This research is about the use of the ba construction in Taiwan Mandarin. This construction marks the object by inserting the morpheme ba, and preposes it to the front of the sentence structure. It...Show moreThis research is about the use of the ba construction in Taiwan Mandarin. This construction marks the object by inserting the morpheme ba, and preposes it to the front of the sentence structure. It has also been called a disposal construction, since it denotes how the object is affected by the subject. Taiwan Mandarin is heavily influenced by Southern Min, a language which is spoken by a large proportion of the Taiwanese population. The Southern Min ka7 construction is very similar to the ba construction: it marks the object as patient and preposes it in the sentence structure. However, its use is also quite different from the use of the ba construction. In order to find out if this ka7 construction has influenced the ba construction, I took spoken example sentences from Taiwanese television shows and written example sentences from Taiwanese Facebook pages. The data from these sources suggests that in some cases the ba construction in Taiwanese Mandarin does behave differently, and some of the differences can indeed be explained by the ka7 construction.Show less
