The evolutionary order of the macro-events: a case study of the diachronic evolution of 过-Guò in Chinese

Abstract

This study examines the diachronic evolutionary order of the macro-events by investigating the evolution of 过-Guò in Chinese. Through a comprehensive analysis of corpus data spanning from Archaic Chinese to Modern Mandarin, with a particular focus on Modern Chinese, this study elucidates a tangible evolutionary order of the macro-events, which can be roughly described as: motion events > events of state change/events of realization > events of temporal contouring. Notably, events of state change and events of realization are coordinate with each other, both deriving from motion events and subsequently grammaticalizing into events of temporal contouring. Additionally, 过-Guò in the “V+过-Guò” construction encoding events of temporal contouring further grammaticalized into an experiential marker. Events of action correlating have distinct origins, underscoring their unique evolutionary trajectories. Not only does the proposed evolutionary sequence of macro-events align with the common path of grammaticalization, but it is also substantiated by the concrete evidence of successive contexts that are well-documented in the corpus.