Abstract
This paper investigates the Ergativization of the Chinese verb “死”[si](die) (the same below) in Chinese Language History based on the Ergativization theory of Lemmens (1998). Ergativization refers to the process of transitive or intransitive verb entering the ergative structure. The semantic change of verbs led to change of syntactic structure, and “死” experienced the evolution from intransitive verb to semi intransitive verb from ancient Chinese to modern Chinese. Its original syntax structure “死+relational object” in the Qin and Han Dynasty also changed into “V+死+object”. The “死+object” structure appearing after the Song Dynasty made the verb “死” turn into a real Ergative verb.
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Zhang, Y. (2014). The Ergativization of the Verb “死”[si](Die) in Chinese Language History. In: Su, X., He, T. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8922. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14331-6_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14331-6_12
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