From separate clause to epistemic adverbial, the neglected source construction and initial-to-medial pathway: Chinese guoran ‘it really happens’

ABSTRACT The source construction and the pathway for the formation of English epistemic adverbials are widely discussed in the literature. However, few studies to our knowledge have specifically discussed a hypothetical source construction of separate clauses and a hypothetical initial-to-medial pathway. Chinese guoran was first used as a separate clause, and later developed into an epistemic adverbial meaning ‘it really happens’. Diachronic investigations reveal that it followed a hypothetical initial-to-medial pathway leading from a clause-initial position to a clause-medial position. The hypothetical source construction and the hypothetical pathway are supported by diachronic changes of other epistemic adverbials in Chinese, and may be adopted to account for the formation of some epistemic adverbials in the other languages.