs, although it cannot be assumed that the marking of state verbs belongs to its primary functions (Sagart 1999: 105). Possibly, this prefix served to depict a state more actively or vivaciously and to delete the purely state characteristics of the verb. An infix *-r- is assumed to have the general function of intensification, e.g., to indicate repeated situations (Sagart 1999: 111f). The most prominent and most widely accepted form of derivation is the one by change of tone sì shēng bié yì ‘derivation by tone change’ (Sagart 1999: 131 among many others). According to Schuessler (2007: 38) “This system constitutes the ‘youngest’ morphological layer which was still productive or at least transparent in OC [Old Chinese]”. It is attested with words of the tonal categories A (píng ), B (shǎng ), and D (rù ), which are transformed into category C (qù ). This tonal change into category C is supposed to be due to a former derivational suffix *-s which developed into -h and further into the falling tone, the category C qùshēng. Double readings and minimal pairs with readings in one of the mentioned categories and in category C are relatively frequent. The different functions of the tone C derivations have already been systematically listed by Downer (1959), and he classifies them into those that: (a) derive nouns from verbs; (b) derive verbs from nouns; (c) derive causatives;

|| 59 Sagart (1999: 105) referring to the function of the k-prefix in different dialects remarks: “It would seem that in most cases stative verbs with the k-prefix in other Jin dialects are also open to a ‘vivid’ interpretation, that is, as describing (usually unpleasant) experiences rather than states. Inasmuch as experiences are psychological events, the k-prefix with stative word bases may be viewed as non-stative, that is, as describing qualities as events.” 60 This hypothesis was first presented in Haudricourt (1954) based on the tonal development in Vietnamese, which was supposed to have lost its ‘final laryngeals -/ and –h (the latter coming from an earlier –s) whose characteristic micromelodies, respective rising and falling, had become distinctive after the fall of the consonants themselves. Concerning Chinese, he argued that tone C followed the same development as one of the Vietnamese tones, namely from –h, earlier –s.’ (Cf. Sagart 1999: 131f) 61 Sagart (1999: 131) assumes that the entire tonal category C developed from tonal alternations with the other categories.

Morphological distinctions in the verb in Chinese | 35

(d) derive effectives; (e) restrict the meaning of a word; (f) derive passives or neutrals; (g) derive adverbials; (h) derive basic forms for lexical composition. In the following examples, a transitive (emotive) state verb is connected to an intransitive state verb by the suffix *-s: è *aɁak > Ɂak ‘bad’ : wù *aɁak-s > ɁuH ‘to dislike’ hǎo *axuɁ > xawX ‘good’ : hào *axuɁ-s > xawH ‘to love’. This suffix (OC *-s, -h) is related to the Tibeto-Burman suffix –s (Schuessler 2007:42, see also Jin 2005, 2006 and others). In the Classical Tibetan language, the suffix –s was the most productive derivational affix, and it is most characteristically attested in the function of distinguishing the past and imperative stems from the present and future; accordingly it has aspecto-temporal functions. On the basis of this derivational characteristic of Tibetan, Unger (1983, Hao Ku Nr. 20) hypothesises that in Ancient Chinese, too, the *-s suffix – as the most frequent among a small number of affixes with related functions – may have had an aspectual function in combination with verbs, namely, to derive the perfective (Perfekt) form of the verb. To support his hypothesis Unger quotes a good number of verbs which show one variant without the suffix *-s and one with *-s (the qùsheng variant) without any verifiable change of meaning in the verb. Unger takes this lack of a change of meaning as evidence for a purely aspectual distinction, morphologically marked by a suffix *-s, in a function comparable to that of the same suffix of Classical Tibetan. In his discussion Unger claims that about 200 verbs are attested which are affected by several variants in pronunci|| 62 Downer’s examples of the category (f) have recently been discussed in Reynolds (1998). A different hypothesis on the development of the qùshēng is presented in Sagart (1999: 131f); and a recent discussion on the functions of the suffix *–s has been provided in Schuessler (1985, 2007) and in Jin (e.g. 2005, 2006). Schuessler in his system “reduces the function of tone C to one or two (exoactive / exopassive)” (2007: 41), contrary to the numerous categories e.g. adopted in Downer. Jin assumes that not all derivations can be attributed to the same functions of the suffix *-s (e.g. 2006:.317, 321, 325f); in particular, he distinguishes two different functions of this suffix: a transitivization function and a deverbalization function (2006: 325). Additionally, he claims that the change from verb to noun can often be subsumed under a change from an imperfective to a perfective aspectual reading (Jin 2005, 2006). 63 These examples are taken from Haudricourt (1954b, cf. Sagart (1999: 132)). According to Sagart, they can exemplify the main function of this derivational process as it is assumed in Mei (1980), which is to transform endoactive into exoactive verbs. But in Mei the first of these two examples is quoted as evidence for the transformation from nouns to verbs (Mei: 1980: 437). As a further example for the process can see: xue2  *agruk > hæwk ‘study’ : xiao4  *agruk-s > hæwH ‘teach’.

36 | Tense and aspect in Chinese ation; most of these, about 150 verbs, display a variation in tone, i.e. a derivation in the qùshēng based on an older *-s suffix, around 50 verbs show a variation in their root initial (Hao Ku 20: 156f) (the voiceless – voiced alternation discussed below), and a few verbs show a variation with regard to their vowel quality. Some of these verbs display more than one of the morphological distinctions at the same time. A comparable hypothesis with regard to a morphologically marked aspectual system in Ancient Chinese is presented in Jin (2005, 2006). Jin assumes that in Ancient Chinese, the imperfective (wèi wánchéng tǐ ), and the perfective aspect (wánchéng tǐ ) were morphologically distinguished particularly by a voiceless (imperfective) – voiced (perfective) alternation of the root initial, and by the suffix *-s, indicating the perfective aspect, similarly to the Classical Tibetan morphological system (Jin 2006). Additionally, he assumes that the imperfective form of a verb can be marked morphologically by the suffix *-ɦ (Jin 2006: 412f). In his analysis which is based on Zhou (1962), Huang (1992), and many others, Jin additionally claims that a number of words that have been categorised as derivations from verb to noun (e.g. in Downer) were actually originally derivations from an imperfective to a perfective verb form (2005: 2). The latter form, referring to a resultant state, has subsequently been employed as an adjective or a noun, to the effect that the perfective aspect often involves a deverbalization process, resulting in deverbal adjectives and nominals (Jin 2006: 323f). Consequently, in many of the examples e.g. listed in Zhou Fagao for verb – noun alternations the noun is actually derived from the originally perfective form of the verb. The same process is also attested in Classical Tibetan (Jin 2006: 325, 329). Unger and Jin’s hypotheses provide strong evidence for a morphological differentiation of aspectual values, namely, a distinction of the imperfective and the perfective aspects, or maybe a distinction between activity (and accomplishment) and (resultant) states, by affixation, at least for a number of particular verbs; however, the constraints of such a morphological system are still difficult to verify in a systematic manner. Additionally, the linguistic data attested does not show precisely how long and to which extent these morphological distinctions were productive. A certain aspectual relevance of the tone C derivations is also acknowledged in Schuessler (2007: 41) who notes that “Tense and aspect are not expressed morphologically in CH, but in exopassive derivations a perfective aspect and / or past tense is often implied by the meaning…”

|| 64 Jin’s (2006) study presents a comprehensive analysis of a number of different affixes with their respective functions in Old Chinese.

Morphological distinctions in the verb in Chinese | 37

As already alluded to above, a comparable semantic distinction – besides the aspectual differentiation caused by derivation by the *-s suffix – this time by a change of the initial, can be assumed for verbs which show phonological variation in the transitive and the intransitive forms; in the linguistic literature the latter is occasionally labelled ergative (or unaccusative) (Cikoski 1978, Wei 2000): Transitive variant bài paȪjh destroy zhé tɕiat break jiàn kɛn see jié kajh remove

intransitive, unaccusative (ergative) variant bài baȪjh destroyed (ergative) shé dʑiat broken xiàn ɤɛnh be visible xiè ɤȪaj’ loose, slack

These variants are discussed in Schuessler (2007: 48f) under the label of ‘endopassive derivation’ by voicing of the initial consonant. The latter is a common phenomenon in Sino-Tibetan languages including Old Chinese and has the function of “changing transitive to intransitive, or marking a verb as intr”

|| 65 The unaccusative or ergative variant is characterised by a subject that assumes the role of patient or theme, i.e. the internal argument of the verb appears in subject position. The object of the transitive construction is identical to the subject of the intransitive construction. 66 The two variants of both verbs bài and zhé are comprehensively discussed in Jin (2006: 82f) under the label of volitional verbs (zìzhǔ dòngcí ) and in the context of causative versus non-causative, and transitive versus intransitive verbs. Jin assumes that the change from voiceless to voiced causes a loss of volition and of transitivity (2006: 84) and he presents a number of examples for the [+volition] variant of the verb marked by a [-voice] and the [-volition] variant marked by a [+voice] initial. This argues for a localisation of these affixes in the domain of an articulated VP on a par with Travis’s proposal. 67 A comprehensive discussion is devoted to the two readings of , and also of the following verb jiě in Jin (2006: 67f) under the label of agentivity (shīshì xìng ) amongst others. In his discussion on jiàn Jin notes that the reading with a voiced initial appears with a theme subject (shòu shì ), and the reading with a voiceless initial with an agentive subject (shī shì ). This analysis corresponds well to the change in the semantics of the other verbs presented in this group; however, the subject of the transitive variant of the verb jiàn is probably better labelled as experiencer rather than as agent of the verb. According to Jin (2006: 71) the distinctive syntactic characteristic connected with a voiced initial is the lack of the latter kind of subject, i.e. the lack of a subject which functions as the agent (dòngzuò de zuòzhě ) of the action expressed by the verb. 68 All Middle Chinese reconstructions are taken from Pulleyblank (1991). According to Pulleyblank, both the transitive and the intransitive reading are listed under the same pronunciation: ‘remove; idle, remiss’. According to Unger, Hao ku 20 (1983: 162) the intransitive reading is represented by the second pronunciation which he reconstructs as ‘ɤai`’.

38 | Tense and aspect in Chinese (Schuessler (ibidem: 49); these alternations are also comprehensively discussed in Jin (2006). In the examples presented here the transitive variant with a voiceless initial corresponds to a transitive accomplishment or achievement, usually with an agentive subject, although experiencer subjects as with the verb jiàn are also possible, whereas the variant with a voiced initial frequently refers to a resultant state with a theme subject. In Jin’s (2006) terminology, the voiceless ~ voiced alternation concerns not only a derivational relationship between verbs and nouns, and between transitive and intransitive (2006: 50f) verbs: a [voice] initial corresponds to [+transitive], and a [+voice] initial corresponds to [transitive] verbs (2006: 55f); he demonstrates that different degrees of transitivity, e.g. depending on the thematic role of the subject as causer and volitional agent or as theme, and correspondingly on the degree of affectedness of the object of a transitive verb are possible on a scale from high [-voice] to low or zero [+voice] transitivity (and vice versa). Additionally, the voiceless ~ voiced alternation also concerns the distinction between action verbs and verbs that express the result of an action as in the examples presented above, or between actions and their objects or targets. In these cases, the action or activity is marked by a voiceless initial, and the result or the object or target is marked by a voiced initial (Jin 2006: 89). This alternation again corresponds in fact to a distinction between the imperfective and the perfective aspects (Jin 2006: 51) or related meanings. Although these and further examples clearly demonstrate that obviously morphological distinctions existed in the verbal system of Ancient Chinese, the data does not suffice to verify with certainty to what extent the category aspect was marked systematically in Ancient Chinese; and at the present state of the art it still remains difficult to establish the precise constraints of the assumed system of verbal morphology, e.g. with regard to the semantics of the verbs the aspectual affix could attach to, and to the extent of its productivity. However, the analyses of a great number of examples presented e.g. in Jin (2006) and the close relation the aspectual morphology according to his analysis obviously displays in particular with regard to the internal argument of the verb seems to || 69 However, as Jin points out (e.g. 2006: 329), the subject of these derived verbs does not necessarily have to be the theme. 70 This fact has also been acknowledged in Jin (e.g. 2006: 332) in particular for the period of Late Archaic Chinese, due to the fact that derivational variants were not marked in the writing system. However, for the Medieval period he refers to the rhyme dictionaries in order to obtain information about tonal variations especially for characters which were recorded with two alternative readings on the one hand, and for words written with two different characters on the other; one of each with a variant in the qùshēng.

Tense in Chinese | 39

suggest a localization of the aspectual morphology in an Inner Aspect Phrase within an articulated VP, i.e. within vP, in line with Travis’s (2010) proposal of an Inner Aspect Phrase, and not in the domain of the Outer Aspect which according to Travis hosts the grammatical aspect (Travis 2010: 142), i.e. the distinction between imperfective and perfective. If this analysis is correct, this would propose that the aspectual morphology of Ancient Chinese rather concerned the category of lexical aspect, i.e. the marking of the boundedness features of a situation, than the category grammatical aspect. This hypothesis would possibly also be able to account for the function of some of the other affixes assumed e.g. in Sagart (1999), briefly summarised above, which apparently refer to the inner temporal structure of a verb rather than to a grammaticalised aspectual distinction. In any case, although a grammaticalised morphological system with regard to different aspectual values evidently existed, and was productive at a certain time, already during the Classical period and the Han period at the latest its productivity must have ceased. Accordingly, an analysis of the grammatical means to express tense and aspect in Ancient Chinese has to concentrate primarily on the lexical means, namely, on an analysis of the semanto-syntactic means to express the categories tense and aspect which are at issue in this study.

4.2 Tense in Chinese Since tense is not a grammaticalised category in Chinese it is consequently impossible to assign a temporal notion to the verb independent of the context in which it appears; this independence of context is according to Comrie a necessary condition for the definition of a grammaticalised tense system. Accordingly, an approach in which tense and aspect are defined according to their contextual functions would be more adequate for Chinese. In Chinese, the temporal reference of a verb can only be defined contextually and / or by adverbs and adverbial phrases which have the function to locate the respective situation on the time axis; it is not defined by the grammatical form of the verb. Consequently, within an unmarked narrative sequence, temporality is exclusively deter-

|| 71 Comrie (1985: 26) defines tense as “... the approach adopted is that tenses have meanings definable independently of particular contexts.” 72 Comrie (1985: 26) refers to Hopper (1982) who discusses a context dependant approach to the analysis of the category tense.

40 | Tense and aspect in Chinese mined by the linear ordering of the situations described in the narrative. This narrative technique of depicting the chronological sequence of situations is the one which is universally most plausible and accordingly most logical; and it is the one which corresponds most to Grice’s maxim to ‘be orderly’ (1975: 46). However, the possibility of assigning a particular temporal reference to a verb within a narrative sequence does not suffice to establish the category tense as a grammaticalised category of the verb. As already mentioned, to establish the grammaticalised category tense it is necessary to assign a context independent temporal meaning to the verbal form in question. And precisely this is not possible in Chinese. However, this need not be a disadvantage with regard to an unambiguous expression of temporal relations, since the employment of other grammatical devices, such as temporal adverbials, allows a more precise depiction of temporal relations than the categories tense and aspect as such (see also Klein 2009: 41 who wonders “whether tense and aspect are not completely superfluous in view of what temporal adverbials allow us to do”.) Rather than a distinction between different grammaticalised tenses, in Classical and Han period Chinese there is a quite clear and to a certain extent grammaticalised distinction between sentences that can be temporally located and sentences which are not located within a temporal frame. Sentences with a verbal predicate – whether primarily or secondarily verbal, namely, derived by a particle which indicates verbality – usually have to be interpreted within a temporal frame, whereas sentences with a nominal predicate have to be ana|| 73 Comrie (1985: 28) explains: “In a narrative, this maxim of clarity is in fact heightened by the structure of the narrative itself: a narrative is by definition an account of a sequence of chronologically ordered events (real or imaginary), and for a narrative to be well formed it must be possible to work out the chronological order of events from the structure of the narrative with minimal difficulty; this constraint of minimal difficulty means that the easiest way to present these events is with their chronological order directly reflected in the order of presentation.” This general rule of narrative utterances is certainly of particular relevance in a language lacking any grammaticalised devices regarding the chronological ordering of the presented situations. 74 Comrie (1985: 61) gives the following definition: “However, ...., this sequencing of events is a property of narrative itself, quite independent of the verb forms used to encode narrative, so that the mere fact that verb forms receive this interpretation in narrative is not sufficient evidence for assigning this meaning to those verb forms. Indeed, crucially one would need to look for examples outside the narrative, where the context does not force the immediate succession interpretation, to demonstrate that this is actually part of the meaning of the forms in question.” 75 Habitual situations require a separate analysis, since they are frequently analysed as not being temporally located in the linguistic literature, though they are often expressed by a verbal predicate.

Aspect in Chinese | 41

lysed as generic expressions, i.e. expressions which are valid at all times, and accordingly have to be interpreted as being outside a temporal frame. Although generic expressions in general have not yet been systematically analysed in Classical and Han period Chinese, it can be assumed that sentences with the final particle ye include those which express generic statements, although they are not confined to them, while sentences with the final particle yĭ tend to terminate sentences which locate a situation on the time axis. But this hypothesis still has to be verified by the data attested in the literature of the time. Sentences which locate a situation on the time axis can be entirely unmarked, but they can also exhibit different lexical markers which allow an unambiguous temporal determination. Among the lexical means which serve to locate a situation temporally – or exclude a temporal interpretation – are primarily adverbs and adverbial phrases, but also verbs, temporal adjuncts or complements of the verb, nominal predicates as well as temporal conjunctions which support a temporal location of the situation expressed in the respective sentence. Regarding temporal adverbs, two different but overlapping categories have to be distinguished: 1, those that can either appear in preverbal or in sentence initial, topic, position, providing the temporal frame of the sentence, i.e. adverbials usually operating on the level of S(entence) according to Paul (to appear); and 2, those that can only appear in preverbal position, i.e. the position between the subject and the verb, i.e. adverbs which operate on the level of the extended verb phrase i.e. within TP, VP-level adverbs according to Paul (to appear).

4.3 Aspect in Chinese 4.3.1 Grammatical aspect As already indicated, in Modern Mandarin aspect is expressed morphosyntactically: Modern Mandarin possesses different morphemes, most of them verbal suffixes, which express different aspects. These morphemes are: 1. The verbal suffix -le Marker of the perfective aspect 2. The sentence final -le Marker of the perfect 3. The verbal suffix -zhe Marker of the progressive or durative 4. The verbal suffix -guo Marker of the experiential, of the || 76 According to Pulleyblank (1994, 1995) the difference between both final particles is an aspectual one.

42 | Tense and aspect in Chinese

5. The preverbal adverb zài

perfective, of the perfect durative marker

The different functions and the etymological development of the aspect markers of Modern Mandarin have been comprehensively discussed in the linguistic literatureand will be presented here merely very concisely in a short overview.

4.3.1.1 Perfective and perfect The marker of the perfective –le in Modern Mandarin has developed from a verb liǎo with the meaning ‘to finish, to complete, etc.’ However, the precise development from the verbal employment as a V2 into a grammatical suffix in Modern Mandarin is still subject to debate and different hypotheses have been presented (see e.g. Sun 1999, Jiang and Cao 2005). With regard to the general development of aspectual suffixes the following development has been proposed, e.g. in Cao (1999): first in a structure with two transitive verbs Vt1 + Vt2 + NPObj which is already attested in Han period Chinese, an intransitive verb can appear in the position of Vt2, i.e. following Vt1 and preceding the object resulting in the structure Vt1 + Vti + NPObj. This structural change is supposed to have paved the way for the development of the intransitive verb Vti first into a phrase complement and eventually into an aspectual suffix. However, the verb liăo identical to its supposed predecessor yĭ (Jiang 2007) first appears as a resulta-

|| 77 The first function of –guo is the one most generally proposed in the linguistic literature, e.g. in Li/Thompson (1989: 226f). But Smith (1997: 263f) additionally categorises it as a particular kind of perfective marker which can also refer to the perfect: “Mandarin has two main perfectives, the -le and the -guo viewpoints. They differ in span: -le spans the initial and final endpoints of an event, while the span of -guo extends beyond the final endpoint of a situation. In addition to its viewpoint function, the -guo perfective has the essential elements of a Perfect construction.” 78 Zài as a purely lexical marker of the aspect has definitely to be distinguished functionally and syntactically from these above mentioned morpho-syntactic aspect markers. 79 The diachronic development of aspect markers has been particularly analysed by Mei (1981, 1999), Cao (1986; 1999), Cheung (1977), Sun (1996, 1999), Jiang & Cao (2005) amongst others. The linguistic literature concerning the synchronic analysis of the different functions and constraints of the aspect markers in Modern Mandarin is too voluminous to be exhaustively discussed in this study, and accordingly only a few of the – in the opinion of the author – most useful or most widely spread approaches will be presented here: e.g. Chao (1968); Chappell, (particularly 1986, 1990); Smith (11991, 1997); Ross (1995, 2002); Teng (1973, 1979); Li and Thompson (11981, 1989); Li, Thompson and Thompson (1982), Lin (e.g. 2003, 2007b), Iljic (1990, 2008).

Aspect in Chinese | 43

tive V2 in the structure (a) V1 + NPobject + V2 and (b) V1 + V2, i.e. following an object NP, as is exemplified in the following two instances from Dūnhuáng biànwén jí. (1 Zuò

cĭ

yŭ

liăo,

suí

jí

Make

this

speech

finish,

then

immediate

nán

xíng

south

go

‘After having said this, he immediately went south.’ (Dūnhuáng biànwén jí 80

8) (2) Mí

liăo

pútí

duō

jiànduàn

Confuse

finish

Puti

many

remonstrate

‘If someone is confused, the Buddha will often remonstrate.’81 (Dūnhuáng biànwén jí 521) In the position between V1 and NPObj it appeared only from the Tang period on (Cao 1999: 26). As one of the possible source structures of the aspectual suffix –le in Modern Mandarin the structure V1 (NPobj) V2 has been comprehensively discussed in the linguistic literature (Cheung 1977; Zhao 1979; Mei 1981, 1999; Jiang 2001, 2007; Karashima 2006 among many others). It was assumed that the sentence final position of the second verb (V2) is influenced by the fact that in the Chinese Buddhist texts it often serves to translate a gerundial verb in Sanskrit (Cheung 1977: 66) in sentence-final position, but Mei (1981: 70) already provided convincing evidence against this hypothesis based on the general syntactic constraints of Chinese. In the Medieval Buddhist literature, different synonymous verbs can fill the slot of V2. These are the verbs: yĭ ‘finish, stop, complete’, jìng ‘finish, complete’, qì ‘finish, cease’, bì ‘finish’, and liǎo ‘finish, complete’ all of which express different notions of ‘finish, complete’, and all of which appear in the same position. Of these verbs only liăo sur-

|| 80 This example is taken from Mei (1999: 285). 81 This example is taken from Cheung (1977: 63). 82 Additional evidence for this is provided in Cao (1999) who presents examples with different kinds of verbs in the position of V2 in sentence final position. 83 The function of these five verbs was analysed in Jiang (2001, 2007). In Mei (1981: 68) various glosses provided in the early lexicographical literature are presented. (See also Jiang 2007

44 | Tense and aspect in Chinese vived. On its way to a marker of the perfective aspect, this construction first developed into the construction V1 + V2 +NPobject and then further into the construction V-le + NPobject which expresses the perfective aspect in Modern Mandarin. With regard to the change of position of liăo from following to preceding the object NP, Cao (1999: 27) argues that in Early Medieval Chinese both positions are attested for intransitive verbs which according to him provides some evidence for the development of the structure V1 NPObj V2 as a consequence of the development of the common structure Vt1 + Vti + NPObj. Additionally, he argues that the presence of què as an aspectual marker directly following Vt supports his hypothesis which assumes that the position of liăo changes in analogy to the position of què . He rejects the possibility that the structure Vt Vi O develops from a structure Vt Vi (liăo ) by allowing an object NP to be added after liăo grammaticalised into an aspectual marker as proposed e.g. in (Wu 1996, 2006, Shi 1997). However, the precise syntactic position of liǎo and its predecessors still awaits clarification. The suffix –le has the categorical  meaning ‘completed action’ (Chao 1968: 248). One of the main functions of the perfective aspect in Modern Mandarin is to mark the sequential ordering of situations as e.g. in example (3); but it also serves to mark verbs with quantized objects which refer to a situation in the past as in example (4). || and Meisterernst 2011) However, the exact semantic constraints of the employment of the different variants have not been established yet. 84 A comprehensive analysis of the development of the perfective markers is presented amongst many others in Mei (1999) and Cao (1986), who shows that liǎo regularly appears in this construction during the Tang period. Besides the verbs mentioned above, the verb què is additionally attested in this function and as an aspect marker (Cao 1986, 1999). All these verbs are gradually replaced by liǎo (Cao: 1987: 10f). Different hypotheses regarding the exact course of the syntactic development of the modern construction from the constructions V1 + NPobject + V2 or V1 + V2, which make their appearance from the 5th century on, have been proposed in the linguistic literature, e.g. by Cao (1999), Sun (1996), Wu (1996), Xu (2001) and others. 85 A survey of the different analyses of the structure has been provided in Jiang and Cao (2005). 86 According to Smith (1997: 264) the suffix –le expresses ‘termination’ and not ‘completion’: “The perfective viewpoint morphemes are terminative. Completion is indicated by separate morphemes which also give information about a result state, emphasis, or lexical colour. The morphemes are known as Resultative Verb Complements (RVCs).” For a different linguistic analysis of the suffix –le and the sentence-final particle le – based on a cognitive approach – see van den Berg (2006). 87 Chao (1968: 248): “This perfective suffix is obligatory after a verb for past action if it has a quantified object.”

Aspect in Chinese | 45

(3) Tā

xiànzài

xiĕ

le

zì,

He

now

write

LE character,

jiù

qù

xuéxiào

then

go

school

‘When he has written the character, he will go to school.’ (4)

Wŏ kàn le zhèi bĕn I read LE this MS ‘I read this novel.’

xiăoshuō novel

According to the situation type of the verb, the focus of the perfective suffix can change, for instance with state verbs which receive an inchoative reading in combination with the perfective –le as in example (5): (5) Nĭ

de

You SUB

háizi gāo

le

yī

diăn

child tall

LE

one

bit

‘Your child has become a bit taller.’ Homophonous and orthographically identical with the verbal suffix –le is the sentence final particle le . Regarding its etymology, two different hypotheses have been proposed in the linguistic literature: according to the first hypothesis it has the same origin as the Suffix –le , this is the verb liăo ‘to finish, to complete'; according to the second, it originates from the verb lái ‘to come’. According to Cao (1986, 1999), the sentence final le may have its origin in the combination of the perfective construction with the resultative verb (a) què : V1 què + NPobject and the construction (b) V1 (NPobject) liăo , which is one of the

|| 88 The first hypothesis was proposed by Cao (1987: 11f), and the second by Chao (1968: 246), who gives two examples to support this hypothesis. Sun (1996: 100f) assumes that the sentence final le has to be regarded as a phonologically reduced form of lái in its usage as a marker of the perfect (Sun 1996: 101): “Therefore LE2 may be simply a phonological reduction of the use of LAI as perfect marker”. An analysis of the different functions of lái  in the Yuan and Ming periods which may have favoured this development is presented in Yu (1985). Additionally Sun (1996: 101) argues that the frequent employment of le in sentence final position may have contributed to the phonological reduction of lái . Another hypothesis concerning the development of sentence final le is presented in Liu (1985).

46 | Tense and aspect in Chinese ancestors of the perfective construction of Modern Mandarin. These constructions became more frequent with the beginning of the Tang period (Cao 1986: 196). Both constructions are combined into one: (c) V1 què NPobject le in which què has been replaced by le during the Song period resulting in the construction (d) V1 le NPobject le (Cao 1986: 197). According to this hypothesis, the perfective suffix –le and the sentence final le share the same origin. The functions of the sentence final le have been extensively discussed in the linguistic literature. According to Chao (1968), its basic function is to indicate a situational change, a ‘change of state’ and to indicate that something new is happening, a classification which can also be assigned to the sentence final particle yĭ in Classical Chinese. The Classical Chinese final yĭ is assumed to mark a process, and it can relate two different points of time (Wang (1958: 445f). In complementary distribution with yĭ , the Classical Chinese language possesses the final yĕ which according to Wang (1958: 445f) marks a state or an ‘evaluative statement’. The strict functional distinction between yĭ and yĕ , i.e. possibly marking two different aspectual values, ceases to exist in postClassical times and yĕ assumes similar functions as yĭ , such as e.g. the function as a marker of the perfect and according to Sun (1996: 93) it replaces yĭ between the 13th and 15th centuries. In the course of this development, yĕ frequently appears in combination with liăo : liăo yĕ in the same function as yĕ or liăo alone. As far as le in this function is concerned, Li and Thompson assign the general meaning ‘currently relevant state’ to it, but they admit (Li, Thompson, and Thompson 1982) that it can also express the perfect, namely, the relation of the completion of a situation to the following situation, a classification which is also supported elsewhere in the linguistic literature (e.g. by Sun (1996: 83). The following examples provide some evidence for the employment of liăo during the Tang period in combination with yĕ on the one hand and in Modern Mandarin on the other hand: (6) Zăo

shuō liăo

yĕ

Early

say

YE

LIAO

‘I said so earlier.’ (Zútáng jí90) || 89 A discussion of the relations between the suffix –le and the sentence final le in Modern Mandarin and the adverb yĭ and the sentence final yĭ was presented in Pulleyblank (1995:116f und 1994: 315f). 90 This example is taken from Cao (1986: 14).

Aspect in Chinese | 47

(7) Tā

xiànzài

xĭhuan

yóuyŏng

le

He

now

like

swim

LE

‘He likes swimming now.’

4.3.1.2 The progressive or durative aspect In Modern Mandarin the continuous aspect is indicated by the verbal suffix – zhe / and the progressive aspect by the preverbal adverb zài frequently, both markers are subsumed under the label of markers of the durative (Li / Thompson 1989: 217f) which are distinguished by their compatibility with different verb types, i.e. verbs of different situation types. Both belong to the category of grammatical markers typical for the imperfective aspect (Smith 1997: 271). According to Comrie (1976: 25) both the continuous and the progressive aspects belong to the category imperfective aspect which views a situation “with regard to its internal structure”, whereas the durative aspect “simply refers to the fact that the given situation lasts for a certain period of time” and does not have to be determined necessarily as belonging to the imperfective aspect (Comrie 1976: 41f). Comrie contrasts the durative aspect with the category punctuality. According to Bybee et al. (1994: 126), the progressive aspect depicts a situation as being in progress at reference time and is usually employed with activity verbs and not with state verbs “... it applies typically to dynamic predicates and not to stative ones. Thus the progressive is typically used for actions that require a constant input of energy to be sustained …” From the progressive aspect they distinguish the continuous aspect, which since it can also refer to stative predicates has been defined as a more general aspect than the progressive. In any case, the progressive (just like the durative) aspect focuses on the process part of a situation, excluding its initial and its final point. A considerable number of studies has been devoted to the analysis of the syntacto-semantic constraints the aspect marker –zhe and the aspect marker zài are subject to, and they all agree that the distribution of both markers is dependent on the situation type

|| 91 In Comrie (1976: 25), the continuous appears as a category subordinated to the imperfective as the most general category, but superordinated to the progressive as the less general category. 92 Usually, the durative aspect cannot be combined with event verbs that do not imply a duration; it cannot refer to a completed situation nor can it be employed in combination with complements expressing the frequency, measure or duration of a situation Chan (1980: 61).

48 | Tense and aspect in Chinese of the verb they modify. The suffix –zhe usually modifies verbs with the semantic feature [+durative], whereas zài a marker of the progressive (or durative) is usually confined to activity verbs. Teng (1979: 1) distinguishes a ‘stative-progressive’ marked by –zhe which refers to an ongoing state, and a ‘non-stative progressive’ marked by zài which refers to an ongoing activity. As Chan (1980: 61ff) demonstrates, with some particular verbs an overlap in the employment of both markers is possible. Additionally, it has been stated in the linguistic literature that –zhe typically appears in subordinate clauses, which serve to provide background information for what is expressed in the matrix predicate (Li / Thompson 1989: 223). At the beginning of the development of the verb zhuó into an aspect marker it appears equivalently to zài n the locative constructions V zài / zhuó / NPobject, but in the course of its development it is replaced in these locative constructions by zài in almost all of the Chinese dialects. Regarding the etymology of the marker of the progressive and the durative aspect zhe in the Classical and Han period it has as a verb the meanings – among others – ‘place, put, apply; wear’, and it appears comparatively early, from the Han and Wei periods on, as a V2 in a construction V1 V2 (Cao 1999: 29). By and by it develops into an aspectual suffix marking the imperfective aspect. || 93 To distinguish the different functions of zài  and –zhe  Li and Thompson (1981: 217) establish the following classification of verbs: “Activity verbs” (compatible with zài), “Verbs of Posture” (sit, stand, lie, etc., compatible with -zhe) and “Activity Verbs” signalling “States associated with Their Activity Meaning” (take, hold, etc.; as verbs these express a state which can be associated with its activity meaning compatible with –zhe ; they express the duration of the state.) The categorisation of the different verb classes in the Chinese language and the problems involved in such a categorisation will be discussed comprehensively in the following study. 94 This overlapping can involve a semantic differentiation, but it does not have to. Possible semantic distinctions are presented by means of Teng’s (1979) examples: for instance, the verb chuān ‘dress’ expresses a transient state and accordingly the durative aspect, when marked by –zhe ’he is wearing’, whereas marked by zài it expresses a process in progression ‘he is putting on’. Both are translated by the progressive aspect in English. See also Teng (1979: 3). 95 This has already been stated in an earlier article by the same authors (Li / Thompson 1976). Li and Thompson’s analysis has been discussed e.g. in Ma (1985: 32ff) and in Chu (1987: 15f). Ma assumes that the subordinate predicate modified by –zhe rather has to be analysed as a manner adverbial (Ma 1985: 45). Chu (ibidem) who also analyses –zhe as a syntactic subordination marker, still claims that the subordination effect is mainly due to the semantics of the verbs modified by –zhe which also accounts for the deletability of the suffix in this construction (Chu 1987: 17). 96 In Unger (1989: 10) and Pulleyblank (1991: 419). The different pronunciations of zhuó and the origin of the prepositional employment of zhuó are discussed in Mei (1988: 194, 195).

Aspect in Chinese | 49

During its history it assumes many different functions: during the Wei, Jin, Nanbei chao and the Tang periods and still today e.g. in the Min dialect, it serves as a locative preposition. This meaning has probably developed from the predominant meaning ‘place, set’ which the verb zhuó has during the Wei Jin Nanbei chao periods (Zhang 2002). Mainly from the Tang time onwards until the present time it appears as a resultative verb and according to Chen (1997: 205) as a resultative particle; during the Song period it is employed as a marker of the perfective. Its function as an aspectual suffix has developed particularly from the Tang period on and during the following Wudai period, first appearing as a marker of the durative and later (during the Song period) as a marker of the progressive (Chen 1997: 206f). Different analyses regarding the precise path taken by the grammaticalisation process have been presented in the linguistic literature. Of these approaches, the one discussed in Jiang (1994) and reprised in Jiang and Cao (2005: 215) is of particular interest, since it relates the different meanings assigned to zhuó to the semantics of the verb it attaches to and to the increasing number of verb types it becomes compatible with. Accordingly, the durative meaning is due to the fact that zhuó starts to appear in combination with non-locative durative verbs whereas in the Early Medieval periods it only appears with locative verbs. This analysis also offers a conclusive explanation why in some of the dialects even the earliest functions still prevail with zhuó (Jiang and Cao 2005: 215). The following examples for the function of –zhe as a durative marker and a marker of the progressive are taken from Chen (1997: 207f): a) durative: (8)

Yuányòu Yuanyou

zhū Pl

xián, duō virtuous, many

shì SHI

bì close

zhuó ZHUO

mén shuō dàolĭ de door talk rationality DE ‘The virtuous of the Yuanyou period, often they talk about rationality behind closed doors.’ (Zhūzĭ yŭlèi) || 97 This is demonstrated in Mei (1988: 197) who also gives an overview of the different functions of zhe  in some Chinese dialects (1988: 208). A concise survey of –zhe  in the different dialects is also presented in Xu (1996: 55). 98 This is a text from the Song period. A short description of this text can be found in Sun (1996).

50 | Tense and aspect in Chinese b) progressive: (9)

Rú Like

zhàn zhèn fight field

sī each-other

shā, lèi kill, beat

zhuó ZHUO

gŭ, drum,

zhĭ shì xiàng qián qù only COP towards front go ‘[It is] like fighting on the battle field and killing each other, beating the drums, one has to proceed.’ (Zhūzĭ yŭlèi) Chen (1997: 212) relates the frequent employment of -zhe as a marker of the durative aspect in combination with the so-called ‘Verbs of Posture’, namely, verbs which incorporate an inherent locative NP, to the employment of -zhe as a locative preposition referring to a goal and to its function as a resultative particle. Both functions focus on the successful completion of a situation. As far as -zhe as a durative marker with the so-called ‘Verbs of Posture’ is concerned, it focuses on a resultant state. Besides the verbal suffix -zhe , the durative or progressive aspect can be expressed – as already indicated – by the morpheme zài . Zài is syntactically clearly distinct from the verbal suffixes indicating aspect: it appears in preverbal position and accordingly its analysis has to differ from that of the verbal suffixes. In general three different functions can be assigned to zài : 1, as a locative verb with the meaning ‘to be at’; 2, as a locative preposition ‘in, at, etc.’, and 3, as a marker of the durative (or progressive) aspect (Chan 1980: 68). In preverbal position, immediately preceding the verb, it has been analysed as either a verb in a construction V1 V2 or as an adverb. The first analysis as a verb has e.g. been supported by Chao (1968: 772), who assumes that the locative object nàr ‘there’ following zài has been deleted and that it functions as is an adverbial phrase in a V1 V2 –construction. Independently of how zài analysed in the durative construction, this function evidently originates from a

|| 99 ‘Verbs of Posture’ are verbs referring to a state which results from a preceding telic situation such as ‘stand, lie, sit, hang, etc.’ (Chen 1997: 212), Li / Thompson (1981: 219)). 100 But Teng (1979: 2) presents a few examples which refute Chao’s hypothesis.

Aspect in Chinese | 51

spatial source. Only activity verbs can be modified by zài (Li / Thompson 1989: 218). The following example will demonstrate the durative employment of zài : (10)

Tā zài chī fàn He DUR eat meal ‘He is just eating.’

As has been clearly demonstrated on the basis of a great amount of data in Djamouri and Paul (1997: 226f), historically, the earliest attested function of zài is the prepositional function; as a preposition it already occurs in the Shang inscriptions in prepositional phrases with a locative, a temporal and other functions. As a locative verb zài also appears quite early on and in this function, just as well as in its prepositional function, it regularly occurs in Classical texts. In Han period texts the preposition zài is evidently less frequent than the verb; examples in which zài can be analysed unambiguously as an adverb are extremely rare if existent at all. In most instances with zài appearing immediately preceding the verb, it certainly has to be analysed as a V1 in a construction V1 V2. Its employment as a marker of the durative aspect in Modern Mandarin is apparently a quite recent and confined one, and it probably developed under the influence of the southern Chinese dialects (Wang 1984: 204).

4.3.1.3 The experiential aspect The experiential aspect is indicated by the suffix –guo . This aspect refers to a perfective situation which has been experienced at least once in the past, but does not continue in the present (Chao 1968: 439). According to Chao two different variants of –guo can be distinguished: 1, a variant in the falling tone, qù shēng, defined as marker of the ‘indefinite past aspect’; and 2, a variant in the neutral tone with the class meaning ‘happened at least once in the past: ever’. A || 101 This is in agreement with the general linguistic assumption that markers of the progressive are frequently derived from expressions involving a locative element (Bybee et al. 1994: 129). 102 This clearly shows that – contrary to what has often been assumed in the linguistic literature – at least not all prepositions are derived from verbs and that accordingly the term coverbs often used in the literature for prepositions is at least problematic (Djamouri und Paul 1997: 226f). 103 According to Wang (1984: 204) e.g. it does not yet appear in Hóng lóu mèng.

52 | Tense and aspect in Chinese further characteristic of the experiential aspect with –guo is that it marks discontinuity (Chao 1968: 439, Lin 2007b). This term as a defining characteristic of –guo was first introduced by Iljic (1990), but not all linguists accept this characteristic as an inherent feature of the aspectual suffix –guo . Additionally, it has been observed (e.g. Ma 1977) that –guo cannot mark unrepeatable situations. The repeatability of the situation marked by –guo involves the possibility of an indefinite interpretation of the predicate. Smith (1997: 263f) categorises the aspect marked by –guo as a variant of the perfective aspect, which can be distinguished from the aspect with –le by its scope or span: “They differ in span: -le spans the initial and final endpoints of an event, while the span of –guo extends beyond the final endpoint of a situation.” Another difference in relation to –le is that it cannot mark a sequence of successive situations in a narrative. Additionally, –guo can, according to Smith (1997: 264) be characterised as a marker of the perfect. The difference between the perfective aspect marked by –le and the one marked by –guo is represented by the following examples: (11)

(12)

Tā men shàng ge yuè qù le Xiānggǎng He PL above MS month go LE Hong Kong ‘Last month they went to Hong Kong (and possibly they are still there).’

Tā men shàng ge yuè qù guo Xiānggǎng He PL above MS month go GUO Hong Kong. ‘They went to Hong Kong last month (but they are not there anymore).’

|| 104 The characteristic ‘discontinuity’ has been discussed in Yeh (1996) in her analysis of –guo  as a temporal quantifier with the result that ‘discontinuity’ is not an inherent semantic feature of predicates with –guo , and that this function is only implied by the function as a temporal quantifier. A new analysis of the function of –guo in formal semantic terms has been provided in Lin (2007b). 105 According to Yeh (1996: 160f) this constraint is also due to the function of –guo as a temporal quantifier, a constraint which is subject to the ‘Plurality Condition of Quantification’: A temporal quantifier does not quantify over a single unrepeatable situation, but on a set of situations: “... Q-adverbs quantify over a set of situations rather than a specific situation” (Yeh 1996: 160). See also Lin (2007b). 106 This was observed in Yeh (1996: 160), who refers to Li / Thompson (1981) and to Iljic (1990).

Aspect in Chinese | 53

In example (11) with –le the resultant state is still relevant at the time of the utterance, whereas in (12), marked by –guo , it is not. This seems to suggest that a predicate with –le rather refers to the second part of a bi-phasic situation E2 according to Abraham’s analysis of situation types (see 3.2), i.e. the resultant state, whereas the focus of –guo seems to reach beyond E2. Although –guo can be combined with most verbs, it is – just like the other aspectual markers – still subject to certain constraints regarding the situation type of the verb it marks. Occasionally, –guo appears at the end of the sentence; in these cases the entire sentence and not the predicate alone is within the scope of guo . Regarding the etymological development of –guo , it has attracted less attention than that of the other aspectual markers in the linguistic literature. This is probably due to the fact that its syntactic and phonological changes are less evident as e.g. those of the aspectual suffix –le . In the Classical language it appears as an independent verb with the meaning ‘pass,…; transgress’ (Pulleyblank 1991: 117), but according to He Leshi (1992: 225f) it is already attested in the Zuŏzhuàn and the Shĭjì as a V2 in the construction V1 V2. But examples for this construction are comparatively rare and appear only in a quite confined employment. Already in the 5th century CE the first examples with guo indicating a completed situation appear, namely, examples which show a development of guo from expressing locative-spatial to temporal-spatial relations. Instances for –guo marking the experiential besides the completive aspect, as in the following example, do not appear before the Song period (Xu 1996: 81). (13)

Qĭ kĕyĭ How-could can

yányŭ talk

jiĕ guò explain GUO

yī one

|| 107 This was shown in Xu (1996: 74f) and Yeh (1996: 163). 108 But He Leshi does not present any examples for resultative guo . 109 The close relation of locative-spatial and temporal-spatial meanings can be evidenced by  occasionally occurs with a temporal complement in the fact that in Classical Chinese guo the meaning ‘to pass through / to exceed X-time: (i) Yù jiŭ zhĕ bù guò shí rì, Law-case long REL NEG exceed ten day, yī guò zhī qiú bù guò shù rén one state SUB prisoner NEG exceed several man ‘A long law case does not exceed ten days, and the prisoners of the whole country are not more than several men.’ (SJ:2892)

54 | Tense and aspect in Chinese

biàn biàn xiū liǎo time then rest LIAO ‘How could it be possible to rest after having explained the sayings just once?’ (Zhūzĭ yŭlèi) (14)

Suī Although

shì COP

jiù once

céng once

kàn read

guo, GUO,

chóng wēn yì xū zĭxì again examine also must careful ‘Even if one has read it already, one has to be careful when rereading it.’ (Zhūzĭ yŭlèi) In the first example (13) guo marks a completed situation and in the second (14) the experiential aspect. The same analysis is presented in Yang Yonglong (2002), according to whom two different variants of -guò have to be distinguished in the Zhūzĭ yŭlèi: the first -guò refers to the final point of a situation which is completed before reference time, whereas the second guò refers to a situation in its entirety which not only occurred before reference time, but the connection of which to reference time is additionally interrupted (cf. Jiang and Cao 2005: 219). The first –guò is assumed to have been grammatlicalised from the meaning ‘pass, go through’, and the second meaning could have developed from the capacity of guò to refer to the completion of a situation in its entirety. In combination with an object, both positions preceding and following the object are attested (Jiang and Cao 2005: 219f).

