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

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.

On the nature of morphological alternations in Archaic Chinese and their relevance to morphosyntax

“…While Chinese is not phylogenetically close to either Gyalrongic or Kiranti, sharing with them only a limited number of cognates (Zhang et al 2019, Sagart et al 2019), the exuberant verbal morphology of these languages offers a framework against which hypotheses on the interpretation of morphological alternations can be tested (Gong 2017, Zhang 2022), and makes it possible to go beyond the circularity of Chinese-internal analysis.…”