This analysis sets out to specifically discuss the polyfunctionality of 跟 [kai 55 ] in Waxiang (Sinitic), whose lexical source is the verb 'to follow'. Amongst its various uses, we find a preposition 'with, along', a marker of adjuncts and a NP conjunction, thus superficially resembling its Mandarin cognate 跟 gēn 'with'. Curiously, however, it has also evolved into a direct object marker in Waxiang, with a function similar to that of preposition 把 bă < 'hold, take' as found in the S-bă-O-VP or so-called 'disposal' form in standard Mandarin. The pathways of grammaticalization for 跟 [kai 55 ] in Waxiang are thus discussed in order to determine how it has developed this unusual grammatical function in one of the linguistic zones of China where verbs of giving or taking are, in fact, the main source for grammaticalized object markers in 'disposal' constructions.On the basis of 16 th and 17 th century Southern Min literature (Sinitic), a comparison is also made with analogous developments for comitative 共 gòng 'with' to provide support for our hypothesis that the direct object marking use has evolved from the oblique function of a benefactive or dative, and is clearly separate from the crosslinguistically well-attested pathway that leads to its use as a conjunction. We would thus like to propose that these data contribute a new pattern to the stock of 6 The symbol is used for any syllable which has no known corresponding Chinese character.7 Note that the word for 'carpenter' in example (12) is different from that in example (4) due to different informants. 16 The tone mark indicates the tonal category instead of the tonal quality for convenience of comparison: 1. 阴 平 Yīnpíng, 2. 阳 平 Yángpíng, 3. 上 声 Shǎngshēng, 4. 去声 Qùshēng and 5. 入声 Rùshēng respectively. In dialects which distinguish all the 阴 Yīn and 阳 Yáng registers, the one tone mark will stand for both of them. For example, the tone mark 4 stands for both 阴去 Yīnqù and 阳去 Yángqù. 19 Note that the Jishou dialect also has the locative 'along' use of 跟 gēn but its polsyemy does not extend to the object marking use: 20 Note that phonetic transcriptions were not provided in the original data. For the convenience of quotation, we have adopted the practice of romanizing such examples in the pīnyīn system devised for Mandarin but using small capitals to signal the fact it does not indicate the pronunciation of the given Mandarin dialect. 21 We do not wish to suggest here that only geographically isolated languages can undergo the development from comitative > accusative, as one of our reviewers has queried with reason. Rather, the objective here is to provide a possible explanation as to why Waxiang did not adopt or borrow the marker ba that is predominant in surrounding dialects of Southwestern Mandarin. 31 The characters for 有德 yu tec are missing, indicated by '__'. Chappell (2000, 2006, 2007) has carried out research on this topic for contemporary Sinitic languages in order to examine the diversity of lexical sources as well as the evolution of these objec...
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