4.4 The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese The lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) can certainly be considered the central verbal category – as has been proposed by Bache (1995: 219 and 222). To each situation which is represented linguistically a situation type has to be

|| 110 Both examples are taken from Xu (1996: 81).

The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese | 55

assigned obligatorily. In general, this category – whether marked or unmarked – has to be regarded as independent of the categories tense and grammatical aspect which can be but do not have to be marked additionally. Taking Vendler’s (1967) classification of situation types as their point of origin, from the 1970s on a great number of studies on the semantics of the verb in Modern Mandarin with particular regard to its situation type has been published. The analysis of the different situation types in Modern Mandarin is of particular interest, since it is the situation type of the verb that licenses the employment of the different aspectual suffixes. Although these studies have had a certain influence on the categorisation of different kinds of situations in Classical Chinese, no systematic and comprehensive synchronic studies on this topic for the early periods of the Chinese language have been presented. As far as e.g. the analysis of aspectual adverbs is concerned, several grammatical compendia for the Classical Chinese language, such as the Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn (1999, 2000) and the Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí tōngshì (1985), indicate that their employment can be dependent on the different kinds of situations the verb refers to, such as states, actions etc., but these distinctions are not based on a systematic analysis of the different situation types possible and no systematic semanto-syntactic constraints can be derived from their explanations which are purely descriptive. Different categorisations of situation types have been presented in the literature. One of the first has been presented by Teng (1975; 1979: 8) – based on the differentiation of Chafe (1970) – who categorises the Chinese verbs as action verbs, state verbs, and process verbs: Action verbs define various physical (mostly) as well as mental (to a lesser extent) activities, activities which the actor (or agent) can engage himself in voluntarily ... State verbs define quality or condition. The subject of state verbs (or patient) has no control over the

|| 111 Even atemporal or generic predicates seem to be subject to this constraint, since they most likely belong to the category ‘unchangeable states’ which is a subcategory of the situation type ‘state’. Additionally, according to Dahl (1975: 103) generics are not ‘timeless’ or ‘valid for all times’. 112 See Bache (1995: 222). 113 Even if, e.g. in Reynolds (1998) and others, in the context of an analysis of the passive constructions of Classical Chinese, different categories of verbs have been assumed, the category lexical aspect has not been included into this categorisation. Verbal categorisations are also presented in Cikoski (1978) particularly with regard to ergative verbs and in Wei (2000) with regard to causative and ergative verbs. 114 See e.g. Liu (1994: 31), who points out the difference in the meaning of temporal nouns such as rì ‘day’, yuè ‘month’ preceding adjectives or verbs of another situation type.

56 | Tense and aspect in Chinese quality or condition he (or it) is in. Process verbs define a change from one stage to another.

The action verbs in Teng’s definition correspond to activity or process verbs (‘activities’ according to Vendler), Teng’s state verbs correspond to Vendler’s ‘state verbs’ and Teng’s process verbs correspond to event verbs (Vendler’s ‘accomplishments’ and ‘achievements’). Teng postulates different verbal categories to account for the constraints the aspectual suffixes are subject to. A different categorisation with the same purpose is provided in Huang (1987), who categorises verbs according to their ‘PERIODICITY’. This term refers to the temporal distance between the initial and the final points inherent in the situation the verb or verb phrase refers to, and according to this distance verbs are distinguished into verbs of long and verbs of short periodicity. In her analysis, the concept of boundaries, ‘BOUNDARY’, of a situation is focused on in order to analyse the function of the aspectual markers in Modern Mandarin. Another comprehensive analysis of the semantics of the verb in Modern Mandarin is presented in Ma (1992, 2005) who also classifies verbs e.g. according to the duration of the situation the verb refers to. Detailed analyses of the different situation types and their syntacto-semantic constraints regarding their compatibility with aspectual markers are provided in e.g. Smith (11991, 1997), and in a series of studies by Lin. Ross (2002) analyses the conditions of possible situation type changes ‘Aspectual Category Shift’ in Modern Mandarin. Although the source structures for the aspectual suffixes in Modern Mandarin do not appear until the Early Medieval period (for which a few studies exist), in Classical and Han period Chinese just as well as in Modern Chinese situation types and shifts in situation type play an important role in the interpretation of the verb phrase. Despite the absence of verbal suffixes comparable to those in

|| 115 Ma (1992, 2005) classifies verbs into continuative and non-continuative, the continuative verbs are further subdivided into strong continuative and weak continuative verbs. To test this hypothesis the compatibility of a verb with the verbal suffix –zhe and the compatibility with and the influence of duration phrases on the meaning of the verb phrase are analysed. 116 In this article based on Vendler’s categories, Ross assumes – following Tai (1984) – that in Modern Mandarin the category ‘Accomplishment’ does not exist as a distinct situation type of the verb. This hypothesis has been challenged in Lin (2004) who assumes “that monosyllabic verbs like hua ‘draw’, xie ‘write’ and gai ‘build’ are true accomplishment verbs that have an inbuilt telos in their lexical semantics.’ In any case, the line between activities and accomplishments on the one hand and accomplishments and achievements on the other hand is generally difficult to determine and usually depends to a high degree on the syntactic environment, the argument structure of the verb, and the employment of adverbs etc.

The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese | 57

Modern Mandarin, the situation type in Classical Chinese is relevant for the determination of the employment of adverbs, of verbal complements, and modifications. Besides the aspectual suffixes in Modern Mandarin, the so-called resultative constructions play a vital role in the analysis of the situation type of the verb; and similar to the aspectual suffixes of Modern Chinese, resultative constructions, too, do not yet play a relevant role for the aspectual analysis of the predicate in Classical Chinese (they only start to appear during the Han period). Accordingly, during this period the analysis of the situation type of the verb or the verb phrase is predominantly based on the semantics of the verb itself – occasionally additionally supported by morphological features, insofar as these are recorded for the verb in question –, the interplay of the verb with its complements and modifiers and with the contextual frame of the utterance. Although it is sometimes difficult to assign a situation type to a particular verb or a verb phrase respectively, in a great number of cases it is unambiguously possible. Especially states on the one hand and events – including accomplishments and achievements – can usually be clearly distinguished. Of the event verbs the achievement verbs (according to Smith 1997) – partly achievement, partly accomplishment verbs according to the generative framework (see the discussion in section 3.2) – are most easily to identify, although for them, too, changes in situation type seem to be possible in Classical and Han period Chinese for some verbs for which they are excluded in Modern Mandarin. In general it can be difficult to draw a clear line between activities and accomplishments on the one hand and between accomplishments and – transitive – achievements on the other hand. In the following, a few preliminary examples for the different situations types according to Vendler in Han period Chinese will be presented. The different situation types and their relevance for the temporal interpretation of a sentence will be discussed comprehensively in the course of this study.

4.4.1 State verbs Different kinds of state verbs have to be distinguished in Classical and Han period Chinese: || 117 However, as has been discussed above in section 3.1, morphological distinctions of different aspectual values existed in Archaic Chinese; most likely these also concerned the category situation type. 118 For different classifications e.g. in the generative framework and in Smith (1997) see above, chapter 3.2.

58 | Tense and aspect in Chinese 1. Verbs expressing a general state, such as the existential verb yŏu ‘have’, or the verb zài ‘be in, at’; 2. Verbs expressing a property, a characteristic feature, an attribute (adjectives) such as fù ‘rich’, gāo ‘high’, etc. 3. Verbs of knowing and perception, such as zhī ‘know’, etc. 4. Verbs expressing an emotive state, such as ài ‘love’, zēng ‘hate’, etc. State verbs are atelic, the initial and the final points are excluded as not being relevant for the interpretation of the situation. In contrast to activity verbs they do not entail a process with perceptible stages and they do not require an input of energy to be maintained. According to Abraham (2008) they are monophasic, and differ thus from event verbs which are characterised as bi-phasic, composed of two different events E1 and E2 separated by a change of state point. State verbs can be both intransitive and transitive; for the latter the state verb HAVE has been assumed as a V1 in an articulated VP in the analysis proposed in Travis (2010) (see above, section 2.2). With a stative V1 HAVE the transitive verb remains stative. However, this does not need to be the case when a state verb is transitivised in the sense of being causitivised; this is possible for many state verbs of Classical and Han period Chinese, in particular for the verbs of the 2. category (adjectives), by simply adding a direct object. These state verbs have to refer to changeable states, i.e. changeable conditions, attitudes, etc. and their transitivisation process can involve a change of situation type from atelic to telic, i.e. the V1 HAVE would be replaced by a V1 CAUSE inducing a change of the situation type from state to event. In general, states can be divided into those that can be considered changeable and those that cannot. As the following discussion will show, this differentiation can e.g. be based on the employment of adverbs and duration phrases. Many of the verbs of categories 1 to 3, namely verbs expressing a general state, verbs expressing a property and verbs of knowing and perception belong to the category of changeable states, whereas verbs expressing an emotive state frequently but not exclusively belong to the catego|| 119 Changeable states correspond to stage-level predicates and unchangeable states to individual level predicates. This distinction within state verbs also holds for Modern Mandarin as can be evidenced by the compatibility of changeable states – stage level predicates – with the aspectual suffix -le leading to a telic reading, whereas unchangeable states – individual level predicates – are not compatible with -le . Smith (1997: 70): “Stage level stative predicates can appear with viewpoint morphemes on a telic reading; but individual level predicates do not allow this construction.” This terminology was introduced by Carlson 1977 (cf. Tenny and Pustejovsky 2000: 19): stage level predicates represent a temporary and transitory quality, whereas individual level predicates represent more permanent qualities.

The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese | 59

ry of unchangeable states. Verbs expressing changeable states can change their situation type, whereas verbs expressing an unchangeable state cannot. For instance, the verb of knowledge (perception) zhī ‘know, recognise’ amongst others can be interpreted without any additional aspectual modification as either telic or atelic according to the context in which it appears, whereas other verbs, such as the emotive state verbs ài and zēng have exclusively to be characterised as atelic. The following examples represent aspectually unmarked state verbs which unambiguously have to be analysed as stative. The general structure of this situation type can be depicted as follows, the initial and the final point are excluded from the depiction of the situation: (a) State verbs: (I) _____ (F) 1) The state verb zài has a transitive reading with a direct – mostly a direct local – object ‘be at ’, ‘depend on’ and an intransitive reading ‘be’: (15)

Qí hòu His after

shĭ send

tōng communicate

Wūsūn, wéi Wusun, be

dà Great

héng Envoy

ér zú, zhŏng zài Hànzhōng CON die, tomb be Hanzhong ‘Thereafter he was sent to develop a relation with the Wusun, he became Great Envoy and died and his tomb is in Hanzhong.’ (SJ: 84; 2944) In this example the state verb zài ‘to be at’ is employed as a transitive verb with a direct local object. The local object can be introduced directly or by the local preposition yú . In example (16) the verb appears in its intransitive reading ‘be’. (16)

Tuī yuē Xiàn gōng zĭ jiŭ rén wéi jūn zài yĭ Tui say Xian duke son nine man, only prince be SFP ‘Tui said: ”Duke Xian had nine sons, but only the prince is still there.”’ (SJ: 39; 1662)

2) The state verb of knowledge zhī

‘know’:

60 | Tense and aspect in Chinese (17)

(18)

Yúnmèng bù zhī qí wáng yĕ, shè shāng wáng Yunmeng NEG know his king SFP, shoot hurt king ‘[The people of] the Yun and the Meng did not know that he was the king, and they shot the king and and hurt him.’ (SJ: 40; 1715)

Rén shēng ān lè, shú zhī qí tuō Man be-born content happy, which know his other ‘If a man is content and happy from his birth on, what else could he know!’ (SJ: 39; 1658)

As will be demonstrated in the course of the discussion this verb has – besides its atelic, stative reading – a telic reading as an event verb ‘recognise, perceive, etc.’ The latter reading can be made explicit e.g. by adverbial modification, but can also be merely implied contextually. 3) The emotive state verb ài (19)

Liáng Liang

Xiào Xiao

wáng king

‘love’, ‘begrudge’:

zhĕ, NOM,

Xiào Xiao

Jĭng dì Jing younger-brother

yĕ, SFP,

qí mŭ Dòu tàihòu ài zhī his mother Dou queen-dowager love him ‘King Xiao of Liang was the younger brother of Xiao Jing, and his mother, the queen dowager loved him.’ (SJ: 107; 2839) (20)

Nài What

hé about

yŭ with

rén man

lín guó neighbour state

ér CON

ài yī mǎ hú begrudge one horse SFP ‘Why should I, as a neighbour of them, begrudge them a single horse?’ (SJ: 110; 2889) This verb is characterised in Classical and Han period Chinese by the fact that it apparently only appears with adverbs compatible with atelic predicates.

The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese | 61

4) The adjectival state verb fù (21)

‘rich’:

Wú Chŭ yĭ pò, Wu Chu already destroy,

jìng finally

Jĭng dì Jing emperor

bù yán bīng, tiānxià fù shí NEG speak weapon, empire rich full ‘After Wu and Chu had been destroyed emperor Jing never talked about war again and the empire was rich and fruitful.’ (SJ: 122; 3141) 5) The adjectival state verb gāo (22)

Píng Peaceful

dìng tiānxià, settle empire,

‘high’

wéi be

Hàn Han

tàizŭ, ancestor,

gōng zuì gāo merit very high ‘... he has settled the empire in peace, and has become the honoured ancestor of the Han and his merits are most high.’ (SJ: 8; 392) In examples (21) and (22) the state verbs are intransitive, and in (22) the adjective gāo ‘high’ is modified by the adverb zuì ‘most, very’, whereas in example (24) the same verb appears as a transitive verb gāo ‘appreciate, consider high’ which is also a state verb expressing a perception, no change of situation type is involved because the transitivisation does not involve a causativisation, the V1 is stative. (23)

Tiānxià Empire

qīng xiàngrén minister chancellor

shì, jiē official, all jiē all

yuàn wish

rì

jiŭ

chén subject

jí and

gāo high

xián jūn zhī virtuous ruler SUB

fèng receive

jiào chén instruction display

yĭ.

bù simple

yī dress

zhī SUB

xìng yì, conduct righteousness, zhōng yú loyalty at

qián before

zhī OBJ

62 | Tense and aspect in Chinese day long SFP. ‘It is for a long time now that all the ministers and chancellors, the subjects and simple officials of the empire appreciate your conduct and righteousness and find it virtuous, and they all wish to receive your instructions and to display their loyalty in front of you.’ (SJ: 69; 2245a2) The examples list those verbs that are most unambiguously analysable as state verbs. In the following discussion the different syntactic and semantic constraints of the different kinds of state verbs will be displayed including their employment with particular negative markers.

4.4.2 Activity verbs In contrast to states, activities require an input of energy to be maintained. They focus on the ongoing process of the situation; neither the initial nor the final point belongs to the temporal structure of the situation, although of course they can have temporal boundaries. In the same way as states, activities are considered to be mono-phasic in Abraham (2008). In Travis’s framework they are represented by an articulated VP including a V1 with the meaning CAUSE, and they are distinguishable from accomplishments – which are characterised by the same V1 – by the fact that they select a [-TELIC] Aspect Phrase. Activities are expressed by atelic process verbs that do not focus on either the initial or the final point, such as xué ‘learn’, shí ‘eat’, zhàn ‘fight’, and xíng ‘go’. Besides those verbs which – without an aspecto-temporal modification – can unambiguously be identified as activity verbs, there are also atelic verbs which can attain a telic reading without any additional modification, these are verbs such as e.g. xíng ‘go, march’ (atelic) and ‘put in motion’ (telic). As far as verbs such as jiàn which can also attain a telic reading: jiàn ‘to meet’ (telic), are concerned, these verbs have to be subjected to particular linguistic tests to determine their basic situation type. For the general structure of this situation type two slightly different representations can be given, in the first representation the initial and the finals

|| 120 Smith (1997: 23): “The termination of an Activity does not follow from the structure of an event. The arbitrary final endpoint of an Activity is a temporal bound, explicit or implicit. Activities terminate or stop, but they do not finish; the notion of completion is irrelevant to a process event.”

The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese | 63

point are excluded from the depiction of the situation and in the second they are included but not focused on: (b) Activity verbs: (I) /////// (F) or (I ///////// F) In the following examples, a few typical verbs have been chosen to represent the category of activity verbs. The first is the verb xué ‘learn’. It expresses an activity which is naturally bounded, but the boundaries are not focused on. This example is less unambiguous than the following examples, since, if the internal argument is considered definite, the predicate rather expresses an accomplishment which includes a natural final point than an activity which only includes an arbitrary final point. (24)

Xué Study

cháng long

duǎn short

zòng héng zhī vertical horizontal SUB

shù, technique,

wǎn nǎi xué yì chūn qiū bái jiā yán later then study change spring autumn hundred school word ‘He studied the military and diplomatic techniques of the Warring States period, and later he studied the Book of Changes, the Spring and Autumn Annals and the teachings of the Hundred Schools.’ (SJ: 112; 2953) (25)

Èr Two

shí ten

bā eight

nián, Shĭhuáng dōng xíng year, Shihuang east travel

jùn xiàn, prefecture county,

shàng Zōuyì shān mount Zouyi mountain ‘In the eighteenth year, Shihuang travelled east through prefectures and counties and he ascended mount Zouyi.’ (SJ: 6; 242) (26)

Rú qí fú fǎ, ér If his punish law, CON

tàihòu shí bù queen-dowager eat NEG

gān wèi, sweet taste,

wò sleep

cĭ this

yĕ SFP

bù NEG

ān peace

xí, mat,

yōu worry

zài be-at

bìxià sir

64 | Tense and aspect in Chinese ‘In case of his being punished, the queen dowager when eating would not like the taste and when sleeping would not find peace on her mat, and the worry about it would concern you, sir.’ (SJ: 104; 2777) In example (25) the verb xíng expresses an activity which is temporally located by a sentence initial temporal adverbial; however, neither the initial nor the final point of the activity ‘travel’ is included in the representation of the temporal structure. The same holds true for example (26) with the activity verbs shí and wò in a conditional sentence, in this example no temporal frame is indicated. Another typical activity verb zhàn ‘fight’ is presented in example (26), a general reference to the activity of ‘fighting’ is made, but no endpoints are indicated. (27)

Chŭ wáng Chu king

dà great

nù, angry,

xīng rise

bīng xí Qín, soldier attack Qin,

zhàn yú Lántián fight PREP Lantian ‘The king of Chu was very angry, and he raised troops to attack Qin and they fought in Lantian.’ (SJ: 70; 2291.

4.4.3 Event verbs Event verbs can be divided into accomplishment verbs such as e.g. zhú ‘build’, wǎng ‘go to’, dù ‘cross’, jù ‘fend off’ and achievement verbs such as dìng ‘establish’, miè ‘destroy’, sĭ ‘die’ (and its synonyms), zhì ‘reach’, dé ‘attain, get’, shā ‘kill’, and many others. All event verbs are telic or bounded and they include at least the final point (F) of the situation. Whereas an achievement only consists of the final point of a situation, the structure of an accomplishment is temporally more complex since it also includes the process leading up to the final point. But they have in common that they both result in a change of state. A clear line of distinction between both situation types is very often difficult to draw and it necessitates a precise analysis of the syntacto-semantic constraints of the event verb or predicate in question. As || 121 The transitive version – with an agentive subject – of these verbs would be labelled accomplishment in the framework presented in Travis (2010).

The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese | 65

already mentioned above, within the framework employed e.g. in Travis’s (2010) analysis, only predicates with an agentive subject – these are predicates which include a CAUSE sub-event, i.e. a V1 CAUSE, and a [+TELIC] Aspect Phrase in their structure – are labelled accomplishments; achievements are characterised by the lack of the sub-event CAUSE and are assumed to include only the [+TELIC] event BECOME. According to this approach, achievements would merely focus the change of state point and the second part of an event E2 in Abraham’s (2008) framework, and only accomplishments are truly bi-phasic. The fact that the generative approach excludes the CAUSE subpart from the event structure of achievements is to a certain extent on a par with Comrie’s analysis. Comrie extends the lack of a process part to the hypothesis that only accomplishments can be regarded as telic, since only accomplishments contain both the process leading to the terminal point and the terminal point itself. According to Comrie a sentence such as ‘John reached the summit’, an achievement according to Vendler, but also to Smith (see section 2.2), is not telic since one cannot speak of the process leading up to John’s reaching the summit by saying ‘John is reaching the summit.’ (Comrie (1976: 47f), and Hsieh (2001: 20, note 2)). Accordingly achievements have to be considered punctual (Comrie 1976: 47). However, in most linguistic studies, including the generative approach e.g. in Travis (2010), both accomplishments and achievements are included under telic events and marked with the semantic feature [+ telic] (e.g. in Smith (1997), since both situations contain natural end points, rather than arbitrary endpoints. In Travis’s analysis, the feature [+TELIC] of the Aspect Phrase is the feature that distinguishes an achievement (both an unaccusative and a transitive achievement) from a state which lacks this feature. Consequently, it is the feature [+TELIC] that distinguishes a resultant state, the E2 part of a situation, from a genuine state. The two different kinds of event verbs can be depicted as follows. With accomplishments the process and the final point are focused on and only the initial point is excluded from the situation whereas with achievements only the final point is focused on. (a) Events: Accomplishment: (I) /////// F; Achievement: (I ///////) F.

|| 122 A similar analysis is presented in Sasse (1991: 25) who supports his analysis with the ‘progressive’ test for achievements: he was dying with the addition “the process of dying is interrupted and he stays alive”. According to him, with achievement verbs the final point, the change of situation, can be represented as expanded, but it cannot be suppressed.

66 | Tense and aspect in Chinese Whereas the situation types state, activity, and achievement can usually be represented by singular verbs, the situation type accomplishment can e.g. in English only be represented by a verb and its internal argument, as in paint a picture, make a chair, draw a circle, recover from illness, run a mile, etc. In fact, in English the category of independent accomplishment verbs does not seem to exist (Sasse 1991: 25). As already mentioned, for Modern Chinese, too, the existence of the category accomplishment has been doubted by Ross (2002) and Tai (1984). The following examples represent typical accomplishment verbs and typical achievement verbs respectively: 1) Accomplishments (I) //////// F As already mentioned, the category of accomplishments is less unanimously accepted as a distinct category of the verb in the linguistic literature than the other situation type categories. A few examples for verbs which very likely can be analysed as accomplishments will be presented here. They are characterised – and distinguishable from achievements – by the fact that the process part can be focussed and that at least parts of the situation still hold in case the process comes to a halt before its final point is reached. (28)

Wŭ wáng Wu king

dù cross

Hé, zhōng He, middle

liú, float,

bái white

yú fish

yuè leap

rù enter

|| 123 Sasse classifies the different situation types as follows (1991: 24f): ”Eine Klassifizierung reiner (nicht komplexer) Verblexeme des Englischen ergibt allenfalls drei Kategorien (T)STA (Total Stative Sachverhalte), AKTI (Aktions Sachverhalte), und T(TER) (Total Terminative Sachverhalte). Dies wird auch bei den auf Vendler aufbauenden Klassifikationen deutlich, in denen für die drei genannten Kategorien stets zahlreiche Beispiele für Einzelverben genannt werden ..., für die ”accomplishment”-Klasse jedoch offenbar immer nur ganze Phrasen als Beispiele zu finden sind (paint a picture, make a chair, draw a circle, recover from illness, run a mile). Tatsächlich scheint es im Englischen GTER (Graduell Terminative)-Verben nicht zu geben.” 124 Regarding accomplishments, e.g. Tai (1984) and Ross (1990, 2002) assume that they do not exist in Modern Mandarin. This hypothesis is challenged in Lin (2005) who assumes “that monosyllabic verbs like hua ‘draw’, xie ‘write’ and gai ‘build’ are true accomplishment verbs that have an in-built telos in their lexical semantics.” In any case, the line between activities and accomplishments on the one hand and accomplishments and achievements on the other hand is generally difficult to determine and usually depends to a high degree on the syntactic environment, the argument structure of the verb, and the employment of adverbs etc.

The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese | 67

. wáng zhōu zhōng, Wŭ wáng fŭ qŭ yĭ jì king boat middle, Wu king bow-the-head take YI sacrifice ‘King Wu was crossing the He and while they were floating in the middle a white fish leaped into the king’s boat and king Wu bent down to it to take it for a sacrifice.’ (SJ: 4;120) In example (28) the depiction of the backgrounded situation of ‘crossing the He’ is interrupted and is only half completed when the foregrounded situation, expressed by an activity verb with neither end points focused on, starts. (29)

(30)

Yān yì zhú cháng chéng, zì Zàoyáng zhì Xiāngpíng Yan also build long wall, from Zaoyang to Xiangping ‘Yan also built a great wall from Zaoyang to Xiangping.’ (SJ: 110; 2886)

Chí Slow

míng, xíng èr bái yú lĭ, bright, march two hundred more mile, . bù dé Chányú NEG get Chanyu ‘When dawn came, they had marched more than two hundred miles, but they had not overtaken the Chanyu.’ (SJ: 111; 2935)

This example ‘march X miles’ clearly refers to a telic situation, similar to the examples (27) and (28), and it represents a typical accomplishment identical with the one presented in Vendler for an accomplishment in English ‘run a mile’. The predicates of all three examples presented consist of the verb and a definite (quantized) internal argument identical to the typical cases presented for the situation type accomplishment in English. The verb on its own rather refers to an activity. 2) Achievements (I //////////) F

|| 125 The syntactic and semantic constraints of this verb are discussed comprehensively in Meisterernst (2013). For a logical representation in algebraic terms of a VP such as ‘march X miles’ see Krifka (1998).

68 | Tense and aspect in Chinese As already mentioned, according to most studies with the exception of Comrie, achievement verbs are considered telic. They focus on the final endpoint of a situation and a change of state and, as will be shown, they can also refer to the state resultant from the change of state. (31)

Xiāng wáng mŭ zǎo sĭ hòu mŭ yuē Huì hòu Xiang king mother early die later mother say Hui hou ‘King Xiang’s mother died early and the later (step) mother’s name was Hui hou.’ (SJ: 4; 152)

The intransitive verb sĭ ‘die’ is a typical telic achievement verb; as an achievement verb it is characterised by the fact that the situation only holds when the final point is achieved, i.e. one cannot die half way, because in the default reading of a true achievement verb there is no process part to focus on. This verb can be employed as a telic intransitive verb ‘die’ and as a stative, a resultant state verb ‘dead’. The subject represents the thematic role of the theme (or patient), and thus it belongs to the class of typical achievement verbs according to Travis’s (2010) framework. Syntactically similar to the general verb sĭ are those verbs that refer to the death of persons of high rank such as zú ‘die, pass away’ or bēng ‘pass away’ (for a king or emperor). In contrast, the verbs in the following examples (32) to (34) are all transitive telic verbs with an agent or cause subject and a theme object; according to e.g. Travis’s (2010) approach these verbs would be labelled as accomplishments. However, in Late Archaic and Han period Chinese the process part of these verbs cannot be focussed in their default reading and the situation only holds when the final point is achieved. In example (35), the transitive verb dé , another typical telic verb, appears; however, it has been assumed in the literature that verbs of this kind, i.e. verbs such as ‘find’, etc. do not have agentive subjects (see Travis 2010: 210). Accordingly, only example (35) would represent a true achievement in Travis’s framework. (32)

Wáng Wang

Jiǎn suì Jian then

ding establish

Jīng Jiāng Jing Jiang

nán south

dì: region:

jiàng Yuè jūn, zhì Kuàijī jùn subject Yue ruler, establish Kuaiji prefecture ‘Wang Jian thereupon secured the region of Jiangnan in Jing, he subjected the ruler of Yue and established the prefecture of Kuaiji.’ (SJ: 6; 234)

The Lexical aspect or situation type (Aktionsart) in Chinese | 69

(33)

(34)

Liáng, wŏ mŭ jiā yĕ, ér Qín miè zhī Liang, I mother family SFP, CON Qin destroy OBJ ‘Liang is the home of my mother’s family and Qin destroyed it.’ (SJ: 5; 190)

Xiào Xiao

Jĭng sān Jing three

Wú shì Wu envoy

nián, year,

zhĕ zhì REL arrive

Wú Chŭ qī Wu Chu seven

guó fǎn, state rebel,

Huáinán, Huainan,

Huáinán wáng yù fā bīng yìng zhī Huainan king wish emit soldier react OBJ ‘In the third year of Xiao Jing Wu, Chu and the seven states revolted, and when the envoy of Wu arrived at Huainan, the king of Huainan wanted to raise his troops to oppose them.’ (SJ: 118; 3081) (35)

Tàihòu wén, guŏ yù sī dé zhī Queen-dowager hear, really wish personally get OBJ ‘When the Queen dowager heard [about it], she really wanted to get him for herself.’ (SJ: 85; 2511)

The transitive verbs presented in the preceding examples all belong to the class of verbs which have an ergative or unaccusative variant, i.e. they can appear in transitive and intransitive constructions. The subject of the intransitive, the unaccusative construction represents the thematic role of the theme and is identical with the object, the internal argument, of the corresponding transitive construction; the transitive construction contains an additional CAUSE sub-event with its external argument, the causer subject (see e.g. Wei 2001: 143). The subject of an unaccusative verb – the internal argument of the verb – contrasts with the subject, the external argument, of a genuine intransitive verb phrase, which is agentive. A close semantic interrelation exists between the ergative or unaccusative and the passive interpretations and, since both forms are not distin|| 126 These are verbs which have an undergoer subject and have their transitive counterparts, like break. See Kiryu (1999:61). They are contrasted with unergative verbs which have an agentive subject. See also Wei (2001:145).

70 | Tense and aspect in Chinese guished syntactically or morphologically, they are difficult to differentiate. Not infrequently the transitive and the intransitive (resultant state) form of a verb are distinguished morphologically (see section 3.1), but it has not been figured out yet what the precise constraints of this kind of morphological marking are, i.e. for instance, whether resultant states are always marked morphologically, or whether they are marked only with verbs with particular semantic features, etc. If one of these verbs is employed in a transitive construction, the object, the internal argument, is usually a count noun, which fits the situation type characteristic of telicity and also the aspectual characteristic of perfectivity: the subject, the external argument, represents the thematic role of the agent (or causer) and the object the role of the theme (or undergoer). In a construction without an object argument, the verb has to be interpreted either as intransitive or as passive and the thematic role of the theme of the action expressed by the verb is represented by the subject. The verb, whether adverbially marked or not, invariably expresses a resultant state. The following examples represent the same verbs as above with a theme subject: (36)

…lài

zōng

miào

zhī

líng,

liù

wáng

|| 127 The passive construction has been frequently discussed in the linguistic literature. All in all this discussion has yielded two different assumptions concerning the passive in Chinese and two different analyses of the construction Spatient Vit: 1. Only the explicitly marked forms can be regarded as genuine passive constructions (assumed by e.g. Wang (e.g. (1989) 2006), Chao (1968), and others); 2. syntactically unmarked constructions only marked by a change of position of the patient from the object to the subject position are also considered to be passive constructions (assumed e.g. by v.d. Gabelentz (1881), Zhou (1959), Pulleyblank (1995), and others, to mention only a few). Cikoski (1978), who also rejects the hypothesis of a syntactically unmarked passive in Ancient Chinese, accounts for the structural diversity of particular verbs by introducing the term ergativity for these verbs. However, it has to be conceded that at least the resultant state, often connected with a theme or patient subject, can be morphologically marked by the qùshēng which results from an *-s suffix in the early stages of the Chinese languages (see e.g. Jin 2006 and the discussion above, section 4.1), and that consequently, the existence of a morphological marking of the grammatical structure which has traditionally been labelled ‘passive’ in parts of the linguistic literature and which in fact most likely has to be labelled ‘resultant state’, has to be taken into consideration. 128 Depending on the interpretation of the verb as passive or intransitive the viewpoint of the event can differ remarkably. In the passive interpretation the entire telic event including its endpoint is – if not otherwise marked – viewed as completed and in the intransitive interpretation the verb usually has to be analysed as stative which – if not otherwise marked – includes an imperfective viewpoint.

Aspect, temporal relations and adverbs in Chinese | 71

…Thanks-to

ancestral

temple SUB

power,

six

king

xián fú qí gū, tiānxià dà dìng all subjugate his crime, empire great settle ‘… and thanks to the power of the ancestral temples, the six kings have all been punished for their crimes and the empire is greatly settled.’ (SJ: 6; 236) (37)

Jiā shì Family generation bù NEG

xiàng be-minister

ài wàn spare ten-thousand

Hán, jí Hán Han, when Han

jīn zhī money SUB

miè, destroy,

zī, expense,

wèi Hán bào chóu qiáng Qín, tiānxià zhèn dòng for Han revenge enmity strong Qin, empire shake move ‘My family served Han as ministers for generations and after Han was destroyed, they did not spare any expense to take their revenge for Han on brutal Qin and to bring the empire into a turmoil.’ (SJ: 55; 2048)

4.5 Aspect, temporal relations and adverbs in Chinese The lexical means which serve to locate a situation temporally – or to exclude a temporal interpretation – include primarily adverbs and adverbial phrases, but also verbs, temporal adjuncts or complements of the verb, nominal predicates as well as temporal conjunctions which support a temporal location of the situation expressed in the respective sentence. Regarding temporal adverbials, two different but overlapping categories have to be distinguished syntactically: 1, those that can appear either in sentence initial, topic position, or in preverbal position, usually providing the temporal frame of the sentence; and 2, those that are confined to preverbal position, i.e. the position between the subject and the verb. According to Paul’s (to appear) categorisation of adverbials which distinguishes between sentence-level and VP-level adverbs, the first group belongs to the adverbials on sentence-level, and the second to the VP-level adverbials; the latter are excluded from the sentence-initial position. In Han period Chinese, adverbial phrases in general, and temporal adverbial phrases in particular, can be constituted by bare noun phrases, by prepositional phrases and by a closed class of temporal and aspectual adverbs. Preposi-

72 | Tense and aspect in Chinese tional phrases and most of the bare noun phrase adverbials belong to the first category of temporal adverbials, i.e. they can appear either in sentence-initial or in preverbal position and are operating on the sentential level according to Paul. They usually serve to locate a situation within a temporal frame; consequently, they are labelled point of time adverbials (TA) in the following discussion. The adverbials of the second category, those which according to Paul operate on the level of VP and which are confined to preverbal position, will be labelled aspecto-temporal adverbs. Of this category some adverbs are marked morphologically by the qùshēng , the falling tone which results from an *-s suffix (see above section 3.1). As has been demonstrated above, this suffix has been assumed to derive the perfective or resultant state form of a verb, which subsequently could be employed as an adverb. This has in particular been claimed for the two adverbs expressing the resultative and completion jì and yǐ . With regard to the adverb jì , Unger (1992: 15) claims that it is the perfective form of the verb qì ‘finish, cease’, and for the adverb yǐ -in (2006: 417) lists a reading in the qùshēng from the Guǎngyùn which he claims to be the adverbial reading of the verb yǐ ‘finish’. However, many of the aspectotemporal adverbs discussed in this study are not marked in this way. Nevertheless, syntactically, these adverbs form a closed class which generally shows constraints different e.g. from those of modal adverbs, point of time adverbials, auxiliary verbs, etc. According to Ernst (2002: 382) adverbs and auxiliaries in Chinese follow a strict linear order (indicating c-command). This also accounts for the ordering of temporal adverbials in Han period Chinese: point of time adverbials precede aspecto-temporal adverbs in the linear order of a sentence, and aspecto-temporal adverbs precede e.g. modal auxiliary verbs. Different hypotheses with regard to the syntax of adverbs have been proposed in the linguistic literature which can basically be divided into the adjunction approach which accounts for the co-occurrence of adverbs, and the specifier approach presented e.g. in Alexiadou (1997) and Cinque (1999). The latter assume that different adverbs occupy the respective specifier position of rigidly ordered functional heads, and consequently Alexiadou claims that temporal adverbs are licensed in the specifier position of a Tense and an Aspect Phrase respectively. Alexiadou distinguishes between aspectual and Aktionsart adverbs (1997: 88f); of these, aspectual adverbs are sensitive to aspectual distinctions, || 129 Neither the verb qì nor the adverb jì are included in Jin’s (2006) study. 130 See Paul (to appear) who rejects the adjunction approach in Huang, Li & Li (2009: 100), who propose the adjunction of adverbs to v’, with the argument that the adverbs at issue precede negation and auxiliaries, i.e. projections larger than vP. 131 The two different approaches are comprehensively discussed in Ernst (2002).

Aspect, temporal relations and adverbs in Chinese | 73

whereas Aktionsart adverbs such as ‘again’, ‘twice’ (or rather their Greek counterparts) are not. In the present study, of the two kinds ‘aspectual’ and ‘Aktionsart’, only aspectual, here labelled ‘aspecto-temporal’ adverbs, as well as point of time adverbials (and duration phrases), are at issue. It will be hypothesized – following Alexiadou (1997) and (Cinque 1999) – that aspecto-temporal adverbs, i.e. adverbs of the second category that are confined to preverbal position, are merged in the specifier position of an Aspect Phrase, due to their sensitivity to the imperfective-perfective distinction of the verb they select. This aspectual phrase is assumed to be an ‘Outer Aspect’ phrase following Travis (2010), located within the TP and selecting an articulated VP containing an ‘Inner Aspect’ Phrase which represents the complex semantic structure and the telicity features – the situation type or lexical aspect – of the lexical verb. The distinction of an Outer and an Inner Aspect Phrase proposed in Travis (2010) accounts well for the close relation between the aspecto-temporal adverbs in Han period Chinese and the constraints they impose on the lexical aspect of the verb they select. As Ernst (2002: 326) notes, “aspectual adverbs must combine with an event of the correct aspectual type and be in the correct temporal relation to some other event”, an analysis which is born out by the Chinese data presented in the present study. Contrastingly, temporal adverbials (TA) as referential expressions, i.e. as point of time adverbials, are rather treated as NPs in many languages including English, German, and French (Alexiadou 1997: 105), but evidently also in Han period Chinese. In the literature, e.g. by Enç, they have been analysed as referential NPs, in the lexicon marked [+TEMP] (cf. Alexiadou 1997: 105). Alexiadou (1997: 106) assumes that crosslinguistically a close relation exists between these adverbials and T0, where the tense features are checked, and she proposes that in a language such as Chinese (1997: 117), “temporal adverbs must be in [Spec, TP] … overtly, probably due to the fact that Chinese has no tense morphology and Tense must be somehow interpreted.” She assumes that “the verb could be argued either to raise to T0 or never to leave the VP”. However, it has been claimed, e.g. by Aldridge (2011) that the verb probably never moved out of vP to pick up tense features, and that in Late Archaic Chinese it even did not move out of VP. || 132 Alexiadou (1997: 123, n. 12) notes that Cinque (1995) also proposes a second AspP “where the features stage vs. individual-level predicate are checked.” 133 This also accounts for Rivero’s claim, cited in Alexiadou (1997: 90) that aspectual adverbs “are generated higher than the VP, as adjuncts or specifiers of AspP”. 134 See also Tenny (2000: 291).

74 | Tense and aspect in Chinese As the following discussion will show, the employment of temporal adverbials and their analysis is closely connected to the situation type of the verb. The way a situation is presented is always subject to the logic of temporal relations and it determines the acceptability or unacceptability of aspectual notions. Accordingly, the temporal and aspectual depictions of each situation are closely connected with the situation type of the verb which certainly has to be considered the most basic of the three concepts tense, aspect, and lexical aspect or situation type. The following hypotheses will be argued for in this study: 1. The situation type is the most basic semantic feature of the verb in Chinese and the most relevant factor for the temporal interpretation of a predicate. 2. Although in Classical and Han period Chinese the verb is not marked morphologically for tense, and not systematically marked for aspect and situation type, a precise temporal depiction of each situation can be achieved by the employment of temporal and aspecto-temporal adverbials. 3. Whereas temporal adverbials are less closely related to the situation type of the verb, the employment of duration phrases and of aspecto-temporal adverbs is characterised by being highly dependent on the situation type of the verb they modify. 4. Two different categories of duration phrases have to be distinguished according to the situation type of the verb. 5. Aspecto-temporal adverbials differ from point of time adverbials in their hierarchical position in the sentence. Aspecto-temporal adverbs occupy a position below point of time adverbs and modal adverbs but above the position of manner adverbs. Point of time adverbials (TA) are tentatively assumed to be generated in the specifier position of the TP (and maybe moved to topic position), whereas aspecto-temporal adverbs are assumed to be generated in an Outer Aspect Phrase within the TP. 6. Due to their selectional restrictions aspecto-temporal adverbs can have some impact on the aspectual interpretation of the verb, i.e. they can shift the situation type of the verb. The following discussion will reveal the particular relevance of the situation type of a verb or predicate for the temporal analysis of a situation particularly in a language without any morphological marking of tense and a reduced marking of aspect of the verb. The analysis will be organised as follows:

Aspect, temporal relations and adverbs in Chinese | 75

In Chapter 5.1 the syntactic and semantic analysis of point of time temporal adverbials, including genuine adverbs, noun phrase adverbials and prepositional phrases referring to a point of time, is presented. Since duration phrases are syntactically similar to a particular kind of noun phrase temporal adverbials in their inherent structure, they are discussed in chapter 5.2, which is devoted to the syntactic and semantic constraints of duration phrases and their interrelation to the situation type of the verb. In chapter 6 the most important aspectotemporal adverbs in the Shĭjì will be analysed with particular regard to their relation with the semantics of the verb or verb phrase they modify. In chapter 7 the final results of the study will be presented. Since the main issue of this study is the analysis of the grammatical means to determine the temporal and aspectual value of the predicate in a language which only shows meagre traces of a verbal morphology, the investigation of temporal conjunctions is only touched upon in the context of point of time temporal adverbials, but they are not included explicitly in this study. A comprehensive analysis of sentence final particles has been postponed to a separate study, since the two sentence final particles yĭ and yĕ , which probably have some impact on the aspectual analysis of a sentence, can, according to the author not be studied in isolation from the other sentence final particles relevant for the interpretation of the entire sentence at the time under investigation. Nevertheless, a short discussion on their function is included in the analysis of aspecto-temporal adverbs, particularly of the adverbs expressing completion jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi expressing non-completion. The exact status of the sentence-final particles in Classical Chinese in the framework of a general discussion of SFP and their relative order as complementizers in Modern Mandarin and other languages is an important issue for further linguistic study.

