This thesis is about the expression of ingressive aspect: language elements that focus on the beginning of a situation. The aim is to conduct a fine-grained analysis and comparison of the aspectual...Show moreThis thesis is about the expression of ingressive aspect: language elements that focus on the beginning of a situation. The aim is to conduct a fine-grained analysis and comparison of the aspectual semantics of three ‘manifestations of ingressivity’: the ingressive suffix -qilai起來 in Mandarin and the ingressive adverbs chū初 and shǐ始 from pre-Tang Chinese. The comparison reveals both similarities and differences. First, the three ingressive markers share a basic conceptual structure consisting of [+BEGIN] and [+focusBEGIN], but -qilai 起來 additionally consists of the optional component [±STAND UP] due to limited semantic bleaching of the source structure’s lexical semantics, i.e. the verb qǐlai 起來 ‘to stand up’. This explains the fact that Stage Level States selecting -qilai起來 may shift optionally to Activities, as metaphorical extensions of ‘standing up’ (i.e. ‘increase’) license dynamic interpretations. This same optionality may be explained for the pre-Tang Chinese adverbs through the causative potential of the predicate, which likewise optionally entails ‘increasing’. Second, combinatory possibilities can be described for shǐ始 without additional restrictions, while those of -qilai起來 and chū初 can be accounted for with one disjunctive rule each: -qilal起來 requires the predicate to be durative, atelic, or both; chū初 requires it to be dynamic-durative, telic, or both. In terms of ingressive subtypes, this means that chū初 is typically inceptive, -qilai起來 is more inceptive than inchoative, and shǐ始 is actually ingressive in that inceptive and inchoative interpretations are equally available.Show less
