Title

Grammaticalization and beyond -The invisible space behind the body-part term boi⁵⁵ 'back' (背) in Hakka

Author

Shu-mei Chiang  Huei-ling Lai

Genre

Article  

Pages

275-304

Download

PDF

Language

English

Key words

grammaticalization, frames of reference, space and cognition, body-part terms, back, Hakka

Abstract

  The purpose of this study is twofold. On the one hand it examines the motivations and mechanisms activating various senses of the Hakka morpheme boi⁵⁵ ‘back', along with its grammaticalization path. It is found that semantically, INANIMATE OBJECT-IS-ANIMATE CREATURE Metaphor, SPACE-IS-OBJECT Metaphor, TIME-IS-OB]ECT Metaphor, Metonymy of spatial contiguity, and MEMBER-FOR-CATEGORY Metonymy are involved in this grammaticalization path. Syntactically, reanalysis and analogy bring about the morphosyntactic change of boi⁵⁵. On the other, adopting frames of reference, this study, with Hakka boi⁵⁵ as an illustration, investigates the interactions between spatial conceptualization and language. We show how the different choices of intrinsic or relative frames of reference influence the spatial interpretations of the sentences with boi⁵⁵. And it is further demonstrated how the noun category preceding boi⁵⁵ interacts with frames of reference and gives rise to different degrees of ambiguity. It is shown that the interaction of lexical meanings and world knowledge brings about different interpretations of a single form. The research findings prove that both universal and regionally restricted forces are needed to account for the structure of conceptual transfer.