De l’espace au temps : la grammaticalisation de l’aspect en chinois

Abstract

This paper explores the grammaticalization of aspect in Chinese, focusing on the diachronic development of spatial expressions, particularly verbs denoting location or motion, into grammatical markers or verb complements encoding aspectual values. The study begins with an overview of the cross-linguistic tendency to develop markers or constructions encoding aspectual meanings from spatial terms within the framework of grammaticalization, followed by a brief presentation of the verbal aspect system in Modern Chinese. Drawing on diachronic corpus data, the diachronic analysis offers empirical evidence that Chinese exhibits a strong tendency to employ locative expressions and motion verbs for aspectual functions. Furthermore, in contrast to Romance and Germanic languages, Chinese shows differences in the range of motion verbs subject to grammaticalization and in the grammaticalization of itif and ventif verbs.