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Rethinking the *-s suffix in Old Chinese: with new evidence from Situ Rgyalrong

  • Shuya Zhang EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: April 7, 2022
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Abstract

This paper re-examines previous hypotheses claiming the primacy of a perfect(ive) value in certain qusheng (*-s) derivations (in particular nominalization) in Old Chinese. First, it revisits examples previously cited as having been derived from the perfect(ive), and proposes to re-classify them as resulting from three different derivational processes, nominalization, verb argument demotion, and adverbialization. Second, it focuses on Sino-Tibetan comparative data, in particular from Situ Rgyalrong, a language with severe isomorphism across four -s suffixes. Then, on the basis of morphological (especially stem changes) and syntactic criteria, it sorts out the relationship between the different -s suffixes in Situ, while suggesting multiple sources to account for the diverse functions of qusheng (*-s) in Old Chinese.


Corresponding author: Shuya Zhang, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science/Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo, Japan, E-mail:

Funding source: JSPS Research Fellow

Award Identifier / Grant number: 21F20303

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Guillaume Jacques, Lai Yunfan, Nathan Hill, Jesse Gates, Gao Yang, Zev Handel, Suzuki Hiroyuki, and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

  1. Research funding: This research was funded by the Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Research Fellow (21F20303).

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Received: 2021-05-24
Accepted: 2021-07-26
Published Online: 2022-04-07
Published in Print: 2022-11-25

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