Like other Chinese dialects, Cantonese marks its aspects with verbal suffixes, e.g. zo to indicate the perfective and gan the progressive. Gan signals not only an ongoing atelic action, but also an ongoing movement towards a destination at a particular reference time. For instance, gan can combine with the verb lai ("come") to mean "approaching the speaker", hence marking a prospective reading. In short, in contemporary Cantonese, gan denotes the progressive and prospective functions. / That gan has extended its functions beyond the traditional definition of marking a progressive can be observed in the language among younger speakers in Hong Kong. For example, the combination of gaau syu ("teach") and gan traditionally marks a progressive reading, meaning "I'm teaching." However, it now also allows the habitual reading: "I'm a teacher." Another example is while the notion of "wearing something or having put on something" would have to be marked by zyu, the durative aspect, in old Cantonese: zoek zyu, a preferable alternative now is gan: zoek gan. Still another example is that the combined use of lai and gan to function as a temporal adverb. As these usages appear divergent in nature and serve different functions, it is the purpose of this study to examine gan to offer an analysis that accounts for its many functions as derivatives from the core notion of progressiveness. / The project makes use of a rich corpus of colloquial Cantonese materials that date back to the 19th century. Combing through data of nearly two hundred years, we uncover patterns of development, in both grammatical and semantic behaviors, that help us to reconstruct the history of gan in Cantonese. We believe that the progressive use of gan dates back to gan cyu (lit. near there) in the 19th century, a spatial expression that eventually took on a metaphorical extension to mark temporal nearness. As for the new usages of gan in the 21st century, we assume that the habitual and durative come from the progressive, and the temporal adverb denoting a future time from the prospective, all reflecting different paths of grammaticalization. / 片岡新. / Adviser: Samuel Hung-Nin Cheung. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-03, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-270). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Pian'gang Xin.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:cuhk.edu.hk/oai:cuhk-dr:cuhk_344902 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Contributors | 片岡新., Chinese University of Hong Kong Graduate School. Division of Chinese Language and Literature., Kataoka, Shin. |
| Source Sets | The Chinese University of Hong Kong |
| Language | Chinese, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, theses |
| Format | electronic resource, microform, microfiche, 1 online resource (x, 270 p. : ill.) |
| Coverage | China, Hong Kong, China, Hong Kong |
| Rights | Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International” License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
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