5 The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases In this chapter the syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials, i.e. point of time adverbials, and duration phrases and their interrelation with the situation type of the verb will be at issue. Temporal adverbials in general can be divided into what Cinque calls a) ‘proper adverbs’, these adverbs belong to the group of ‘aspectual’ adverbs according to Alexiadou, labelled aspectotemporal adverbs in this study (according to the definition in section 4.5), which are hierarchically ordered with respect to each other, and b) Circumstantial adverbials, these are point of time adverbials predominantly consisting of bare noun phrases and of prepositional phrases, but also including some ‘proper adverbs’; they operate on a different level than the aspecto-temporal adverbs. Adverbials of category b) have been assumed to be referential and deictic and to have a close relation to the semantics of Tense (see Tenny 2000: 291, but also Alexiadou 1997: 106). In Ernst (2002: 328) they are labelled as ‘Loc-Time Adverbials’ and defined as “the clearest cases of mapping to reference-times”; they are relatively free in their distribution. In Chinese many of the proper adverbs – particularly the aspecto-temporal adverbs at issue in chapter 6 – are confined to the preverbal position; whereas for both the proper adverbs and the circumstantial adverbials referring to a point of time two positions, namely, the sentence-initial, i.e. topic position, and the preverbal position are available. But, as the following discussion will demonstrate, for some of the proper adverbs permitted in both positions a change of the semantics of the adverbial is implied by the change of position. The different syntactic realisations of temporal adverbials are represented by the following examples. A point of time can be referred to: By genuine adverbs, as in example (1): (1) ;í&K«QJZ£QJGLQJGïQJ\¼-L£U» 2QFH&KHQJNLQJHVWDEOLVKWULSRGLQ-LDUX  

|| 135 Temporal adverbials have already been discussed in Meisterernst (2004a) and Duration phrases in Meisterernst (2003a). 136 According to Enrst (2002: 339) loc-time adjuncts are free to be adjoined “anywhere above VP … with semantic comptibility … determinging their actual possible positions in a given sentence”.

The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases | 77

bŭ divine

shì, generation

sān three

shí ten, .

bŭ divine

nián year

qī seven

bó, hundred,

tiān suŏ mìng yĕ heaven REL decree SFP ‘Once King Cheng had established the tripods at Jiaru, it was divined that they would stay there thirty generations and seven hundred years, this was what heaven decreed.’ (SJ: 40; 1700) By noun phrases, as in (2): (2)

Yìmǎo yè, Qìjí Yimao night, Qiji

shĭ chuán rén cóng Jiāng order boat man from Jiang

shàng above

zŏu run

hū yuē shout say ‘In the night of the day yimao, Qiji ordered some boatsmen to run along the bank of the Jiang and to shout:...’ (SJ: 40; 1708) And by the combination yǐ (3)

+ DPTemp or by prepositional phrases, as in (3):

Huì gong yĭ jiŭ yuè zú, Zĭyŭ lì Hui duke YI nine month die, Ziyu enthrone ‘Duke Hui died in the ninth month and Ziyu was enthroned.’ (SJ: 39; 1660)

The adverbials in examples (2) and (3) are what Cinque (1999) calls ”Circumstantial Adverbials”, which are typically realized in prepositional form or in bare NP form and which he assumes to be less rigidly ordered with respect to

|| 137 This example is a paraphrase of Zuŏzhuàn, Zhāo (Shísānjīng zhùshū: 2070 ). The temporal adverbial is identical to the one in Zuŏzhuàn which is not surprising since the structure of these temporal adverbials did not change since the Classical period.

78 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases one another than genuine or – as Cinque categorises them – proper adverbs. According to Cinque these circumstantial adverbials cannot appear in any preverbal position except for the so-called absolute initial position of the sentence. Tang (2001) shows that this assumption does not apply to Chinese and that temporal adverbials can appear in both the sentence-initial and the preverbal position: “… temporal and locative expressions [are generated] under I(nflexion) and Pr(edicate) …” (Tang: 2001: 206) (see also section 4.5). Additionally, they can appear between a modal auxiliary verb and the matrix verb. The mobility of temporal adverbials shown by Tang for Modern Mandarin is in general also applicable to Han period Chinese. But in contrast to what Tang assumes for Modern Chinese, in Han period Chinese, temporal adverbials in the position between a modal and the matrix verb as in the following example are only very rarely found. (4)

     Qĭ kĕ tóng rì dào zāi QUEST can same day talk SFP ‘… would it be possible to speak of that on the same day?’ (SJ: 87; 2548)

In most of the very few examples attested, the adverbial refers rather to a span of time as in example (5): (5)

Jīn Now

Méng Meng

shì, Qín family, Qin

zhī SUB

dà great

chén vassal

móu counsel

shì nobleman

|| 138 “Circumstantial adverbials of place, time and manner appear to differ from the adverb class just considered (the AdvPs proper) in not being rigidly ordered with respect to one another”. (Cinque (1999: 28)) See also Alexiadou (1997) and Ernst (2002) for a similar analysis. 139 This hypothesis is discussed by Tang (2001: 215), but is denied for Chinese: “Note further that, as shown in (21), repeated as (28), Cinque (1999) indicates that circumstantial adverbials cannot appear in any preverbal position unless they are in the so-called absolute initial position of the sentence: (28) *John will tomorrow/here attend classes. This is again not true for Chinese. Consider, for instance, the following sentences: (29) (mingtian) ta (mingtian) keyi (mingtian) lai tomorrow he tomorrow can tomorrow come ‘(Tomorrow) He can come (tomorrow).’ 140 Tang (2001: 218) suggests “that, in Chinese, temporals and locatives may best be analyzed as being base-generated in three distinct preverbal positions:” 141 The same example is also attested in the Hànshū: 32; 1834.

The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases | 79

yĕ, SFP,

ér CON

zhŭ master

yù yī wish one

dàn morning

qì discard

qŭ remove

zhī, OBJ,

. chén qiè yĭwéi bù kĕ subject dare consider NEG possible ‘Now, the [members of the] Meng family were Qin’s great vassals and counsellors, and if you, master, wish to discard them within one morning, I take the liberty to consider that impossible.’ (SJ: 88; 2568)

While adverbials in this position are quite rare with complex temporal noun phrases, they are more common with simple time nouns which are more flexible concerning their position as in the following example: (6)

Jīn Today

jiàngjūn general

shàng bù even.if NEG

dé can

yè night

xíng, go,

hé nǎi gù yĕ how then ancient SFP ‘If even the present general cannot go in the night, how, then, could the ancient one?’ (SJ: 109; 2871) Point of time adverbials have to be contrasted to duration phrases which measure the duration of time a specific situation holds; they do not locate a situation on the time axis and accordingly they are not deictic. In a question they can be substituted by ‘how long’. In the linguistic literature these duration phrases or duration adverbials are occasionally e.g. by Verkuyl (1973: 583) and by Paris (1988: 424) subdivided into duration-dating adverbials and duration measuring adverbials as in the following examples from Modern Mandarin, presented by Paris (1988: 424). The first represents a duration-dating adverbial and the second a duration-measuring adverbial: (7) tā

liǎng

nián

yĭqián

xué.guo

hànyŭ

|| 142 An almost literal quotation of this instance appears in Hànshū: 54, 2443. 143 In Smith (1997: 112) duration phrases constitute one of the four different categories of temporal adverbials: ‘locating adverbials’ (these are point of time TA); ‘duratve adverbials’; ‘completive adverbials’ (i.e. time span adverbials), and ‘frequency adverbials’.

80 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases He two year before study.ASP ‘He studied Chinese two years ago.’

Chinese

(8) tā xué hànyŭ xué.guo liǎng He study Chinese study.ASP two ‘He studied Chinese for two years.’

nián year

According to my framework, the first category, duration-dating adverbials, represented by example (7) belongs to the point of time adverbials, since in it the temporal phrase can be substituted by the wh-word ‘when’. Genuine duration phrases which in a question can be substituted by ‘how long’ only appear in the second category, the duration-measuring adverbials, represented by example (8). Although temporal adverbials and duration phrases can be identical in their surface structure – as it is the case in the two examples from Modern Mandarin – they can usually be distinguished according to their syntax, namely, their position in the sentence and relative to the semantics of the verb they modify. In Han period Chinese, temporal adverbials are strictly confined to sentence-initial and preverbal position, while duration phrases are permitted in both, preverbal and postverbal position, though they appear more frequently in postverbal position as in the following example (9): (9)

         Zài wèi jiŭ suì, wú néng yŏu suŏ kuāng yán Be.in position nine year, NEG can have REL correct word ‘Although he had been in his position for nine years it had not been possible for him to correct the words.’ (SJ: 109; 2767)

According to their syntactic constraints, point of time phrases always have to be analysed as adverbials since they are confined to the position to the left of the verb, the default position for adverbials in Chinese. Contrastively, due to the different positions they can occupy in the sentence, different analyses are required for duration phrases. Only when they appear in preverbal position – which they do quite infrequently – can duration phrases be analysed as adverbials; when they appear in postverbal position, they have to be analysed either as a complement of the verb or as a predicate of the sentence. In the first part of this chapter the syntactic and semantic constraints of different kinds of temporal adverbials referring to a point of time will be discussed, || 144 The same instance is attested in Hànshū: 46; 2197.

The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases | 81

these are: 1. proper adverbs in sentence-initial, topic position and in preverbal position; 2. temporal noun phrase adverbials, e.g. indicating a date (usually noun phrases consisting of a numeral and a temporal noun), or complex noun phrases with hòu and shí ; 3. prepositional phrases, distinguished into those referring to a closed domain, and those referring to an open domain indicating the initial or the final point of a situation (e.g. with zì , cóng , zhì etc.). In the second part the syntactic and semantic constraints of duration phrases will be at issue with particular regard to their position in the sentence and the situation type of the verb.

82 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases

5.1 The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shĭjì In the first part of this chapter the analysis of those temporal adverbials referring to a point of time will be at issue. Point of time adverbials refer to the specific moment the situation actually takes place and thus locate the situation on the time axis. This specific moment does not necessarily have to be punctual; it can be of varying extension from a millisecond up to a year, or a reign of unspecified length etc., but it is always viewed as punctual from an external perspective. All point of time adverbials are deictic and in a question they can be substituted by ‘when’. According to Verkuyl’s (1973) definition they belong to the category of temporal adverbials referring to a closed domain, in contrast to those referring to open domains. Adverbials referring to closed domains are defined as indicating situations for which both boundaries, the initial and the final point, are given and which do not hold infinitely; they refer to the closed subset of moments at which the situation holds. They have to be distinguished from adverbials referring to a temporally open domain for which only one temporal boundary is given and which indicate an open subset of moments which theoretically can hold infinitely. These are e.g. prepositional phrases referring to the initial or the final point of a situation as, for instance, phrases with the preposition zì ‘from’ (initial point) or the preposition zhì ‘up to’ (final point). Although the semantics of these adverbials can differ considerably from that of adverbials referring to a closed domain, it will be demonstrated that they are subject to the same syntactic constraints as closed domain temporal adverbials and they will – as a particular subset of point of time adverbials – be discussed in this chapter. a) point of time (closed domain) b) point of time (open domain)

11. Dec

from up to

today

|| 145 Parts of this section have already been discussed in Meisterernst (2004).

The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shĭjì | 83

5.1.1 The semantic analysis of temporal adverbials indicating a point of time The semantic analysis of temporal adverbials presented in this chapter is based on Reichenbach (1947: § 51) who – in his analysis of temporal categories – distinguishes between speech time, reference time and event time – which in the following will be categorised as situation time, and on many others who base their analyses on Reichenbach’s distinction. The term speech time refers to the time of utterance, the term event time to the time when the situation actually takes place and the term reference time depicts a temporal standpoint of the utterance which can be different from or identical with speech time and event time. As far as Chinese is concerned, tenses are not marked morphologically and an unmarked predicate can only refer to either situation time or speech time – which of course do not need to be identical – without any reference time being involved. But since in Chinese complex temporal relations can be depicted in a very precise way by lexical means – namely, the employment of temporal adverbials – the introduction of the category reference time proves useful to account for the fact that by means of temporal adverbials a point of time different from either speech or situation time can be referred to. For my purpose, four different categories will be distinguished: speech time, situation time – Reichenbach's event time – and reference time; and additionally a forth category TA time will be introduced which has some relevance particu|| 146 For my purposes I prefer the term situation time. In my recent linguistic studies of the situation types of the verb (e.g. Meisterernst 2003a, 2005, 2008a), the term event is employed exclusively for telic situations (e.g. according to Lyons (1977)), while the term situation can refer to all kinds of situations whether telic or not. 147 More recently Dowty (1982: 32) distinguishes only between speech time and reference time, since, according to him, reference time and event time are not different from each other: “So far there has been nothing corresponding to Reichenbach's event time. Rather, event time is not distinct from reference time.” 148 A analysis of the different times as defined in Reichenbach has been presented in chapter 2. The term reference time has been introduced by Reichenbach to account for the complex times as they occur e.g. in English. 149 Additionally, according to Reichenbach in the presence of positional adverbs like now or yesterday, which are clearly point of time adverbials, only the modification of reference time is possible (1947, 1980: 294): “When a time determination is added, such as is given by words like ‘now’ or ‘yesterday’, or by a nonreflexive symbol like ‘November 7, 1944’, it is referred, not to the event, but to the reference point of the sentence. We say, ‘I met him yesterday’; that the word ‘yesterday’ refers here to the event obtains only because the points of reference and the points of event coincide. We shall speak, therefore, of the positional use of the reference point; the reference point is used here as the carrier of the time position.” 150 The term TA time is introduced in Harkness (1987: 80).

84 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases larly for the analysis of point of time adverbials. These different categories are defined as follows: 1. Speech time: the time of utterance (this category is of quite limited relevance in a narrative text such as the Shĭjì, since it can only be applied to parts or the text containing dialogue or speech); the narrated situation can take place before, simultaneously to and after speech time.

2. Situation time: the point of time the situation actually takes place at; it can be identical with and/or connected to speech time or to reference time. 3. Reference time: the temporal standpoint of the sentence; it can be identical with or different from speech time and situation time.
 Regarding Chinese, this category is relevant only in those temporal adverbials which relate situation time to either speech time or reference time. 4. TA time: the time a temporal adverbial refers to. The TA time can be simple – referring to only one point of the time axis – or complex – relating one point on the time axis to a second reference point. The interrelation of speech time, situation time, and reference time on the one hand and TA time on the other hand can be depicted as follows: 1) Simple TA time: Simple TA time simple: reference time and situation time coincide

Speech time

 Situation time = reference time 

|| 151 Speech time is the centre of Reichenbach's system, but in a narrative text it has either to be modified or to be restricted to the parts of the text containing dialogue or speech . 152 According to Reichenbach's system, in English in the simple tenses reference time is identical with situation (event) time and in the simple present it is identical with both speech time and situation (event) time.

The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shĭjì | 85

The category speech time in simple TA time is relevant only when it coincides with situation time and reference time. In a narrative text it usually can be neglected. 2) Complex TA time: Complex TA time relating situation time to speech or reference time

Situation time

Reference time

Speech time

The central category in a narrative text such as the Shĭjì is situation time; reference time is usually identical with situation time unless it is explicitly marked by a temporal adverbial as different from situation time. As already mentioned, speech time in a historiographic text such as the Shĭjì is only relevant in dialogues and speech parts and particularly in those parts where the author manifests himself and which are explicitly marked as speech parts. They are introduced by tài shĭ gōng yuē  
 ‘The grand-historian remarks’. In the reports of historical events which constitute the largest parts of a historical text, situation time and reference time precede the time when the narrative has been produced – one of the possible speech times – without being further connected to it. This time is usually not relevant for the temporal interpretation of the situations referred to in the narrative. The general function of temporal adverbials is to give the point of reference to which the narrated situation is related be it identical or not with situation time or speech time. Semantically, according to Smith (1997: 97) three different kinds of temporal adverbials can be distinguished, which she defines as follows:


|| 153 Merkel (1988: 426) comments: “This classification is based on the concept of anchoring, i.e. a deictic is generally anchored to the time of speech (ST), a dependent is anchored to another given time in the context, and a clock calendar adverbial can anchor to either ST or to some other context-dependent time.”

86 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases 1. Deictic: “Deictic adverbials are oriented to the moment of speech: today, tomorrow, now, last Thursday, etc.”

(10)

Jīn rì wáng Zhào, míng rì huàn jí Qí Chŭ Now day lose Zhao, bright day trouble arrive Qi Chu ‘If we let Zhao disappear today, then trouble will arrive in Qi and Chu tomorrow.’ (SJ: 46; 1902)

The adverbials jīn rì ‘today’ and míng rì ‘tomorrow’ each refer as deictic adverbials to a point of time in the present and in the future respectively. With jīn rì speech time, reference time and situation time are identical, while with míng rì speech time precedes reference time and situation time. In common with many deictic temporal adverbials in the Shĭjì they appear in a speech part of the text. 2. Anaphoric or dependent: “anaphoric adverbials orient to a previously established time: then, at that time, etc.” According to Harkness (1987: 81), temporal adverbials which do not involve a point of time of fixed identity are dependent. This includes the first two semantic categories of adverbials, namely the deictic and the anaphoric temporal adverbials. (11)

Qí That

shí time

liǎng two

dì younger.brother

jí and

liǎng two

hūn marry

jiā family

yì also

gè zì zuò tuō zuì ér zú. each self accuse other crime CON extinguish.the.whole.clan. ‘At that time both younger brothers together with their respective in-laws were themselves accused of another crime and were extinguished together with their whole clan.’ (SJ: 122; 3150)

|| 154 This example is in a similar version also attested in the Zhànguó cè 120/58/10. 155 This example also appears in the Hànshū: 90; 3658.

The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shĭjì | 87

The temporal adverbial qí shí refers to a point of time in the past, which is related to another point of time indicated in the preceding narrative. In this example, reference time and situation time are identical. 3. Referential or clock-calendar: “referential adverbials refer to a time established by clock or calendar: April 23, 2 am.” These are the only temporal adverbials which are absolute and independent and refer to times of fixed identity on the time axis. The great majority of temporal adverbials – those which do not involve times of fixed identity – are dependent, meaning that they depend on an already established point of time on the time axis in order to be interpreted fully. (12)

Dào Dao

gōng duke

Luán Luan

Shū Shu

yuán first

nián year

Zhōngháng Zhonghang

zhēng first Yǎn Yan

yuè month

shì kill

Lì Li

gēngshēn, gengshen, gōng, duke,

zàng zhī yĭ yī shèng chē bury OBJ YI one vehicle carriage ‘On the day gengshen in the first month of the first year of duke Dao, Luan Shu and Zhonghang Yan killed duke Li and buried him together with one carriage.’ (SJ: 39; 1681) In a literary text such as the Shĭjì, real deictic adverbials in the sense that they refer to speech time, are not particularly frequent; they are mainly confined to parts of the text containing dialogue as in example (10), while in narratives they usually refer to a reference time not necessarily related to speech time as seen in the following example: (13)

Qī Seven Míng

nián, year, nián,

yŭ with fù

Wèi Wei huì

wáng king Juàn.

|| 156 For this definition see Harkness (1987: 81).

huì meet Wèi

Píng'ē Ping'e Huì

nán. south. wáng

zú.

88 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases Next year, again meet Juan. Wei Hui king die. ‘In the seventh year he met with the king of Wei at the south of Ping'e. In the next year they again met at Juan. King Hui of Wei died.’ (SJ: 46; 1894) In this example the reference time is indicated in the first sentence by Tí nián 七年 ‘the seventh year’, an absolute TA mentioning the year.157 The usually deictic míng nián 明 年 ‘next year’ is related to the time referred to by this absolute temporal adverbial and not to speech time. For my purpose, I will reduce the two different categories of dependent adverbials – namely deictic and anaphoric – to the one category of dependent adverbials. They will be analysed within the above presented framework of speech time, situation time and reference time on the one hand, and TA time on the other. Both referential and dependent adverbials frequently – and particularly when appearing in sentence-initial position – establish the framework for the following utterance. They have to be distinguished from non-deictic adverbials usually confined to preverbal position which often serve to modify the semantics of the verb and thus have to be considered as belonging to the class of aspecto-temporal adverbs which are usually realised as genuine adverbs. As the following analysis will show, some of the proper adverbs, which in topic position establish the framework of the following utterance, change their semantics when appearing in preverbal position and rather serve to modify the semantics of the verb. Although the general assumptions on the syntax of temporal expressions in Modern Mandarin are equally applicable to Han period Chinese, the following discussion will show that they nonetheless differ considerably in the details.

5.1.2 Proper adverbs indicating a point of time In a historical narrative such as the Shĭjì, all kinds of temporal adverbials are attested quite frequently, since they are the only means to explicitly locate a situation on the time axis. If a sentence is not marked temporally by any temporal adverbials, the temporal sequence of situations is in general indicated only – without any specification – by their linear order in the sentence as in || 157 Calendar adverbials referring to the year in Ancient Chinese differ to a certain extent from calendar TAs indicating a year e.g. in English, since in Ancient Chinese a year always has to be related to a reign to be complete. But nevertheless they can be regarded as independent TAs.

The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shĭjì | 89

examples (14) and (15) where the situation in the first clause is subordinated to and chronologically precedes the one in the second clause: (14)

(15)

       Kŏngzĭ rù mén, bèi miàn qĭ shŏu Kongzi enter door, north face bow.to.the.ground head ‘After Kongzi entered the door, he bowed to the ground with his head pointing to the north.’ (SJ: 47; 1920)

Wŭ wáng Wu king

jí wèi, Tàigōng approach position, Taigong

Wàng Wang

wéi be

shī, teacher,

Zhōu gōng Dàn wéi fŭ, Zhou duke Dan be minister, ‘After king Wu had taken up his position, the Great.duke Wang became his teacher and the duke of Zhou, Dan, became his minister, …’ (SJ: 4; 120) Examples like these are very frequent, and their temporal interpretation is not problematic, since the general syntactic rule that the modifier always precedes the modified also applies to complex sentences in which the subordinated, the adjunct, clause precedes the matrix clause. But if the situation has to be located on a specific point of the time axis either as absolute or as relative to some other time a temporal adverbial has to be employed and the tense of the verb has to be established according to both the linear sequence of the utterance and the temporal adverbial employed. As already mentioned, in general two different syntactic positions – both to the left of the verb – are available for point of time adverbials, though the different kinds of temporal adverbials are subject to different constraints: e.g. calendar adverbials, realised as more or less complex NPs are usually confined to sentence-initial position, calendar adverbials introduced by yĭ are confined to preverbal position, and bare NP temporal adverbials consisting of a single noun || 158 The linear order of temporal sentences corresponds to Haiman’s (1980, 1985) general assumption that “Other things being equal, the order of clauses in a narrative will correspond to the order of events that they describe.” This temporal sequence of constituents in Chinese has also been discussed by Tai (1985) who established the ‘Principle of Temporal Sequence’ (PTS) for Mandarin Chinese which is supposed to account for the word order principles of the majority of the syntactic categories in Mandarin Chinese.

90 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases or of an NP and proper adverbs can appear in both topic and preverbal positions. For bare nominal adverbials and for proper adverbs a change in their semantics can be involved according to their different positions in the sentence; this argues for their base generation in two different positions, i.e. a) for their analysis as adverbials operating above the TP or maybe as specifiers of T, or b) as aspecto-temporal adverbs immediately modifying the verb, licensed in an Outer Aspect Phrase within the TP. Although proper adverbs can be employed in topic position, they do not obtain the highest position in the sentence. If point of time adverbials (TA) are licensed in the specifier position of the TP, i.e. in T0, as has been assumed in the literature (see section 4.5), their sentenceinitial position would be due to their raising to topic position to provide the frame for the entire proposition. On the other hand it has been assumed in Ernst (2002: 339) that they can be generated anywhere above VP. Additionally, it has been claimed in Cinque (1999: 28) that circumstantial adverbials, to which many of the adverbials at issue in this section belong, are less rigidly ordered with respect to each other than e.g. aspectual adverbs; this would account for their different positions in the sentence. In the following a few representative adverbs will be presented in sentence-initial position and in preverbal position to display the semantic differences involved according to their respective position.

5.1.2.1 Examples for proper adverbs in sentence-initial position a) The adverb chū The first adverb presented is the adverb chū ‘at the beginning’; ‘first’; ‘for the first time’; ‘originally’ (Pulleyblank 1991) for which both positions, the sentence initial and the preverbal positions are available. In sentence-initial position it is labelled as an ‘introductory time word’ with the meaning ‘previously’ in Pulleyblank (1995: 122). In the Shuōwén jiĕzì it is glossed by shĭ ‘begin’; ‘for the first time’ (Pulleyblank 1991). It refers to the time ‘when all began’ and includes the semantic feature [+BEGIN]. According to the Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn (2000) it is categorised as an adverb fùcí in sentence-initial position referring to incidents which happened in the past and have some impact on the following text. In this function it is already well attested in the Zuŏzhuàn where

|| 159 According to the TLS (http://tls.uni-hd.de/: accessed 22.03.2013) it also displays the semantic feature [+PRECEDE].

The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shĭjì | 91

it is regularly employed to introduce a flashback. In the Shĭjì it is one of the most frequently attested temporal adverbials. In sentence initial position it is basically employed in the same way as in the Zuŏzhuàn, most of the time indicating a break in the narrative and referring back to an incident in the past. As the following two examples demonstrate, although chū occupies the topic position to the left of the subject, it does not necessarily obtain the leftmost position in the sentence. (16)

Huì Hui

wáng king

èr two

nián, year,

chū, previously,

Zhuāng Zhuang

wáng king

bì jī favourite lady

Yáo, shēng zĭ Tuí, Tuí yŏu chŏng. Yao, give.birth son Tui, Tui have favour. ‘In the second year of king Hui, previously, King Zhuang favoured lady Yao and she gave birth to a son, Tui, and Tui was favoured.’ (SJ: 4, 151) (17)

Sì shí sān nián. chū, Qí Huán gōng zhī fūrén Four ten three year. previously, Qi Huan duke SUB wife

sān three

yuē Wáng Jī, Xú Jī, Cài Jī, jiē wú zĭ. say Wang Ji, Xu Ji, Cai Ji, all not.have son. ‘In the forty-third year, previously, duke Huan of Qi had three wives (the wives of duke Huan of Qi were three): they were named Wang-Ji, Xu-Ji and Cai-Ji, and they all did not have sons.’ (SJ: 32; 1493) In both examples the reference time is evidently on the one hand established by the date preceding the temporal adverbial chū which on the other hand locates the narrated situation at an unspecific point of time preceding reference time on the time axis. || 160 Pulleyblank gives the following definition (1995: 122): “More frequently, however, it is an introductory time word meaning ‘previously’, used to make a break in a narrative and take the time back to an earlier occasion.” 161 This is a paraphrase from Zuŏzhuàn, Zhuāng 19, the last two clauses are identical. Chavannes comments on the particular structure of this sentence as follows (1967-69: 289) : “Nous trouvons ici pour la première fois une tournure de phrase qui est très fréquente chez Se-ma Ts’ien ; quand il veut raconter un événement, il en cite la date, puis il s’interrompt brusquement pour exposer les faits antécédents qui sont la raison d’être de celui qu’il a en vue.”

92 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases (18) The temporal framework established by the temporal adverbial chū SitT1 = RT = ‘the second year of king Hui’ SitT2 = ‘previously’ SitT1 = RT > SitT2 < SitT2+1 < SitT2+n = SiT1 = RT

SitT2 SitT2

< SitT2+1

:

Reference time SitT1

< SitT2+n =

The date establishes reference time which is identical to SitT1. The flashback starts with chū which refers to SitT2 located to the left of reference time on the time axis and presents a number of successive situation times SitT2+n to the right of SitT2 on the time axis until situation time again coincides with reference time, the date, which is identical to SitT1. In these examples the function of chū to connect situation time with a reference time different from situation time is made explicit, since both points of time are depicted in the sentence. The first point of time indicated in the sentence is represented by the date, appearing in the absolute topic position of the sentence, which establishes the general framework, the reference time, of the sentence. The adverb chū serves to introduce a flashback, a break in the narrative string and in the temporal continuity of the narrative, to relate anterior situations to reference time. These situations in general have some impact on the situations which are located at reference time; the course of the narrative introduced by chū leads back to the point of time indicated by the calendar adverbial (the reference time) where situation time and reference time again coincide. Accordingly, the temporal adverbial chū can be analysed as representing complex TA time, relating two different points of time, i.e. reference time and situation time. Examples like these are almost exclusively attested in the shìjiā chapters in which the history of the major states of Pre-Qin China is at issue, but which also include biographies of important people from this period such as e.g. Confucius, and a few prominent people from the early Han period. The following examples represent the more frequent cases where chū occupies the absolute topic position most to the left of the subject. (19)

Chū,

Gōng

wáng

yŏu

chŏng

zĭ

wŭ

rén,

|| 162 The syntactic structure of calendar adverbials indicating a date will be discussed below.

The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shĭjì | 93

Previously, wú not.have

Gong

king

dí legitimate.heir

have

favourite son

five

man,

lì, establish,

nǎi wàngjì qún shén, qĭng shén jué zhī, then mountain.river.sacrifice all deity, ask deity decide OBJ ‘Once, king Gong had five favourite sons, they could not be established as legitimate heirs, thereupon he performed the sacrifice of the mountains and rivers for all the deities to ask them to decide it …’ (SJ: 40; 1709) In this example in a manner identical to examples (16) and (17) the situation time introduced by chū is different from the reference time established by the preceding narrative. The topic of the preceding narrative is the enthronisation and reign of Píng wáng of Chŭ (?-516 BC), one of the sons of Chŭ Gōng wáng (?-560 BC), who is the subject in the narrative introduced by chū . In the temporal sequence opened by chū the circumstances which led to the enthronisation of Píng wáng are elucidated. At the final point of this sequence situation time and reference time again coincide. Although no concrete and independent point of time is indicated, the temporal structure of this sequence is identical to the one presented in examples (16) and (17). (20)

Chū, Qiān xíng shí bó yú rén, qù Once, Qian go time hundred more man, go

shí ten

sān suì, three year,

Wéi èr rén dé huán only two man can return ‘Once, when Qian set off they were more than hundred men, and after they had been away for thirteen years, only two men were able to return home.’ (SJ: 123; 3159) This example shows the same temporal structure as example (19). The reference point is Zhāng Qiān’s audience at court after his return home. The adverbial chū introduces a short flashback to the time when Zhāng Qiān first travelled to the west serving as background information for the presentation of his experiences to the emperor. || 163 This example also appears in Hànshū: 61; 2689.

94 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases These examples represent the predominant function chū assumes in a historical text such as the Shĭjì. Since chū refers to a complex temporal situation, the inclusion of the context is necessary to interpret completely the temporal function of chū . Without any contextual indications chū , as a simple TA, seems only to refer to a point of time in the distant past. (18’) The temporal structures of these examples can be depicted as follows: SitT1 = RT = established in the preceding narrative SitT2 = ‘previously’ (SitT1 = RT) > SitT2 < SitT2+1 < SitT2+n = SiT1 = RT time established in the SitT2 SitT2

< SitT2+1

< SitT2+n =

preceding narrative Reference time SitT1

b) The adverb shĭ The character shĭ is glossed in Pulleyblank by ‘begin; for the first time’. Identical to the adverb chū , for the adverb shĭ both positions, the sentenceinitial and the preverbal position, are available. In Pulleyblank (1995: 121f) only the adverbial employment in preverbal position with the meaning ‘for the first time, first’ and the employment of shĭ as a nominalised verb (1995: 63f) are  discussed. The Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn (2000) lists different adverbial functions for shĭ : in both the preverbal and the sentence-initial position it can indicate the starting point of a situation corresponding to kāishĭ ‘begin, start, beginning’ in Modern Chinese, or a point of time in the past, corresponding to cóngqián ‘before, formerly, in the past’ and zuìchū ‘initially, at first’. For the remaining functions covered, only the preverbal position is available; these will be discussed below. Whereas the analysis of sentenceinitial shĭ is quite straightforward, that of the different functions of preverbal shĭ is more complicated.

|| 164 But in a different context, Pulleyblank (1995: 56) also presents one example (example 180) for shĭ in sentence-initial position. 165 But the examples they present for the first function actually all have shĭ in preverbal position.

The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shĭjì | 95

Historically, shĭ is attested as a verb, a noun, and in preverbal position, either as an adverb or as a verb. The first instances of sentence-initial shĭ , namely, preceding the subject, appear in the Zuŏzhuàn (Zhuang 1), although they are still quite infrequent in this text. In the Shĭjì it frequently appears in parts of the text containing speech and serves to refer to a point of time in the past, often contrasted to a corresponding point of time at speech time (or any other reference time). (21)

Liè Lie

wáng king

Qín Qin

èr two

Xiàn gōng Xian duke

guó State

hé fit

fù again

hé, fit,

ér CON hé fit

nián, year,

Zhōu Zhou

yuē say

shĭ once

bié, separate, shí ten

qī seven

tài great

shĭ astrologer

Zhōu Zhou

yŭ with

bié separate

wŭ five

suì year

Dān Dan

jiàn meet

Qín Qin bó hundred

zài year

ér CON

bà wáng zhĕ chū yán hegemon king NOM come.out there ‘In the second year of king Lie, the Great-Astrologer of Zhou, Dan, met duke Xian of Qin and said: “Once Zhou was in harmony with the state of Qin, but they separated, after they have been separated for five hundred years, they will achieve harmony again, and after they have been in harmony for seventeen years, the hegemonial king will rise from there.”’ (SJ: 4, 159) In this example, shĭ refers to the initial, i.e. the most remote of several successive points of time starting in the past and leading up to two points of time in

|| 166 The evidence for the earlier functions of shĭ is taken from the Shísānjīng corpus. 167 There are of course instances of shĭ as the first word in a sentence or a clause, but in all these cases it nevertheless immediately precedes the verb and the subject is not present in the surface structure of the sentence.

96 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases the future, whereas in the following examples it refers to a point of time in the past which corresponds to the time of speaking (speech time). (22)

Pèi Pei néng can

gōng duke

yuē say

kuān generous

shĭ once róng; lenient;

Huái Huai

wáng king

qiĕ furthermore

qiǎn send

wŏ, me,

gù certain

yĭ make

rén man

yĭ fú already submit

xiáng, yòu shā zhī, bù xiáng. surrender, also kill OBJ, NEG auspicious. ‘The duke of Pei said: “When once King Huai sent me, he certainly regarded me as being capable of being lenient; furthermore the man has already surrendered, and in addition to that to kill him would not be auspicious.”’ (SJ: 8; 362) (23)

Shĭ dà rén cháng yĭ chén wú Previously great man regularly YI subject not.have bù NEG

néng chí chǎn can order produce

yè, work,

bù NEG

rú be.like

lài, advantage,

Zhòng Zhong

lì. strength.

Jīn Now

mŏu zhī yè suŏ jiù shú yŭ such.and.such SUB work REL achieve which with ? Zhōng duō? Zhong many? ‘“Previously you, sir, always regarded me as being of no use, not able to manage and develop any work and not like Zhong in strength. Now, concerning the works I have accomplished; compared with Zhong’s which are more numerous?”’ (SJ: 8; 387)

|| 168 A detailed note on the chronology of the relation of this prediction with the history of the state of Qin is provided in Chavannes (1967-69: 302). 169 The same sentence appears in Hànshū: 1A, 22. 170 An almost literal quotation of this sentence appears in Hànshū 1B, 66.

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(24)

Jì Ji

zĭ zi

yuē say

bù NEG

rán. be.like.

Shĭ Previously

wú I

xīn heart

yĭ already

xǔ zhī, qĭ yĭ sĭ bèi wú xīn zāi approve OBJ, QUEST YI die turn.the.back I heart SFP ‘Ji zi said: “It is not like this. Previously, I had already approved it in my heart [i.e. acquiesced to giving it to him], how could I, because of his death, turn away from my own heart?”’ (SJ: 31; 1459) The preceding examples represent the most frequent cases of shĭ indicating a point of time in the past in a speech which corresponds to another point of time either at speech time or at any other reference time – including a point of time in the future – as in example (21). But the employment of shĭ in this function is not confined to speeches as the following examples show. Identical to shĭ in speeches, in a narrative it serves to relate a point of time in the past to a corresponding point of time to its right on the time axis. This relation is often overtly marked by means of other temporal adverbials or conjunctions. Usually the starting point – situated in the past – of different successive situation times is indicated by shĭ . (25)

Shĭ Previously cháng always

Liáng Liang

yŭ with

Bù Bu

wáng king yóu. travel.

Péng Peng

Yuè Yue

Qióng Poor

wéi be

jiārén commoner

kùn, distress,

rèn yóng rent hire

shí, time, yú in

Qí, Qi,

wéi jiŭ rén bǎo be wine man protect ‘Once upon a time, when Peng Yue, the king of Liang was still a commoner, he always travelled with Bu. When they were poor and in difficulties, they took jobs as hired labourers in Qin and became labourers for a wine maker.’ (SJ: 100; 2733) (26)

Shĭ Previously,

jī lady

shào young

shí, time,

yŭ with

Guǎn Guan

fūrén, lady,

98 | The syntactic and semantic analysis of temporal adverbials and duration phrases Zhào zĭér xiāng ài, yuē yuē Zhao Zi’er mutually love, consent say: ‘Once, when the lady was young, she and lady Guan and Zhao Zi’er loved each other and they made a promise saying: …’ (SJ: 49; 1971) (27)

Shĭ Once

dà great

chén zhū minister punish

gōng merit

yóu very

dà, great,

Zhūxū Zhuxu

xŭ agree

Lǚ shì Lü family

shí, time,

Zhūxū Zhuxu

jìn yĭ completely YI

Zhào Zhao

dì land

hóu, jìn yĭ marquis, completely YI

hóu. Jí marquis. When

Xiào Xiao

Dōngmóu Dongmou

chū yù lì first wish establish

zhī SUB

Wén Wen

Liáng Liang

dì emperor

dì land

wáng king

lì, establish, Qí Qi

wáng, king,

wén hear

hóu marquis wáng king

Dōngmóu Dongmou Zhūxū Zhuxu,

gù therefore

chù qí gōng demote his success. ‘Once, at the time when the great ministers punished the Lü family, the merits of marquis Zhuxu were extremely great and they agreed to make marquis Zhuxu the king of the entire territory of Zhao, and to make marquis Dongmou king of the entire territory of Liang. As soon as the emperor Xiao Wen was enthroned, he heard that Zhuxu and Dongmou originally had wanted to establish the king of Qi, and therefore he diminished their merits.’ (SJ: 52; 2010) In example (27) and the following example (28) the sentence-initial adverb shĭ corresponds to the temporal conjunction jí . Two different, but successive, points of time, both representing situation time are indicated by the temporal adverbial and the conjunction respectively. Additionally, the second clause in example (27) is temporally marked by the preverbal adverb chū , clearly also indicating a point of time in the past. || 171 The same sentence is attested in Hànshū: 97A; 3943.

The analysis of temporal adverbials (TA) in the Shĭjì | 99

(28)

Shĭ, Previously, shí. picul.

Dào Dao

Jí When

Huì Hui

Dào Dao

wáng king

Huì Hui

dé get

wáng king

zì zhì himself set.up

zú die

ér CON

Āi Ai

èr two wáng king

qiān thousand lì, establish,

Bó yòng shì, zhòng yú Qí xiàng Bo employ affair, important PREP Qi minister ‘Previously, king Dao Hui had established himself in a position paying 2000 piculs. When king Dao Hui died and king Ai was enthroned, Bo was employed on government business and became more important than the prime minister of Qi.’ (SJ: 52; 2004) (29) The temporal framework established by the temporal adverbial shĭ parts of the text containing speech:

in

SitT1 = ‘once’ SiT1+n(n by then, by now, already’” and for jì in Unger (1992:15) who assumes that the character jì serves to represent the perfective form of the verb qì  ‘finish, cease’ and that its function as a general marker of the perfective ‘Perfektivpartikel’ is derived from the perfective form of this verb.

398 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì in the qùshēng, is a quite common procedure according to Jin (2006) and others and has been assumed for a number of adverbs, including the adverbs jì (Unger 1992: 15) and yǐ ; for the latter Jin (2006: 417) lists a reading in the qùshēng from the Guǎngyùn which he claims to be the adverbial reading of the verb yǐ ‘finish’. In the literature the adverbial function of jì is attested earlier than that of yĭ . Both adverbs can appear in subordinate and in matrix clauses, but in later texts, jì in particular is predominantly attested in subordinate clauses; in matrix predicates it is frequently, but not entirely replaced by yĭ . Both adverbs are still regularly attested in the same function in the later Buddhist literature, jì in subordinate clauses occasionally in combination with e.g. the verb yĭ ‘finish, stop, complete’ which probably has to be analysed as a V2 in the assumed structure V1 NPobj V2, and yĭ in matrix clauses and in clausal complements. Identically to a predicate modified by jì , the structure V1 NPobj V2 (V2 = yĭ ) – which is the source structure for the development of the aspectual suffix –le of Modern Mandarin – also usually appears in subordinate clauses and gradually replaces the structure with jì . This can be seen in the following example: (165)

Jì fú cĭ guó Already submit this country

yĭ, Yuèzhī finish, Yuezhi

wáng king

dĕng PL

dŭ firm

xìn Fó fǎ believe Buddha law ‘After he had subjugated this country, the king of the Yuezhi deeply believed in the Buddha’s dharma.’ (Taisho: 51: 2085; 858) Examples of this kind illustrate that the functions of the adverbs jì and yĭ ‘already’ and of the V2 yĭ ‘finish, stop, complete’ in the structure V1 NPobj V2 (and the other predecessors of liǎo ‘finish, complete’ attested in this position, i.e. qì ‘finish, cease’, jìng ‘finish, complete’, and bì ‘finish’ (Jiang 2007, Meisterernst 2011)) cannot be considered completely identical. Nevertheless,

|| 566 It is already frequent in the Shījīng and the Shūjīng. which is already attested in Pre-Classical texts is to 567 The earliest adverbial function of yĭ precede stative ‘adjectival’ verbs in the sense of ‘very, excessively, too’. See Pulleyblank (1995:115) 568 This is the traditional analysis for the structure as proposed e.g. in Mei (1981, 1999), in Jiang (2001, 2007), in Jiang and Cao (2005), and in Meisterernst (2011).

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 399

frequently predicates modified by the aspecto-temporal adverb jì and yĭ have been regarded as functionally comparable to those marked by the verbal suffix -le in Modern Mandarin despite their apparent syntactic differences. This comparison is basically due to the similar etymological sources of jì , yĭ and -le which all belong to the word family ‘finish, complete’and to the semantic similarities of the predicates modified by one of the Classical adverbs jì and yĭ and by the Modern Mandarin suffix –le respectively. An additional argument for the equation of the Classical and the Modern structure is the fact that predicates modified by the aspecto-temporal adverb jì predominantly mark a situation in a subordinate clause as being completed before the next situation starts, which is also one of the predominant functions of predicates marked by the suffix –le in Modern Mandarin. This function is illustrated in the following example (166): (166)

Jì jiàn qí zhù shū, yù guàn qí xíng already see his write book, wish look-at his carry-out shì, gù cì qí zhuàn. affair, therefore compose his memoir. ‘After I had seen their writings I wished to watch how they conducted their affairs and therefore I composed memoirs of them.’570 (SJ: 62; 2136)

In the Chinese linguistic literature, the morphemes jì and yĭ are generally classified as temporal adverbs, which according to the semantics of the verb, namely the different situation types, serve to indicate that an event is completed, that a process has terminated or that a state has come into being. An analysis different from the traditional analyses of jì and yĭ presented above has been provided in a comprehensive study by Lin (1999) who attempts to analyse the different functions of the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ within the || 569 See Pulleyblank (1995:112): “In Modern Mandarin the verbal suffix –le is used to indicate perfectivity, that is, that an event is looked upon as complete or a bounded whole. In the Classical language an equivalent role is played by the preverbal particles jì and yĭ . Modern –le is derived from the verb liǎo ’to finish, dispose of’ and classical perfective adverbs have a similar etymology.” 570 In this example as in many others, a causal analysis besides the temporal-aspectual analysis of the subordinate clause is possible. For a short discussion of this particular structure see Meisterernst (2005: 105, note 19). 571 See particularly Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn (2000) and He Leshi et al. (1985). 

