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Abstract The “departing tone” holds a remarkable place in the system of ancient Chinese phonetic alternation. Beyond its roles in marking perfective aspect and verb-noun conversion, it also functions syntactically, such as converting intransitive verbs to transitive ones (e.g., “hū háo呼号-hào shēn shū zhǎn号申叔展”), ditransitive verbs to trivalent verbs (e.g., “zǐ bù yǔ guài lì luàn shén子不语怪力乱神-wú yù rǔ lǐ吾语女礼”), inward verbs to outward verbs (e.g., “shǒu mìng yú tiān受命于天-dì shòu wǒ yòu帝授我佑”), and automative verbs to causative verbs (e.g., “qún chén yǐn jiǔ群臣饮酒-jìn hóu yìn zhào dùn jiǔ晋侯饮赵盾酒”), among others.
Focusing on the argument structure variations between original and derived verbs reveals a commonality in these examples: the departing tone in phonetic alternation introduces a new argument. Consequently, some scholars have referred to this function as “augmenting arguments” or “assigning new arguments”. Although this is a compelling generalization, it does not perfectly align with linguistic facts. For instance, (1) introducing a new argument does not necessarily involve a departing tone (e.g., “fǎn zhào dùn反赵盾”); (2) the new argument introduced by the departing tone does not always manifest as an object (e.g., “nǜ yú zhèng zhuāng gōng女於郑庄公”); (3) the thematic role of the new object argument is often restricted (e.g., in “xì jiàn喜剑” and “xǐ yú wáng mìng喜於王命”, “jiàn剑”, is an object, while “wáng mìng王命” is a cause). Moreover, the following two phenomena and their underlying reasons have not been thoroughly explored: (1) verbs with “V+affected party” in the phonetic alternation system never exhibit a departing tone; (2) when introducing a new argument, either “于/於” (e.g., “yán zhī yú wáng言之於王”, “qǐng dí yú sòng请籴於宋”) is sued, or a combination of the departing tone and “于/於” (e.g., “nǜ yú zhèng zhuāng gōng女於郑庄公”), or only the departing tone is used (e.g., “wú yù rǔ lǐ吾语女礼”).
In light of this, we conducted further research based on a more extensive collection of examples. We found that verbs originally pronounced with a departing tone, such as “lài赉”, “bì畀”, “bì毖”, “cì赐”, and “xiàn献”, exhibit syntactic function consistent with the above examples where the departing tone occurs through phonetic alternation. The function of this departing tone should thus be summarized as external reference. By external reference, we mean that the action, behavior, emotion, or commanding of the agent is directed towards, acts upon, or benefits a new argument, one not originally entailed by the verb but which the verb now seeks to encompass. In other words, only newly introduced arguments that trigger the verb’s external reference (such as destination, goal, object, associated entity, or beneficiary) can cause the verb to exhibit a departing tone through phonetic alternation.
Our study also uncovered that: (1) Typically, when a verb undergoes phonetic alternation to a departing tone and points to a new argument, this new argument, due to its high salience, occupies a proximate object position, forming a highly transitive relationship of “V (departing tone)+NP (new argument)”; (2) However, in cases where the verb with a departing tone is in a low transitivity relationship with the new argument, the argument is introduced with “于/於”; (3) As for verbs like “yán言”and “qǐng请”, which have only one internal argument, the “于/於” introduces an optional peripheral element.
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Published: 03 March 2025
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