Disposal constructions in Chaoshan Southern Min

Abstract

This study examines the use of various types of disposal constructions in the Chenghai dialect of Chaoshan Southern Min. Based on the distinction between head-marking and dependent-marking grammar, we identify four types of disposal constructions, depending on the position of the marker. We performed the fruit cart task to elicit disposal constructions from 30 native speakers of this dialect. Our results indicate that zero-marking is the most dominant construction type, where topicalization represents the most common subtype; this observation is in line with Southern Min’s strong tendency towards topicalized structures. Nonetheless, despite its dominance at present, the frequency of this construction type increases with age, which suggests that it may be losing ground. Notably, according to our preliminary observation, another topicalized structure in Chenghai Southern Min also seems falling into disfavour, suggesting that the declining use of topicalization in this Chaoshan dialect may be systemic.

Polyfunctionality of ‘Give’ in Hui Varieties of Chinese: A Typological and Areal Perspective

“…As we mentioned in Section 4.7, Hui Chinese varieties commonly employ two pretransitive disposal markers of different lexical sources, with Haiyang Hui representing the most extreme case, where three different disposal markers are used. While this is a rare phenomenon in Sinitic languages as a whole, the co-existence of three or more disposal markers is pervasive in the Chaoshan subgroup of Southern Min, whose division of labor appears to be conditioned by certain semantic and pragmatic factors (Lin and Szeto 2023). Given the multiple lexical sources of disposal markers in Hui Chinese, it holds promise to investigate the functional range of these markers and analyze whether it is affected by their lexical sources (and hence grammaticalization pathways).…”