400 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì framework of a grammaticalization theory based on the terminology of Bybee et al. (1994). According to this analysis the main function of jì and yĭ is to indicate the resultative and the anterior, and they never develop into genuine grammatical markers of the perfective aspect due to their syntactic position preceding the verb. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that jì and yĭ are only very rarely employed independently and that in most of the cases they serve to mark a situation which is relevant for the following situation. This is particularly true for jì , but to a certain extent also for yĭ . In Lin’s study the invariable analysis of jì and yĭ as adverbs which has been assumed in many Chinese studies is rejected and it is supposed that they started as grammatical markers derived from verbs (1999: 213f). In the following study, not a possible path of grammaticalization of the two adverbs, but their interplay with the semantics of the verb and their syntactic position as aspecto-temporal adverbs in a synchronic study will be at issue. In the Classical Chinese literature and to a certain extent also in Han period texts, sentences with predicates modified by one of the adverbs jì or yĭ are frequently concluded by the sentence final particle yĭ – which Pulleyblank (1994; 1995) amongst others compares with the sentence final particle le in Modern Mandarin. The basic meaning of le is according to Chao (1968: 691f) to mark a change of state, i.e. that a new situation arises, a classification which also accounts for the Classical sentence final particle yĭ . In a study by Li and Thompson (1981) the general meaning ‘currently relevant state’ is assigned to the sentence final particle le , but in a different study (Li, Thompson, and Thompson 1982) they account for the fact that it can also serve to indicate ‘perfect’, i.e. the relevance of a completed situation for the situation following it. || 572 This analysis is based on the following hypothetical universal path of grammaticalization proposed by Bybee and Dahl (1989): Resultative / Completive > anterior (perfect) > perfective > past. One of the results of Lin’s study is that jì and yĭ are definitely aspectual markers that do not serve to locate a situation in time. 573 For a different assumption, namely that preverbal morphemes can also serve to indicate aspect, see Chappell (1990:32): “In general, Southern Min uses the strategy of preverbal adverbs and auxiliary verbs to encode aspect rather than the use of suffixes or particles following the verb. ... Hence, from a diachronic point of view, the analysis of the Xiamen dialect of Southern Min – ... – may provide an indication of the form of aspectual constructions at an earlier stage.” But this still does not solve the problem caused by the syntactic difference between aspectual suffixes and aspectual adverbs. 574 See also Pulleyblank (1995:116f) for a discussion of the relation of the suffix –le and sentence final le and of yĭ and yĭ . 575 For a new evaluation of sentence-final particles in Moderns Mandarin see Paul (2014).

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The negative marker wèi which has often been contrasted to the aspectotemporal adverb jì (Pulleyblank 1995: 114) is assumed to express a situation that is not (yet) completed. Contrastively to the perfective aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ which correspond to the sentence final particle yĭ in Classical texts, the negative marker wèi corresponds to the sentence final particle yĕ , but not all of the sentences marked by one of these adverbials are closed by a final particle; semantically, this could argue for an analysis of both sentence-final particles each as head of the Outer Aspect Phrase in which the [+/- perfective features] of the predicate are checked. Both the aspecto-temporal adverb jì and the adverbial negative marker wèi can appear in subordinate clauses, indicating the same temporal relation as clauses with the perfective suffix –le and the negative marker méi yŏu in Modern Mandarin. The constraints on the co-occurrence of the preverbal adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative wèi are the same as those of the perfective suffix –le and the negative marker méi (yŏu) ( )in Modern Mandarin. But, contrary to the aspectual suffix –le , in Classical and Han period Chinese a predicate modified by jì and yĭ can occasionally be negated by bù . Negated predicates are in particular attested in causal clauses with the adverb jì , but they are extremely infrequent with jì and yĭ in their function as purely aspectual adverbs. Apparently, the negative bù is confined to stative predicates either with modal auxiliaries (Meisterernst 2005: 105, note 19) or to adjectives as in the following example: (167)

Zhào Zhao dĕng, party,

jūn yĭ bù army already NEG yù with

huán guī return re turn

shèng, be.victorious,

bù NEG

néng can

dé get

Xìn Xin

bì, fortification,

|| 576 See Pulleyblank (1995:114). To support his hypothesis, Pulleyblank proposes the following etymology: wèi seems to be a fusion of the negative root *m- in wú and the adverb jì meaning ‘not already’ > ‘not yet’ or ‘never’. Another reconstruction is the one by Serruys (1969) as a fusion of bù and jì , quoted by Djamouri (1991: 9). A similar semantic dichotomy for yĭ and wèi is noticed in Harbsmeier (1989: 474)as marking an either temporal – ‘already’ versus ‘not yet’ – or a logical – ‘quite’ versus ‘not quite’ – opposition (see also Meisterernst 2005: 74). 577 Examples with the adverb jì have already been discussed in Meisterernst (2005: 105, note 19).

402 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì ‘After the army of Zhao was not victorious and could not catch Xin and the others, they wished to return to their fortifications ...’ (SJ: 95; 2616) The traditionally assumed schema of aspect in Classical and Han period Chinese and the schema of the perfective aspect in Modern Mandarin can – in a very general way – be presented as follows (Meisterernst 2005: 75): Classical and Han period Chinese a) jì / yĭ VP1 (yĭ ), a’) (jì /) yĭ VP (yĭ )

Modern Mandarin VP2 V1 –le , VP2 V1 – le NPquantified object

b) wèi b’) wèi

méi (yŏu) méi (yŏu)

VP1 (yĕ VP1 (yĕ

), VP2 )

( ) VP1, VP2 ( ) VP1

Syntactically, both adverbs – when they appear in preverbal position – are classified as belonging to the closed class of aspecto-temporal adverbs which serve to express different temporal and aspectual notions of the predicate and which enter a close relation with the semantics of the verb. In the hierarchy of adverbs they are positioned between modal adverbs and manner adverbs and according to their syntactic position they evidently have to be generated outside the vP. In general, the employment of these adverbs is not obligatory as is, for instance, the verbal morphology indicating tense, aspect and mood in the IndoEuropean languages. As the following examples will demonstrate, the interpretation of a predicate as being perfective, resultative, in the perfect etc. does not necessarily depend on the employment of the aspecto-temporal adverbs. Accordingly, the adverbs apparently do not serve to distinguish the perfective from the imperfective aspect of a verb in the first place but rather to support or emphasize a particular aspectual reading of the entire VP; an analysis as specifiers of their respective functional heads would account well for this function. Due to their perfective meaning, both adverbs jì and yĭ by default select telic, most typically achievement, verbs as their complement, i.e. verbs that exclusively focus on the final point of a situation such as the verbs dìng ‘es|| 578 The final particle yĭ  can also appear in subordinate clauses though less frequently than in matrix clauses. 579 Jì either on its own or in combination with other morphemes is also attested in sen is also attested in sentence-final tence-initial position as a conjunctional adverb, and yĭ position as a final particle (see e.g. Harbsmeier 1989), but these are excluded from the present study as not belonging to the closed class of aspecto-temporal adverbs which are confined to preverbal position.

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tablish’, miè ‘destroy’, sĭ ‘die’ (and its synonyms), zhì ‘reach, arrive’, dé ‘attain, get’, shā ‘kill’, and many others – i.e. verbs the telicity features of which correspond to the aspectual features of the Outer Aspect Phrase the adverbs are generated in – but they are not confined to them. They can also, though to a lesser extent, select atelic, usually state verbs as their complements, which – when modified by jì or yĭ – frequently but not exclusively attain a telic reading, i.e. an inchoative reading focusing the initial point of a state; i.e. the telicity features of the Inner Aspect Phrase shift due to those of the Outer Aspect Phrase. These are verbs that express a property such as fù ‘rich’, i.e. adjectives, or verbs of knowledge and perception such as zhī ‘know’, verbs of possession, such as yŏu ‘have’, and verbs of posture, such as zài ‘be at’. By way of exception jì and yĭ can also select atelic process (activity) verbs, which focus on the process part of a situation without including its final points as their complement, such as shí ‘eat’, zhàn ‘fight’, or verbs that can be either atelic or telic such as jiàn ‘see’ (atelic), ‘meet’ (telic), xíng ‘go’ (atelic), ‘put in motion’ (telic). All these verbs attain a telic or a resultatative and perfective reading when they are selected by one of the adverbs jì and yĭ . Since predicates with jì and yĭ always refer to a concrete quantified situation, the arguments of the verb are usually definite DPs, i.e. quantified nouns. Many of the telic verbs modified by the adverbs jì and yĭ are verbs that can be employed in either a transitive, i.e. causative, or an intransitive, or passive construction respectively. In a transitive construction the direct object to which the thematic role of the undergoer or theme is assigned is a definite DP identical to the subject of the corresponding intransitive construction. In the linguistic literature these verbs are often labelled as ergative or unaccusative verbs; in the framework of Travis (e.g. 2010: 180) and others, eventive unaccusative verbs are typical achievements, whereas their causative counterparts are usually considered to be accomplishments which include a light verb CAUSE in their temporal structure.

|| 580 Verbs such as zhī ‘know’ belong according to Smith (1997: 33) to the category of private predicates (together with ‘believe that S’, ‘hope that S’, ‘fear that S’) which are statives. But they can change their situation type according to different syntactic environments. 581 The subject of the intransitive construction, the patient, is identical with the object of the corresponding transitive construction, but it is contrasted with the subject of a genuine intransitive verb phrase, which is agentive. See also Cikoski (1978). Wei (2001:143) categorises the subject of the intransitive construction and the object of the transitive construction as the theme, and the subject of the transitive construction as the causer and analyses the transitive construction as a causative construction. This analysis may give some support to the hypothe-

404 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì Since the passive and the ergative interpretation are semantically closely related in Chinese and both forms are not distinguished syntactically, they are sometimes difficult to differentiate. Occasionally, the transitive and the intransitive, and / or the imperfective and the perfective forms of a verb are distinguished morphologically, but for many of these verbs no morphological distinction has been determined. However, due to the fact that a morphological marking of the perfective aspect in a systematic manner cannot be excluded for Ancient Chinese, in the following section some attention will be given to the morphology of the verbs selected by the aspectual adverbs. The basic functions of the adverbs jì and yĭ in the language of the Classical and Han period are: 1. They emphasize a change of state according to their assumed position as specifiers of an Outer Aspect Phrase: a) with telic verbs they emphasize the completion of the event and the final point or the state resulting form the previous event; b) with state verbs they usually emphasize the initial point of the state (inchoative aspect); c) with an atelic, i.e. an activity verb, they change the situation type of the predicate from atelic to telic, and from imperfective to perfective. 2. They emphasise the factual occurrence of an event or a state – frequently with some relevance for the following event. According to the structure provided in Abraham (2008, see section 3.2) jì and yǐ mark the change of state point tm with event verbs; the final point tn (and the entire situation) with activity verbs and and initial change of state point tm with state verbs. a) event: | >>>>>>>>> | …………….| t1 E1 tm E2 tn

b1) activity (| >>>>>>>>> |) or b2) state | ~~~~~~~~~~| tm E tn tm E tn

|| sis that the adverbial use of jì of the respective verbs. 582 See note 127.

and yĭ may have developed from a causative employment

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 405

Similar functions have been assumed for verbs marked by the aspectual suffix – le expressing the perfective aspect. One of the main functions of the perfective aspect in Modern Mandarin is to mark the sequential ordering of situations, but it also serves to mark verbs with quantified objects which refer to a situation in the past. According to the situation type of the verb, the focus of the perfective suffix can change, for instance with state verbs, which receive an inchoative reading in combination with the perfective suffix –le .

6.5.1 The aspecto-temporal adverb jì In the Chinese linguistic literature, jì is usually labelled as either an adverb or a conjunction. In general two different adverbial functions are distinguished: The first is confined to preverbal position and indicates that a situation has already come into being (chūxiàn ) or has already been finished (wánjié ) (e.g. Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn 2000: 275; Wang et al. (1996: 160). This is the function at issue in this discussion. Different kinds of situations are listed which can be modified by jì , but the situations are not explicitly distinguished according to their telicity or boundedness. In its second adverbial function, jì is also licensed in sentence-initial position and serves to introduce a second situation which is closely connected temporally to and quickly following on the preceding situation (Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn 2000: 275; Wang et al. (1996: 160). In this function jì has rather to be analysed as a sentential adverb or a conjunction than as a temporal adverb; both sentential adverbs and conjunctions are licensed in a position different from that of aspecto-temporal adverbs and are not confined to preverbal position. Besides these two adverbial functions, jì is labelled as a conjunction which is attested in different combinations with other adverbs or conjunctions in the literature, e.g. as a temporal conjunction and as a causal conjunction (e.g. Unger 1997: 106f; 123). It can appear in combination with yòu : jì … yòu ‘not only …, but also …’, ‘on the one hand …, on the other hand …’ (e.g. Unger 1997: 9, Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn 2000: 280), and – || 583 The Chinese linguistic literature traditionally distinguishes between adverbs and conjunctions (e.g. Zhou 1961), and the category conjunction is already listed as a separate category in the Mǎshì wéntōng (see Lü and Wang 2000), but it has to be conceded that so far no comprehensive analyses have led to any criteria for a reliable distinction of the two different categories. In general, conjunctions, or conjunctional adverbs rather seem to belong to the category of sentential adverbs which appear in a higher position in the sentence than e.g. aspectotemporal adverbs and they are not confined to preverbal position, but are also licensed in sentence-initial position.

406 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì in the same function – also in combination with yì : jì … , yì … ‘not only …, but also …’ (Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn 2000: 280), or with qiĕ (Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn 2000: 278), or fù (Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn 2000: 277). If jì appears in a subordinate temporal clause, as a so-called temporal conjunction, the matrix clause can be marked by a corresponding temporal conjunction such as nǎi (Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn 2000: 278). The causal function assumed in the literature is closely connected to the temporal functions. But many of the conjunctional functions of jì listed in the Chinese linguistic literature can – as long as jì appears in preverbal position – be attributed to its basic function of an aspecto-temporal adverb indicating completion and are treated accordingly in the following discussion. In the Shĭjì jì is predominantly attested in subordinate clauses, but it is not confined to them, in contrast to the later Buddhist literature where it seems to be exclusively attested in subordinate clauses (Meisterernst 2011) and where it is gradually replaced by the structure V1 NPobj V2. However, it is still productive in these texts and attested with verbs of the same situation types as in Han period Chinese. In the following discussion, examples for the aspecto-temporal adverb jì in combination with verbs of the different situation types will be presented. a)

The aspecto-temporal adverb jì

with telic verbs

As already stated above, the aspecto-temporal adverb jì by default selects telic, mainly achievement verbs, as its complement. These can be a) genuine intransitive – unaccusative – verbs with a theme subject, verbs such as ‘die’, etc., these are true achievements according to the frameword adopted in Travis (2010) and others; or b) transitive verbs with an agentive and / or a causative subject and a theme object, these are considered to be accomplishments in Travis’s framework, unless they appear in an intransitive, i.e. an unaccusative or passive construction with the role of theme assigned to the subject, then again, they are considered to be true achievements. However, telic transitive verbs with an agentive subject which only focus on the final change of state point are labelled as achievements in other frameworks (e.g. in Smith 1997). Those achievements which refer to a resultant state differ from genuine states in their telicity features: resultant state achievements are [+ telic] and genuine

|| 584 This list is not exhaustive, more combinations are provided e.g. in the Gŭdài Hànyŭ cídiǎn (2000: 276f). 585 This is at least true for the early Buddhist texts, the Miàofǎ liánhuā jīng and the Gāosēng Fǎxiǎn zhuàn which both date from the beginning of the 5th century.

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states are [- telic]. The examples will be presented according to their transitivity features and to the thematic roles assigned to the object and the subject respectively; additionally, some attention will be paid to the morphology of the verbs selected by jì which are expected to show traces of the former affixes indicating notions related to perfectivity. In the following examples (168) – (174), different telic verbs modified by jì are attested in transitive constructions, i.e. with an agentive subject and a theme object. In the first clause of example (168), a subordinate temporal clause, the verb dìng ‘establish, set up’ in a transitive construction is modified by jì and in the second clause the unaccusative verb bēng ‘pass away’ is modified by yĭ . Due to its morphology the verb dìng (*diŋ-s (Jin 2006: 181, 326)) is analysed in Jin as referring to a resultant state, an adjective, derived from a corresponding verb by affixation of the *-s suffix. According to this analysis, in example (168) dìng would appear in a causative construction. This example shows the different distributions typical for the two nearly synonymous aspecto-temporal adverbs. Only the second clause is terminated by the final particle yĭ . (168)

 Bó jì dìng Yān Bo already establish Yan

ér CON

guī, return,

... Gāozŭ yĭ bēng yĭ Gaozu already pass.away FIN ‘When Bo had pacified Yan and returned, Gao zu had already passed away, ...’ (SJ: 57; 2071) In examples (169) and (170) the second clause of the complex temporal sentence is not additionally marked, the verbs modified by jì are lŭ ‘capture, imprison’, with an agentive subject, and bìng ‘unify’. In example (170) the aspecto-temporal adverb does not only have scope over the immediately following verb bìng ‘unify’, but also over the second verb dì ‘become emperor’, in an inchoative reading. Both verbs are connected by ér which marks the subordinate relation between V1 (subordinate) and V2 (matrix). (169)

Jì

lŭ

Bǎilĭ

Xí,

yĭ

wéi

Qín

Mù

gōng

fūrén

|| 586 For the telic reading of the verb bìng which is the appropriate reading in this example Jin (2006: 93) assumes a reading in the píngshēng.

408 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì Already capture Baili

Xi,

take

make Qin

Mu

gong

wife

yìng yú Qín attendant.for.bride in Qin ‘After he had captured Baili Xi, he made him one of the attendants accompanying the bride of duke Mu of Qin in Qin.’ (SJ: 5; 186) (170)

Qín Shĭ Qin First

huáng Emperor

jì bìng already unify

tiānxià empire

ér CON

dì, emperor,

huò yuē: someone say: ‘After the First Emperor of Qin had unified the empire and become emperor, someone said: …’ (SJ: 28; 1366) In examples (171) and (172) the telic verbs zhì ‘reach, arrive at’ and wáng bēn ‘flee into exile’ are followed by a direct locative object; both verbs have agentive subjects, the verb zhì focusses exclusively on the change of state point, whereas a process part can be included in the predicate wáng bēn . In example (172) an additional temporal marker, a sentence-initial temporal adverbial, appears to locate the situation explicitly on the time axis. The clause following the jì clause is marked as a causal clause, but both clauses are not closely related, and the jì clause is more independent than in the preceding examples. (171)

Jì Already

zhì arrive

Gān Sweet

quán, Spring,

wèi therefore

qiĕ FUT

yòng use

shì affair

Tàishān, xiān lèisí Tài Yī Taishan, first sacrifice Great One ‘After he had arrived at the Palace of the Sweet Springs, he therefore was on the point of preparing the sacrifices for the Taishan, but first he gave special offerings to the Great One.’ (SJ: 28; 1396587)

|| 587 The same instance also appears in Hànshū: 25A; 1233.

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(172)

Jiŭ nián, Jìn qún Nine year, Jin all

gōng zĭ jì wáng bēn Guó, duke son already go.into.exile flee Guo,

Guó yĭ qí gù zài fá Jìn, fú kè Guo with that reason again attack Jin, NEG conquer ‘In the ninth year, all the Noble Scions of Jin had already fled into exile to Guo, and Guo therefore attacked Jin, but did not conquer it.’ (SJ: 39; 1641) In example (173) the aspecto-temporal adverb jì modifies the transitive telic verb qiú ‘imprison’ in an independent sentence whereas in example (174) it modifies the two successive verbs qŭ ‘take’ and zòu ‘offer, present’ in a dependent temporal clause; all verbs have an agentive subject. In none of the examples presented here is the jì clause followed by the final particle yĭ . (173)

(174)

. Tiānzĭ yì jì qiú Yǎn Emperor so already imprison Yan ‘And so the emperor had already imprisoned Yan.’ (SJ: 52; 2008)

Kē Ke

jì qŭ tú already take map

zòu zhī, present OBJ,

Qín Qin

wáng king

fā open

tú, map,

tú qióng ér bĭshŏu xiàn map exhaust CON dagger appear ‘After Ke had taken the map and presented it, the king of Qin unrolled the map, and when the map was completely open the dagger appeared.’ (SJ: 86; 2534) In all preceding examples jì expresses completion, i.e. it indicates that the final, the change of state point which is focussed by the verb has been attained. After this change of state point has been attained a resultant state obtains. According to the semantic relation between the verb and its object, the object can || 588 According to Jin (2006: 394), the two verbs qǔ and zòu are related to each other in an agentive – thematic relationship, qǔ belongs to the agentive verbs (shīshì dòngcí ) with an *-ɦ-suffix, and zòu , as a verb with an *-s-suffix belongs to the verbs with a theme subject (shòushì dòngcí ), i.e. in example (174) it appears in a causative construction.

410 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì be affected and changed, as e.g. with change of state verbs in VOs such as dìng Yān ‘settle Yan’ where the theme, the object, changes from being unsettled to being settled, or it can be unchanged as with motion-to-a-goal verbs in VOs such as zhì Gānquán ‘arrive at the Palace of the Sweet Springs’. In the following examples, jì modifies the same kind of verbs as in the transitive constructions in examples (168) – (174), i.e. verbs with their theme (internal) argument in object position, but in these examples, the internal argument appears as the syntactic subject of the sentence. As already mentioned these constructions in Classical Chinese are analysed either as unmarked passive constructions or as ergative or unaccusative constructions in the linguistic literature; they refer to a resultant state obtained after a change of state; they lack the subevent CAUSE and only consist of the subevent BECOME (Travis 2010: 103f) and the telicity features of a dynamic event. The verb lì ‘enthrone, establish’ in example (175) typically appears in this construction. In Jin’s (2006: 324) reconstruction the verb lì (*reb) does not have a qùshēng reading, i.e. an *-s-suffix; however, according to the commentary literature he assumes that the corresponding derived word in the qùshēng reading is represented by the character wèi which usually writes the noun related to lì ; both characters could be employed interchangeably. In the following examples, a reading based on an aspectual morpheme *-s, which, among other functions, indicated the resultant state and maybe the perfective aspect, would be the appropriate reading. (175)

Yān Kuài jì lì, Qí rén shā Sū Qín. Yan Kuai already enthrone, Qi man kill Su Qin. ‘After Kuai of Yan had been enthroned, the men of Qi killed Su Qin.’ (SJ: 34; 1555)

In example (176) the verb zàng ‘bury’ (*tjaŋ-s (Jin 2006: 510)), according to Jin (2006: 359) a qùshēng derivation of the verb cáng (*djaŋ) , is modified by jì in a subordinate clause, which is followed by a second subordinate clause, negated by the aspectual negative marker wèi ‘not yet’ which will be discussed below.

|| 589 Tenny (1994) argues for a unification of three “canonical types of accomplishment and achievement verbs: change of state verbs, incremental theme verbs, and verbs of motion-to-agoal …” (Cf. Tenny and Pustejovsky 2000: 14). Tenny and Pustejovsky (ibidem) concede that there remains the question whether these verbs “are always causative in the same way”.

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(176)

Jiǎn zĭ Jian zi

jì zàng, wèi already bury, NEGasp

chú remove

fú, mourning.clothes,

bò dēng Xiàwū, qĭng Dài wáng north ascend Xiawu, invite Dai king ‘After Jian zi was already buried, but one had not removed the mourning clothes yet, he (Xiang zi) ascended mount Xiawu in the north and invited the king of Dai.’ (SJ: 43; 1793) In example (177) the prototypical achievement verb chéng ‘complete’, which is the matrix predicate, is modified by jì ; in the second clause, the aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ appears in the same syntactic function. In both predicates the aspecto-temporal adverbs correspond to the final particle yĭ . Whereas in examples (175) and (176) the subject shows the semantic feature [+ human], it does not have this in example (177). All predicates in this construction refer to resultant states whether marked by an aspecto-temporal adverb or not, and the adverb jì emphasizes the attainment of this resultant state and – at least in most instances – its relevance for the subsequent situations. (177)

Zĭ You

zhī wèi SUB for

Zhì Zhi

bó, míng jì chéng earl, name already complete

yĭ, ér FIN, CON

guǎ rén shè zĭ, yì yĭ zú yĭ. lonely man pardon you, also already enough FIN. ‘Regarding [the way] you [acted] on behalf of earl Zhi, you already made yourself a name [for it] (lit: your name for it has been completed), and when I pardoned you, that was also already enough.’ (SJ: 86; 2521591) The following two examples represent one of the most typical achievement verbs modified by one of the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì or yĭ (or the combination of both), the verb zú ‘die, pass away’. Verbs of this word family || 590 In Jin (2006: 181) a commentary which glosses chéng by dìng is quoted. 591 A variant of this instance is attested in Zhànguó cè: 204B/106/24, the jì clause is identical. 592 The verb zú (*ɦ-tjud, Jin 2006: 98) had a [+ vioce] initial in Ancient Chinese; a voiced initial is one of the morphological markers of the resultant state of a verb (see Jin 2006: 89).

412 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì are genuine intransitive verbs with a theme subject. Both the change of state point as in example (179) and the resultant state as in example (178) can be emphasized by jì with the result that the situation type of the predicate is atelic. In example (178) the resultant state is explicitly measured for its duration by a postverbal duration phrase. In example (179) the adverb qián immediately precedes the verb, and has accordingly to be analysed as a manner adverb. The combination of the two aspecto-temporal adverbs yǐ and jì modifies a matrix predicate which is followed by the sentence final particle yĭ . If the adverb jì appears in combination with the adverb yǐ it is difficult to determine whether the two adverbs have to be analysed as a compound, i.e. as one aspectual adverb located in the Outer Aspect Phrase, or whether two different functional projections in the domain of the Outer Aspect have to be assumed, each hosting their respective adverb. (178)

Sīmǎ Xiāngrú Sima Xiangru

jì zú already pass-away

wŭ suì, tiān five year, heaven

zĭ son

shĭ jì Hòu tŭ BEG sacrifice Vener able earth ‘Sima Xiangru was already dead for five years when the Son of Heaven started to sacrifice to the Lord of the Earth.’ (SJ: 117; 3072593) (179)

      Bó Yìkǎo jì yĭ qián zú yĭ Bo Yikǎo already already before die FIN ‘Bo Yikao had already died before then.’ (SJ: 35; 1563)

The following examples also represent genuine intransitive verbs; but contrastively to the preceding examples the subject is agentive. Intransitive telic verbs with an agentive subject are most typically motion-to-a-goal verbs since these verbs in Classical and Han period Chinese do not necessarily require an open locative object or a directional complement to have a telic reading. In example (180) the verb qù ‘leave’ is modified by jì , the verb of the subsequent clause is modified by the aspectual negative marker wèi ‘not yet’; two different readings for the verb have been assumed, a shàngshēng reading qǔ (*khȪə̆’) || 593 A slightly altered parallel of this instance appears in Hànshū: 57B; 2609. The same example has already been presented in chapter 5.2, example (54).

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which represents a causative meaning, and a qùshēng reading qù (*khȪə̆h) (Pulleyblank 1991: 261, but see also Unger 1989: 53). The first situation is depicted as completed, the change of state has been attained and the second situation is depicted as non-completed, but its completion is still expected. (180)

Dùn jì qù, Líng gōng fú Dun already leave, Ling duke ambush

shì wèi officer NEGasp

huì, gather,

xiān zòng niè gŏu míng Ào first release guard dog name Ao ‘Dun had already left and duke Ling’ officers [in charge] of the ambush had not gathered yet, so he first let loose guard dogs which were called Ao.’ (SJ: 39; 1674) In example (181), the aspecto-temporal adverb chū follows the adverb jì focussing the initial point of the situation. If this analysis were correct, it would argue for the existence of two different aspectual heads in the domain of the Outer Aspect, one hosting jì and the second one hosting chū . As has been stated above, with achievement verbs chū can either emphasize the initial point of a resultant state, or it can activate the usually invisible process part of a situation. This is evidently the case in example (182), since jì not only focusses on the final change of state point (which at the same time is the initial point of the resultant state), but also, with state verbs, on the initial change of state point and can thus, identically to chū , emphasize an inchoative reading of the predicate. If jì co-occurs with another aspecto-temporal adverb, such as yĭ or chū , jì always precedes this adverb. (181)

Hàn jì chū Han already BEG

xīng, jìsì rise, succession

bù NEG

míng, yìng clear, welcome

wáng jiànzuò, tiānxià guī xīn king obtain.royal.position, empire trust heart ‘When Han had just risen, the succession was not clear, but when the king obtained his royal position, the empire trusted itself to him.’ (SJ: 130; 3303) In example (182) the verb xíng ‘go, walk’, ‘set off’ is modified by jì . Syntactic tests applied to verbs such as xíng reveal that although they can attain an

414 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì event (telic) reading ‘put in motion, set off’, they apparently differ syntactically from genuine event verbs. This leads to the assumption that their basic lexical aspect is not event. In general, it seems to be the case that, although a singular verb or verb phrase can assume different situation type readings according to its syntactic environment, it obviously is characterised by a set of basic semantic features assigned to it – including the situation type of the verb – which determines the syntactic and semantic constraints it is subjected to. Accordingly, a possible shift of the situation type of the verb does not seem to concern the semantics of the verb as such but rather the semantics of the entire predicate. This fits well with the assumption of Verkuyl (2002: 205ff) that the lexical value of the verb stays constant, and that it is the semantic nature of the complements which changes the situation type of the verb. In the following example modified by jì , xíng evidently attains a telic, achievement, reading focussing on the change of state point ‘set off’. (182)

Lángyá Langya

wáng king

jì xíng, Qí already set.off, Qi

suì then

jŭ bīng xī raise troops west

gōng Lǚ guó zhī Jĭnán attack Lü state SUB Ji’nan ‘After the king of Langya596 had set off, Qi thereupon raised troops and in the west attacked Ji’nan of the state Lü.’ (SJ: 52; 2002597) b) The aspecto temporal adverb jì atelic predicates

with genuine atelic verbs and derived

|| 594 These two different readings appear in Pulleyblank (1991) under one lexical entry: besides the activity reading ‘to walk, to go’ an event reading ‘to put in motion’ is added which certainly accounts for cases such as the one presented in example (183). Additional to the different verbal readings, a qùshēng variant xìng exists, writing a noun derived from the verb xíng ; the two variants are reconstructed in (Jin 2006: 505) as *glan and *glan-s. 595 This can be evidenced e.g. by the fact that duration phrases in predicates with an activity verb such as xíng can only refer to situational duration, never to resultant state duration: This is the typical employment of duration phrases with activity verbs. With achievement verbs, the duration phrase can only refer to resultant state duration (see Meisterernst 2013a). 596 Both Watson (1993, I: 351) and Nienhauser (2006: 120, 123) read Langya. The Shĭjì cídiǎn (1994: 451) does not provide any reading for the name. 597 The same instance is also attested in Hànshū: 38: 1994.

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The aspecto-temporal adverb jì also selects state verbs and very occasionally even activity verbs as its complement. The fact that it modifies state verbs is not surprising, since it regularly emphasizes not only the final change of state point of an achievement, but equally the initial point of a resultant state. And, in analogy to the initial point of a resultant state, jì can also serve to emphasize the initial point of a genuine state, thus giving the state verb an inchoative reading and shifting the situation type of the entire predicate from atelic to telic. However, although frequently a shift of situation type is induced by jì , this is not obligatorily the case, and jì can emphasize both the initial point, the coming about, of a state, and also the state itself, although with jì the initial bound of the state is always implied. The state verbs attested with jì are mainly verbs of posture, adjectives, and verbs of knowledge and perception. Jì is confined to verbs that allow a change of state reading in their semantic structure, i.e. it is confined to stage level predicates, individual level predicates cannot be modified by jì . Additionally to genuine state predicates, jì can also modify derived states, i.e. telic verbs which appear in the negative or which are modified by modal auxiliary verbs inducing a shift of situation type. In the rare instances of an activity verb modified by jì the arbitrary final point of the activity is activated and the situation is viewed in its entirety from an external perspective. In the first two examples of this section (183) and (184) jì modifies the state verbs zài ‘be-in/at’ and jū ‘stay, live, dwell’ respectively. In both examples jì is attested in a subordinate temporal clause and corresponds to the temporal conjunction nǎi ‘then, thereupon’, indicating posteriority with regard to reference time in the second clause. In example (184) the duration of the state is explicitly indicated by a postverbal duration phrase. Although in both examples evidently a stative situation is emphasized, the initial bound of the state is always implied with the adverb jì . Additionally, the adverb serves to emphasize the relevance of the anterior for the posterior situation. (183)

Yuè Jiān jì zài Zhào, nǎi wèi Yuè Jiān shū yuē Yue Jian already be.in Zhao, then send Yue Jian letter say ‘After Yue Jian was already in Zhao, he sent a letter to Yue Jian saying: ...’ (SJ: 80; 2435)

|| 598 This terminology was introduced by Carlson 1977 (cf. Tenny and Pustejovsky 2000: 19): stage level predicates represent a temporary and transitory quality, whereas individual level predicates represent more permanent qualities.

416 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì (184)

Zhōu Zhou

Xiāng wáng Xiang king

jì jū wài already stay outside

sì nián, nǎi shĭ four year, then send

shì gào jí yú Jìn envoy report plight at Jin ‘After king Xiang of Zhou had already stayed abroad for four years, he sent an envoy to report his plight to Jin.’ (SJ: 110; 2882599) In the following two examples jì modifies state verbs expressing a property, i.e. adjectives. These are the verbs duō ‘many, numerous’ and shàn ‘good’; the latter appears in a transitive construction. Only adjectives which permit a change of state reading can be modified by jì . In both examples jì modifies the verb in a subordinate clause, in example (185) the second, the matrix clause is introduced by the connecting conjunction ér , in example (186) it is unmarked. Although in example (186) the sentence evidently expresses a causal relation, the aspecto-temporal adverb still emphasizes the attainment of the state ‘be on good terms’. According to the telic or atelic reading of the verb shàn ‘good’ the entire predicate refers to a situation in the past with some relevance for the present (perfect) or to a situation in the present, at speech time. (185)

Qián jì duō, money already numerous,

ér CON

líng tiānxià fēi order empire unless ... sān guān qián bù dé xíng three office money NEG can go ‘But the money had already become plentiful / was already plentiful and an order was issued that unless it was money from the three offices it was not allowed to be put in circulation ...’ (SJ: 30; 1435601)

(186) || 599 The same instance is also attested in Hànshū: 94A; 3746. 600 The verb shàn originally had a shàngshēng (*g-dan-ɦ (Jin 2006: 499)) reading in its intransitive variant ‘be good’, and only the causative variant ‘make good, repair’ (Pulleyblank 1991: 275f) had a qùshēng (*g-dan-s (Jin, ibidem)) reading. In example (186) the verb, although transitive, does not seem to be causative. 601 This instance is also attested in Hànshū: 24B; 1169.

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Jìn Qĭng gōng Jin Qing duke

yuē say

tàizĭ crown.prince

jì shàn already good

Zhèng, Zheng,

Zhèng xìn tàizĭ Zheng trust crown.prince ‘Duke Qing of Jin said: “Since the crown prince has already achieved / is already on good terms with Zheng, Zheng will trust him.”’ (SJ: 66; 2173) In example (187) and (188) jì modifies the verbs of knowledge and perception zhī ‘know’ and wén ‘hear’. Both verbs can have a telic and an atelic reading. In example (187) the state of ‘knowing’ is emphasized, and accordingly the verb appears in its atelic reading, but the initial bounding of the state is included in the aspecto-temporal structure of the predicate by the employment of the adverb jì . In example (188), the verb wén ‘hear’ appears in its causative and accordingly telic reading ‘make hear’, which is focussed on by the employment of the aspecto-temporal adverbial. In both examples jì can be considered to be modifying a matrix predicate, but in (187) the two successive matrix predicates can be analysed as indicating the cause for the situation expressed in the last clause introduced by shì ‘this’. In example (188) the matrix predicate is concluded by the final particle yĭ and the state verb jiŭ ‘long’ in the subordinate clause is modified by the aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ discussed in the following section. This example demonstrates that, although jì predominantly appears in subordinate clauses and yĭ frequently appears in independent clauses, this employment is not obligatory, not even if both adverbs are combined in a complex temporal sentence. However, for example (188) it has to be conceded that this instance is attested in the Lĭjì and may display a more archaic structure. (187)

Wŭ dì Five hegemon shuō,

wú

sān dài zhī shì, bǎi jiā zhī three dynasty SUB affair, hundred house SUB jì

zhī

zhī,

zhòng

kŏu

zhī

biàn,

|| 602 In Tenny and Pustejovsky (2000: 15) it was noted that verbs such as know, and also e.g. love, which have a volitional or agentive ingredient, have traditionally been regarded as statives, but that it was argued by Ter Meulen (1991) (cf. Tenny & Pustejovsky) that genuine stative verbs do not involve agentivity or (according to Comrie 1976: 49) do not require the input of energy.

418 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì doctrine, I wú I

jiē all

already know OBJ, all

cuí zhī, break OBJ,

shì wū néng this how can

mouth kùn distress

SUB

wŏ I

dispute,

ér CON

duó wŏ wèi hú steal I position FIN ‘The affairs of the Five hegemons and the Three dynasties, and the doctrines of the Hundred schools, I already know them [well], the arguments of many voices, I have completely refuted them, so how could someone distress me and steal my position?’ (SJ: 79; 2419) (188)

Fú Wŭ zhī PT Wu SUB

bèijiè preparation

zhī SUB

yĭ jiŭ, already long,

zé jì wèn mìng yĭ. then already make.hear instruction FIN. ‘Since the preparations for the Wu music have already taken long, I have made you listen to my words.’ (SJ: 24; 1228603) Example (189) represents one of the infrequent examples of jì modifying a genuine activity verb. As has already been stated in the introductory section, activities have an arbitrary final point, they can stop but they do not finish (Smith: 1997: 23). An activity can change into a telic situation by adding a definite and quantified internal argument as in Vendler’s (1967) famous example ‘run’ (activity) versus ‘run a mile’ (accomplishment), but this is not the case in the following example, since the verb is employed intransitively. In this example the arbitrary endpoint of the situation is emphasized and not the process part, which – in unmarked predicates – is the only visible part of the temporal structure of the verb. The situation is viewed in its entirety from a perfective viewpoint. || 603 The same instance is attested in Lĭ jì: Yuè (Shísānjīng zhùshū: 1542 ) and in Kŏngzĭ jiāyŭ: 35.3/61/14. 604 For some of these verbs (e.g. write, eat, drink, etc.) the term Incremental Theme Verb has been devised. These verbs “relate proper parts of the object denoted by the Incremental Theme argument and the proper parts of the event to each other in a one-to-one fashion. … the semantic representation of write a letter would express that every proper part of writing corresponds to exactly one proper part of a letter, and vice versa.” (Filip 2000: 55).

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 419

(189)

Bù rú sī xŭ NEG be.like privately agree zhī, zhí OBJ, seize

Yuān Yuan

Cáo, Cao,

Wèi Wei

Chūn yĭ Chun in.order.to

yĭ yòu in.order.to seduce

nù Chŭ, annoy Chu,

jì zhàn ér hòu tú zhī already fight CON after plan OBJ ‘Would it not be better to privately consent to Cao and Wei in order to seduce them and to seize Yuan Chun in order to annoy Chu; and after we have fought the battle we can consider this.’ (SJ: 39; 1665605) Whereas all the preceding examples represent verbs which have a genuine atelic reading, either as their only reading when unmarked or as one of two different readings, the following examples represent derived stative predicates, i.e. telic verbs which in combination with modal auxiliary verbs as in example (190) or with negative markers as in example (191) shift to stative predicates. In example (190) the modal verb néng ‘able to’ is modified by the aspectual adverb jì , an YI-phrase appears between the aspecto-temporal adverb and the verb. This is the default position for the YI-phrase in relation to aspectual adverbs. In example (191) the achievement verb dé is negated and the entire predicate has thus become stative. In both examples, jì modifies the verb of a subordinate clause; in example (191) the matrix clause is marked by the aspectotemporal adverb jiāng indicating future and – in this example – also volition. A causal reading is also possible in example (191) as is often the case in the few examples with jì modifying a negated predicate. As in the preceding examples, the initial bounding of the state the predicate refers to is emphasized by the employment of the adverb jì . (190)

Kāng shú Kang shu

zhī go

guó, jì yĭ state, already with

jí qí mín, mín dà gather his people, people grate

cĭ mìng, néng hé this mandate can pacify

yuè. happy.

|| 605 This instance is almost identically attested in Zuŏzhuàn, Xī 5 (Shísānjīng zhùshū: 1825 and in Guóyŭ: 10/16a/275.

