探析武汉方言中kɤ̞42的来源 = Explore the Origin of kɤ̞42 in Wuhan Dialect

Abstract

Ditransitive construction has always been a hot topic in the field of linguistics. Double-object construction (DOC) is one of its syntactic form. The result of previous studies in ditransitive construction in Wuhan Dialect suggests that the word order of the DOC that consists of dative verbs meaning to give in Wuhan Dialect should never be indirect object preceding the direct object. However, we have observed that in recent days there are increasing number of Wuhan Dialect speakers using a word with pronunciation /kɤ42/ (kɤ42 is a dative verb meaning to give) and the DOC with such word order in a same sentence. Moreover, based on our observation, kɤ4 is the only verb maning to give could be used in these sentences. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is trying to find a possible explanation for the above linguistic phenomenon by exploring the origin of kɤ42. In order to find the Chinese character of kɤ42, we have conductd a pronounciation test, and the result shows that “给” has the highest change to be the Chinese character of kɤ42 as they share the same pronouncication, the same syntacitic features and the same semantic meaning in Wuhan Dialect. Hence, exploring the origin of kɤ42 might be regarded as exploring the origin of Gei. Considering that Gei is in fact originated from Dialects in Northern China instead of Wuhan Dialect, we may hypothesize that Gei is a loan word in Wuhan Dialect adapted from other dialects or Putonghua. Also, since the first time that Gei was recoreded in Wuhan Dialect was thirty years ago, a time when the promotion of Putonghua started to make a change, Gei is propably adapted from Putonghua. After comparing Gei in Wuhan Dialect and Gei in Putonghua, we find that Gei in Wuhan Dialect has many syntactic as well as semantic similarities with Gei in Putonghua. This indicates that Gei in Wuhan Dialect appears to be adapted from Putonghua. According to our research, the origin of kɤ42 might be Putonghua, and the syntactic feature that use dative verb meaning to give in DOC with the word order that indirect object preceding the direct object is also adapted from Putonghua.