02 The yu-dative construction “v+do+yu+io” in archaic Chinese A constructional perspective.pdfVIP

THE YU-DATIVE CONSTRUCTION “V+DO+YU+IO” IN ARCHAIC CHINESE: A CONSTRUCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE 1 Chiew Pheng Phua Nanyang Technological University, Singapore ABSTRACT This paper aims to demonstrate that the yu -dative construction with the syntactic structure “V+DO+yu +IO” which is grounded in the SOCIAL domain, is a metaphorical extension from the caused motion construction grounded in the more basic SPATIAL domain. Since there is another dative construction with the syntactic structure “V+IO+DO” in Archaic Chinese, the semantic difference between the two and the diachronic significance of metaphorical extension in the coding of a GIVE event would be further explored. It will also be shown that there is an inherent affinity between dative and causative constructions as both the double-object dative and yu -dative constructions could be further extended to encode an event of causativity. SUBJECT KEYWORDS Archaic Chinese, Dative construction, Construction Grammar, Cognitive Grammar 1. OVERVIEW This paper aims to demonstrate that the yu -dative construction with the syntactic structure “V+DO+yu +IO” (Peyraube 1986, 1987, 1988) as exemplified in example 1, which is grounded in the SOCIAL domain, is a metaphorical extension from the caused motion construction grounded in the more basic SPATIAL domain. In other words, this paper argues that example 1 which encodes an event of GIVE is a m