)

420 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì ‘Kang shu went to the state, and after he had been able to pacify and settle his people with this mandate, the people were very happy.’ (SJ: 37; 1590) (191)

Kŏng Kong

zĭ zi

jì bù already NEG

dé can

yòng yú employ in

Wèi, Wei,

jiāng xī jiàn Zhào Jiǎn zĭ FUT west meet Zhao Jian zi ‘After Kong zi was not able to find employment in Wei, he wanted to travel west to meet Zhao Jian zi.’ (SJ: 47; 1926)

6.5.2 The aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ In contrast to jì for which several different but semantically related functions have been assumed in the linguistic literature, yĭ in preverbal position is exclusively labelled as an adverb, either as an aspecto-temporal or – in combination with adjectives, particularly with shèn ‘extreme’ – a gradual adverb expressing excessiveness. Additionally, but unrelated to this adverbial function, it is attested as a conjunction, as a graphic variant of yĭ ‘and’, appearing in constructions with locative nouns or verbs of motion, such as yĭ shàng ( ) , yĭ lái ( ) , etc. indicating the range of the situations expressed by the predicate, and as a final particle (e.g. Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn 2000: 710, Wang et al. 1996: 411). As an adverb it selects the same kind of verbs as its complement as jì , but in contrast to jì it can additionally modify noun phrase predicates, in particular numeral noun phrases. It is – depending on the semantics of the verb – characterised as expressing the factual occurrence of a situation (rúcĭ ), or the completion of a situation, i.e. that a situation already has been carried out (jìnxíng ) (Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn 2000: 711). In the Shĭjì the aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ is equally attested in independent sentences and in subordinate temporal clauses. Contrastively to jì , predicates with the adverb yĭ , the predecessor of Modern Mandarin yĭjīng ‘already’, do not show any tendency to be replaced in Buddhist texts by the newly developing structure V1 NPobj V2,; the adverb is productively employed in different kinds of independent clauses. Besides the adverb yĭ , frequently a combination of yĭ with the connector ér is attested. In this phrase yĭ certainly has originally functioned as a subordinate verb ‘finish’ which has been connected to the fol-

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 421

lowing matrix predicate by ér ‘finishing it and …’, but in the Shĭjì this phrase is evidently already fully grammaticalised to a conjunction ‘afterwards.’ a) The aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ

with telic verbs

Identically to jì the adverb yĭ by default selects telic events as its complement. The same verbs that are attested with jì are also attested with yĭ . Again, the examples will be discussed according to their transitivity and to the thematic role assigned to the object and the subject respectively. First transitive verbs with agentive subjects and theme (or undergoer) objects will be presented. In example (192) the verb kè ‘conquer’ and in example (193) the verb shā ‘kill’, both typical achievement verbs are modified by yĭ in independent sentences or clauses. In example (193) the relation between the different clauses is rather coordinative than subordinative. (192)

Wŭ wáng Wu king

yĭ kè Yīn, hòu already conquer Yin, after

èr nián, two year,

wèn Jī zĭ Yīn suŏyĭ wáng. ask Ji zi Yin why perish. ‘King Wu had already conquered Yin, when, two years later, he asked Ji zi why Yin had perished.’ (SJ: 4; 131) (193)

Xiàng Yŭ yĭ shā Xiang Yu already kill

qīngzĭ guānjūn, honourable general,

wēi zhèn might shake

Chŭ guó, míng wèn zhū-hóu. Chu state, name make.hear feudal-lord. ‘Xiang Yu had already killed the Honourable General, his might made the state Chu tremble and his reputation spread to the feudal lords.’ (SJ: 7; 307) In example (194) the verb pò ‘destroy’ which is modified by yĭ appears in a clausal complement of the verb wén ‘hear’. Contrastively to jì which is – at least with the verbs wén ‘hear’, zhī ‘know’, and yĭ wéi ‘regard as, mean’ – never attested in clausal complements in the Shĭjì, the adverb yĭ not

422 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì infrequently modifies verbs in clausal complements. This fact provides some evidence for the greater syntactic independence of yĭ in comparison to jì . (194)

Yòu Again

wén hear

Pèi Pei

gōng duke

yĭ pò already destroy

Xiányáng, Xiàng Yŭ Xianyang, Xiang Yu

dà nù, shĭ Dāngyáng jūn dĕng jī guān great angry, send Dangyang lord group attack pass ‘When he again heard that the duke of Pei had already destroyed Xianyang, Xiang Yu became very angry and sent the lord of Dangyang and others to attack the pass.’ (SJ: 7; 310) In example (195) with the verb dìng ‘establish’ the adverb yĭ appears completely synonymously to jì in a subordinate temporal clause. In example (196) the adverb modifies the verb miè ‘destroy’ in a first clause; the second, an adversative clause to which the first clause is subordinated, is introduced by the connecting conjunction ér in its function as an adversative conjunction ‘but’. (195)

Lĭ Li

Liáng Liang

yĭ dìng Chángshān, already establish Changshan,

huán bào, return report,

Zhào wáng fù shĭ Liáng lüè Tàiyuán. Zhao king again send Liang ransack Taiyuan. ‘After Li Liang had secured Changshan, he came back and reported, and the king of Zhao sent him again to ransack Taiyuan.’ (SJ: 89; 2577607) (196)

Shì shí Yuè This time Yue

yĭ miè Wú ér bù already destroy Wu CON NEG , ; ... néng zhèng Jiāng Huái bò be.able regulate Jiang Huai north ‘By this time, Yue had already destroyed Wu, but it was not able to regulate the region north of the Jiang and the Huai rivers ...’ (SJ: 40; 1719)

|| 606 This is still the case in the later Buddhist literature (see Meisterernst 2011). 607 This instance is almost identically attested in Hànshū: 32; 1835.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 423

In example (197) the motion-to-a-goal verb verbs wáng ‘flee’ and rù ‘enter’ with their locative objects are modified by yĭ . A temporal adverb and a complex yǔ –phrase appear between the adverb and the verb. (197)

Lǚ Lü

Jiā, Jia,

Jiàn Dé yĭ yè yŭ Jian De already night with

qí shŭ shù his follower several

bǎi rén wáng rù hǎi, yĭ chuán xī qù hundred man flee enter sea, with boat west leave ‘Lü Jia and Jian De with several hundred men of their followers had already escaped by night to the sea and on boats they left westwards.’ (SJ: 113; 2976) The same semantic notions as with jì are expressed by yĭ . In all the examples the change of state point of an event verb with an agentive subject is focused on; with change of state verbs the theme object is affected by the change, whereas with a motion-to-a-goal verb the locative object is not. In the following examples the same kind of verbs as in examples (192) to (197) are modified by yĭ , i.e. verbs with their theme (internal) argument in object position, but in these examples the internal argument appears as the syntactic subject of the sentence. In example (198) the verb dìng ‘establish, set up’ is modified by yĭ , the theme appears in subject position preceded by the temporal adverb jīn which additionally marks the factual occurrence of the situation. The yĭ clause is rather coordinated with than subordinated to the subsequent clauses. (198)

Jīn tiānxià Now empire

yĭ dìng, fǎ lìng chū yī, already establish, law order go.out one,

bǎi xìng dāng jiā zé lì nóng hundred clan deal.with household then put.effort agriculture gōng, shì zé xué xí fǎ lìng bìjìn labour, noble then learn practise law order prohibition ‘Now, the empire has been / is pacified and all the laws and orders are issued from one point; the common people, when they concern themselves with their households, have to put their efforts into agriculture and la-

424 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì bour, and the nobles have to learn and practise the laws and orders and the prohibitions.’ (SJ: 6; 255) In the following example, the verb miè ‘destroy, extinguish’ is modified by yĭ in a subordinate temporal clause which is additionally marked by the temporal conjunction jí ‘when’. A second subordinate clause is added and introduced by the connecting conjunction ér . (199)

Jí As.soon.as

Xìn Xin

yĭ miè, already destroy,

ér CON

liè hóu meritorious lord

chéng gōng, wéi dú Cān shàn qí míng. complete success, only alone Can claim its name. ‘But when Xin was extinguished and the meritorious lords had completed their success, it was Can alone who could claim such a name.’ (SJ: 54; 2031) In examples (200) and (201) the verb lì ‘enthrone, establish’ is modified by yĭ . In example (200) it modifies the second of the subordinate predicates, the first of which is again introduced by the temporal conjunction jí ; the matrix clause is introduced by the connecting conjunction ér . In example (201) the modified predicate appears in an independent sentence, it is additionally marked for duration by a postverbal duration phrase referring to resultant state duration. (200)

Jí When

zhì, arrive,

yĭ already

xiè Qín, bèi thank Qin, turn.away

lì, ér enthrone, CON yuē bù contract NEG

shĭ send

yŭ Hé give He

Pī Pi

Zhèng Zheng

xī west

chéng, city,

ér shā Lĭ Kè CON kill Li Ke ‘When he arrived and was already enthroned, he sent Pi Zheng to thank Qin, but in a breach of the contract he did not give it the cities to the west of the He and he killed Li Ke.’ (SJ: 5; 187)

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 425

(201)

Dài Dai

bó earl

yuán first

nián, year,

Zhōu Zhou

Xuān wáng Xuan king

yĭ lì sān nián already enthrone three year ‘In the first year of earl Dai king Xuan of Zhou was already enthroned for three years.’ (SJ: 35; 1571) In examples (202) the telic verbs bì ‘finish’, a genuine achievement verb in a subordinate temporal clause, is modified by yĭ ; the matrix clause is introduced by the temporal conjunction nǎi ‘then, thereupon’. The manner adverb dà ‘great, big’ immediately precedes the verb. In example (203) the telic verb lùn ‘sentence’ is modified by yĭ in a subordinate concessive clause. (202)

(203)

Shì yĭ dà bì, nǎi lín yú hǎi. Affair already great finish, then approach at sea. ‘After the affairs had been completely finished he then approached the sea.’ (SJ: 6; 245)

Jīn fàn fǎ yĭ lùn, ér Now violate law already sentence, CON zhī fù mŭ qī SUB father mother wife

zĭ child

shĭ wú make not.have

tóngchǎn together.bear

zuì guilt

zuò imprison.collectively

zhī, jí wèi shōu nú OBJ, arrive therefore arrest slave ‘Today, if someone violates the law, although he is already sentenced, he will still cause his innocent parents, wife and children and his siblings609

|| 608 Two different readings for this word are attested, one in the píngshēng (luən) and one in the qùshēng (luənh) (Pulleyblank 1991: 202); the qùshēng reading in general seems to refer to the more telic, and the resultant state readings of the verb. 609 A comprehensive note is provided on the term tóngchǎn in Nienhauser (2002: 156, note 85). According to the two different opinions quoted there, the term can refer to brothers and sisters of the same mother or of the same father and different mothers.

426 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì to be collectively accused, and therefore arrested and made slaves.’ (SJ: 10; 418) In example (204) the telic verb shā in a subordinate temporal clause is modified by yĭ ; the verb appears in a passive construction with the wéi … suŏ passive, a construction typical for Han period and later texts. Whereas in the preceding examples the passive (or unaccusative) construction is not marked, this example is explicitly marked as passive and thus as a derived state. (204)

Dà Yuèzhī wáng Great Yuezhi king

yĭ wéi Hú suŏ shā, already PASS Hu PASS kill,

lì qí tàizĭ wéi wang. establish his crown.prince be king. ‘After the king of the Great Yuezhi611 was killed by the Hu-tribes, they enthroned his crown prince as king.’ (SJ: 123; 3158612) As already stated above for the adverb jì , all the predicates in the passive (or unaccusative) construction refer to a resultant state whether marked by an aspecto-temporal adverb or not, and the respective adverb emphasizes the attainment of this resultant state and – at least in most instances – its relevance for the subsequent situations. Whereas the verbs listed above all have a transitive construction with an agentive subject as their counterpart – whether this counterpart is basic or not – , the following examples represent genuine intransitive verbs with a theme subject. These are verbs of the word family ‘die’ or verbs with similar semantics. In example (205) which has already been presented above, the verb bēng ‘pass away’ is modified by yĭ in a matrix clause which is terminated by the final particle yĭ . In example (206) and (207) the most general verb of this || 610 Since in combination with the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ the semantic feature of telicity is of particular impact on the employment of the adverbs, passive constructions with telic verbs are listed under the telic verbs, and not under derived atelic predicates as they are in combination with the aspecto-temporal adverbs indicating future tense jiāng and qiĕ . 611 The Shĭjì cídiǎn (1994: 93) provides the reading Ròuzhī for the Indoscythian people. I choose the reading Yuèzhī since it is the one generally accepted in the literature on these people on the silk road. 612 This instance is also attested in Hànshū: 61; 2688.

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family, sĭ ‘die’ is modified, in example (206) in a matrix clause and in example (207) in a subordinate clause, the matrix clause is introduced by the connecting conjunction ér . In example (208) the verb shuāi ‘decline’ is modified in a subordinate clause, the entire sentence expresses a causal relation. (205=168)

Bó jì Bo already

 dìng Yān establish Yan

ér CON

guī, return,

Gāo zŭ yĭ bēng yĭ, Gao zu already pass.away FIN, ‘When Bo had pacified Yan and returned, Gao zu had already passed away’ (SJ: 57; 2071) (206)

(207)

Shòu cĭ shū Shēn Gōng, Shēn Gōng yĭ sĭ Get this letter Shen Gong, Shen Gong already die. ‘I received this letter from Shen Gong, but Shen Gong has already died / is already dead.’ (SJ: 12; 467)

Kāng Kang

hòu wén empress hear

Wénchéng Wencheng

yĭ already

sĭ, die,

ér yù zì mèi yú shàng, nǎi qiǎn Luàn Dà CON wish self flatter PREP above, then send Luan Da ‘When the empress Kang had heard that Wencheng had already died, she wanted to fawn upon the emperor, and thereupon she sent Luan Da ...’ (SJ: 12; 462613) (208)

Wú shēn yĭ shuāi, wú suŏ fù shì zhī. I body already decline, NEG REL again deal.with OBJ. ‘My strength has already declined, and I won’t have the opportunity of dealing with it again.’ (SJ: 105; 2815)

|| 613 The same instance is also attested in SJ: 28; 1390.

428 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì Whereas in the preceding examples (205) to (208) the thematic role of theme is assigned to the subject, the subject in the following examples with motion-to-agoal verbs is agentive. These are the verbs zhì ‘reach, arrive at’ and chū ‘go out’; both verbs are classified as agentive verbs in Jin (2006: 184), marked by a prefix *g- (*g-tid-s and *g-thud ). As already stated, these verbs can be employed independently without a directional complement, including a locative object. (209)

Dào Bandit jīn now ‘The now 270)

(210)

yĭ zhì, already arrive,

zhòng army

qiáng, strong,

fā jìn xiàn bù jí yĭ. send near district NEG arrive FIN. bandits have already arrived and their army is strong, and if you mobilize the nearby districts, they will not arrive [in time].’ (SJ: 6;

Yuē Hàn wáng yĭ chū yĭ. Say Han king already go.out FIN. ‘He said: “The king of Han has already left the city.”’ (SJ: 7; 326)

b) The aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ atelic predicates

with genuine atelic verbs and with derived

Basically the same atelic verbs that are attested with jì are also attested with yĭ , i.e. verbs of posture, adjectives and verbs of knowledge and perception. Identically to jì , yĭ can serve to emphasize the initial point of a state resulting in an inchoative reading of the predicate or the entire state, always implicitly including the initial bounding of the state. It also exceptionally modifies activity verbs, activating their arbitrary endpoint and derived states, i.e. negated or modal predicates. Additionally to the verbs and predicates which are attested with jì , yĭ can modify noun phrase predicates; these are usually numeral DPs. In example (211) the verb of posture zài is modified by yĭ in a matrix clause terminated by the final particle yĭ ; in the stative reading, the predicate refers to a situation in the present.

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(211)

, Bù kĕ, Chóng ĕr NEG possible, Chong’er

, , yĭ zài yĭ, jīn wǎng, already be.at FIN, now go, , yí bīng fá Dí, move troops attack Di,

Jìn bì Jin certainly , Dí wèi Jìn, huò qiĕ jí Di fear Jin, misfortune FUT arrive ‘Impossible! Chong’er is already there, and if you go, Jin will certainly move its troops in order to attack Di; Di is afraid of Jin and misfortune will certainly reach you.’ (SJ: 39; 1648) In the following examples, the aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ modifies adjectives, i.e. state verbs expressing a property. Identically to jì it is confined to change of state verbs, i.e. stage level predicates. In example (212) it modifies the verb shèn ‘extreme’. The modification of this verb is already attested in the Zuŏzhuàn where according to Lin (1999: 107) it expresses the resultative. (212)

Jūn yù yĭ shèn, héyĭ kān zhī Lord wish already extreme, how bear OBJ ‘My lord’s wishes have become / are already extreme, how can he bear it.’ (SJ: 38; 1626614)

In examples (213) and (214) the adverb yĭ modifies the state verbs ān ‘peaceful’ and yuǎn ‘far away, remote’ respectively. In both examples, the modified predicate appears in an independent clause, in (214) the predicate is terminated by the final particle yĭ . (213)

Chéng wáng Cheng king

zài Fēng, tiānxià yĭ ān, be.at Feng, empire already peace,

|| 614 The same instance is almost identically attested in Zuŏzhuàn, Xī 5 (Shísānjīng zhùshū: 1811 ). 615 Comparable to the adjective shàn two different readings are attested for yuǎn , a purely stative reading in the shàngshēng (wuan’) and a causative reading in the qùshēng (wuanh) (Pulleyblank 1991: 387, Unger 1989: 144; Jin 2006: 406).

430 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì

Zhōu zhī guān zhèng wèi cìxù. Zhou SUB office government NEGasp regulate. ‘King Cheng was in Feng, and the empire was already at peace, but the offices and the administration of Zhou had not been regulated yet.’ (SJ: 33; 1522) (214)

Fāng At

qí its

gē cut

ròu meet

zhŭ sacrificial.table

shàng above

zhī SUB

shí, time,

qí yì gù yĭ yuǎn yĭ its thought certainly already far.away FIN ‘At the time when he cut the meat on the sacrificial table, his thoughts were certainly already far away.’ (SJ: 56; 2062) In example (215) the state verb kùn ‘distressed’ is modified by two successive adverbs, the aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ and the Aktionsart adverb expressing frequency and iterativity shuò ‘frequently, repeatedly’. The verb kùn – as most adjectives – also has a transitive, i.e. causative variant ‘distress, to cause distress’, but since, historically, the intransitive variant seems to be the basic variant, it is listed among the genuine atelic verbs. This example is additionally marked temporally by the sentential adverb chū ‘first’. In examples (212) to (215) the predicate clearly refers to a state, but the initial bounding is implicitly included in the temporal depiction of the situation by the adverb yĭ and the successful completion of the state is focussed on. (215)

Chū, xiān shì wǎng First, before this go

shí ten

yú suì Hé jué more year He open.passage

Guàn, Guan,

Liáng Chŭ zhī dì gù yĭ shuò kùn, Liang Chu SUB land certainly already frequently distressed, ‘Once, more than ten years before this, the He had broken its banks at Guan, and the areas of Liang and Chu certainly had already been distressed several times (by floods).’ (SJ: 30; 1424) In example (216) the emotive verb huĭ ‘regret’ is modified by yĭ in an independent sentence. This verb is semantically similar to the verbs of knowing and

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perception, but it apparently differs from emotive state verbs such as ài ‘love’ in Classical Chinese, which are characterised by the fact that they cannot be modified by aspecto-temporal adverbs and accordingly do not refer to changeable states. (216)

Jū suì yú, yĭ huĭ sī mŭ. Remain year more, already regret pine.for mother. ‘After a bit more than a year, he already regretted it and pined for his mother.’ (SJ: 42; 1759)

In the following two examples the verb zhī ‘know’ which can have a telic and an atelic reading is modified by yĭ . In both examples evidently the initial point of the state is emphasized by the employment of the aspecto-temporal adverb. In both examples the modified predicate appears in a matrix clause, in example (218) it is terminated by the final particle yĭ . In both examples, according to the telic or atelic reading of the verb zhī ‘learn, know’, the predicate refers to a situation in the past with relevance for the present (perfect), or to a situation in the present, i.e. at speech time, respectively. (217)

(218)

, , Tàizĭ zhī lì, zhū-hóu jiē yĭ zhī zhī, Crown.prince SUB establish, feudal-lord all already know OBJ, , ... ér shuò jiàng bīng CON several.times lead soldier ‘That the crown prince is installed, all the feudal lords have already learned / already know it, several times he lead the soldiers, ...’ (SJ: 39; 1645)

Cù shĭ shì Rapid send envoy

xià lìng yuē deliver order say

zhī jiàngjūn néng know general be.able

guǎ rén yĭ lonely man already

yòng bīng yĭ make.use soldier FIN

432 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì ‘Rapidly, he sent an envoy to deliver an order saying: “I have already learned / already know that you, general, are able to make use of the soldiers.”’ (SJ: 65; 2161616) In example (219) the verb wéi ‘be, make’ which usually has an atelic reading appears in its telic variant ‘become’. Although both clauses are rather coordinated than syntactically subordinated, they establish a causal relation. (219)

Dài wáng Dai king

yuē say

guǎ rén gù yĭ wéi wáng lonely man certainly already be king

yĭ, FIN,

yòu hé wàng? again how king? ‘The king of Dai said: “For sure we have already become king, how can we become king again.”’ (SJ: 10; 414617) Examples (220) and (221) represent one of the few activity verbs which are attested in combination with the aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ , the verb shí ‘eat’. This verb can be changed into a telic, an accomplishment predicate, by adding a definite and quantified noun phrase object, then representing a typical incremental theme verb. But in both examples it is employed intransitively and only the employment of the adverb yĭ shifts the situation type from atelic to telic, the arbitrary final point of the activity is focussed on and the situation is viewed in its entirety. In example (220) the modified predicate appears in a subordinate temporal clause, the following matrix clause is introduced by the temporal conjunction nǎi ‘then, thereupon’. In example (221) the predicate is negated and accordingly expresses a derived state; it appears in a matrix clause and is terminated by the final particle yĭ . The duration of this state is explicitly indicated by the postverbal duration phrase, referring to situational duration, i.e. the duration of an ongoing state. (220)

Tiān zĭ yĭ shí, Heaven son already eat,

nǎi tuì ér tīng cháo yĕ. then retire and listen court FIN.

|| 616 The same instance is also attested in Wú Yuè chūnqiū: 4/12/9. 617 The same instance, but without the final particle yĭ , is attested in Hànshū: 4; 106. In Hànshū the final particle hú is added at the end of the entire sentence.

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‘When the son of heaven has finished his meal they retire and hold court.’ (SJ: 83; 2463) (221)

Wèi wŏ qiú shí, wŏ yĭ bù shí sān rì yĭ. For I search food, I already NEG eat three day FIN. ‘Search for something to eat for me, I already have not eaten [anything] for three days.’ (SJ: 40; 1708618)

In example (222) the aspecto-temporal adverb modifies a temporal noun phrase. Examples like this are particularly common with predicative duration phrases as has already been demonstrated in chapter 5.2. (222)

Mù wáng jí wèi, chūn qiū yĭ wŭ shí yĭ Mu king ascent throne, spring autumn already five ten FIN ‘When king Mu ascended the throne, the springs and autumns >KHKDG OLYHG@were already fifty / he was already fifty years old.’ (SJ: 4; 134)

6.5.2.1 The aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ in combination with other adverbs Besides the combination with jì briefly mentioned above, the aspectotemporal adverb yĭ ‘already’ is attested with two other aspecto-temporal adverbs: 1, with the adverb cháng indicating past tense, i.e. the location of a particular situation in the past, and 2, with the adverb yè which has an etymological origin comparable to jì and yĭ . First examples for the combination of yĭ ‘already’ and cháng ‘once’ will be presented. In the Shĭjì this combination is extremely rare – the examples presented below are the only ones – and it is still confined to the adverb cháng ; the second adverb expressing past tense céng is not yet attested in this text. In both examples, a telic verb is modified by the combination yĭ cháng ‘already once’, in example (223) it is the causative verb shĭ and in example (224) it is the motion-to-a-goal verb xī ‘go west’. These examples differ from the examples presented above in that they not only focus on the successful completion of a situation but also explicit-

|| 618 The same example has already been presented in chapter 5.2, example (58). 619 It is regularly attested in the later Buddhist literature, e.g. the Miàofǎ liánhuā jīng in both sequences: yĭ céng and céng yĭ (Meisterernst 2013b).

434 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì ly locate this situation in the past. Both adverbs keep their semantics in the combination and accordingly have to be analysed as two separate adverbs. These instances – and the combination of cháng with the aspectual negative marker wèi – argue against the location of the adverb cháng in a functional projection above the Outer Aspect Phrase, i.e. above the adverbs jì and yǐ , e.g. as specifiers of a Tense Phrase. (223)

Tiān zĭ Heaven son Lóulán, Loulan,

yĭ with

yĭ cháng already once qī seven

shĭ send

bǎi hundred

Zhuóyĕ Zhuoye

jì horsemen

hóu gōng marquis attack

xiān advance

zhì, arrive,

lŭ qí wáng, yĭ Dìnghàn dĕng yán wéi rán, imprison its king, with Dinghan group word make so, ‘The emperor had already once ordered the marquis of Zhuoye to attack Loulan and with an advance troop of seven hundred horsemen he arrived there and imprisoned its king, and so he believed that the words of Dinghan and others were correct, …’ (SJ: 123; 3174) (224)

Hóng ràng xiè guó rén yuē Hong refuse apologise state man say xī west

yìng answer

mìng, yĭ order, with

bù NEG

chén I

yĭ cháng already once

néng bà guī, able dismiss return,

yuàn gèng tuī xuǎn. wish otherwise promote choose. ‘Hong refused and apologised to the men of the state saying: “I have already gone to the west once in order to answer this order, but, because of

|| 620 Besides these two examples a third one is attested with the reverse sequence cháng yĭ (in SJ: 105; 2796). 621 In order to determine whether these two adverbs appeared in a fixed order with respect to each other, more data has to be analysed, e.g. from the Early Buddhist literature, where besides the order yĭ céng occasionally the order céng yĭ is attested (Meisterernst 2013b).

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 435

my lack of ability I was dismissed and sent home, I would like you to recommend someone else.”’ (SJ: 112; 2949) In the following two examples, the adverb yĭ occurs in combination with the adverb yè . According to the Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn (2000: 700) the aspectual adverb yè developed from a verb with the meaning ‘complete’ which is derived from the causative employment of the noun yè ‘work’ >> ‘cause to finish / complete work’. As an aspecto-temporal adverb it is only attested from the Han period on. It is not yet very frequent in the Shĭjì and almost exclusively appears in combination with yĭ . Both sequences yĭ yè and yè yĭ are attested with the last one being more common. Identically to yĭ alone, the combination of yè yĭ predominantly selects telic verbs as its complement as in example (225) with the verb pò ‘destroy’. But it can also modify e.g. derived atelic predicates as in example (226) with the volitional verb yù ‘wish’. In example (225) the modified predicate appears in the clausal complement of the verb niàn ‘think about’. Whether there is a true difference in meaning between yǐ and yè , possibly connected to their different positions with respect to each other, is difficult to determine due to the few instances attested. (225)

Lǚ Lü

Bùwéi nù, niàn Buwei angry, think

yèyĭ pò already destroy

jiā wèi family for

zĭ zi

Chŭ, Chu,

yù yĭ diào qí, nǎi suì xiàn qí jī. wish so fish extraordinary, thereupon then present his wife. ‘Lü Buwei was angry and thought that he had already ruined his family for the benefit of zi Chu, but he wished to catch an extraordinary fish, and thereupon he gave him his wife.’ (SJ: 85; 2508) (226)

Chŭ wáng

yèyĭ

yù

hé

yú Qín, jiàn Qí wáng

shū,

|| 622 In the suŏyĭn commentary it is e.g. glossed by sù ‘habitually from the past to the present’ (SJ: 69; 2242). 623 One single instance of yè alone is attested in the Shĭjì (SJ: 55; 2035). This instance is also quoted in the Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn (2000: 700). 624 The first sequence is attested with 2 instances, the latter sequence with 8 instances.

436 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì Chu king

already wish harmony at Qin, see

Qi king

letter,

yóu yù bù jué, xià qí yì qún chén still hesitate NEG decide, down his consideration all minister ‘The king of Chu already wished to be in harmony with Qin, but when he saw the letter of the king of Qi, he hesitated and did not decide, and he handed down his considerations to all his ministers.’ (SJ: 40; 1726) In example (227) the two adverbs in their reversed sequence yĭ yè modify the genuine activity verb xíng ‘go’ in its telic reading ‘set off’. The first clause of this example is modified by the adverb yĭ on its own; this clause is additionally marked by a temporal adverbial indicating a point of time. The predicate modified by the combination yĭ yè appears in the matrix clause. (227)

Shì This

shí time

Hàn Han

bīng yĭ yú soldier already pass

Gōuzhù, Gouzhu,

èr shí yú wàn bīng yĭyè xíng. two ten more ten-thousand soldier already go. ‘At this time the Han soldiers had already passed the Gouzhu625 mountain, and more than 200.000 soldiers were already on their way.’ (SJ: 99; 2718626)

6.5.3 The negative marker wèi The negative marker wèi (*mujh) ’not yet’, which is assumed to express aspectual notions belongs to the category of the so-called m/w negatives, one of the two different categories of negative markers established for Pre-Classical and Classical Chinese, the other one is the category of the so-called p/f negatives. || 625 In this reading I follow the Shĭjì cídiǎn (1994: 143) and not Watson (1994, I: 238) who reads Juzhu. 626 The same instance is also attested in Hànshū: 43; 2121. 627 The first group consists of all negatives with a *p-initial – reconstructed for Middle Chinese and earlier stages of Chinese – which under certain conditions develops into an f-initial; the second group consists of all negatives with an *m-initial in Middle Chinese which under certain conditions develops into a w-initial. The p/f-negatives in general express neutral negation without any modal values involved whereas the m/w-negatives usually indicate different modal values: these are mainly deontic (root modal) values expressing the will, ability, permis-

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The most important p/f-negatives are: 1. bù (*pət, *put) which as a neutral negative simply denies the situation the verb refers to independently of the mode or the aspect of the verb. Historically this negative by default selects intransitive verbal predicates establishing a descriptive relation between the subject and the predicate (Djamouri 1991: 15), but in Classical and Han period Chinese it is the most generally employed negative marker. Another neutral negative marker is fú (*put) which historically selects transitive verbs  (Djamouri 1991: 15); during the Han period this negative marker has by virtue of a taboo been frequently replaced by bù . And the third of the most important p/f-negative markers is fēi (*puj) , the negative typical for nominal predication but not confined to it. The most important m/w-negatives are: 1, wú (*muə̆) with its variants wú and wú which originally wrote two distinct morphemes: 1. a modal negative, properly written wú , and 2, a verb meaning ‘not have’, properly written wú (or wú ) (Pulleyblank 1995: 107). Another important modal negative is wù (*mut) which, identically to fú historically selects transitive verbs and which accordingly is analysed analogically to fú in the linguistic literature (e.g. Pulleyblank 1991a, 1995: 108, Djamouri 1991: 9f). Contrary to the other m/w negatives, the negative wèi is generally assumed to have an aspectual or temporal meaning as its basic meaning and to form a contrastive pair with the adverb jì (*kȪjh) (and the adverb yĭ (*jȪ’/ji’) ) which has been assumed to indicate the perfective aspect (Pulleyblank 1994: 323). Pulleyblank (ibidem) supports his hypothesis by an etymological derivation of wèi (mujh) from the negative root *m- in the negative wú ‘not have’

|| sion or obligation to perform some action or bring about some state; but they can also express epistemic modality involving a speaker-oriented qualification or modification of the truth of a proposition. For this definition of the different modal values see Barbiers et al. (2002: 1). 628 The following Middle Chinese reconstructions are taken from Pulleyblank (1991). 629 In the case of fú Pulleyblank assumes that in Pre-Classical texts such as the Shūjīng it may have been “one of a set of particles ending in *-t associated with an aspectual distinction between a continuing state or an action going on (bù ) and realization of a potentiality or a change of state (fú )” (1995: 105). 630 For a more detailed discussion on the different negative markers in this context see Meisterernst (2008a: 122f.) 631 Unger (1987: 6) and Pulleyblank (1995: 22) assume that fēi may be a fusion of bù and wéi , the copula of Pre-Classical Chinese. 632 For the different modal values see Djamouri (1991: 54), Takashima (1996), and for a short summary of the different analyses Meisterernst (2008a).

438 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì and the adverb jì ‘already’ meaning ‘not already’ > ‘not yet’ or ‘never’. He further supports this hypothesis of a close interrelation between jì and wèi by the fact that wèi correlates with the final yĕ which basically indicates an unchanged, continuing state in contrast to jì , which correlates with the final yĭ basically indicating a change of state. Thus, as already stated above, sentences with wèi and the adverbs jì or yĭ are assumed to form a similar dichotomy to that of sentences with méi yŏu and with verbs followed by the suffix -le in Modern Mandarin. The following two examples exemplify this dichotomy: (228=209)

Dào Bandit

yĭ zhì, already arrive,

zhòng army

qiáng, strong,

jīn fā jìn xiàn bù jí yĭ. now send near district NEG arrive FIN. ‘The bandits have already arrived and their army is strong, and if you now mobilize the nearby districts, they will not arrive [in time].’ (SJ: 6; 270) (229)

Wèi NEGasp

zhì Yuè, Yuè shā qí wáng xiáng, arrive Yue, Yue kill its king surrender, . Hàn bīng yì bà. Han soldier also stop. ‘Before they arrived (They had not yet arrived) in Yue, (when) the people of Yue had killed their king and surrendered and the Han troops in turn withdrew.’ (SJ: 108; 2860634)

According to most grammars, the basic notion of wèi as an aspecto-temporal negative marker is to indicate that a situation in the past has – contrary to expectation – not yet started or come to its completion at reference time, glossed by méi yŏu . But for particular occurrences, mainly in combination with modal verbs such as néng ‘can, be able to’, kĕ ‘can’, and zú ‘suffice’ it is || 633 Another reconstruction is the one by Serruys 1969 as a fusion of bù Djamouri (1991: 9). 634 This instance is also attested in Hànshū: 52; 2398.

and jì

, quoted in

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 439

glossed by the neutral negative marker bù and often categorically negates the occurrence of a situation. In these cases it can imply a tenseless categorical judgement. An additional and somewhat different analysis is proposed in Harbsmeier (1981), who demonstrates that wèi can assume a logical function besides its so-called temporal or aspectual functions. In what Harbsmeier labels as ‘gnomic’ sense “wei comes to mean ‘not necessarily’, ‘not quite’, etc. like the non-temporal ‘still’ ... Gnomic wei will be seen to refer to a ‘logical’ rather than a temporal progression.” (Harbsmeier 1981: 42; see also TLS http://tls.uni-hd.de/). According to the examples Harbsmeier presents this function seems to be restricted to a particular syntactic environment, namely to a confined range of verbs. These differences in meaning with respect to the verb employed clearly demonstrate that the semantics, in particular the situation type, of the verb play a vital role in the interpretation of wèi identically to the other aspecto-temporal adverbs discussed above, and consequently in the following discussion of the negative marker wèi particular emphasis will be laid on the semantics of the verb selected by wèi . In general the interrelations between situation type and negation are as yet not completely worked out. The semantics of the verb and its grammatical aspect – perfective versus imperfective – contribute to the scope of the negative, namely to its focalising the initial or the final point of the situation, if one of these is visible in the verb; and consequently it also contributes to the interpretation of the negated situation and its relation to its affirmative counterpart. As far as the telicity of the predicate is concerned, it can be stated that a negated atelic situation, a state or a process (activity), remains atelic, whereas a negated telic situation, namely an event, seems to lose its telicity and becomes atelic as || 635 Examples for this structure can be found e.g. in He et al. (1985: 590) and in Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn (2000: 602). 636 Dobson (1959: 43) provides the following analysis for the difference between bù and wèi : “The difference is between particular denial (an envisaged instance), and universal denial (all envisaged instances).” Accordingly, in these cases wèi could be considered a universal negative. 637 The range of examples Harbsmeier presents is confined to particular verbs such as the modals kĕ ‘can’ and zú ‘sufficient, suffice’, the verb zhī ‘know’, and some stative verbs. Additionally to Harbsmeier's non-temporal analysis of wèi , the Gŭdài Hànyŭ xūcí cídiǎn (2000: 602 ( )) presents a short analysis of wèi which also accounts for the non-temporal functions of wèi . 638 This was shown by the following example in Smith (1997: 256) “(74) I have not yet read this article.” on which she comments: “The perfective specifically denies that the speaker completed reading the article; the imperfective, on the other hand, denies that the action was initiated (Rassudova 1982:62).”

440 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì has already been mentioned above. According to Smith (1997: 256f) with accomplishment verbs the negative refers to the process part of the situation including its initial point, while with achievement verbs it refers to the preliminaries of the achievement or to the achievement itself. With a resultative interpretation, the negative usually refers to the result. But with all event verbs the result of the negation is always a derived state predicate (Smith 1997: 258) which is atelic. This short introduction is supposed to show the impact of negation on the aspectual reading of the predicate. Whereas most negative markers in Classical and Han period Chinese seem to be neutral with regard to the situation type of the verb they select, the negative marker wèi by default selects events (genuine and derived events) on the one hand and – less frequently – genuine states on the other hand, but this does not imply that event verbs have in general to be negated by the negative marker wèi . Event verbs are equally negated by the negative marker bù which is not confined to any situation type. However, contrastively to predicates with the negative marker wèi , no modal or aspectual values are implied by the negation with bù . Bù simply denies the particular occurrence of the situation the verb refers to without focussing on either its initial or its final point; the attainment of the situation referred to by the verb following reference time is not implied. Since bù as a temporally neutral negative marker is not at issue in this study, only a few examples will suffice to represent the neutrality of the negative marker with regard to a particular aspectual interpretation. In the following example the typical telic (achievement) verb zhì ‘reach’ is negated by the neutral negative marker bù ; in this example the verb does not appear in its concrete locative meaning followed by a locative object, but rather in a metaphorical sense with a demonstrative pronoun as its direct object. (230)

Suŏ REL

wén hear

zhū-hóu feudal-lord

cĭ kŏng bù this fear NEG

xiāo dì, zuì chop.off land, guilt

dé xiāo dì can chop.off land

ér CON

bù NEG

zhì cĭ, reach this,

yĭ. finish.

|| 639 Smith (1997: 257: “The inference is straightforward that if a process did not take place, it was not begun.” 640 Smith (1997: 257: “The perfective is used under negation to deny that the preliminaries culminated in the event, and the imperfective is used if the event did not take place at all.”

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 441

‘What he had heard about feudal lords being deprived of land, [in those cases] the offence did not go as far as this, and therefore he is afraid that the mere seizure of land cannot be the end of it.’ (SJ: 106; 2826641) But, equally in examples (231) and (232) the typical atelic verbs ài ‘love’ as an emotive state verb referring to an unchangeable state, and zuò ‘make’ and shí ‘eat’ as activity verbs are negated by bù . According to its particular semantics the first verb, ài , is excluded from a modification by an aspecto-temporal adverb focussing on one of the final points of the situation. Contrastively, activity verbs such as zuò and shí can by way of exception be modified by an aspecto-temporal adverb shifting the situation type from atelic to telic, the arbitrary final point of the activity is focussed on and the situation is viewed in its entirety as in example (220). (231)

(232)

Qí hào shā fá xíng wēi bù ài rén rú cĭ. His like kill attack carry.out power NEG love man like this. ‘He liked to kill, to attack, to show his power and not to love others like this.’ (SJ: 122; 3148642)

Gēng Plough

shì affair

fāng just

jí, yī urgent, one

rì day

bù NEG

zuò, make,

bǎi rì bù shí. hundred day NEG eat. ‘The task of ploughing is quite urgent just now, if it is not done even for a day, we won’t have anything to eat for a hundred days.’ (SJ: 43; 1802643) In all examples with the negative marker bù the predicate simply refers to the non-occurrence of a particular situation in general, no particular emphasis is laid on either its initial or its final point and no change of state of the situation is anticipated following reference time nor is a categorical denial of the situation

|| 641 An almost literal parallel of this sentence is attested in Hànshū: 35;1907 642 This instance is almost identically attested in Hànshū: 90; 3656. 643 The same example had already been discussed above (example (41)) in connection with the aspecto-temporal adverb fāng .

442 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì implied. With atelic verbs as in examples (231) and (232) the situation type of the predicate remains atelic in the negated version, whereas in example (230) with a genuine telic verb, the negated predicate is a derived state which is atelic, whereas in the affirmative – with an achievement verb such as zhì ‘reach’ – the predicate is telic. In example (232) with the activity verbs zuò ‘make’ and shí ‘eat’, the predicate is marked for duration by a preverbal duration phrase which is only possible with atelic predicates. a) The negative marker wèi

with telic verbs

The same telic verbs which are attested with the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ are also predominantly selected by the negative marker wèi . All event verbs are – if not otherwise marked – telic and they include at least the final change of state point of the situation. They tend to express a perfective situation when referring to a past event or a resultant state when adverbially modified by jì and yĭ . When modified by wèi the non attainment of the situation – namely the change of state – referred to by the verb at reference time is emphasized, but additionally, in most cases this change of state is still anticipated; the situation itself is viewed in its entirety and as punctual. According to Abraham’s (2008) representation of the temporal structure of event verbs, the aspectual negative marker denies the occurrence of the change of state point point tm, i.e. the same point which is marked by the aspectual adverbs jì and yǐ . But the negative marker additionally implies the antici-

|| 644 The neutral negative marker bù is certainly located in a position different from that of the negative marker wèi . Aldridge (2011) assumes that bù is adjoined to vP, and not the head of a NegP. 645 These examples clearly demonstrate that the negative marker bù , too, interacts with the situation type, but an investigation of the semantic relation of bù with the verb it negates is too complex to be presented here and must be postponed to a separate study. 646 See chapter 5.2 and Meisterernst (2003a). 647 Occasionally this notion of wèi can be intensified by the adverb shàng ‘still, yet’ as in the following example: (i) Dāng shì shí, Jìn Wén gong sang shàng wèi zàng At this time, Jin Wen duke mourning still NEGaspbury ‘At this time, duke Wen of Jin was being mourned, but he was still not buried yet.’ This combination is not very frequent in the Shĭjì (6 instances); it is not confined to genuine telic verbs, but is – as far as the few instances can reveal – subject to the same syntactic and semantic constraints as wèi alone. (SJ: 5; 192)

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 443

pation of the attainment of this change of state at a point following reference time; this is represented by the structure a’. a) event: | >>>>>>>>> | …………….| t1 E1 tm E2 tn

a’) events with wèi (I ///////) F Œ F wèi V ŒV reference time (RT) Œ following RT To the left of the double slash, the non-attainment of the situation at reference time is indicated – F corresponds to tm – whereas to its right the still anticipated attainment of the situation following reference time is indicated. Identically to the discussion on the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ ‘already’ first examples with transitive verbs with their theme argument in object position and with an agentive (or causative) subject will be analysed. In the first example of this section, example (233), the verb dìng ‘establish, set up’ which has already been discussed above, is modified by the negative marker wèi , and in example (234) it is the verb dŭ ‘see, observe, notice’. (233)

Wŏ wèi dìng tiān bǎo, hé xià mèi! I NEGasp establish heaven protect, how leisure sleep! ‘I did not establish the heavenly shelter yet, so how could I be at leisure and sleep!’ (SJ: 4; 129)

(234)

Lŭ Lián Lu Lian

yuē say

Liáng Liang

wèi NEGasp

dŭ Qín chēng notice Qin call

dì zhī hài gù ĕr. emperor SUB damage reason FIN. ‘Lu Lian said: “It is only because Liang has not yet noticed the damage caused by Qin’s calling [himself] emperor.”’ (SJ: 83; 2462648)

|| 648 This instance is almost identically attested in Zhànguó cè: 236/127/4. It differs only in the final particle: Zhànguó cè has yĕ .

444 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì As has already been stated above, some verbs can have both a telic and an atelic reading. These are verbs such as yán ‘speak, utter’, jiàn ‘see, notice, meet’ – this verb has a second reading xiàn ‘be visible, appear’ – , xíng ‘walk, set off’ etc. All these verbs can be modified by wèi and in this syntactic environment they are usually to be interpreted as an event rather than as stative or activity verbs. Whereas examples as the following with the verb yán ‘speak’ modified by the negative wèi are very rare, examples with dŭ ‘see, notice’ as in (234) are frequent in proportion to the total amount of occurrences of this verb. This may lead to the conclusion that the basic situation type of yén has to be determined as activity while that of dŭ has to be determined as event. Without a close inspection of the syntactic constraints of the verbs mentioned, their actual situation type is difficult to define. (235)

… Kŏu suī wèi yán, shāng jí léi tíng, Mouth although NEGasp utter, sound quick thunder clap, ‘Although his mouth has not yet uttered a word the sound of his voice is as loud as a clap of thunder, ...’ (SJ:118; 3090650)

The verb jiàn as in example (236) is not rarely modified by wèi , and it is also frequently attested with wèi cháng ‘never’, indicating habituality in the past or a habitual and continuous situation starting in the past and continuing up to reference time. The combination of the aspecto-temporal negative marker wèi and the aspecto-temporal adverb cháng will be discussed below. (236)

Jīn tiānxià Now empire

duàn forge

jiǎ armour

zhĭ jiàn, jiǎo polish sword, straighten

jiàn léi xián, zhuǎn shū yùnliáng, arrow bind string, transport transport provision, xiū shí, cĭ tiānxià rest time, this empire

zhī SUB

wèi NEGasp

suŏ gōng yōu REL common worry

|| 649 For a short discussion of this verb see section 4.1, in particular note 67. 650 A parallel of this instance is attested in Hànshū: 45; 2172.

yĕ. FIN.

jiàn see

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 445

‘Now the empire forges armour and polishes swords, straightens arrows and binds bowstrings, it transports goods and provides materials, and it has not (yet) seen a moment’s rest, these are the worries the empire shares.’ (SJ: 112; 2959651) In both examples (235) and (236), the predicate does not refer to an ongoing activity which seems to be the most likely interpretation of these verbs when they are not modified by wèi or one of the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ , but rather to an event that did not yet take place; thus the verb appears in its telic reading and the situation is viewed from an external point of view. In the following two examples the transitive verbs shā ‘kill’ and zàng ‘bury’ are not followed by their object, and since no theme subject is present in the surface structure, two analyses are possible: 1, the object pronoun zhī is omitted, since it can be derived from the context, the construction remains transitive; 2, the subject to which the thematic role of the theme is assigned is not present in the surface structure, the construction is intransitive, i.e. passive (or unaccusative). For the verb shā the first analysis will be given preference here, since this verb most frequently appears in transitive constructions, including those cases in which it is modified by one of the adverbs jì and yĭ . Contrastively in example (238) the verb zàng is analysed according to the second possibility since this verb is frequently attested in the passive or ergative structure as e.g. in example (176). (237)

Wèi wáng Wei king

yuē say

nuò. Shĭ agree. Send

lì bŭ zhī, officer catch OBJ,

wéi ér wèi shā. encircle CON NEGasp kill. ‘The king of Wei said: “I agree.” He sent officers to catch him, they had encircled but not killed him yet / he had been encircled, but not killed yet.’ (SJ: 44; 1856652) (238)

Dōng, wèi winter, NEGasp

zàng, ér bury, CON

qún all

gōngzĭ prince

wèi fear

zhū, punish,

|| 651 This instance with some lexical alterations is also attested in Hànshū: 64B; 2813. 652 The same instance is also attested in Shuō Yuàn: 11.

