News & Events
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Topic: Transitivity in the Puxi Variety of Qiang by Mr. Huang Chenglong
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 Posted - 07/04/2003 : 15:23:49
Au Ching Pong
Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics
Research Student Seminar
by
Mr. Huang Chenglong
City University of Hong Kong
Transitivity in the Puxi Variety of Qiang
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 pm
Date: 14th April 2003 (Monday)
Venue: B7603 (CTL Multi-purpose Room), City University of Hong Kong
Abstract
Transitivity is a category used in the grammatical analysis, with particular reference to the verb's relationship to dependent elements of structure. The main members of transitivity are transitive and intransitive. Many verbs can be used as both transitive and intransitive cross-linguistically called ambitransitive. Some verbs which take three arguments are called ditransitive.
In this article I will use typological framework (basic linguistic theory) to describe transitivity in the Puxi variety of Qiang, a minority language spoken in Puxi Township, Li County, Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China. On the basis of the syntactic behavior, the verbs in the Puxi variety can be classified into intransitive verbs and transitive verbs in terms of the number of verbal arguments. Some verbs have the same form for both intransitive and transitive usage, and only differ with respect to whether an undergoer occurs in the sentence. Transitive verbs can be formed from intransitive verbs by using the causative construction.
Verbs in the Puxi variety of Qiang are generally clearly transitive or intransitive. There are also some ambitransitive verbs (S=A, or S=O). There are only two devices to change valency of the verb: One is to increase the valency by use of the causative suffix. The other is to decrease the valency of the verb by reduplication of transitive verb. There is no passive construction to reduce the valency of the verb. There is also no applicative construction which has the function of adding an undergoer argument.
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