The Excessive Structural Article in Mandarin— Study of dao (到)

The Excessive Structural Article in Mandarin－ Study of dao（到）∗ Hsiu-Ying Liu Asia University, 500, Liufeng Rd., Wufeng Hsiang, Taichung County, Taiwan violet@asia.edu.tw Abstract. The present paper targets on the excessive structural article dao in the “X1 + dao + si” phrases, aiming to see the possible generation of the excessive meaning. The generation of excessiveness will be analyzed from the aspect of cognition, including conceptual structure and metaphor. It will be concluded that the position indicated by si in concept plays a crucial, which then tells the importance of collocation. What is more, the comparison of dao and Southern Min kah will be made to see the degree of grammaticalization of dao. Keywords: excessive structural article, conceptual structure, metaphor 1. Introduction It is not easy to explain “extent” since it is somewhat abstract; however, extent seems to exist in our daily lives. Everything bears a relation to extent: the redness of roses, the extent of saltiness, or even the maturity of a man. Mentioning extent, hen is always the term for use in Mandarin, such as Ta hen mei 她很美 (She is very beautiful). However, hen cannot indicate the highest extent. To show excessiveness, there is a construction which is popular with the young generation in Taiwan nowadays. The excessive construction is structured as “X + dao + si”, and it pragmatically emphasizes the speaker’s subjective emotion. (1) 我 今天 累 到 死 wo jin-tian lei dao si I today tired DAO die “I’m extremely tired today.” The phrase is always used to indicate the very high extent of a certain state; therefore, we name the construction “the excessive construction” and dao the excessive structural particle, which appears in sentences mainly to link the word or phrase that precedes it to the elements that immediately follows it. In example (1), dao links the predicate lei and the complement si. As for the excessive construction, dao is worthy of discussion. Dao originally is a spatial term indicating “arrive at”. Since we failed to find dao’s use as an extent marker in ancient Mandarin, it might be until this modern time it is used to indicate excessive extent. How could a spatial term derive extent meaning? In addition, dao is not obligatory; that is, it could be omitted. (2) 我 今天 累 死 了 wo jin-tian lei si le I today tired die ASP “I’m extremely tired today.” ∗ Copyright 2007 by Hsiu-Ying Liu 1 The symbol X refers to either a verb or an adjective. 293 As a result, there is coexistence of “X dao si” and “X si”. Does the appearance of dao imply some other meaning different from “X si”? The paper works on the excessive structural particle dao in Taiwan Mandarin. The data are collected mainly from google search engine. The main discussion falls on how dao derives from a spatial word to an excessive structural particle. We will look into the conceptual structure of the construction, in hopes to see the operation of human cognition and the …

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