446 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì

jiē chū wáng. all go.out flee. ‘In the winter, when he had not yet been buried, all the princes were afraid of being executed and they fled into exile.’ (SJ: 32; 1505) The interpretation of the verb in example (239) is unambiguous, since the theme of the transitive verb jí ‘gather’ appears in subject position. (239)

Tiānxià Empire

wèi NEGasp

jí, qún gather, all …

gōng duke

jù, fear,

mù bŭ ceremonious divine ‘The empire was not consolidated yet and all the dukes were frightened and ceremoniously they consulted the oracle, ...’ (SJ: 4; 131) The first wèi in example (240) modifies the typical event verb fā ‘send, emit’, and the second wèi the verb xíng ‘go’, ‘put in motion, set off’. The verb fā appears in the intransitive, passive or ergative, construction with the theme in subject position. The second verb xíng evidently appears in its event reading ‘set off’, i.e. the situation is represented as telic and from an external point of view. But this verb also has an atelic reading ‘go, march, serve’ which is apparently its basic meaning. This can be evidenced by the fact that in case the predicate contains a duration phrase, this duration phrase always refers to situational duration, namely to the duration of the situation the verb actually refers to, and not to resultant state duration. This verb has an agentive subject. || 653 In the following example the same verb is followed by a postverbal duration phrase referring to situational duration: (i) Páng Juān xíng sān rì, dà xĭ, yuē Pang Juan march three day, great delight, say ‘When Pang Juan had marched for three days, he was highly delighted and said:’ (SJ: 65; 2164) In this example the verb xíng ‘march’ is clearly atelic, the postverbal duration phrase refers to the marching itself and not to a state resulting from the situation ‘set off’. This analysis is supported by the fact that the verb xíng can even be modified by a preverbal duration adverb such as jiŭ which is impossible with true event verbs. (This is extremely rare though, but one example is attested in Hànshū: 48; 2258.) Accordingly one can assume that the basic situation

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 447

(240)

Wú Chŭ fǎn shū wén, bīng wèi Wu Chu revolt letter hear, soldier NEGasp

fā, Dòu send.out, Dou

Yīng wèi xíng, yán gù Wú xiàng Yuán Àng Ying NEGasp go, speak former Wu prime.minister Yuan Ang ‘When the letter of revolt of Wu and Chu came to his attention and when he had not yet sent out troops and Dou Ying had not yet set off, there was some talk about the former prime minister of Wu, Yuan Ang.’ (SJ: 106; 2830654) In the following two examples (241) and (242) the typical achievement verb chéng ‘complete’ is negated by the aspectual negative marker wèi in the intransitive (passive or unaccusative) construction. The negated clause refers directly back to the situation referred to in the first clause and indicates that this situation has not been completed yet. This is – less directly – also the case in example (242), but in (242) additionally some reference to speech time is provided by the final prepositional phrase yú jīn which appears in analogy to a genuine locative phrase in postverbal position, a position which is usually not available for point of time adverbials. (241)

Tiān fáng líng Qín píng hǎi nèi, qí yè wèi Heaven just order Qin pacify sea within, its task NEGasp chéng, Wèi complete, Wei

suī dé although get

hé

hú?

yì

Ē héng zhī zuò, E’heng SUB support,

|| type of a verb such as xíng is atelic although it is often attested in a telic reading and modified by adverbs which are typical for event verbs such as jì / yĭ ‘already’ and wèi ‘not yet’, but the telicity of a verb such as xíng ‘to set off’ in its telic reading certainly has to be considered derived and not genuine. A derived telic verb has to be distinguished from a genuine telic verb by the fact that a postverbal duration phrase never refers to a resultant state duration but always to situational duration, and consequently marks the verb as atelic, whereas with a genuine telic verb a postverbal duration phrase can only refer to resultant state duration (see Meisterernst 2013). 654 The first two clauses of this sentence are also attested in a parallel in Hànshū: 35; 1912. 655 See also example (177) with the aspecto-temporal adverb jì ‘already’.

448 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì how advantage FIN? ‘Heaven has just been ordering Qin to pacify all within the seas, its task is not finished yet, and even if Wei could get the support of someone such as E’heng, how could there be any advantage?’ (SJ: 44; 1864) (242)

Lĭnlĭn xiàng gǎi Carefully turn.towards change

zhēng first

fú clothes

Fēng Feng-

Shàn yĭ, qiān ràng wèi chéng yú jīn. Shan-sacrifice FIN, modest polite NEGasp complete at today. ‘He has been hesitantly turning towards changing the beginning [of the year] and the clothing, and presenting the Feng and Shan sacrifices, and because of his modesty and reserve it is not finished at present.’ (SJ: 10; 437) In all the examples presented a change of state of the situation still anticipated following reference time is implied. In the following example, one of the typical intransitive achievement verbs with a theme subject is modified by wèi , the verb sĭ ‘die’ which has already been discussed in example (206) and (207). (243)

Tàizĭ wèi sĭ yĕ Crown.prince NEGasp die FIN ‘The crown prince is not dead yet.’ (SJ: 105; 2791)

In all the examples the affirmative counterpart of the negative predicate would refer to a completed, i.e. a perfective situation and the negative marker wèi denies the completion, the final point of the situation, which is typically visible in an achievement verb, or the non-attainment of a resultant state. The predicate itself is no longer telic, but a derived state, as is generally the case with negated event verbs whether negated by the aspectual negative marker wèi or by bù . In all the examples the attainment of the situation is still anticipated. b) The negative marker wèi predicates

with genuine atelic verbs or with derived atelic

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 449

Although the aspectual negative marker wèi by default selects events as its complement, it can, similarly to méi yŏu in Modern Mandarin, also select state verbs, derived states, and occasionally also activity verbs as its complement. State verbs modified by wèi are confined to change of state verbs, i.e. state verbs which allow a change of state reading; these are, for instance, adjectives which allow an inchoative and accordingly telic reading. State verbs in a telic reading do not refer to permanent attributes but to single episodes or to transient properties. Emotive state verbs such as ài ‘love’ and others which do not allow a change of state reading and which are usually negated by bù are excluded from the modification by wèi . However, as has been stated above, not all emotive state verbs are excluded from a change of state reading. Consequently the employment of the negative wèi plays an important role in the determination of the two different categories of state verbs. In contrast to méi yŏu , wèi in Classical and Han period Chinese can also serve to negate modal auxiliaries such as kĕ ‘can’, néng ‘can, be able to’, and kĕn ‘be willing’ which are usually considered stative. Additionally and identically to jì and yĭ , it is attested with verbs of possession such as yŏu ‘have’ – in Modern Mandarin also regarded as being stative (Lin 2003) – and verbs of knowledge and perception such as zhī ‘know’, which can have both a state and an event reading. While a predicate with a telic verb negated by wèi almost exclusively refers to the non-attainment of an event which by definition implies an expected change of state, this seems to be less strictly required with state verbs, for which it can also categorically deny the existence of the state. This is comparable to the availability of jì and yĭ to refer not only to the initial point of a state, but also to the state as such (with the initial point implied). Identically to jì and yĭ which usually emphasize the initial point of a state, the negative wèi also in general refers to this initial point in denying its occurrence. This being the case, the situation type of the predicate shifts from state to event, since in a genuine stative situation neither of the endpoints of the situation is focussed on. The initial point of the situation is emphasized || 656 See Lin (2003: 433). “Attitudinal predicates are like individual level predicates and single episode predicates comparable to stage-level predicates: stable versus transient properties.” 657 Additionally, in the Shĭjì there are no instances of the verbs of posture zài ‘be-at’ and jū ‘live in, dwell’ attested which can be modified by the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ ‘already’, but very few instances at least of zài modified by wèi are attested in the Classical literature. 658 Occasionally, emotive state verbs are negated by one of the modal m/w-negatives. If the negative wèi appears at all modifying an emotive state verb, which is extremely rare, the semantics of the verb evidently have changed.

450 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì and accordingly the depiction of state verbs negated by wèi is quite similar to that of genuine events negated by wèi . According to Abraham’s (2008) representation of the temporal structure of a state verb, the negative marker wèi can mark the initial change of state point tm identically to the aspectual adverbs jì and yǐ , but also – more frequently than the two adverbs – the non-attainment of the state E itself. Again, the anticipation that the initial change of state point will be obtained following reference time is represented by the structure a’. a) states | ~~~~~~~~~~| tm E tn a’) states with wèi I Œ I wèi V Œ V reference time (RT) Œ following RT The following examples represent typical state verbs which, modified by wèi , focus on the initial change of state point and thus attain an inchoative reading: 1, ‘become old’, 2, ‘be too late’, 3, ān become / be pacified’. Both verbs refer to situations in the future; a change of state is still anticipated. (244)

Qí hòu jiāng bà, wèi lǎo ér sĭ His behind FUT hegemony, NEGasp old CON die ‘His successors will have the hegemony, but they will die before they become old (they will not yet be old when they die).’ (SJ: 43; 1787659)

(245) ...

Jí If

bù NEG

jiĕ nǎi dissolve then

lì zhàn ér strength fight CON

sĭ, die,

wèi wǎn yĕ NEGasp late FIN ‘... but if they (the troops) are not disbanded it will not be too late to fight to the death with all our strength.’ (SJ: 123; 3177660)

|| 659 The same sentence is attested in SJ: 105; 2787 and in Lùnhéng: 64.5.22. 660 An almost identical duplicate of this instance is attested in Hànshū: 61; 2701.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 451

(246)

Bò biān wèi ān, zhèn shèn dào zhī North border NEGasp peace, We very worry OBJ ‘The northern border is not at peace yet, We are extremely worried about that.’ (SJ: 30; 1422)

In contrast to the preceding examples, in the following example (247) with the adjective yì ‘easy’ a change of state cannot necessarily be anticipated, and most likely the verb refers to a genuine state without any change of state reading implied. In examples like this a modal evaluation of the situation, here the epistemic modal value of inferred certainty, seems to be involved. (247)

Qí, Qi,

bà hegemon

guó zhī yú yè yĕ, state SUB remaining inheritance FIN,

dì dà rén zhòng, wèi yì dú gōng yĕ land big man many, NEGasp easy alone attack FIN ‘Qi is the remaining legacy of a hegemon state, its territory is large and its people numerous, it is not easy to attack it alone.’ (SJ: 80; 2428) Frequently wèi is attested with verbs which have both an atelic and a telic reading, the atelic reading of which is probably the basic one. These are verbs of possession such as yŏu ‘have, there is’ or verbs of knowledge such as zhī ‘know’ which are also attested modified by the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ ‘already’ (see examples (187), (217) and (218). As the following examples show, modified by the negative wèi , the verbs as such can attain either a non-stative event reading or a (categorical) stative reading, but the entire predicate always has to be analysed as stative. With an event reading of the verb a future change of state is implied whereas with a stative reading it is not. (248)

Shí shí yuàn wàng Lì Time time resent look.at Li nì, wèi revolt, NEGasp

yŏu have

wáng king

yīn depend.on

yĕ. FIN.

sĭ, die,

shí yù pàn time wish rebel

452 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì ‘From time to time he resentfully looked back at king Li’s death, and ocasionally he wished to rebel, but as yet he had not had any opportunity [to do so].’ (SJ: 118; 3082) In this example, the verb has an event reading; a change of state is anticipated following reference time. (249)

Tiānxià Empire

wèi NEGasp

yŏu bù have NEG

néng chí rén zhĕ can govern man NOM

néng can

zì self

chí govern

ér CON

yĕ, cĭ bǎi shì FIN, this hundred generation

bù yì zhī dào yĕ. NEG change SUB way FIN. ‘In the whole world there has never been anyone who was not able to govern himself but was able to govern others; this is a principle that has not changed in hundreds of generations.’ (SJ: 112; 2952661) In this example, the verb evidently appears in its state reading, the predicate expresses a categorical denial of the situation referred to by the verb. Apparently in cases such as these a modal evaluation of the situation rather than an aspectual is involved. In the following example (250) a change of state is anticipated and expected at a time following reference time, whereas in examples (251) and (252) a change of state may occur and be wished for, but is not necessarily expected at a future reference time. (250)

Wŭ wáng Wu king

yuē say

rŭ you

wèi NEGasp

zhī tiān know heaven

mìng, decree,

wèi kĕ yĕ. NEG possible FIN. ‘King Wu said: “You do not (yet) know heaven’s decree, it is not yet possible.”’ (SJ: 4; 120662) || 661 A similar instance is attested in Hànshū: 58;2621.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 453

(251=85)

Wūsūn Wusun

guó land

fēn, wáng divide, king

wèi NEGasp

zhī qí know his

dà great

lǎo, old,

xiǎo, small,

ér CON

yuǎn far

Hàn, Han,

.

sù fú shŭ Xiōngnú rì jiŭ yĭ always submitted attached Xiongnu day long FIN ‘But the state of the Wusun was divided, its king was old and far away from Han, and he did not know its size, and for a long time now they are submitted and attached to the Xiongnu.’ (SJ: 123; 3169663) (252)

Chóng ĕr yuē Chong’er say

yŭ máo feather fur

chĭ tooth

jiǎo yù bó, horn precious.stone silk,

jūn wáng suŏ yú, wèi zhī suŏ yĭ bào. ruler king REL surplus, NEGasp know REL with repay. ‘Chong’er said: “Feathers and fur, teeth, horn, precious stones and silk Your Majesty has in abundance, I do not know how to repay you.”’ (SJ: 39; 1659) Identically to the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ , the negative marker wèi can also, by way of exception, select an activity verb such as zhàn ‘fight’ as its complement. As already mentioned, in contrast to states, activities require an input of energy to be maintained, they focus on the process part of a situation and include merely an arbitrary final endpoint. Negated by the aspectual negative marker wèi , the process part of the activity ceases to be focussed on, but the situation is viewed in its entirety from a perfective perspective; accordingly, wèi has the same function as the two aspectual adverbs jì and yǐ ; the general structure and the additional anticipational function of wèi can be represented as follows:

|| 662 The first clause of this example, but with the personal pronoun ĕr ‘you’, is also attested in SJ: 4;107. 663 The same phrase with wèi is also attested in Hànshū: 96B; 3902 in the same context. 664 The outer brackets indicate that the activity which is represented by its usual schema is regarded in its entirety from an external perspective.

454 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì a) activity (| >>>>>>>>> |) tm E tn

c) activities with

wèi ((I) /////// (F))perf Œ ((I) /////// (F))perf wèi V Œ V reference time (RT) Œ following RT

In the following examples the activity verbs zhàn ‘fight’, jiào xué ‘learn’ are modified by the aspectual negative wèi . (253)

Bīng wèi Soldier NEGasp

zhàn ér fight CON

‘teach’, and

xiān jiàn bài zhēng, before see defeat sign,

cĭ kĕ wèi zhī bīng yĭ. this can call know soldier FIN. ‘Recognizing the signs of defeat even if the army has not fought yet – this [indeed] can be called knowing the art of warfare.’ (SJ: 7; 304666) (254)

Bìxià ràng Majesty yield

wén civil

wŭ, gōng zì qiè, military, body himself cut,

jí huángzĭ wèi jiào reach huangzi NEGasp teach ‘Your Majesty yields to civil and military affairs and wears himself out to the extent that Your Majesty’s son has not been instructed yet.’ (SJ: 60; 2110) In these examples the predicate refers to the non attainment of an event which is represented in its entirety from a perfective perspective, only the arbitrary final point of the activity is activated, but not the process part. In example (254) || 665 An example for zhàn ‘fight’ modified by one of the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ has already been presented above (example (189)). Regarding the other two verbs, a few examples for the verb xué ‘learn’ in combination with one of the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì or yĭ are attested, but none is attested with the verb jiào ‘teach’. 666 An almost identical parallel of this instance appears in Hànshū: 31; 1802.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 455

this interpretation is supported by the fact that the predicate is unaccusative or passive, referring to a resultant state, and in example (255) the interpretation is additionally supported by the telic resultative verb chéng ‘complete, achieve’ following jiào ‘teach’. In this respect, activities negated by wèi clearly differ from those negated by bù which represent the situation from an imperfective perspective with the negative referring to the ongoing process. Instances of activity verbs modified by the aspectual negative marker wèi are in general not very frequent, and they evidently do not represent the default case. In example (256) the object pronoun appears in preverbal position following the negative marker wèi . (255)

Zhèn I nǎi then

zhī SUB yĭ with

bù NEG wèi NEGasp

dé, hǎi nèi virtue, sea within jiào chéng teach complete

wèi NEGasp

zhĕ NOM

xiá, permeate,

qiǎng jūn lián force ruler connect

chéng, jí gŭ gōng hé quàn? city, then thigh upper.arm how exhort? ‘That I am not virtuous has not yet become known within the seas; and if one thereupon forces someone who is not yet instructed to perfection to become ruler of several connected cities, how then should the Great Ministers exhort him?’ (SJ: 60; 2107) (256)

Kŏng zĭ Kong zi

yuē say

zŭ sacrificial

dòu zhī shì zé cháng container SUB affair TOP CHANG

wén zhī, jūn lǚ zhī shì wèi zhī xué yĕ. hear OBJ, army troop SUB affair NEGasp OBJ learn FIN. ‘Kong zi said: “Regarding the affairs of the different sacrificial containers, I have been hearing about them, but about the affairs of armies and troops I have not learned anything yet.”’ (SJ: 47; 1926)

|| 667 This is one of the three exceptions from the canonical word order SVO in Classical Chinese.

456 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì Differently to méi yŏu in Modern Mandarin, the negative marker wèi also typically selects a modal predicate, i.e. a derived state, as its complement. The modal auxiliaries in question are mainly kĕ ‘can’, néng ‘can, be able to’, dé ‘can’ which express different root modal values, and the auxiliary verb zú ‘suffice’ which indicates the possibility of establishing a situation the preconditions of which are fulfilled. The root modal values of ability are agent oriented and accordingly require verbs that have an agentive subject as their complement. But since the modal value of root possibility, which is e.g. the modal value predominantly expressed by the modal auxiliary verb kĕ (Meisterernst 2008b), reports on general external enabling conditions (Bybee et al. 1994: 178), the subject does not obligatorily assume the thematic role of the agent; in fact with kě it frequently assumes the role of the theme. The verbs modified by these modals are predominantly event or activity verbs; occasionally state verbs which include a possible change of state reading are selected by the modal auxiliary verb. Verbs that by definition exclude a change of state reading cannot be selected by one of these modal auxiliary verbs as long as they appear in combination with wèi . However in the affirmative, these verbs, i.e. emotive state verbs, are occasionally attested in combination with e.g. the modal auxiliary verbs kĕ ‘can’ (root possibility) and néng ‘can’ (ability). This leads to the hypothesis that the constraints regarding the employment of aspecto-temporal adverbs including the aspectual negative marker wèi are determined by the telicity features of the matrix and not of the auxiliary verb. In a predicate with a telic matrix verb this verb clearly retains its telicity characteristics, but the modal predicate in its entirety has to be considered stative. The situation a modal predicate refers to is non-factual, meaning it does not factually occur in the real world, although there is some probability that it may occur in the real world at a future point of time. In the following a few examples with the negative wèi modifying a modal predicate (modal auxiliary verb + matrix verb) will be presented. In example (257) the main verb fá ‘attack’ is telic and in (258) the VP tīng zhèng || 668 It can also occasionally occur with the verb yù ‘wish’ which expresses the root modal value of volition and with the auxiliary verb kĕn ‘be prepared / willing to’ which also indicates volition. For the exact modal values of these modal auxiliary verbs in Classical Chinese as they have been established so far in the linguistic literature see e.g. Peyraube (1999, 2001), Liu (2000), Meisterernst (2008b, 2008c, 2012). 669 It has been hypothesized that modal auxiliary verbs are actually generated within the Inner Aspect Phrase (Durbin 2006) to account for their close relation with the situation type, i.e. the telicity features of the verb they select. However, this hypothesis still has to be checked against the data of Classical and Han period Chinese.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 457

‘conduct governmental affairs’ is atelic referring to an activity. The VP in example (258) attains a telic reading negated by wèi , but since the situation type of the verb modified by a modal auxiliary verb is already stative, wèi does not cause a shift of the situation type from atelic to telic. But in both predicates, although they evidently refer to states, a change of the situation is still anticipated and accordingly the initial point of the state is inherently included in the temporal structure of the predicate. (257=51)

(258)

Tiān fang kāi Chŭ, wèi kĕ fá yĕ Heaven FANG open Chu, NEGasp can attack FIN ‘Heaven has just opened for Chu, it cannot be attacked yet.’ (SJ: 42; 1769670)

Wŭ Líng wáng Wu Ling king

shào, wèi young, NEGasp

bó extensive

shī teacher

wén hear

sān three

néng tīng zhèng, can listen government, rén, man,

zuŏ yòu sī guò sān rén. left right control mistake three man. ‘King Wu Ling was still young and was not yet able to conduct his duties in government, he consulted extensively his three teachers for advice and three men of the entourage who controlled his mistakes.’ (SJ: 43; 1803) In contrast to the preceding examples where a change of state point is expected at a future reference time, in example (259), the negative marker wèi modifying a modal predicate with the matrix verb tián tán ‘to be at rest and peace’ and the modal auxiliary néng ‘can’ (ability) evidently expresses a categorical denial of the situation, no change of state is expected. (259)

Jīn Now

shàng above

chí govern

tiānxià, wèi empire, NEGasp

|| 670 The same instance is also attested in Shuō Yuàn: 12.

néng tián can quiet

tán. peaceful.

458 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì ‘Well, [the way] Your Majesty governs the empire, you cannot be at rest and peace.’ (SJ: 6; 257) Since with modal verbs which are generally stative, frequently a change of state is anticipated as in examples (257) and (258) when they are negated by wèi , they apparently behave quite similarly to the above discussed state verbs (adjectives) that allow a change of state reading. In the following example, the VP consists of the modal verb néng alone without any further verb contributing to the interpretation of the predicate. As in the preceding examples, in example (260) the auxiliary verb néng alone – the matrix verb appearing in the first clause is deleted – has to be interpreted as a state verb which negated by wèi implies an expected change of state. (260)

Jīn bìxià néng zhì Now Majesty can decide

Xiàng Jí Xiang Ji

zhī sĭ SUB die

mìng hú? mandate FIN?

Yuē wèi néng yĕ. Say NEGasp can FIN. ‘“Is Your Majesty now able to decide about Xiang Ji’s death?” He said: “I am not yet able.”’ (SJ: 55; 2040671) In the following example, wèi is followed by the adverb bì ‘necessarily’, in this position to be analysed as a manner rather than as a modal adverb: (261)

Néng Can

xíng do

zhī OBJ

zhĕ NOM

wèi NEGasp

bì necessarily

néng can

yán, speak,

néng yán zhī zhĕ wèi bì néng xíng can speak OBJ NOM NEGasp necessarily can do ‘Those who can do it cannot necessarily talk about it; those who can talk about it cannot necessarily do it.’ (SJ: 65; 2168672)

|| 671 The phrase wèi néng yĕ is several times attested in different contexts in the Classical and Han period literature. 672 A parallel of this instance is attested in Shuō Yuàn: 13.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 459

This example represents what Harbsmeier calls the ‘logical’ wèi (1991: 42f). As already mentioned above, the employment of wèi in combination with modal auxiliary verbs differs considerably from that of méi yŏu in Modern Mandarin. Since modals clearly have to be determined as stative in Han period Chinese, the employment of the negative wèi is evidently less restricted than that of méi yŏu in Modern Mandarin. This gives rise to the question whether modals during the period under investigation – although stative in the first instance – show semantic characteristics different from that of modals in Modern Mandarin, a question that has to be postponed to a separate study. In all the preceding examples the negative wèi clearly refers to a stative situation, usually but not necessarily implying a change of state following reference time. When no change of state following reference time can be anticipated, the notions of the negative apparently include a modal evaluation of the situation. Accordingly, at least with regard to the last feature a difference seems to exist between the aspectual adverbs jì and yǐ and the negative marker wèi – besides the function of the latter as a negative marker – and it cannot be excluded that they have to be generated in different functional heads.

6.5.4 The negative marker wèi adverb cháng

in combination with the aspecto-temporal

Frequently, the negative marker wèi ‘not yet’ appears in combination with the aspecto-temporal adverb cháng >> wèi cháng ‘not yet, never yet’ (Pulleyblank 1995: 119). According to Unger (1992: 10) wèi cháng has the meaning ‘never’ (in the past or in general). As has already been demonstrated above, the basic meaning of cháng (CHANG1) is to locate an individual event in the past, e.g. to mark a situation completed in the (remote) past, independently of the duration of the situation; but according to Unger (1992: 8) it is more frequently attested with verbs referring to a situation of longer duration (a process or a state). The habitual reading of cháng (CHANG1) , synonymously to cháng (CHANG2) , which has also been assumed for cháng (CHANG1) in the linguistic literature has to be supported by additional syntactic evidence or has to be implied pragmatically. However, these adverbs evidently belong to the || 673 In most of Harbsmeier’s examples for ‘logical’ wèi , the negative modifies either a modal, a state verb (adjective) or one of the verbs discussed above, which can have either a state or event reading. 674 In some of the Classical texts the aspecto-temporal adverb cháng appears more frequently in combination with the negative marker wèi than without it (Unger 1992: 8).

460 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì category of aspecto-temporal adverbs and apparently have to be generated below the Outer Aspect Phrase in which the perfectivity-imperfectivity features are checked. The neutral negative marker bù can be added to the combination wèi cháng , indicating that the situation is one of long duration or of habit. In the following section the employment of wèi cháng (bù) ( ) will be analysed with particular regard to the situation type of the respective verb modified by this combination of a negative marker with an aspecto-temporal adverb. The adverb céng as a Han period variant of cháng can also appear in combination with the negative marker wèi . As has been demonstrated by the examples presented above, céng evidently predominantly serves to mark telic verbs, indicating a singular situation located in the past. Only one instance of the combination wèi céng is attested in the Shĭjì. Basically the same kind of verbs which are attested with wèi alone can also appear modified by wèi cháng , although it must be conceded that the range of verbs attested with wèi cháng is considerably smaller than that attested with wèi alone. a) The combination of adverb and negative marker wèi cháng tion with telic verbs

in combina-

Not infrequently the negative marker wèi in combination with the aspectotemporal adverb cháng selects an event as its complement. The resultant predicate in all these cases is stative as can be expected according to the employment of a negative marker. But contrary to the negation with wèi alone, where in combination with a telic verb a change of state point is always anticipated, this does not seem to be the case when wèi co-occurs with cháng as can be demonstrated by the following examples. In example (262) the telic verb qĭng ‘ask for’ is modified by wèi cháng and in (263) it is the verb wén ‘hear about’. Both verbs belong to the same category of ditransitive verbs which is characterised by the word order V / DO / IO; the indirect object is introduced by the preposition yú and follows the direct object. In particular, the verb wén is not infrequently modified by wèi cháng , always referring to a situation that has never been heard about and that is extremely unlikely to ever be heard about in the future. Accordingly the combination wèi cháng refers to habitual or continuous situations in the past which continue up to reference time. || 675 DO refers to the direct object and IO refers to the indirect object, in contrast to the order V / IO / DO which is also attested for ditransitive verbs. See Unger (1987: 18) who lists both verbs qĭng and wén under the category of ‘Uneigentliche Verben des Übermittelns’.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 461

(262)

Bìng Ill

shí, Rén time, Ren

hòu wèi queen NEGasp

cháng CHANG

qĭng ask

bìng; ill;

hōng, yòu bù chí sāng. decease, again NEG take mourning. ‘When she (queen dowager Li) was ill, queen Ren never inquired about her illness; and when she was deceased she also did not put on mourning clothes.’ (SJ: 58; 2087676) (263)

Chén Chen

Yīng Ying

mŭ wèi Yīng mother say Ying

jiā fù, wèi family wife, NEGasp

cháng CHANG

yuē say

zì wŏ from I

wén rŭ hear your

wéi rŭ be your

xiān former

gŭ ancestor

zhī yŏu guì zhĕ. SUB have noble NOM. ‘Cheng Ying’s mother said to Ying: “Ever since I became a wife in your family, I have never heard that there were noblemen among your ancestors.”’ (SJ: 7; 298) In example (264) the verb jiàn ‘see, notice, meet’ which has been presented already in example (236) modified by wèi alone, is modified by wèi cháng . This verb can have a telic and an atelic reading, but in example (264) it evidently appears in its atelic reading. A categorical denial from the past to the present is expressed by the combination of the negative marker wèi with the adverb cháng . (264)

Gāo Gao

shòu zhào jiào xí Húhài, shĭ receive edict teach train Huhai, cause

shì shù nián yĭ, wèi affair several year FIN, NEGasp

cháng CHANG

jiàn see

|| 676 This instance is almost identically attested in Hànshū: 47; 2214.

xué yĭ learn with

fǎ legal

guò shī. fault mistake.

462 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì ‘I received the edict to teach Huhai and I let him study legal affairs for several years, but I have never seen that he made any mistakes.’ (SJ: 87; 2550a1) In the following example the telic verb wàng ‘forget’ is modified by wèi cháng and additionally by a preverbal duration phrase, which is explicitly marked as an adjunct by the subordinative connector ér . A similar example without ér is discussed in section 5.2.3.1 (ex. (24)); the position of the duration phrase provides an additional argument for the generation of aspectotemporal adverbs above the negative marker bù and thus outside the vP. The predicate expresses a general denial of a continuous situation starting in the past and continuing up to the present time of the narrative. (265)

Wén Yān Hear Yan

Zhāo wáng Zhao king

bài Yān, Yān defeat Yan, Yan

yĭ with

Zhāo wáng Zhao king

zĭ zi

Zhī zhī luàn ér Zhi SUB revolt CON

yuàn Qí, resent Qi,

Qí dà Qi great

wèi cháng yī NEGasp CHANG one

rì ér wàng bào Qí yĕ. day CON forget repay Qi FIN. ‘He heard from king Zhao of Yan that Qi, because of the revolt of zi Zhi, had to a great extent defeated Yan, and that king Zhao of Yan bore resentment against Qi and never, even for a day, forgot to repay Qi.’ (SJ: 80; 2427) In the following example the telic verb zhì ‘reach, arrive at’, a motion-to-agoal verb, is modified by wèi cháng . This verb is typically modified by the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ ‘already’ expressing completion and the resultative, and by the aspectual negative marker wèi . In example (266) the verb appears with a direct locative object, and the entire predicate expresses habituality in the past. (266)

Zì

nián

liù

qī

shí

wēng

yì

|| 677 See Aldridge (2011, 2013) for an analysis with the negator bù

located within the vP.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 463

From wèi NEGasp

year

six

seven

ten

old.man also

cháng zhì shì jĭng, CHANG reach market well,

yóu promenade

áo xī xì rú xiǎo ér zhuàng. stroll amuse play like little child appearance. ‘Even the sixty or seventy year old men, who never used to go to the markets and the wells, sauntered and strolled around and amused themselves like young children.’ (SJ: 25; 1243) In example (267) the verb bài ‘defeat’ is employed in the intransitive, i.e. passive (or unaccusative) construction. The verb is followed by the verb bò ‘turn the back on, run away; be routed, defeated’ which according to the meanings given in Pulleyblank (1991: 31) can have both telic and atelic readings. The entire predicate again refers to a continuous or habitual situation in the past. This construction which refers to a resultant state is less frequently attested with the combination wèi cháng than with the negative marker wèi alone, or with one of the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ . (267)

Wú I

qĭ bīng zhì jīn bā suì yĭ, shēn raise troops until today eight year FIN, body

shí yú zhàn, suŏ dāng zhĕ ten more battle, REL face NOM jī zhĕ attack NOM

fú, wèi submit, NEGasp

qī seven

pò, suŏ destroy, REL

cháng CHANG

bài defeat

bò, flee,

suì bà yŏu tiānxià. thereupon hegemon have empire. ‘I have raised troops for more than eight years until now, personally I have fought more than seventy battles, whoever I faced, was destroyed, and whoever I attacked, submitted, I was never defeated and fled, and thereupon I became hegemon and gained the empire.’ (SJ: 7; 334678)

|| 678 This instance is almost identically attested in Hànshū: 31; 1818.

464 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì b) The adverb wèi cháng states

in combination with atelic predicates and derived

The combination of the negative marker wèi and the aspecto-temporal adverb cháng is, identically to the negative marker wèi alone, not confined to telic predicates. Most atelic verbs which are attested with wèi can also appear with the combination wèi cháng although state verbs referring to a property, i.e. adjectives, are extremely rare as is the case generally with the adverb cháng . Example (268) represents one of the very few examples in which the verb can be analysed as an adjective ‘chaotic, be in chaos’; in this example wèi is combined with the historically younger variant of cháng , céng . This is the only instance of wèi céng in the Shĭjì. The predicate expresses a categorical denial in a hypothetical context in the future. (268)

Wén wŭ bù Civil.arts martial.arts NEG

bèi, provide,

liáng good

mín people

jù fear

rán shēn xiū zhĕ, guān wèi céng luàn yĕ. but body improve NOM, office NEGasp CENG chaos FIN. ‘If the civil and the martial arts are not provided for, the good people will be afraid, but with those who improve themselves, the offices will never be in chaos.’ (SJ: 119, 3099) In example (269) the verb of posture jū ‘dwell, live in’ is modified by wèi cháng . The verb is preceded by a manner adverb níng ‘quietly, peacefully’. The predicate refers to a habitual situation stretching over a long period in the past. (269)

Tiānxià yŏu bù Empire have NEG

shùn zhĕ, Huáng follow NOM, Huang

dì cóng ér di follow CON

|| 679 There is one instance with the adjective ān in Hànshū: 94B, 3797, but none in Shĭjì. The fact that adjectives are only rarely attested with wèi cháng rather seems to be due to the semantic constraints determined by cháng than those determined by wèi which is regularly attested with adjectives in contrast to cháng which is only extremely rarely attested with adjectives.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 465

zhēng zhī, píng zhĕ qù zhī, pī make.expedition.against OBJ, pacify NOM leave OBJ, split shān tōng dào, wèi cháng níng jū. mountain go.through way, NEGasp CHANG peaceful dwell. ‘If there were any in the empire who did not follow, Huangdi subsequently marched against them, when they were pacified he left them, he split the mountains to build roads through them, and he was never able to live quietly.’ (SJ: 1; 3) Example (270) represents one of the verbs most typically modified by wèi cháng , i.e. the verb of existence and possession yŏu ‘have, there is’. As in the following example, predicates with yŏu in general express categorical denial ‘there had never been’ which is valid for the past, present and future. (270)

Wèi suī bù Position although NEG

zhōng, finish,

jìn near

gŭ former

yĭ CON

lái come

wèi cháng yŏu yĕ. NEGasp CHANG have FIN. ‘Although he could not keep his position to the end, in the present and the past there has never been anyone like him.’ (SJ: 7; 338680) In example (271) the activity verb xíng ‘go, do, deal with’ which can also have a telic reading ‘set off’ appears in its atelic reading; in combination with wèi alone it is usually attested in its telic reading, since wèi predominantly selects an event as its complement. The predicate refers to a habitual situation in the past. (271)

Shĭ Once wèi NEGasp

Qín Qin

gōng pò tiānxià, attack defeat empire,

cháng CHANG

zì self

xíng. go.

|| 680 The same instance is also attested in Hànshū: 31; 1826.

466 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì ‘Qin once attacked and defeated the empire, but he never did it by himself.’ (SJ: 98; 2712) In the following examples the combination wèi cháng modifies derived state predicates, i. e. predicates which either contain a modal auxiliary verb or a negative marker. Examples (272) and (273) represent the modal verbs gǎn ‘dare’ and dé ‘can’ which are not infrequently attested modified by wèi cháng . The respective matrix verbs following the modal auxiliary are the telic verbs shī ‘loose’ in example (272) and wén ‘hear’ in example (273). The first predicate in (272) is additionally marked by the negative marker bù following the modal auxiliary gǎn ; the matrix verb is the telic verb cóng ‘follow’. In example (272) in all three predicates a categorical denial is expressed which is independent of time. In example (273) a general denial of the situation from past to present is expressed. (272)

Què Royal

tíng palace

zhī SUB

lĭ, wú rites, I

wèi NEGasp

cháng CHANG

gǎn dare

bù NEG

cóng bīnzàn yĕ; lángmiào zhī wèi, wú follow master.of.ceremonies FIN; temple SUB position, I wèi NEGasp

cháng gǎn CHANG dare

shī neglect

jié propriety

yĕ; shòu FIN; receive

mìng order

yìng duì, wú wèi cháng gǎn shī cí yĕ. answer reply, I NEGasp CHANG dare neglect word FIN. ‘Regarding the adequate rites at court, we have never presumed not to follow the master of ceremonies; with regard to the correct position in the halls and temples we have never presumed to neglect the proper regulations; with regard to receiving orders and answering and reacting we have never presumed to neglect proper speech.’ (SJ: 6; 268)

|| 681 According to Liu (2000: 157) dé as an auxiliary verb in Classical Chinese expresses a ‘possibility which is permitted on objective or reasonable grounds’. It differs semantically from néng ‘can’ and kĕ ‘can’. Gǎn ‘dare’ has according to Liu (2000: 179f) a long history as an auxiliary verb and frequently expresses a polite presumption. (See also Peyraube (1999, 2001)).

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 467

(273)

Guǎ rén bù Lonely man NEG

mĭn, pì yuǎn clever, remote far

qióng dào dōng jìng exhaust way east border

zhī SUB

guó land

shŏu hǎi guard sea, yĕ FIN,

wèi cháng dé wén yú jiào. NEGasp CHANG get hear more advise. ‘I am slow witted, and [in] far away [regions] we keep to the sea, in a country on the eastern border at the end of all roads, and never could we hear a sufficient advice.’ (SJ: 69; 2259) In the following examples the negative marker bù is added to the combination wèi cháng >> ‘always’. The combination of wèi cháng with a further negative marker expresses habituality by default. In this combination again, mostly event verbs are selected by the combination of the two negative markers and the aspecto-temporal adverb cháng . Although double negation in Chinese results in an affirmative reading, the atelic reading of the predicate which is induced by the combination wèi cháng is not cancelled as could be expected in an affirmative predicate with telic verbs. The predicate rather obtains a habitual reading in the affirmative, referring to regularly reoccurring situations. As has already been stated above, habituals are semantically stative, i.e. they are derived states and denote a state that holds consistently over an interval of time (Smith 1997: 33f). Habitual situations do not refer to a single individual occurrence of the situation but rather “present a pattern of events” (Smith 1997: 35). With telic verbs, the verb as such retains its telic reading – similar to telic verbs modified by cháng (CHANG2) ‘habitually’ – but the entire predicate has to be interpreted as stative. In the first example in this section the combination of adverb and negative markers modifies the telic verb fèi ‘abolish’, the predicate refers to a situation which habitually reoccurs under certain conditions. (274)

Tài shĭ gōng yuē yú Great historiographer duke say I zhì Liáng Huì wáng reach Liang Hui king

dú Mèng zĭ read Meng zi

wèn hé yĭlì wú ask how advantage I

shū, book, guó, state,

468 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì

wèi cháng bù fèi shū ér tàn yĕ. NEGasp CHANG NEG abolish book CON sigh FIN. ‘His Honour the Great Historiographer says: “Whenever I read the books of Meng zi and come to the point where king Hui of Liang asks, ‘How can one profit my country?’, I always put the book away and sigh.”’ (SJ: 74; 2343682) The same semantic interpretation as for (274) also has to be assumed for examples (275) to (277) which all contain a telic verb, these are the verbs yĭ … wéi ‘take … make’, hū ‘cry out to’ and chuí ‘shed’. The modified predicate consistently refers to a situation habitually reoccurring under certain circumstances. (275)

Ránér hào shì zhī jūn, xĭ gōng zhī chén, Nevertheless love affair SUB lord, enjoy attack SUB minister, fā hào yòng bīng, wèi emit order employ troops, NEGasp

cháng CHANG

bù NEG

yĭ take

Zhōu wéi zhōng shĭ. Zhou make end beginning. ‘Nevertheless, the officious lords683 and the ministers who love to attack, when they dispatch their orders and employ their troops they always make Zhou their end and their beginning (from beginning to end, they have Zhou in their minds).’ (SJ: 40; 1734) (276)

Rén qióng zé fǎn bĕn, gù láo kŭ Man exhaust the return root, therefore toil bitterness jí, wèi extreme, NEGasp

cháng bù CHANG NEG

juàn fatigue

hū tiān yĕ; jí tòng cry heaven FIN; sickness pain

|| 682 This phrase is several times attested in Shĭjì, always in the Tàishĭ gōng yuē sections: SJ: 42; 509; 80; 2436; 121; 3115. 683 I have adopted this term from Nienhauser (2006: 437) who indicates in a note who this term refers to.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 469

cǎn dá, wèi cháng bù hū fù mŭ yĕ. miserable sad, NEGasp CHANG NEG cry father mother FIN. ‘If men are exhausted, they return to their roots, therefore if toil, bitterness and fatigue are extreme, they always cry out to heaven; if sickness and pain makes them miserable and sad, they always cry out to their parents.’ (SJ: 84; 2482) (277)

Shì Go.to

Chángshā, guàn Qū Yuán Changsha, look.at Qu Yuan

suŏ zì chén REL himself sink

yuān, depth,

wèi cháng bù chuí tì, xiǎng jiàn qí wéi rén. NEGasp CHANG NEG shed tear, consider see his be man. ‘Whenever I go to Changsha and have a look at where Qu Yuan threw himself into the depths, I always shed tears and I wish to see what kind of person he was.’ (SJ: 84; 2503684) In example (278) the state verb jiàn ‘strong, healthy’ appears in a denominative transitive construction which probably has to be interpreted as telic. The second verb which is under the scope of wèi cháng bù is the emotive verb lián ‘pity’, usually to be interpreted as a state verb similar to the verb huĭ discussed above (see example (216)). The semantics of this predicate are identical to the semantics of the predicates with genuine telic verbs presented above. (278)

Wú I

dú Qín jĭ, zhì yú zĭ Yīng chēliè Zhào Gāo, read Qin annals, reach at zi Ying carriage.tear Zhao Gao,

wèi NEGasp

cháng CHANG

bù NEG

jiàn strong

qí his

jué, decision,

|| 684 This phrase is also attested in Shĭjì: 98; 2713. 685 Adjectives in Classical and Han period Chinese can be transitivised in two different ways: 1) by causativation ‘cause X to be’, and by denomination: ‘think / find X to be’. Both structures probably differ with regard to their subjects; structure 1) obviously has a ‘causer’ subject, whereas structure 2) possibly rather has an experiencer subject and accordingly probably a different light verb in the position of V1.

470 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì lián qí zhì sympathize his determination ‘When I read the Annals of Qin and come to the point where zi Ying punishes Zhao Gao by tearing him apart, I always find his decision strong and sympathize with his determination.’ (SJ: 6; 293) In example (279) the verb of posture, a state verb, zài ‘be at’ is modified by wèi cháng bù . The semantic interpretation of this predicate is identical to the interpretation of the predicates in examples (274) to (278). (279)

Zì Hàn jī Xiōngnú ér Since Han attack Xiongnu CON

Guǎng Guang

wèi cháng bù zài qí zhōng, NEGasp CHANG NEG be.at its middle, ‘Since Han attacks the Xiongnu, I, Guang, was always in the middle of it.’ (SJ: 109; 2873686) As the examples have demonstrated, independently of the situation type of the verb modified by wèi cháng bù the entire predicate always expresses habituality. It regularly refers to a situation which habitually re-occurs under the conditions specified in the preceding subordinate clause. In this regard it is comparable to the aspecto-temporal adverb cháng (CHANG2) discussed above. It apparently differs from cháng in the fact that it even more strongly emphasizes the relation between the situation specified in the subordinate clause and the regularly re-occurring situation referred to in the matrix clause.

