Passives and Causatives in a Specific Taiwanese Construction
Vol. 42 No. 1 03/2012
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Title |
Passives and Causatives in a Specific Taiwanese Construction |
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Author |
Lee, Hui-chi |
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Genre |
Article |
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Pages |
169-189 |
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Download |
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Language |
English |
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Key words |
hoo ... ka construction, passive, causative, transitivity, Taiwan Southern Min |
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Abstract |
The present study explores the syntactic and semantic properties of the construction featuring the hoo ... ka configuration. The two words, hoo and ka, can perform multiple functions, and their interactions have various interpretations. The study collected data from Taiwanese corpora and observed that the hoo ... ka sentences can express passives and causatives. The word hoo provides the passive and causative attributes, while the word ka contributes to the transitivity. The repetition of the object argument and the occurrence of the resultative complement are assumed to be mechanisms to facilitate the transitivity of the hoo ... ka sentences. |