MCLC: dissent speaks code (7)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: wolfgang behr <behr at oas.uzh.ch>
Subject: dissent speaks code (7)
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There is a long-standing controversy in Chinese linguistics, since when
被 was _fully grammaticalized_ as a preverbal passive marker. While
there are scattered examples with 被 introducing passive verbs in
Warring States edited literature (first very clear exx. in 韓非子，戰國
策 etc.）and in Qin-Han paleographic materials (Shuihudi 睡虎地, 張家山,
if memory serves well), the construction seems to consolidate only in
Buddhist texts from the Eastern Han, when the agent of the 被-phrase
starts to be expressed more regularly, as in

"今月十三日，臣被尚書召問"(occuring in 蔡邕, a.d. 133-192)
"On the thirteenth day of this month, I was summoned for interrogation
_by the shangshu (chamberlain)_."

By the Tang period, the construction has by and large eclipsed most
competing strategies of passive marking and is firmly implemented in the
colloquial language (see 唐钰明s paper). Constructions in which the
被-phrase starts to have an object begin to appear in the Five Dynasties
period, but they become more common only since the Song period.

For useful recent overviews of the research on this question see e.g.

-李云芬，“汉语被动句式在上古时期的发展概况",  清海师范大学学报 2, 1998
-安俊丽, “古代汉语中典型标志被动句句法结构研究综述”，淮海工学院学报 7
（3), 2009
-聂志军, "'被'字被动句研究综述", 内江师范学院学报 23 (11), 2008

Best,
Wolfgang