6.5.5 Concluding remarks on the concepts of Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi In the linguistic literature it has been assumed that the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ serve to express the perfective aspect in Classical and Han period Chinese. However, during this period the perfective viewpoint does not seem to be obligatorily marked by any syntactic or morphological means such as the perfective suffix in Modern Mandarin. The few references to the morpho|| 686 This instance is almost literally attested in Hànshū: 54; 2446.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 471

logical marking of verbs selected by one of the aspectual adverbs jì and yǐ in this section demonstrate how difficult it is to establish a coherent system of the aspectual morphology of Chinese. The data evidently argues for a connection between these adverbs and the morphology of the verb, but the constraints of this morphological system still have to be worked out in detail. Additionally, it has been tentatively assumed that the aspectual morphology rather concerns the lexical than the grammatical aspect. Nevertheless, apparently verbs of all situation types when referring to events in the past can attain a perfective reading without being marked. However, due to their inherent temporal structure this is more likely for telic verbs which by default focus the final point of a situation than for atelic verbs, which by default exclude the final points of the situation and are accordingly rather presented from an imperfective perspective. But most verbs can – without any adverbial modification – shift their situation type from atelic to telic in particular syntactic environments, namely from verbs that do not entail the initial or final point of a situation to verbs that do. Shifted stative verbs usually focus on the initial point while shifted activity verbs mainly focus on the arbitrary final point but can focus on the initial point as well. The internal structure can be represented as follows: a) (I ///////) F (shifted activities, structural identical with events) b) I //////// (F) (shifted activities); b’) I ______ (F) (shifted states) As has been demonstrated above, the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ select events as their complements by default. However, due to the shifts possible in the situation type of a verb, all kind of verbs which allow a change of state in their temporal structure can be modified by one of the adverbs at issue. Syntactically, verbs modified by the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ are subject to particular constraints, e.g. they do not appear as a V2 in causative constructions, only occasionally are they attested in marked conditional clauses, and they are usually not attested in consecutive sentences. Their basic function is to refer to the factual occurrence of an individual situation mainly in a past context (but they are not confined to the past and occasionally they also appear in future contexts). No constraints on the co-occurrence with other temporal markers, such as point of time temporal adverbials, time-span adverbials || 687 This refers to conditional clauses marked by a conditional conjunction in the protasis. Although a clause marked by one of the adverbs can occasionally present a pre-condition for the following.

472 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì and duration phrases seem to exist. The employment of a duration phrase suggests a stative interpretation of the event – usually the duration of the resultant state is indicated – but does not necessarily contradict a perfective interpretation. The particular semantics of a predicate marked by one of the aspectotemporal adverbs jì and yĭ may best be analysed as adding focus or emphasis to a particular part of the temporal structure of the verb, usually on its final point. This agrees well with the assumed perfective meaning of these adverbs. Whereas an unmarked predicate depicts the event as an integrated whole without any particular focus, the aspecto-temporal adverbs at issue here serve to emphasize the successful completion of the event when the subject is agentive or causative, and the final point of the event and the initial point of the resultant state when the verb is intransitive, or passive or unaccusative, i.e. when the thematic role of theme is assigned to the subject. With genuine state or activity verbs, the focus usually shifts from the internal stages of the situation to either its initial or its final point: a change of state and a shift of situation type from atelic to telic is explicitly marked. But, since jì and yĭ often serve to emphasize a state resulting from a previous telic situation, they can by way of analogy also serve to emphasize a genuine state without particularly focussing on its initial point, although the initial point of the situation is always implied. With this atelic reading, predicates modified by jì and yĭ can in a speech also refer to the present, i.e. to speech time. With activity verbs, the situation type always shifts from atelic to telic; the situation is viewed in its entirety from a perfective perspective. These semantic features demonstrate the close relation between the employment of the aspectual adverbs and the telicity features of the vP and argue thus for the generation of these adverbs as specifiers of an Outer Aspect Phrase in which the the grammatical aspectual features perfective and imperfective are hosted. Syntactically jì and yĭ do not belong to the same paradigm as the aspectual suffix –le in Modern Mandarin, and consequently a direct comparison of the two structures is not possible. Their syntactic behaviour clearly qualifies them as genuine adverbs comparable to adverbs such as e.g. yĭjīng ‘already’ in Modern Mandarin or ‘quite’, ‘already’ in English and not as morphemes immediately connected with the verb stem. Even if one agrees with || 688 Smith (1997: 72) “Not all perfectives are punctual in presentation. Duration can be explicitly asserted in sentences with the perfective viewpoint.” 689 They do not need to be immediately connected with the verb but can be separated from it by e.g. prepositional phrases. Additionally they can – under certain conditions – serve to modify two different successive VPs.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 473

the traditional assumption that subordinate clauses marked by jì in Classical Chinese are the predecessor of subordinate clauses marked by the perfective suffix –le , the syntactic differences still have to be accounted for. But an investigation of the two adverbs jì and yĭ in comparison with the source structure of the aspectual suffix –le , the structure V1 NPobj V2 (V2 = yĭ , qì , bì , liǎo ) reveals that semantically and pragmatically the structure V1 NPobj V2 is closely related to the Classical construction jì V, closer than to the structure with the aspecto-temporal adverb yĭ : yĭ V (Meisterernst 2011). In the Buddhist literature both structures, V1 NPobj V2 (yǐ ) and jì V indicate that a first situation, presented in a subordinate temporal clause, has been completed or come to its natural final point before the second situation starts, and accordingly they can be merged into one structure as in example (165); this structure is confined to non-finite clauses. Contrastively to Han period Chinese where both aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ are attested in finite and non-finite clauses, with jì being predominant in non-finite and yĭ in finite ones, in the Buddhist literature the adverb jì seems to be confined to subordinate clauses, whereas yĭ is employed to express completion and the resultative in superordinate clauses or in clausal arguments identically to its function in Han period Chinese. According to the development of the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ in the post-Han period Buddhist literature it can be assumed that in subordinate phrases the structure V1 NPobj V2 is obviously in the process of replacing the structure jì V, maybe due to a loss of morphological marking of V, despite their syntactic differences and although this structure is still productive in the Buddhist literature. Contrastively, predicates with the adverb yĭ which is the predecessor of Modern Mandarin yĭjīng ‘already’ do not show any tendency to be replaced by the new structure, this adverb is productively employed in different kinds of independent / finite clauses. Regarding the new structure V1 NPobj V2 , it apparently developed from the Han period on from a structure with yĭ as the matrix verb predicating over a sentential subject,

|| 690 The presumed path of development is: jì VP1, VP2 > VP1 yĭ , VP2 > VP1 liǎo , VP2, V1 –le NPobj, VP2. It can certainly be assumed that semantically and functionally both structures express more or less the same, i.e. the completion of an event before the next one starts, but since they differ syntactically – jì functions as an adverb and yĭ and liǎo in their early stages probably as resultative verbs – different semantics have at least to a certain extent to be assumed. 691 The development of the adverb yĭjīng has been discussed in Yang (2002). The precise relationship between the development of adverbial jì , yĭ and yĭjīng  and other temporal-aspectual adverbs and the development of resultative constructions and their respective syntactic and semantic constraints from the 3rd c. AD on certainly deserves further study.

474 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì and according to the general development of resultative constructions with a second verb (V2) expressing the result of a preceding situation indicated by V1. However, this analysis poses several syntactic problems which still have to be worked out (Aldridge, pc). Like all aspecto-temporal adverbs, jì and yĭ serve to modify the entire VP aspectually or to emphasize a certain aspect already inherent in the VP, but they do not serve to mark the verbal aspect morphologically. In the hierarchy of adverbs they follow modal adverbs and precede manner adverbs, prepositional phrases, and the YI.phrase. They are not obligatory, but – as specifiers of an Outer Aspect Phrase – they add some emphasis to a particular part of the temporal structure of the VP. The semantics of the aspectual adverbs and their relation with the situation type of the verb can be accounted for by the aspectual features of an Outer Aspect Phrase specified by jì and yǐ , which select the telicity features, i.e. the situation type features of an Inner Aspect Phrase generated within an articulated vP. Accordingly, the aspectual adverbs can emphasize the default telicitiy features of the selected verb, or they can cause a shift of the situation type of the verb from e.g. atelic to telic by way of coercion, i.e. the [+ perfective] features of the Outer AspectP specified by jì / yǐ force corresponding [+ telic] features of the verb to become visible in the temporal structure of the predicate. Most frequently jì / yǐ represent situations in the past, but they are not confined to them and they can also refer to the completion or the resultant state of situations in the present and in the future. a) The Outer and the Inner Aspects, a tentative representation of the adverb yǐ in Han period Chinese: (280=196)

Shì shí Yuè yĭ miè Wú This time Yue already destroy Wu ‘By this time, Yue had already destroyed Wu, … ’ (SJ: 40; 1719)

|| 692 For the development of the structure V1 NPobj V2 see Mei (1981, 1999) and Jiang (2001, 2007), who argue for a Chinese origin of this construction and against the hypothesis that it developed under the influence of the translation of Sanskrit Buddhist literature. Further arguments for this hypothesis have been provided in Meisterernst (2011).

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 475

TP  DP

T’

Yuei

 AspP  ADV

AspP’

YI

 + TELIC

V1P 

Agenti

V1’

DPi

 V1

AspP

CAUSE

destroyj

 DP

AspP’

Wuk

 Asp

V2P

+ TELIC



Theme

V2’

DPk

 V2

XP

tj

This example is a tentative representation of a transitive achievement which requires the Agent ‘Yue’ outside the Inner Aspect Phrase; as the external argument, it has moved up to [Spec, TP]; in an unaccusative achievement, it would be the Theme, which – as the subject – moves up to the same position according to the constraint that the subject always has to precede the aspecto-temporal adverb. The DP in [Spec, AspP], ‘Wu’, represents the event measuring DP, i.e. the internal argument; for a theme argument to measure out the event it has to move up to this position. V1 is assumed to host the feature [+/- process], in a transitive causative achievement the light verb CAUSE; additionally it represents an arbitrary bound, a beginning or a natural endpoint (Travis 2010: 244f). The telicity features [+/- telic] which distinguish events from activities and states, are checked in the Inner Aspect Phrase (Travis 2010: 118f), which also marks the

476 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì beginning, or the natural endpoint; V2P is headed by the lexical verb ‘destroy’. The telicitiy features of the Inner Aspect in this example correspond to those of the Outer Aspect Phrase and accordingly, no shift of situation type is involved. Identically to the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ , the negative marker wèi mostly selects events as its complement and consequently its main function is to deny the occurrence or existence of an event. However, it is not confined to event verbs, but can also modify state verbs and by way of exception even activity verbs. But apparently wèi never occurs in purely attitudinal sentences which are usually negated by bù , nor does it modify emotive state verbs which do not imply a change of state. State verbs modified by wèi mostly obtain a telic reading, i.e. in an inchoative reading, focussing on the initial point of the state, but wèi can also refer to a genuine state. However, even if a change of state is not explicitly expressed it usually is implied, i.e. it can be either explicitly excluded (‘never’) or be implicitly wished for. In those cases, obviously, a modal evaluation of the situation is included. This modal notion of wèi is mainly attested with state verbs including modal auxiliary verbs and the verbs of possession yŏu ‘have, there is’ and of knowledge zhī ‘know’. According to the examples given, wèi is less restricted in its employment with state verbs than méi yŏu in Modern Mandarin, but also than the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ ‘already’, which can be employed with state verbs (adjectives), but are quite rare in combination with modal predicates and with state verbs such as yŏu ‘have, there is’ and zhī ‘know’. Although predicates modified by jì and yĭ can occasionally be analysed as stative (with the initial change of state point implied), in general they have to be analysed as referring to an event, i.e. as telic; an analysis which can be explicitly supported by the employment of the aspectual sentence final particle yĭ which indicates a change of state. In contrast to the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ ‘already’ which combine with the sentence final particle yĭ , the negative marker wèi combines with the final yĕ , which basically marks nominalisation and tense neutral attributive non active sentences with a reinforced assertive modality of the sentence. This analysis of yĕ is on a par with the fact that wèi – in correlation with yĕ – is quite frequently attested in combination with modal auxiliaries such as kĕ , zú and others, and with the verbs yŏu and zhī . As already stated in Meisterernst (2008a: 144) this || 693 In Classical texts, main clauses or simple sentences with wèi are usually marked by the final yĕ , while it is omitted in subordinate clauses with wèi . In the Han period text Shĭjì, this rule is applied less strictly than in Classical texts. 694 The statistics of these combinations are presented in Meisterernst (2008a: 150, note 48, 49).

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 477

kind of assertive modality attributed to the final yĕ is clearly involved in a number of predicates negated by wèi , and it seems to be the main function of wèi when no change of state is anticipated, i.e. in those cases in which Harbsmeier labels the function of the negative marker as ‘logical’. Consequently, the sentence final particle yĕ can be analysed as corresponding to this particular notion of the negative. The exclusive employment of yĕ in combination with predicates negated by wèi further supports the hypothesis that the situation type of a negated predicate is always stative. In general, negated predicates are – if modified by a sentence final particle at all – predominantly attested in combination with the sentence final particle yĕ . This general predominance of yĕ with negated predicates provides further evidence for an analysis of the situation type of a negated predicate as stative, referring to a transient and not a permanent state, independently of the original situation type of the verb. The correspondance of the two sentence final particles yǐ and yě with the respective aspectual adverbs jì / yǐ and the negative marker wèi provides an argument for the analysis of the sentence final particles as being aspectual in function; however, their exact syntactic constraints have not been determined yet. In recapitulation, the negative wei can be characterised as follows: - It predominantly selects an event as its complement. If it selects an atelic complement this often changes its situation type from atelic to telic. - It never occurs in purely attitudinal sentences or modifying verbs that do not allow a change of state reading. - It is connected to the other modal m/w-negatives by indicating the epistemic modal value of Inferred Certainty (assertion). The epistemic modal value is mainly attested with state verbs including modal auxiliary verbs and the existential verb yŏu ‘have’ and the verb of knowledge zhī ‘know’. If wèi selects a modal predicate as its complement, the matrix verb of the predicate is subject to the same constraints as a predicate consisting only of the negative and the matrix verb. The negated predicate is stative in its entirety. Predicates negated by wèi are confined to the combination with the sentence final particle yĕ which supports the stative interpretation of the predicate.

|| 695 See Meisterernst (2008a: 150, note 50). 696 The strict distinction between the two sentence final particles starts to disappear during the Han period.

478 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì Regarding the combination of the negative marker wèi with the aspectotemporal adverb cháng alone or with cháng and the neutral negative marker bù , both also select mainly telic verbs as their complement but they are not confined to them. In the combination of the negative marker with the aspecto-temporal adverb the semantics of the aspecto-temporal adverb add to the semantics of the negative marker, the predicate refers either to a habitual or a continuous situation in the past, which continues up to reference time, or it expresses a categorical denial of the situation referred to by the verb which is valid for all times, from the past on. Independently of the situation type of the modified verb, the resultant predicate is stative as can be expected according to the employment of a negative marker. However, contrary to a predicate negated by wèi alone, which by default denies the existence of an event but usually still anticipates the change of state point the verb refers to, this is not the case when wèi co-occurs with the aspecto-temporal adverb cháng . Although the combination wèi cháng is only infrequently attested with adjectives, i.e. state verbs expressing a property or attitude, it is regularly attested e.g. with the existential verb yŏu ‘there is, have’, expressing categorical denial ‘there had/has never been’ which is valid for the past, present and future. The combination of wèi cháng with the negative marker bù >> wèi cháng bù ‘always’ expresses habituality by default. Again, mostly event verbs are selected by the combination of the two negative markers and the aspecto-temporal adverb cháng . Although the doubly negated predicate thus obtains an affirmative reading, the atelic reading of telic verbs induced by the modification by wèi cháng is not cancelled. The doubly negated predicate obtains a habitual reading in the affirmative which is by definition stative, in general referring to regularly reoccurring situations, similar to predicates with the aspecto-temporal adverb cháng (CHANG2) ‘habitually’. A telic verb as such retains its telic reading, but the entire predicate has to be interpreted as stative. A tentative functional label in a frame of tense, aspect and situation type of the adverbs jì and yĭ is: 1. Tense: [tense], the adverbs do not indicate tense in the first place, and although they usually refer to situations in the past, they are not confined to them and can also refer to situations in the present and in the future; they are not deictic and referential. 2. Aspect: [+aspect]: [+completion] [+ resultative], i.e. meanings connected to the perfective aspect; which are assumed to be generated in an Outer Aspect Phrase. 3. Situation type: by default [+ telic]; according to the aspectual features of the Outer AspectP, the telicity features of the Inner Aspect phrase are

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 479

by default [+ telic], but [ telic] features are also possible (confined to changeable states), usually inducing a shift of the situation type from [ telic] to [+ telic] by way of coercion. 1. Achievement:

ti-1 a

ti ti+1 (default case) b c jì / yĭ In an achievement (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the change of state of the situation; (c) = ti+1 signifies the resultant state of S. With the adverbs jì and yĭ the change of state point ti is focussed (and accordingly also the initial point of the resultant state). 2. Accomplishment: ti-1 a

ti b

ti+1, etc c

tn tn+1 d e jì / yĭ In an accomplishment (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the initial point of the situation; (c) = ti+1 signifies the internal stages of the situation; (d) = tn signifies the natural final end point of the situation, and (e) = tn+1 signifies the resultant state after the final point of the situation. With the adverbs jì and yĭ the change of state point tn is focussed (and accordingly also the initial point of the resultant state). 3. Activity:

(ti-1 ti ti+1, etc.) tj tj+1 a b c d e jì / yĭ In an activity (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the initial point of the situation; (c) = ti+1 signifies the internal stages of the situation; (d) = tj signifies the arbitrary final end point of the situation, and (e) = tj+1 signifies that the situation does not obtain. With the adverbs jì and yĭ the situation is represented from an external perspective in its entirety, the change of state point tj is focussed. 4. State:

ti-1 a jì

ti b / yĭ

(jì

ti… tn c / yĭ )

tn+1 d

tn+2 e

|| 697 The formal representation of the different situation types relevant in this context is taken from Smith (1997: 125).

480 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì In a state (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation (state) does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the change of state of the situation into a state; (c) = ti … tn signifies that the state obtains; (d) = tn+1 signifies the change of state out of the state, and (e) = tn+2 signifies that the state does not obtain. With the adverbs jì and yĭ by default the change of state into the state ti is focussed, but occasionally also the state itself ti… tn, always with the change of state point implied. A tentative functional label in a frame of tense, aspect and situation type of the negative marker wèi is: 1. Tense: [tense], although the negative marker usually modifies situations located in the past, it is not confined to them and can also refer to situations in the present and in the future; it is not deictic and referential. 2. Aspect: [+aspect]: ≠ [+completion], ≠ [+ resultative], the verb usually has a perfective meaning, [+ completion] and [+ resultative] are anticipated. The constraints with regard to the selection of an Inner Aspect Phrase argue for the generation of wèi in an Outer Aspect Phrase, too; however, due to its negative force wèi probably cannot be equated directly with jì and yǐ . Possibly we have to assume the generation of a special Aspectual NegP within the range of an Outer AspectP which is responsible for the [ telic] features of the resulting predicated. 3. Situation type: according to the [+ perfective] aspectual features of the Outer Aspect Phrase, the situation type of the selected verb is by default [+ telic], but [ telic] features are also possible (confined to changeable states); however, since the situation type of the entire predicate is [ telic], the NegP possibly has to be split into an aspectual NegP, responsible for the [ telic] predicate, and a [+ perfective] AspP, responsible for the selection of the Inner Aspect Phrase. 4. Modality: [+assertion] [+certainty] (confined to stative predicates). 1. Achievement:

ti-1 a

ti ≠b wèi

ti+1 c

(default case)

|| 698 This assumption is rather tentative and the exact syntactic constraints still have to be worked out. However, this split could possibly also account for the modal functions of wèi , since modality is assumed to be generated higher than the Outer Aspect Phrase.

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 481

In an achievement (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the change of state of the situation; (c) ti+1 signifies the resultant state of S. With the negative marker wèi the change of state point ti is focussed (and accordingly also the initial point of the resultant state) and denied, but a change of state is still anticipated. 2. Accomplishment: ti-1 a

tn tn+1 ≠d e wèi In an accomplishment (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the initial point of the situation; (c) = ti+1 signifies the internal stages of the situation; (d) = tn signifies the natural final end point of the situation, and (e) = tn+1 signifies the resultant state after the final point of the situation. With the negative marker wèi the change of state point tn is focussed (and accordingly also the initial point of the resultant state) and denied, but a change of state is still anticipated. 3. Activity:

(ti-1 a

ti b

ti+1, etc c

tj tj+1 ≠d e wèi In an activity (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the initial point of the situation; (c) = ti+1 signifies the internal stages of the situation; (d) = tj signifies the arbitrary final end point of the situation, and (e) = tj+1 signifies that the situation does not obtain. With the negative marker wèi the situation is represented and denied from an external perspective in its entirety, a change of state at ti or tj is still anticipated. 4. State:

ti ti+1, etc.) b c

ti-1 ti ti… tn tn+1 tn+2 a ≠b ≠c d e wèi wèi In a state (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation (state) does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the change of state of the situation into a state; (c) = ti … tn signifies that the state obtains; (d) = tn+1 signifies the change of state out of the state, and (e) = tn+2 signifies that the state does not obtain. With the negative marker wèi usually the change of state into the state ti is focussed and denied, but the state itself ti… tn can also be denied (usually with the change of state point still implied, but also in a categorical denial, expressing implied certainty). A tentative functional label in a frame of tense, aspect and situation type of the combination wèi cháng is:

482 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì 1. Tense: [tense], no tense marker; refers to situations starting in the past and continuing up to reference time; not deictic and referential. 2. Aspect: [+aspect]: [+habitual], [+continuous]; the aspectual features of wèi cháng mainly include values connected to the imperfective aspect in a complex NegP including an Outer Aspect Phrase. 3. Situation type: [+telic], [telic]; the [+] telic features of the Inner Aspect are probably selected by the negative marker wèi . Again, the situation type of the entire predicate is by default [ telic] due to the negative force of wèi ; a similar analysis, or even a more complex one than for wèi alone has to be assumed for wèi cháng . 1. Achievement:

ti-1 a

ti ti+1 (default case) ≠b c wèi cháng In an achievement (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the change of state of the situation; (c) ti+1 signifies the resultant state of S. With the combination wèi cháng the change of state point ti (and accordingly also the initial point of the resultant state) are categorically denied, a change of state is not anticipated. 2. Accomplishment: ti-1 a

tn tn+1 ≠d e wèi cháng In an accomplishment (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) ti signifies the initial point of the situation; (c) = ti+1 signifies the internal stages of the situation; (d) = tn signifies the natural final end point of the situation, and (e) = tn+1 signifies the resultant state after the final point of the situation. With the combination wèi cháng the change of state point tn (and accordingly also the initial point of the resultant state) are categorically denied, a change of state is not anticipated. 3. Activity:

ti-1 a

ti ti+1, etc b c

ti b

ti+1, etc. tj tj+1 ≠c d e wèi cháng In an activity (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the initial point of the situation; (c) = ti+1 signifies the internal stages of the situation; (d) = tj signifies the arbitrary final end point of the situation, and (e) = tj+1 signifies that the situation does not obtain. With wèi cháng usually the activity part of the situation ti+1, etc. is focussed on, but the situation can also be

Completion and Non-completion: the adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi | 483

viewed in its entirety from an external perspective, a change of state at ti or tj is not anticipated. 4. State:

ti-1 ti ti… tn tn+1 tn+2 a ≠ (b c) d e wèi cháng In a state (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation (state) does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the change of state of the situation into a state; (c) = ti … tn signifies that the state obtains; (d) = tn+1 signifies the change of state out of the state, and (e) = tn+2 signifies that the state does not obtain. With wèi cháng a state is categorically denied without focussing on its initial point, a change of state at ti is not implied. A tentative functional label in a frame of tense, aspect and situation type of the combination wèi cháng bù is: 1. Tense: [tense], no tense marker, refers to situations in the past, present or future; not deictic or referential. 2. Aspect: [+aspect]: [+habitual], refers to habitually reoccurring situations; the aspectual features of the complex adverb wèi cháng bù correspond to the imperfective aspect. 3. Situation type: [+telic], [telic]; the [+ telic] features of the Inner Aspect are probably selected by the negative marker wèi . Again, the situation type of the entire predicate is by default [ telic] due to the negative force of wèi ; a similar analysis, or even a more complex one than for wèi and for wèi cháng has to be assumed for wèi cháng bù . The question arises whether bù has to be located in its default position within the vP. 1. Achievement:

ti-1 ti ti+1 (default case) a b c wèi cháng bù In an achievement (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the change of state of the situation; (c) ti+1 signifies the resultant state of S. The combination wèi cháng bù indicates that an achievement, which by default focuses the change of state point ti, habitually re-occurs.

484 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì 2. Accomplishment: ti-1 a

ti+1, etc tn tn+1 c d e wèi cháng bù In an accomplishment (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the initial point of the situation; (c) = ti+1 signifies the internal stages of the situation; (d) = tn signifies the natural final end point of the situation, and (e) = tn+1 signifies the resultant state after the final point of the situation. The combination wèi cháng bù if attested with accomplishment verbs is expected to rather focus the activity part of the situation ti+1, etc than its natural final point tn. 3. Activity:

ti-1 a

ti b

ti+1, etc. tj tj+1 c d e wèi cháng bù In an activity (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the initial point of the situation; (c) = ti+1 signifies the internal stages of the situation; (d) = tj signifies the arbitrary final end point of the situation, and (e) = tj+1 signifies that the situation does not obtain. The combination wèi cháng bù rather focuses the activity part of the situation ti+1, etc than its arbitrary final point tj, no change of state is anticipated. 4. State:

ti-1 a

ti b

ti b

ti… tn c wèi cháng bù

tn+1 tn+2 d e

In a state (a) = ti-1 signifies that the situation (state) does not obtain; (b) = ti signifies the change of state of the situation into a state; (c) = ti … tn signifies that the state obtains; (d) = tn+1 signifies the change of state out of the state, and (e) = tn+2 signifies that the state does not obtain. The combination wèi cháng bù modifying state verbs expresses the habitual occurrence of a state, no change of state at ti is anticipated.

6.6 Concluding remarks on aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì In this section the most important aspecto-temporal adverbs attested in the Shĭjì have been discussed. These are the adverbs chū and shĭ ‘first, BEG’ both referring to the starting point of a situation, the adverb fāng ‘just (then), -ing’

Concluding remarks on aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì | 485

indicating simultaneity and continuous aspect, the adverbs cháng ‘once’, ‘once habitually’ , céng ‘once’, cháng ‘habitually’ and sù ‘habitually from the past to the present’ referring to the past and to habituality respectively, the adverbs jiāng and qiĕ referring to the future tense and to some modal notions, the adverbs jì ‘already’ and yĭ ‘already’ emphasizing completion and / or a resultant state, and the negative aspecto-temporal adverb wèi ‘not yet’ which refers to the non-attainment of a resultant state. As the investigation has demonstrated all these adverbs are subject to the same syntactic constraints. They belong to the closed class of aspecto-temporal adverbs confined to preverbal position and only separable from the verb by a confined class of syntactic elements, these are basically prepositional phrases, the YI-phrase, and manner adverbs. This class of adverbs is comparable to the proper adverbs of Modern Mandarin, which are confined to preverbal position and not separable from the verb by any noun or nominal phrase except for a prepositional phrase (Alleton 1972). Since Alleton’s definition is – despite a few differences – also valid for the aspecto-temporal adverbs in Han period Chinese, they have accordingly also been categorised as proper adverbs. In the hierarchy of adverbs in Han period Chinese, the aspecto-temporal adverbs evidently occupy a position below modal but higher than manner adverbs. As the discussion has demonstrated, some of the adverbs at issue rather seem to function as temporal adverbs e.g. referring to the past or the future, others function as aspectual adverbs referring e.g. to habituality or completion, but in relation to modal and manner adverbs no differences in their general position can be distinguished in accordance with their respective functional differences. It has been assumed that all of these adverbs are generated as specifiers of probably several functional projections within the TP; those of the adverbs which show the effects of coercion, i.e. shift of situation type effects on the predicate, are assumed to be generated in one or several Outer Aspect Phrases; these select an articulated vP containing an Inner Aspect Phrase the telicitiy features of which by default correspond to those of the Outer Aspect Phrase; this has been exemplified with the [+ perfective] adverbs jì and yǐ . In a combination of two functionally different adverbs usually both positions, the seemingly temporal adverb preceding the aspectual and vice versa are possible; however, the exact syntax of these adverbs and their ordering with respect to each other still has to be deter-

|| 699 In contrast to Modern Mandarin, in Han period Chinese bare noun phrases adverbial phrases, indicating e.g. a point, or a duration of time, or locative adverbials can occasionally occur between the proper adverb and the verb.

486 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì mined. In contrast to circumstantial adverbials referring to a point of time which obviously in general operate on the level outside the TP, the aspectotemporal adverbs always operate on a level inside the TP, but outside the vP. Proper adverbs in Han period Chinese are closely related to the semantics, i.e. to the situation type of the verb, this is accounted for by their generation in an Outer Aspect Phrase within the TP. In contrast to the verbal morphology expressing tense and aspect in e.g. the Indo-European languages, the employment of aspecto-temporal adverbs is not obligatory, a predicate is not ungrammatical without a clear indication of its temporal or aspectual notions, and these adverbs rather serve to emphasize or modify particular parts of the temporal or aspectual structure of the verb or predicate they select, which argues for their analysis as specifiers or adjuncts and not as heads. Accordingly, the preceding analysis has in particular focussed on the interrelation of the aspecto-temporal adverbs with the temporal and aspectual structure, i.e. the telicity features, of the verbs, they select. As the discussion has demonstrated, a text such as the Shĭjì as a historical narrative displays a great variety of temporal expressions including aspectotemporal adverbs. In the following the main results with regard to the aspectotemporal adverbs at issue in this section will be presented. 1. The adverbs chū

and shĭ

indicating the inchoative or inceptive aspect

As aspecto-temporal adverbs, both chū and shĭ can indicate the inchoative aspect – the coming about of a state, and the inceptive aspect – the initial point of an activity –, either excluding the final point from the temporal structure of the predicate or, in the case of an accomplishment, including it in the temporal structure of the predicate. Chū predominantly selects an event, mainly an achievement verb, as its complement. It either refers to the initial point of a resultant state or it changes the temporal structure of the achievement verb into an accomplishment by activating the activity stage leading up to the natural final point of the situation. By default, this activity stage is not visible in the temporal structure of achievement verbs. Consequently, chū can serve to add a durative notion to the temporal structure of the predicate if it is not already present, as it is in resultant state predicates. Contrastively, shĭ predominantly serves to modify states or activities for which a durative notion is already inher|| 700 To establish a precise hierarchy for adverbs in Han period Chinese, modal adverbs would have to be included in the study, an investigation which surpasses the scope of the present study.

Concluding remarks on aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì | 487

ent in their temporal structure and it merely focuses the initial point of this durative situation, which is either a state or an activity with an arbitrary endpoint not included in the temporal structure of the predicate. The function of chū is to focus the usually invisible initial point of an achievement, i.e. of a situation which by default focusses exclusively on the final point, but it can also serve to activate the activity part of this situation, which is usually also not available for the temporal interpretation of an achievement verb. As the examples have demonstrated, chū predominantly modifies telic verbs, but it is not confined to them. Most of the verbs modified by chū express an achievement when unmarked in their default (transitive) structure, and a resultant state in the unaccusative (or passive) construction. Thus it can cause a shift from an achievement reading to an accomplishment reading of the verb. In the intransitive construction, the aspecto-temporal adverb always focuses the initial point of a resultant state achieved, even if in a following VP the achievement of the resultant state is denied. In general the examples show some overlap in the employment of chū and shĭ , but in contrast to chū , shĭ rather serves to modify activities and states in focussing their initial point and thus changing them from atelic to telic predicates. But with these verbs, the inherent situation type of the verb does not change and accordingly the temporal structure of predicates modified by shĭ is frequently simpler than the temporal structure of predicates modified by chū . Both, chū and shĭ evidently have to be labelled as aspectual adverbs, not as tense markers, although they usually refer to situations in the past. They express the inchoative or inceptive aspect and refer to a durative situation. The can select both telic and atelic verbs as their complements, but with achievement verbs a situation type shift can be involved. 2. The adverb fāng

indicating the continuous aspect

The aspecto-temporal adverb fāng in the Shĭjì expresses functions comparable to those of the marker of the continuous aspect –zhe and the progressive (or durative) marker zài in Modern Mandarin, but it shows syntactic and semantic constraints different from the two aspectual markers of Modern Mandarin. In contrast to –zhe and zài , fāng is not confined in its selection of the situation type of the verb it modifies. But according to the respective situation type modified by fāng different parts in the temporal structure of the verb are focussed. With activity, state, and accomplishment verbs, i.e. with verbs which include the process or stage part (with state predicates) of the situation, and / or which do not focus on either of its end points, fāng serves to focus the continuation of this activity or stage part. With achievement verbs, i.e.

488 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì with verbs for which the process or stage part are not available in their temporal structure, fāng occasionally focuses a point imminent to the change of state point, but predominantly it emphasizes the beginning of a resultant state, i.e. the point immediately following the change of state point. With activity, accomplishment and state predicates, it clearly indicates simultaneity and the continuous aspect of the verb. With achievement verbs, the continuous aspect is only implied, but not made explicit by the employment of fāng . Independently of the situation type of the predicate, the situation modified by fāng is always relevant for the situation expressed in the following clause. Although fāng does not operate as a tense marker, the temporal notion of simultaneity is provided by fāng which can be employed independently in present (including speech time), past, or future contexts. But its main function is evidently aspectual: it expresses the continuous aspect which belongs to the category of the imperfective aspect. This is its basic function with activity, accomplishment and state predicates and also indirectly with achievement verbs referring to a resultant state. Pragmatically, fāng provides background information relevant for the main narrative string. In general, the aspecto-temporal adverb fāng can be combined with one of the adverbs indicating future tense or intentionality, jiāng and qiĕ , but this combination is not very frequent in the Shĭjì. According to the data, a unified account can be presented for the different functions of fāng , the functional differences seemingly implied are due to the different situation types of the verb it modifies. In combination with one of the aspecto-temporal adverbs expressing future or intention fāng always refers to an imminent change of state and is accordingly confined to telic predicates. 3. The adverbs referring to past tense situations and expressing habituality The adverbs analysed in this section are the aspecto-temporal adverbs cháng , céng , sù , yǎ , and cháng which indicate past tense, habituality and some related functions respectively. Of these adverbs, the basic function of the adverb cháng is evidently to express past tense, or maybe rather a restrospective aspect; it is best characterized as an adverb indicating the singular occurrence of a situation located in the past. This function is obviously independent of the situation type of the verb, i.e. verbs of all situation types can be modified by cháng . The temporal analysis can be supported by the fact that sentences with cháng can be additionally marked by temporal adverbials explicitly locating the situation on the time axis. According to the situation type of the verb selected by cháng , cháng

Concluding remarks on aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì | 489

can refer to punctual situations or to situations of a longer duration always located in the past. Occasionally cháng (CHANG1) is employed synonymously to cháng (CHANG2) indicating habituality, but the habitual reading has to be supported by other syntactic evidence. In general, a habitual reading can be assumed if cháng (CHANG1) appears in the same syntactic environment as cháng (CHANG2), i.e. in a superordinate clause indicating that a situation habitually obtains under the circumstance stated in the subordinate clause. Even if a habitual reading can be assumed for the predicate, cháng always indicates that the habitual situation takes place in the past. Predicates marked by cháng are attested in dependent temporal clauses providing background information, but also in independent sentences. They can be concluded by the sentence final particle yĭ , but most frequently they are not followed by any final particle at all. The basic function of the adverb céng is evidently identical to the basic function of cháng (CHANG1) , namely to express past tense or maybe rather a restrospective aspect. The aspecto-temporal adverbs marks a singular situation located temporally in the past independently of the situation type of the verb modified. It is predominantly attested in subordinate temporal clauses which serve to provide background information, but it can also appear in an independent sentence. According to the few examples attested in the Shĭjì it can be analysed as synonymous in function to cháng . Both adverbs cháng (CHANG1) and céng are best characterised as temporal adverbs indicating past situations, aspectual meanings, i.e. continuous and habitual readings, do not belong to their basic functions. Cháng is by far the most frequently employed of the two temporal adverbs. The adverb sù ‘habitually from the present to the past’ is best analysed as an adverb explicitly marking a situation as habitual and continuous, beginning in the past and continuing up to speech time or some other reference time which is represented as the present time of the narrative. A change of the situation can be involved at reference time, but most predominantly the expressed habitual situation serves as the continuous background for the situations represented in the sequence of the narrative. The aspecto-temporal adverb sù does not locate the situation on a time axis, but refers to its continuation as a habit. The default function of sù is to mark a stative predicate which is atelic as continuous and habitual. In contrast to almost all aspecto-temporal adverbs it is not only compatible with stage level predicates (state verbs referring to a changeable state) but also with individual level predicates (verbs referring to unchangeable states). Additionally it is compatible with nominal predicates, but it can modify activity verbs which are atelic, too, and even occasionally telic verbs. With telic predicates, a shift of the situation type of the predicate from

490 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì telic to atelic is usually involved, but it can also exceptionally mark a telic situation as iterative and as a situation which is repeated habitually; the entire situation is thus viewed as a (derived) state. A predicate modified by sù can occur in a temporal clause, but it does not function as a tense marker, and additional temporal markers are only infrequently attested in sentences with sù . Of the two final particles which include an aspectual notion yĕ and yĭ , only yĕ which can mark a state including a continuous or habitual situation is compatible with a predicate modified by sù . The adverb yǎ is, in contrast to sù , not attested with adjectives or other genuine state verbs, but rather with activity or telic predicates, always shifting the aspectual reading of the predicate to a habitual reading. In the Shĭjì yǎ is predominantly employed to refer to habitual activities or to modify telic predicates which receive a stative and habitual reading by the employment of yǎ . The situation referred to is always located in the past. In contrast to sù which predominantly expresses the continuity of a habitual situation from the past up to speech time or the present time of the narrative, the adverb yǎ more generally indicates a past habitual, at least according to the few instances attested in the Shĭjì. But identically to sù it is certainly best analysed as an aspectual adverb indicating the habitual than as a temporal adverb, explicitly locating the situation at a particular point of the time axis, although it regularly refers to situations located in the past. Both adverbs are best qualified as aspectual adverbs expressing the habitual or continuous and, according to the situation type of the verb, also the frequentative in the past. The adverb cháng ‘habitually’ is the most versatile of the adverbs at issue in this section. As an adverb indicating habituality, duration or frequency it is independent of the time of reference, i.e. it can be employed in past, present or future tense contexts, which are occasionally overtly marked for temporal reference by additional adverbials indicating a point of time. Cháng is not confined with regard to the semantics, i.e., the situation type, of the verb and it does not automatically shift the situation type of the verb it modifies, since it does not necessarily include the semantic feature [+continuous] in its semantic structure. In general, cháng is best qualified as an adverb which expresses habituality independent of a temporal location of the situation. Its function as an adverb expressing frequency fits well this analysis since frequency adverbials are typical for habitual sentences. It can select state verbs of different kinds, including adjectives, although in this function sù seems to be predominant, activity verbs and telic verbs. With state verbs and with activity verbs it can refer to both, continuous habitual situations but also to states or activities which reoccur under particular conditions. With telic verbs it usually does not shift the telic reading of the verb to an atelic reading, but predominantly refers to habit-

Concluding remarks on aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì | 491

ually reoccurring telic situations. The semantic characteristic of [+continuous] does not seem to be the most basic feature of the adverb cháng , since it can refer to both continuous habitual situations and also to habitually repeated telic or atelic situations. When referring to a habitual situation, sentences modified by cháng are always semantically stative. Table 2: Non Habitual and Habitual Non Habitual Past

Past – Present Present Future

cháng , céng (cháng )

4. The adverbs jiāng

and qiĕ

Habitual Continuous sù , yǎ , cháng sù cháng cháng

Frequency cháng , (sù , yǎ ) (cháng ) cháng cháng

locating situations in the future

The two adverbs jiāng and qiĕ equally serve to locate a situation in the distant, near, or the immediate future, i.e. to the right of the time conceived as the present time of the narrative on the time axis (or to the right of speech time). Additional modal values such as volition and intention mainly depend on the semantic interrelation of the subject and the verb. Epistemic values such as certainty can be implied by both jiāng and qiĕ , but they do not belong to their basic functions; these and other modal values are marked by additional adverbs. The adverbs predominantly modify telic, more specifically achievement verbs, i.e. verbs that exclusively focus on the final point of the situation, although the only evident constraint with regard to the verbs selected is that they have to include a possible change of state point in their temporal structure. Predicates modified by jiāng and qiĕ predict that an individual situation is expected to happen in the future real world, but they can also refer to hypothetical situations which are supposed to happen or not to happen under particular circumstances. But without any additional syntactic evidence and in particular with telic verbs and predicates, they generally refer to real situations which are expected to happen in the future world; possibly they can be labelled as adverbs expressing a prospective meaning. Depending on semantic constraints, these real situations can be wished for or intended by the agent or the locutionary agent. In the Shĭjì the basic function of jiāng and qiĕ is certainly deictic, serving to locate a situation at a usually unspecified point of time in the future; other, modal, functions are subject to particular semantic or syntactic con-

492 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì straints. No aspectual functions are included in the basic semantics of these adverbs. 5. The aspectual adverbs jì and yĭ and the negative marker wèi ing completion and non-completion

express-

The basic function of the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ is evidently aspectual, they indicate the successful completion and / or the attainment of the resultant state of the situation referred to by the verb they modify, most frequently with some relevance for the following situation. They basically select telic verbs, in particular achievement verbs, as their complement, always focussing on the final point and / or the initial point of the resultant state, but they are not confined to them. They may best be analysed as adding focus to this particular part of the temporal structure of the verb. With genuine state or activity verbs, the focus usually shifts from the internal stages of the situation – which are by default depicted by these verbs – to either its initial or final point: a change of state and a shift of situation type from atelic to telic is explicitly marked. Since jì and yĭ often emphasize a state resulting from a previous telic situation, they can by way of analogy also emphasize a genuine state without particularly focussing on its initial point, although the initial point of the situation is always implied. Most frequently they represent situations in the past, but they are not confined to them and can also refer to the completion or the resultant state of situations in the present and in the future. In their atelic reading, predicates modified by jì and yĭ can in a speech also refer to speech time. With activity verbs, the situation type always shifts from atelic to telic; the situation is viewed in its entirety from a perfective perspective. The adverbs jì and yĭ are best characterised 1, as adverbs which emphasize a change of state: a) with telic verbs they emphasize the completion of the event and the final point or the state resulting form the previous event; b) with state verbs they usually emphasize the initial point of the state (inchoative aspect); c) with an atelic, i.e. an activity verb, they change the situation type of the predicate from atelic to telic, and 2, as adverbs emphasizing the factual occurrence of a situation often with some relevance for the following situations. Although predicates modified by jì and yĭ can occasionally be analysed as stative (with the initial change of state point implied), in general they have to be analysed as referring to an event, i.e. as telic; an analysis which can be explicitly supported by the employment of the sentence final particle yĭ which indicates a change of state.

