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NP-based time adverbials

Bibliography

Martin Haspelmath, From Space to Time: Temporal Adverbials in the World’s Languages (Munich, 1997).
鄺永輝, '「越(粵)+時間詞語」釋義商兌', 語文建設, 4 (1999), 50–1.
楊玉鋒, '《岳陽樓記》「越明年」訓釋定讞與岳陽樓的增修時間', 寧波大學學報, 35/4 (2022), 100–5.

越- NPs (classical)

The proclitic 越- has different semantic functions depending on the type of NP it attaches to:

Warning

Yang's (2022: 105) theory that 越-(1) is a 'filler' with no semantic content is contradicted by the intuition of two T'ang authors:

  • 越七日癸酉者越於也於丁卯後七日⋯ (賈公彥)
  • 越六月旣望⋯又越於也 (李善)

  1. When the NP is a shifter (e.g. 明年) or definite time specification (e.g. 四月十二日), it marks the temporal location of the clause, or the locative case.

  2. When the NP represents a duration (e.g. 三日), it marks the distance-prospective, or the postessive case.

Tip

K'uang (1999) and Yang (2022) provide examples of 越-(2) where both the initial and terminal dates were given in kan chih. Work out the durations and you'll see that an expression like 越三日 was ambiguous throughout history and could mean either T+3 or T+2 depending on the writer.