Multifunction Word Lau in Early Hakka

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-265-1_7How to use a DOI?

Keywords

lau; grammaticalization; Basel Mission; New Territories; Hakka Multifunctionality

Abstract

Based on Biblical Histories in Hakka Colloquial, a biblical reading in Hakka published by Basel Mission in 1868, this article outlines the usage of Hakka multifunctional word lau over a century ago, which is also compared with contemporary Hakka dialect, to reflect grammaticalizaion pathway of lau, i.e. verb – commitive preposition – co-agent preposition – benefactive preposition – object preposition and coordinating conjunction (for animate noun) – coordinating conjunction (for all nouns) – coordinating conjunction (for all nouns and adjectives) – patient particle – emphatic particle. The next part is a synchronic comparison with contemporary Meixian Hakka and Hong Kong Cantonese, which reveals that the lau in New Territories Hakka is the most grammaticalized, followed by that in Meixian Hakka, while the lau in Hong Kong Cantonese has not been grammaticalized.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Qiuchen Zheng
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/07/18
TI  - Multifunction Word Lau in Early Hakka
BT  - Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Language, Art and Cultural Exchange (ICLACE 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 47
EP  - 58
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-265-1_7
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-265-1_7
ID  - Zheng2024
ER  -