Concluding remarks on aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì | 493

Identically to the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ , the negative marker wèi mostly selects events as its complement and consequently its main function is to deny the occurrence or existence of an event. It focusses on the change of state point of the event the occurrence of which is still anticipated following reference time. However, wèi is not confined to event verbs, but can also modify state verbs and by way of exception even activity verbs. State verbs modified by wèi mostly obtain an inchoative, i.e. a telic reading, focussing on the initial point of the state which is equally anticipated following reference time. But wèi can also refer to a genuine state usually with a change of state reading implied, i.e. it can be either explicitly excluded (‘never’) or implicitly be wished for, which includes a modal evaluation of the situation. The modal notion of wèi is mainly attested with state verbs including modal auxiliary verbs. The aspectual negative wèi is connected to the other modal m/wnegatives by indicating the epistemic modal value of Inferred Certainty (assertion). If wèi selects a modal predicate as its complement, the matrix verb of the predicate is subject to the same constraints as a predicate consisting only of the negative and the matrix verb. The negated predicate in its entirety is stative. In contrast to the aspecto-temporal adverbs jì and yĭ ‘already’ which combine with the final particle yĭ , the negative marker wèi combines with the final yĕ , which basically marks tense neutral attributive non active sentences with a reinforced assertive modality of the sentence. The combination of the negative marker wèi with the aspecto-temporal adverb cháng , or with cháng and the neutral negative marker bù , also mainly selects telic verbs as its complement, but it is not confined to them. In the combination wèi cháng the semantics of the aspecto-temporal adverb add to the semantics of the negative marker, the predicate refers either to a habitual or continuous situation in the past, or it expresses a categorical denial of the situation referred to by the verb which is valid for all times from the past on. Independent of the situation type of the modified verb, the resultant predicate is stative according to the employment of a negative marker. Contrary to a predicate negated by wèi alone, which by default denies the existence of an event, but usually still anticipates the change of state point the verb refers to, no change of state point is anticipated with the combination wèi cháng . The combination wèi cháng is regularly attested e.g. with the existential verb yŏu ‘there is, have’, expressing categorical denial ‘there had never been / was never’ which is valid for the past, present and future. The combination of wèi cháng with the negative marker bù >> wèi cháng bù ‘always’ expresses habituality. It mostly selects event verbs as its complement. Despite the fact that a double negation always leads to an affirmative reading, the atelic reading of telic verbs induced by the modification

494 | The syntactic and semantic constraints of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì by wèi cháng is not cancelled, since the predicate obtains a habitual reading which is by definition stative. Similar to predicates with the aspectotemporal adverb cháng (CHANG2) ‘habitually’, the combination wèi cháng bù in general refers to regularly re-occurring situations. A telic verb as such retains its telic reading, but the entire predicate has to be interpreted as stative. Two different categories can be distinguished within the category of aspecto-temporal adverbs, those locating the modified situation temporally and those referring to the aspectual characteristics of the modified situation. The adverbs in table 3 belong to the first and the adverbs in table 4 to the second category. The tables can only represent a general overview leaving out the particular syntactic and semantic constraints the respective adverbs are subjected to. Table 3: Adverbs with a temporal function in the Shĭjì Past

cháng

,

céng (cháng

)701

Present Future

jiāng

,

qiě

|| 701 The brackets indicate that the reading is not the default reading of the adverb and that it is only available under particular syntactic circumstances.

Concluding remarks on aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì | 495 Table 4: Aspectual adverbs in the Shĭjì

Past

Inchoa-

Completive/

Progres-

Habitual/

Habitual/

tive/

Resultative/

sive/

Continuous

quentative

Incep-

≠ Complet-

Continu-

[– telic]

[– telic]

tive

ive

ous

[+ telic]

[+ telic]

[– telic]

chū

,

jì

fāng

sù

,

cháng

shǐ

,

yǐ

yǎ

,

(sù

jì

,

yǐ

,

fāng

, ,

yǐ cháng

cháng

Fre-

,

, yǎ

(cháng

) ),

wèi cháng bù

, yǐ yè

,

yè yǐ

,

, shuò

wèi Past

sù

–

wèi

, cháng

Present Pre-

jì

,

,

,

sent

yǐ

,

,

,

fāng

cháng wèi

, cháng

cháng

bù

fāng

,

wèi cháng bù , shuò

Fu-

jì

,

,

,

ture

yǐ

,

,

,

fāng

fāng

cháng wèi

, cháng

cháng

,

wèi cháng bù

bù

, shuò

7 Conclusion The present study on temporality in the Shĭjì is the first part of a comprehensive study of the grammar of Pre-Medieval Chinese which intends to reveal the particular constraints the syntax and the semantics of the Chinese language are subject to. The basis of a grammatical study of Chinese is the verb and the extended verb phrase, and of particular relevance in the analysis of the extended verb phrase is the expression of temporal, aspectual and modal relations. Since Classical and Han period Chinese do not have a verbal morphology comparable to that of the Indo-European languages, most verbal relations have to be expressed by lexical means. Accordingly a detailed study of the semantics of the verb and its arguments and adjuncts, i.e. of all the lexical items which constitute the VP, is required to account for the particular characteristics of the Chinese language. As has been demonstrated, in the analysis of the semantics of the verb, the distinction of the different situation types, i.e. the lexical aspects (Aktionsart) of the verb is fundamental for a study on the extended VP in Classical and Han period Chinese. With regard to temporal and aspectual expressions it has been shown that they are subject to strict syntactic and semantic constraints. In accordance with these constraints a precise and unambiguous determination of the temporal and aspectual relations expressed by the verb phrase can be achieved, despite the lack of a (productive) verbal morphology in Classical and Han period Chinese. Different lexical means which are relevant for the expression of temporal and aspectual relations have to be distinguished according to the preceding discussion, these are: 1, point of time adverbials, which belong to the category of circumstantial or sentential adverbials; 2, duration phrases which can appear as adjuncts in different positions and as predicates; 3, aspecto-temporal adverbs which operate within the level of TP and which are – together with duration phrases – closely related to the semantics of the verb. The first group, point of time adverbials, can be distinguished into three different subcategories: 1, proper or genuine adverbs in sentence-initial, topic, and in preverbal position; 2, temporal noun phrase adverbials, e.g. those indicating a date, or complex noun phrases with nominal heads, e.g. hòu 後 and shí 時; and 3, prepositional phrases which can according to the temporal structure they represent be subdivided into closed domain and open domain adverbials. The Shĭjì, as a text consisting mainly of historical narratives and reports, makes intensive use of temporal adverbials, and consequently a great variety of all kinds of point of time adverbials expressing even subtle temporal relations is attested in this text. Many of these temporal adverbials are already attested to different degrees in the Classical literature, but some of them are evidently Han period innovations. With regard to their syntactic constraints, point of time

Conclusion | 497

adverbials are strictly confined to the sentence-initial and preverbal positions, the postverbal position is excluded for them. If they appear in sentence final position they have to be analysed as the predicate of the sentence. Within this general constraint, different syntactic and semantic constraints can determine the position of the respective subcategory of temporal adverbials, i.e., some of them are exclusively confined to sentence-initial, others to preverbal position, but they have in common that the postverbal position is not available for any of them. This also applies to open domain temporal adverbials (realised as prepositional phrases) some of which have been assumed to differ syntactically from closed domain temporal adverbials in the linguistic literature. As the present study has demonstrated, semantic categories established to analyse temporal relations e.g. in the Modern European and other languages including Modern Mandarin, can similarly be applied to the Chinese language of the Classical and Han period, although they can be expressed by different means. Regarding the class of temporal adverbials, the two different semantic categories identified as main categories e.g. in English, can identically be distinguished in Chinese. These are: 1, independent temporal adverbials which refer to a time of fixed identity on the time axis, and 2, dependent adverbials, which subsume two different categories, namely, that of deictic and that of anaphoric adverbials. As the analysis has shown, temporal adverbials can – with minor alterations – adequately be determined in their semantic range according to the traditional terminology established by Reichenbach (1947) into those referring to speech time, to situation (event) time, and to reference time and additionally they can serve to connect either speech or situation (event) time to some other reference time. The interrelation of point of time adverbials with the semantics of the verb is in general less close than that of duration phrases or aspecto-temporal adverbs. They predominantly serve to locate a situation of singular occurrence on the time axis, independently of the telicity features of the situation which only occasionally have some relevance for the interpretation of the entire predicate. Duration phrases, although they are occasionally identical in their surface structure with point of time noun phrase adverbials, differ considerably in their syntax. In contrast to point of time adverbials which are confined to sentenceinitial and preverbal position, duration phrases are confined to the pre- and postverbal positions, they are excluded from the sentence-initial position. Of both positions available, the postverbal is the predominant position. Identically to point of time adverbials, duration phrases in Classical and Han period Chinese can be adequately analysed according to the frameworks presented in the linguistic literature. Like for other languages, the employment constraints of duration phrases in Classical and Han period Chinese can serve as a linguistic

498 | Conclusion test to determine the situation type of the verb they combine with. The preceding discussion has confirmed that in Classical and Han period Chinese, too, as could be expected according to the general constraints on duration phrases, the employment of duration phrases is usually confined to atelic, i.e. activity or state, predicates. Occasionally, duration phrases are also attested with accomplishment verbs which include the activity (process) part of the situation in their temporal structure. With regard to state predicates, two different categories have to be distinguished according to the employment of duration phrases: 1, genuine states, and 2, resultant states, i.e. states that result from a preceding event, a situation expressed by a telic, usually an achievement, verb. According to the semantics of the respective state, the duration phrase refers to two different parts of the temporal structure of the predicate: With genuine state verbs the duration phrase expresses situational duration, i.e. it directly measures the duration of the situation expressed by the verb, and with resultant states it expresses the duration of the resultant state which also has been labelled ‘SCE duration’ ( duration since completion of the event), i.e. the duration of a state following a change of state explicitly expressed by the verb. With activity verbs, the duration phrase always expresses situational duration. Additionally, the analysis has provided some evidence for the fact that situation type is compositional, i.e. that e.g. the employment of adverbs, modal auxiliary verbs and negative markers can have some impact on the situation type (Aktionsart) reading of the entire predicate. Syntactically, for duration phrases referring to situational duration both the preverbal and the postverbal positions are available, whereas duration phrases referring to resultant state duration are confined to the postverbal position, which reflects the logical order of situations. Although duration phrases in Classical and Han period texts are to a great extent semantically and syntactically identical to those in Modern Mandarin, they differ in the details. In Classical and Han period Chinese preverbal duration phrases are not confined to negative sentences, as they are in Modern Mandarin, even though in this period most of the preverbal duration phrases already precede a negated verb. According to their syntactic structure both situational duration and resultant state duration phrases can be analysed as verbal complements or as predicates of their sentences. Noun phrase duration phrases can be analysed as belonging to either the complement or to the predicate structure. In contrast, this analysis does not account for state verbs, which in postverbal position are confined to the predicate analysis according to the syntactic constraint that adverbs (i.e. adverbially employed state verbs) are not permitted in postverbal position. Temporal clauses with a durative predicate in sentence-initial position are not analysable as duration phrases but have to be analysed as subordinate clauses referring to a point of time.

Conclusion | 499

The third part of the discussion has been devoted to the analysis of the syntactic and semantic constraints of the closed class of aspecto-temporal adverbs in the Shĭjì. In this section the most important aspecto-temporal adverbs attested in the Shĭjì, including the only aspectual negative marker of Chinese, have been discussed. The investigation has demonstrated that all these adverbs are subject to the same syntactic constraints, i.e. they are confined to preverbal position and are only separable from the verb by a limited class of syntactic elements, basically by prepositional phrases, the YI-phrase, and manner adverbs. This class of adverbs is comparable to the proper adverbs of Modern Mandarin, which are also confined to preverbal position and not separable from the verb by any noun or nominal phrase except for a prepositional phrase (Alleton 1972). In the hierarchy of adverbs in Classical and Han period Chinese, the aspecto-temporal adverbs evidently occupy a position below modal but higher than manner adverbs. Adverbs of this category are most closely related to the semantics of the verb, i.e. its situation type, and pragmatically they have the same or very similar functions as the verbal morphology of e.g. the IndoEuropean languages, and they are functionally comparable to the aspectual suffixes in Modern Mandarin, although they evidently differ syntactically. Some of the adverbs discussed are employed predominantly or exclusively as temporal adverbs, these are in particular those adverbs locating a situation at a point of time in the past or the future; however, they do not express tense in the strict sense. Others are predominantly or exclusively employed as aspectual adverbs referring to different notions of habituality, to completion or the resultative, to progression, or indicating the inchoative aspect. In relation to modal and manner adverbs, no differences in their general position can be distinguished according to their respective functional differences, i.e. they obviously occupy the same general positions within the TP and above the vP in the hierarchy of functional heads. The exclusively aspectual adverbs are assumed to be generated as specifiers of at least one Outer Aspect Phrase, and the adverbs more deictic in function are assumed to be generated in a functional head below the Outer Aspect Phrase; the exact order of the different adverbs still has to be determined. In contrast to the point of time adverbials discussed above which operate on the level of the TP or above in CP, the aspecto-temporal adverbs always operate on the level within the TP, and accordingly there is a difference in the location of a situation temporally by a circumstantial adverbial or one of the aspecto-temporal adverbs, to a certain extent comparable to the functional differences of temporal morphemes and circumstantial adverbials in e.g. the IndoEuropean languages. However, it has to be conceded that in contrast to the verbal morphology in these languages which is obligatorily employed to form a grammatically correct predicate, the employment of aspecto-temporal adverbs

500 | Conclusion is not obligatory; a verb can refer to situations in the past, present or future, to completed situations or those in progression without any additional marking by one of the aspecto-temporal adverbs. These adverbs rather serve to emphasize or modify particular parts of the temporal or aspectual structure of the verb or predicate they select and accordingly the inherent temporal structure of the verb is of particular relevance for the determination of the semantics of the respective adverb modifying it. With the investigation of temporal and aspectual expressions the present study has focussed only on a part of the complex relations expressed by the predicate in Classical and Han period Chinese, but on a part which according to the author is of central relevance for the analysis of a sentence in Chinese, and which can serve as a basis for further study. Although the intention was to provide a comprehensive study on this topic, some issues have been neglected, e.g. the employment of temporal conjunctions and particularly that of sentence final particles, the latter of which can play an important role in the aspectual analysis of a sentence. The major reason for this omission was the particular focus on the interrelation of temporal and aspectual expressions with the semantics of the verb, which was most relevant with duration phrases and with aspectotemporal adverbs, and accordingly the markers of the temporal succession of different clauses or sentences has only been accounted for in combination with the temporal expressions at issue in this study. According to the author, the marking of the different kinds of subordinate and superordinate clauses and the succession of clauses and sentences in a text in general certainly deserves a separate study which would have exceeded the frame of the present discussion. The same is valid for the investigation of sentence final particles, the syntactic status of which in Modern Mandarin is at present a controversially debated issue in the scholarly community. According to this debate, it seems to be more appropriate to discuss the syntactic status and the semantic functions of the different sentence-final particles within the general framework of sentence-final particles at the time at issue, a study which also would have gone beyond the purpose of the one presented here. Another important issue with regard to a comprehensive analysis of the extended verb phrase in Chinese is the expression of the verbal categories mood or modality, which has been postponed to separate studies. Different syntactic means are available to express modal notions, these are predominantly modal auxiliary verbs and modal adverbs, which, as has already been stated, occupy a position higher in the hierarchy of adverbs in Classical and Han period Chinese than that of the aspecto-temporal adverbs. As has been briefly mentioned, only a few studies are as yet available on this topic for Pre-Medieval Chinese. But certainly also with regard to modality, under close inspection a fine grained system can be revealed, which

Conclusion | 501

provides the linguistic means to express precisely all the different modal notions present in language. The comprehensive linguistic study on the extended VP in Pre-Medieval Chinese, of which the present discussion is only the first part, is intended to demonstrate also that a language such as Classical Chinese, which has often been assumed to be to a great extent subject to pragmatic constraints and to be less precise than e.g. a language with a full-fledged verbal morphology, can be precisely analysed by means of its syntactic and semantic constraints. As has been shown with regard to temporal and aspectual expressions these constraints are frequently similar or identical to those attested in other language, such as e.g. Modern English or Modern Mandarin, and their application has allowed a precise depiction of the temporal and aspectual system in Classical and Han period Chinese, represented by one of the most multifaceted texts during the period, the historical text Shĭjì.

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: Gòucí biān

[A Historical

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Index accomplishment, 20–27, 29, 36, 38, 56, 57, 62–68, 231, 232, 247, 250, 270, 275, 277, 278, 282–285, 288–291, 294–296, 299, 303–305, 307–309, 311, 313–315, 317–323, 325–327, 329, 350, 356, 369, 370, 387, 403, 406, 410, 418, 432, 440, 479, 481, 482, 484, 486, 487, 498 achievement, 20–31, 38, 56, 57, 64–68, 188, 189, 207, 231, 236, 250, 252, 254, 256, 260, 262, 264, 275, 277, 278, 282–286, 288, 289, 294–296, 298, 299, 305, 307– 309, 313–322, 325, 326, 335, 336, 339, 340, 345, 350, 356, 369–371, 373, 376, 377, 380, 383, 384, 387–389, 391, 392, 402, 403, 406, 410, 411, 413–415, 419, 421, 425, 440, 442, 447, 448, 475, 479– 483, 486, 487, 491, 492, 498 actionality, 17, 20, 23 activity, 19–25, 27, 29–31, 34, 36, 38, 47, 48, 51, 55–58, 62–67, 186, 196, 207, 209, 222, 229–232, 234, 235, 239, 242, 247–250, 254, 261, 263, 270, 275, 276, 278, 281, 285, 288, 290–292, 294–296, 298–305, 307–309, 312–314, 318, 319, 321–323, 326, 327, 329–331, 338, 339, 344, 347, 348, 350, 352, 355, 356, 359, 360, 362, 369, 374, 376, 378, 387, 388, 391, 403, 404, 414, 415, 418, 428, 432, 436, 439, 441, 442, 444, 445, 449, 453, 454, 456, 457, 465, 471, 472, 475, 476, 479, 481, 482, 484–487, 489, 490, 492, 493, 498 adjective, 36, 55, 58, 61, 143, 191, 225–227, 233, 239, 242, 262, 263, 267, 268, 271, 291, 306, 309–312, 338, 340, 341, 347, 350, 352, 359, 362, 401, 403, 407, 415, 416, 420, 428–430, 449, 451, 458, 459, 464, 469, 476, 478, 490 adjunct, 1, 21, 25, 31, 41, 71, 73, 76, 89, 147, 157, 163–166, 170, 218, 221, 274, 462, 486, 496 adjunction approach, 72 affix, 33, 35–38, 273, 395–397, 407 agent, 8, 13, 17, 18, 23–27, 37, 38, 55, 65, 68– 70, 136, 173, 278, 284, 281, 282, 288, 299, 315, 329, 365–369, 372, 373, 377, 382,

392, 403, 406–409, 412, 417, 421, 426, 443, 444, 456, 472, 475, 491 Aktionsart, 1, 15, 16, 20, 54, 73, 231, 232, 271, 307, 496, 498 ~ adverb, 72, 307, 339, 343, 349, 371, 430 Ancient Chinese, 33, 35, 38, 39, 70, 88, 122, 123, 125, 127, 139, 281, 396, 404, 411 anterior, 10, 11, 92, 111, 400, 415 argument, 1, 8, 21, 25, 26, 29, 31, 37, 38, 56, 63, 66, 67, 69, 72, 109, 120, 166, 195, 196, 206, 238, 239, 246, 274, 278, 281, 282, 289, 291, 300, 303, 304, 307, 312, 319, 327, 331, 368, 369, 374, 375, 399, 403, 410, 418, 423, 443, 462, 473–475, 477, 496 Aspectual Category Shift, 56 atelic, 15, 19–21, 23, 29, 58, 60, 62, 186, 188– 190, 196, 199, 200, 203, 207, 209, 211, 220, 222, 229, 231, 232, 235–237, 239, 241–244, 246–250, 256, 261, 263, 270, 281, 284, 288, 290, 292, 294, 300–303, 309, 313, 319, 322, 326, 330–333, 337, 343–345, 347, 349, 352, 354, 356, 359– 361, 363, 374–376, 378–380, 386, 388, 389, 391, 403, 404, 412, 414–417, 419, 426, 428, 430–432, 435, 439, 441, 442, 444, 446, 448, 451, 457, 461, 463–465, 467, 471, 472, 474, 477, 478, 487, 489, 490, 492, 493, 498 background, 31, 48, 93, 299, 301, 302, 304, 309, 312, 314, 321, 332, 334, 337, 338, 358, 359, 361, 362, 488, 489 biphasic, 30, 53, 58, 65, 230, 271, 276 bounded, 17, 18, 20, 21, 25, 29, 39, 63, 64, 222, 394, 395, 399, 405 Buddhist literature, 43, 319, 381, 398, 406, 420, 422, 433, 434, 473, 474 calendar adverbial, 85, 88, 89, 92, 121–123, 125–127, 130, 131, 133–135, 157, 160, 167, 170, 215–217 changeable state, 58, 247, 281, 291, 309, 311, 333, 342, 347, 378, 390, 393, 431, 479, 480, 489

520 

 Index

circumstantial adverbs, 76–78, 90, 215, 219, 221, 486, 499 closed domain, 81, 82, 162, 163, 173, 185, 196, 199, 201, 208, 211, 212, 217–219, 221, 496 coercion, 360, 393, 474, 479, 485 continuous, 19, 47, 125, 184, 186, 189, 206, 279, 297–299, 301–304, 307–312, 314, 317, 321, 322, 324, 334, 338–341, 344– 347, 350–352, 354, 360, 362, 363, 444, 460, 462, 463, 478, 482, 485, 487, 489– 491, 493, 495 decomposition, 24 deictic adverbial, 86, 87, 160, 199, 393 dependent adverbial, 88, 121, 135, 159, 199, 212, 215, 216, 219, 497 derivation, 15, 16, 33–38, 143, 178, 191, 273, 382, 397, 410, 437 duration, 1, 12, 15, 18, 25, 47, 48, 56, 58, 73– 76, 79–81, 143, 147, 155, 189, 191, 192, 199, 205, 222–235, 237–239, 241, 242, 244–251, 253–267, 270, 271, 273, 286, 287, 297–300, 303, 324, 325, 327, 328, 331, 333, 337, 342, 344, 351, 356, 373, 389, 412, 414, 415, 424, 432, 433, 442, 446, 459, 462, 472, 485, 489, 490, 496, 497, 500 emotive state, 58, 60, 311, 342, 347, 362, 378, 431, 441, 449, 456, 476 ergative, 37, 55, 69, 281, 282, 403, 410, 445, 446 event, 4, 5, 9, 11–13, 18–27, 29–31, 34, 40, 41, 47, 52, 56–58, 60, 62, 64, 65, 70, 73, 83– 85, 89, 105, 110, 124, 125, 127, 132, 144, 162, 169, 188–190, 196, 218, 225, 229– 232, 237, 243, 247, 251–254, 257, 260, 270, 278, 281–285, 290, 293, 294, 297, 299, 303, 325, 343, 352, 365–367, 369, 383, 387, 394, 399, 404, 410, 414, 418, 421, 423, 439, 440, 442–446, 448, 449, 451, 452, 454, 456, 459, 460, 465, 467, 471– 473, 475–478, 486, 492, 493, 497, 498 ~ structure, 24–26, 65 ~ time, 9, 11–13, 18, 83, 325, 365 experiencer, 37, 38, 366, 469 experiential aspect, 51, 54

functional head, 72, 163, 219, 279, 402, 459, 499 future tense, 9, 10, 12, 13, 351, 364, 365, 368, 426, 485, 488, 490 grammatical aspect, 15, 17, 39, 41, 55, 395, 439, 471, 472 habitual, 8, 11, 12, 17, 19, 23, 40, 129, 134, 158, 165–167, 188, 197, 237, 279, 280, 293, 323, 324, 327–329, 331, 333, 337, 338, 340–345, 347–356, 358–363, 385, 444, 459, 460, 462–465, 467, 470, 478, 482– 485, 488–491, 493–495, 499 imperfective, 15, 17–19, 29–32, 35, 36, 38, 39, 47, 48, 70, 282, 298, 322, 334, 338, 360, 362, 363, 394, 395, 402, 404, 439, 440, 455, 471, 472, 482, 483, 488 incremental theme, 291, 303, 410, 418, 432 individual level predicate, 58, 415, 449, 489 inner aspect, 26, 27, 39, 73, 166, 276–278, 295, 304, 322, 347, 350, 360–363, 393, 396, 403, 456, 474, 475, 478, 480, 482, 483, 485 intransitive, 25, 27, 33–35, 37, 42, 44, 58, 59, 61, 68–70, 257, 282, 285, 288, 289, 300, 303, 308, 311, 397, 403, 406, 412, 416, 426, 430, 437, 445–448, 463, 472, 487 lexical aspect, 1, 15, 16, 19, 20, 29, 39, 54, 55, 73, 74, 250, 273, 334, 395, 414, 496 lexical structure, 15, 73 manner adverb, 1, 48, 74, 111, 121, 225, 242, 263, 265, 273, 281, 306, 307, 310, 328, 343, 371, 375, 390, 402, 412, 425, 464, 474, 485, 499 Medieval Chinese, 1, 38, 43, 44, 56, 496, 501 Middle Chinese, 37, 137, 173, 182, 436, 437 modal, 1, 11, 13, 16, 32, 34, 72, 74, 78, 111, 118, 120, 168, 236, 244, 250, 271, 273, 279, 302, 328, 337, 340, 343, 351, 353, 364– 368, 375, 376, 379, 381, 382, 385–388, 390–393, 401, 402, 415, 419, 428, 436– 440, 449, 451, 452, 456–459, 466, 474, 476, 477, 480, 485, 491, 493, 496, 498– 500

Index 

~ adverbs, 72, 74, 112, 118, 120, 168, 273, 328, 337, 343, 365, 367, 376, 382, 386, 387, 390–392, 402, 458, 474, 485, 500 ~ verbs, 302, 340, 353, 366, 385, 419, 438, 458, 466 modality, 11, 13, 273, 364, 366, 368, 369, 393, 436, 476, 480, 493, 500 monophasic, 30, 58, 62, 230, 271, 276 morpheme, 15, 33, 41, 44, 50, 58, 102, 106, 108, 109, 133, 141, 149, 151, 163, 164, 171, 175, 181, 182, 185, 191, 214, 218, 261, 274, 281, 283, 298, 367, 371, 396, 399, 400, 402, 410, 437, 472, 499 morphological system, 15, 33, 36, 39, 471 morphology, 1, 8, 15–17, 33, 38, 73, 75, 121, 273, 274, 396, 402, 404, 407, 471, 486, 496, 499, 501 negative marker, 62, 75, 184, 186, 188, 285, 301, 311, 313, 324, 334, 335, 338, 340, 346, 351, 361, 376, 380, 388, 389, 394, 396, 401, 410, 412, 419, 434, 436–438, 440–444, 447–450, 453, 455–457, 459– 464, 466, 467, 470, 476, 478, 480–483, 492, 493, 498, 499 non-progressive, 19, 48 non-terminative, 30 open domain, 81, 82, 162, 173, 175, 183, 185, 196, 206, 211, 217, 219, 221, 496 outer aspect, 39, 73, 74, 90, 112, 129, 166, 214, 246, 273, 276, 277, 279, 280, 295, 322, 334, 347, 350, 360–363, 387, 393, 396, 401, 403, 404, 412, 413, 434, 460, 472, 474, 476, 478, 480, 482, 485, 499 passive, 2, 35, 55, 69, 70, 146, 281, 282, 285, 288, 289, 341, 366, 388, 389, 403, 406, 410, 426, 445–447, 455, 463, 472, 487 past tense, 9, 10, 12, 13, 36, 134, 158, 323, 325, 351, 359, 360, 364, 365, 433, 488, 489 patient, 25, 37, 55, 68, 70, 291, 403 perfective, 15, 17–19, 29, 31, 35, 38, 39, 41, 42, 44, 45, 49, 51, 72, 184, 295, 334, 394– 397, 399–405, 410, 418, 437, 439, 440, 442, 448, 453, 454, 470, 472–474, 478, 480, 485, 492

 521

phrase structure, 24, 26, 224 point of time, 1, 9, 12, 13, 46, 72–76, 79, 80, 82–84, 86–89, 91–100, 103–106, 108, 110–112, 114–121, 123, 125, 127, 129, 130, 134, 135, 138, 143, 144, 147, 153, 155–158, 161–165, 167–169, 173–175, 180, 182, 184, 187–189, 191–193, 195, 197, 199–201, 206–208, 211–223, 225, 228, 229, 232, 233, 238, 242, 245, 256, 265–267, 270, 272, 273, 280, 283, 297, 306, 307, 319, 322, 325, 329–333, 351, 358, 361, 362, 364–366, 369, 383, 387, 392, 436, 447, 456, 471, 486, 490, 491, 496, 497, 499 posterior, 10, 11, 99, 207, 209, 415 prefix, 33, 34, 428 preposition, 49–51, 59, 82, 106, 139–142, 156, 163, 164, 169, 172, 173, 175, 177–184, 189–193, 195–198, 201, 202, 206, 207, 211, 218–220, 225, 249, 297, 306, 348, 367, 385, 460 present tense, 9–12, 357 process, 20–23, 29, 31, 35, 36, 46–49, 55, 56, 58, 62, 64–66, 68, 164, 224, 230, 234, 235, 249, 270, 273, 278, 283, 288, 289, 295, 296, 298–304, 309, 314, 315, 319, 321, 325, 327, 387, 397, 399, 403, 408, 413, 418, 439, 440, 453, 454, 459, 473, 475, 487, 498 productivity, 2, 33, 38, 39 progressive, 19, 23, 41, 47–51, 65, 297–299, 303, 321, 487, 495 proper (genuine) adverbs, 75, 76, 78, 81, 86, 88, 90, 96, 111, 112, 121, 162, 177, 211, 212, 215, 218, 273, 281, 324, 332, 368, 391, 472, 485, 499, 504 punctual, 18, 22, 23, 31, 65, 82, 333, 442, 472, 489 quantifier, 52, 192, 233, 237, 259, 260, 332 qùshēng, 34–36, 38, 70, 72, 367, 398, 410, 413, 414, 416, 425, 429 reference time, 9, 11–13, 18, 47, 54, 83–88, 91–95, 97, 99, 100, 103, 104, 112, 123, 127, 129, 135–140, 144, 150, 156, 162, 167–170, 181, 184, 186, 199, 212, 216, 218, 298, 325, 338, 339, 350, 352, 355, 361, 365, 366, 394, 415, 438, 440–444,

522 

 Index

448, 450, 452, 454, 457, 459, 460, 478, 482, 489, 493, 497 resultant state duration, 199, 231, 232, 246, 247, 251, 253, 254, 256–260, 262, 271, 414, 424, 446, 498 resultative construction, 2, 57, 473, 474 root initial, 36 semelfactive, 20, 290 sentence final particle, 45, 46, 75, 226, 262, 396, 397, 400, 401, 412, 476, 477, 489, 492, 500 since completion of event duration, 229, 246, 247, 251, 270, 498 situation time, 83–88, 92, 93, 97–100, 103, 104, 108, 110–112, 115, 120, 122, 123, 129, 135–140, 150, 156, 161, 162, 168, 169, 171, 186, 205, 209–213, 216 situation type, 1, 15–17, 19–21, 23, 29, 31, 45, 47, 53–59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 67, 70, 73–76, 81, 83, 114, 200, 207, 209, 230–234, 236, 239, 243, 250, 254, 270, 274–276, 281– 283, 285, 289–291, 293–296, 298–300, 303, 305, 313, 314, 319, 321, 322, 324, 325, 333, 337, 338, 344, 345, 347, 349, 351, 356, 360–363, 376, 379, 382, 383, 388, 392, 393, 395, 399, 403–406, 412, 414, 415, 432, 439–442, 444, 446, 449, 456, 457, 460, 470–472, 474, 476–483, 485, 487–490, 492, 493, 496, 498, 499 ~ shift, 31, 322, 362, 415, 472, 476, 485, 487, 492 situational duration, 230–232, 234, 246–251, 253, 254, 256, 258–261, 263, 270, 271, 300, 344, 414, 432, 446, 498 span of time, 12, 78, 153, 185, 187, 188, 191– 193, 196, 197, 220, 325 specifier approach, 72 speech time, 5, 9, 11–13, 83–88, 95–97, 99, 106, 108, 110, 111, 119, 120, 127, 137, 146, 158, 161, 168, 170, 172, 173, 175, 179, 185, 188, 191, 192, 197, 199, 203, 212, 213, 218, 299, 304, 309, 322, 325, 337, 338, 350, 355, 357, 361, 364, 366, 369, 392, 416, 431, 447, 472, 488–492, 497 stage level predicates, 58, 73, 247, 276, 281, 291, 309, 415, 429, 449, 489

stage, 18, 22, 25, 30, 33, 56, 58, 70, 73, 254, 273, 275, 276, 287, 290, 294, 295, 299, 300, 309, 314, 319, 321, 323, 327, 396, 400, 436, 472, 473, 479, 481, 482, 484, 486, 487, 492 state, 4, 5, 15, 18–31, 34–36, 38, 44–48, 50, 53, 55–64, 66, 68–70, 72, 92, 95, 96, 103, 114, 118, 135, 137, 139, 172, 177, 182, 187, 189, 194–197, 199, 203, 207–209, 222, 224, 227–234, 236, 237, 239, 241–243, 247, 248, 250, 251, 253, 254, 256–265, 270, 271, 274–276, 278, 279, 281–292, 294–296, 298–300, 302, 303, 307, 309, 311–323, 325, 330, 331, 338, 340–343, 345, 347, 349, 351–357, 360, 362, 364, 369, 371, 374–380, 384, 388–393, 395, 399, 400, 403–406, 408–417, 419–421, 423–426, 428–432, 434, 436–442, 446, 448–453, 455–460, 463, 464, 466, 467, 469–472, 474–493, 498 suffix, 33–35, 37, 41–48, 50, 51, 53, 55, 56, 58, 70, 72, 273–275, 298, 395–397, 399–401, 405, 407, 438, 470, 472, 499 TA time, 83–85, 88, 92, 100, 103, 122, 123, 129, 135–137, 139, 156, 159, 161, 172, 175, 183, 191, 212, 214, 216, 219, 220 telic, 15, 19–21, 23, 24, 28, 29, 50, 58, 60, 62, 64, 67, 68, 70, 83, 184, 186, 188, 190, 199–201, 206, 209, 220, 222, 229–231, 235, 237, 240, 241, 243–246, 250–252, 256, 259, 262, 265, 270, 276–279, 281, 282, 284, 285, 288, 290, 292, 294, 295, 298, 303, 309, 314, 318, 320–322, 325– 327, 329, 330, 333, 335, 336, 338, 339, 341, 343–345, 347–350, 356–363, 369, 370, 372, 374–376, 379, 380, 383, 385, 386, 388, 389, 391–393, 402–404, 406– 409, 412, 414–419, 421, 425, 426, 431– 433, 435, 436, 439–442, 444–446, 448, 449, 451, 455, 456, 460–472, 474–478, 480, 482, 483, 487–493, 495, 498 temporal structure, 30, 39, 62, 64, 93, 94, 129, 196, 198, 200, 202, 205, 207, 210, 211, 230, 235, 247, 254, 270, 271, 274–276, 283–286, 288–290, 292, 294, 296, 298, 300, 301, 303, 314, 315, 319, 321, 329,

Index 

331, 350, 376, 387, 392, 403, 418, 442, 450, 457, 471, 472, 474, 486, 487, 491, 492, 496, 498, 500 terminative, 20, 30, 44, 66, 196, 334 thematic role, 38, 68, 69, 282, 366, 367, 383, 385, 393, 403, 407, 421, 428, 445, 456, 472 theme, 24–27, 37, 38, 68–70, 278, 281, 282, 286, 289, 291, 303, 314–316, 366, 369, 383, 388, 403, 406, 409, 410, 412, 418, 421, 423, 426, 428, 432, 443, 445, 446, 448, 456, 472, 475 Tibetan, 33, 35, 396 time span, 79, 130, 153, 229, 231, 233, 243, 245, 329 tone, 34–36, 51, 72, 396 tone C, 34–36 tone change, 34 transitive, 25, 27, 28, 33–35, 37, 42, 57–59, 61, 64, 65, 68, 69, 164, 245, 248, 257, 259, 277, 278, 281–285, 288, 289, 300,

 523

303, 308, 311, 315, 316, 319, 341, 367, 378, 397, 403, 406, 409, 410, 416, 421, 426, 430, 437, 443, 445, 446, 469, 475, 487 unaccusative, 27, 28, 37, 65, 69, 277, 278, 281, 282, 285, 288, 289, 341, 366, 388, 403, 406, 410, 426, 445, 447, 455, 463, 472, 475, 487 unbounded, 17, 20, 21, 394 unchangeable state, 55, 58, 59, 311, 342, 347, 362, 378, 441, 489 verbs of knowledge, 59, 403, 415, 417, 428, 449, 451, 477 viewpoint, 15, 16, 18, 41, 44, 58, 70, 137, 146, 191, 282, 418, 470, 472 wh-word, 80, 373, 375, 379 YI-phrase, 164, 167, 168, 172

A small selection of authors Aldridge, Edith, 73, 140, 163–166, 168, 169, 171, 182, 217, 242, 273, 397, 474 Bache, Carl, 16, 20, 23, 31, 54, 274, 333, 362, 364 Bybee, Joan, 47, 298, 368, 396, 400, 456 Cinque, Guglielmo, 72, 73, 76–78, 90, 290, 334, 351, 393, 397 Djamouri, Redouane, 51, 139, 143, 145, 163, 168, 178, 183–186, 285, 365, 437 Dowty, David, 24, 126 Ernst, Thomas, 72, 73, 76, 90, 224, 225, 229, 233, 250, 271, 398 Jiang, Shaoyu, 42, 43, 49, 54, 398, 474 Jin, Lixin, 35–38, 70, 72, 398, 407, 409–411, 414, 416, 428, 429 Krifka, Manfred, 122, 123, 215, 324 Lin, Jo-Wang, 42, 52, 56, 66, 223, 224, 229, 275, 303, 449 Paul, Waltraud, 41, 51, 72, 143, 145, 178, 183– 185, 223, 224, 227, 231, 233, 250

Pulleyblank, Edwin G., 53, 90, 94, 101, 102, 144, 160, 163, 164, 170, 175, 177–179, 182–184, 195, 206, 227, 293, 297, 324, 325, 334, 337, 347, 351, 391, 396, 400, 401, 413, 437, 459, 463 Reichenbach, Hans, 9, 10, 83, 497 Sagart, Laurent, 33, 34, 39 Sasse, Hans-Jürgen, 19, 31, 66 Smith, Carlotta, 16, 31, 47, 52, 56, 57, 65, 85, 223, 233, 281, 289, 298, 306, 338, 356, 406, 418, 440, 467 Travis, Lisa, 24–29, 39, 58, 65, 68, 73, 276–279, 288, 294, 299, 311, 403, 406, 410, 475 Unger, Ulrich, 4, 35, 36, 72, 148, 163, 169, 170, 173, 178, 184, 191, 192, 195, 199, 223, 225, 226, 233, 239, 265, 275, 284, 297, 325, 334, 337, 347, 348, 351, 368, 398, 405, 413, 459 Vendler, Zeno, 20, 23, 56, 57, 65, 67, 275 Verkuyl, Henk, 21, 79, 167, 414

524 

 Index

Additional Chinese words discussed chū

, 90–95, 98, 100, 102, 112–114, 117, 121, 131, 138, 193, 212–215, 237, 241, 251, 253, 254, 256, 258, 264, 268, 279–288, 293– 296, 306, 314, 315, 335, 336, 344, 345, 358, 359, 370, 375, 385, 386, 413, 423, 428, 430, 446, 484, 486, 487, 495 cóng , 77, 81, 102, 113, 116, 118, 124, 126, 134, 163, 165, 183, 184, 191, 192, 198, 211, 219–221, 244, 263, 268, 284, 290, 359, 373, 374, 464, 466 dà , 371, 425 dāng , 105, 163, 169–172, 178, 180, 198, 200, 217–219, 244, 306, 442, 463 fāng , 106, 163, 177–183, 185, 191, 217–219, 279, 297–323, 328, 393, 430, 441, 484, 487, 488, 495 fù , 87, 95, 136, 144, 241, 255, 256, 265, 268–270, 288, 306, 307, 315, 369–372, 375, 406, 422, 427 hòu , 59, 68, 81, 112–114, 117, 118, 134, 135, 138–157, 174, 185, 186, 188, 193, 211, 215–217, 220, 243, 284, 377, 378, 385, 421, 450, 496 jí , 61, 71, 98–100, 115, 129, 183, 186, 206– 211, 219, 260, 264, 284, 308, 310, 340– 342, 424, 425 jīn , 78, 79, 86, 96, 100, 101, 106–111, 114– 116, 119–121, 158, 160, 161, 169, 172–175, 178–180, 184, 192, 193, 197, 199, 203, 204, 207, 212–218, 238, 242, 304, 305, 315, 340, 342, 345, 350, 352, 365, 369, 372, 374, 379, 383, 384, 387, 388, 423, 425, 428, 429, 438, 444, 447, 448, 457, 458, 463 nǎng , 100, 103–106, 116–118, 212–215 qí , 59, 86–87, 135–138, 140, 141, 145–150, 155, 159, 167, 169, 181, 201, 202, 216, 217, 260–262, 365, 367, 368, 377, 387–388 shí , 81, 86, 87, 93, 97, 98, 108, 115, 127–129, 133–138, 146, 157–161, 167–172, 180, 181, 185–187, 189, 193, 197, 198, 200–202, 208, 211, 216, 218–220, 222, 257, 280, 301, 302, 306–308, 310, 312, 317, 318, 326, 330–333, 341, 355, 383, 384, 422, 430, 436, 442, 444, 451, 461, 474, 496

shì

, 105, 118, 135–137, 145, 146, 148, 149, 153, 154, 158, 159, 167, 171, 173–177, 181, 184, 186, 188, 194, 198, 216, 218, 223, 256, 257, 290, 292, 301, 302, 306, 307, 317, 318, 330, 417, 422, 430, 436, 442, 474 shǐ , 90, 94–100, 102, 106, 112, 114–116, 121, 190, 194, 212–215, 252, 256, 279–281, 288–296, 412, 465, 484, 486, 487, 495 shuò (shù, shŭ) , 143, 144, 155, 199, 233, 237, 244, 249, 259, 261, 266, 302, 307, 317, 328, 339–340, 343, 348, 349, 430, 431, 461, 495 xī , 77, 100–106, 111, 115, 116, 118, 212–215, 261, 337 xiān , 100, 105, 106, 117–118, 120, 147, 212, 214, 215, 430, 454 yĕ , 41, 46, 60, 63, 69, 75, 77, 79, 102–104, 106, 107, 109, 110, 115–117, 120, 136, 137, 168, 183, 186, 206, 207, 223, 226–229, 234, 238, 240, 241, 256, 259, 260, 264, 265, 293, 301, 315, 319, 320, 324, 327, 338, 340, 345, 347, 349, 351, 354, 370, 371, 374, 380, 387, 390, 396, 401, 402, 432, 438, 444, 448, 450–452, 455, 457, 458, 462, 464–468, 476, 477, 490, 493 yĭ , 41, 46, 59, 61, 75, 108, 117, 118, 150, 159, 174, 187, 193, 197, 203, 204, 208, 224, 226–228, 246, 253–256, 258, 262, 263, 265, 304, 305, 324, 326, 334, 336, 341, 347, 370, 377, 387, 388, 396, 400, 402, 407, 409, 411, 412, 417, 418, 426–433, 438, 448, 453, 454, 461, 463, 476, 477, 489, 490, 492, 493 yĭ , 77, 89, 102, 137, 150, 157, 163–170, 172, 178, 185–188, 191–193, 197, 202, 203, 217, 219, 220, 263, 318, 327, 348, 352, 356, 358, 375, 385, 420, 465, 468 yóu , 163, 183, 184, 192–195, 197, 209, 219– 221, 292, 293, 319, 374 yú , 59, 61, 118, 163, 172–178, 193–195, 202–203, 206, 211, 217–220, 290, 292, 447, 448, 460 zhì , 64, 67–68, 81, 82, 125, 163, 173, 175, 183, 185, 191, 193, 195–207, 210, 211,

Index 

219–221, 242–244, 247, 316, 325, 326, 352, 403, 408, 410, 411, 428, 440, 442, 462, 463, 469, 470

zì

 525

, 67, 81, 82, 107, 142, 153–156, 163, 183– 192, 195–198, 204, 206, 207, 211, 219– 221, 258, 293, 352, 375, 461, 462, 470