Guilan Li

ABSTRACT : Similar with he or ken in Mandarin, ʦɿ31-512 (做) of Jishui dialect in Jiangxi functions as comitative, animate directional and comparative preposition as well as coordinator, which can be substituted by the disyllabic functional words ʦɿ31-51 phon512-20(做伴), ʦɿ31-51 pho20(做嘙) or ʦɿ31-51 te20(做得). This paper explores the functions of ʦɿ31-512 as well as its disyllable and explores their semantic sources and pathway of semantic changes. It claims that the comitative ʦɿ31-51 phon512-20 originates from verb ʦɿ31-33 phon512meaning accompany, and it is reanalyzed with tonal change in the situation where ʦɿ31-33 phon512 acts as the first verb with a prominent animate object of a serial verb construction. Then, on the one hand, the comitative ʦɿ31-51 phon512-20 undergoes erosion into ʦɿ31-51 pho512-20 or even into ʦɿ3-512, and the latter one constitutes a compound disyllabic with suffix te0. On the other hand, the disyllabic and monosyllabic comitatives are extended into other situations with other kinds of verb where they are reanalyzed into animate directional and comparative prepositions. Simultaneously, the comitatives are grammaticalized into coordinators, when the two participants make similar contributions to an event and hold equal status. Then it reveals that cognates of the preposition and coordinator ʦuo(做) or its compounds spread widely around Jishui dialect in Jiangxi as well as some Wu and Hui dialects, and it is common for verbs meaning accompany to develop into comitatives and coordinators.