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Abstract:

Lectal variation in Chinese analytic causative constructions has not yet been investigated in detail. In the framework of Cognitive Sociolinguistics, this paper employs a multinomial logistic regression model to examine the syntactic, semantic and lectal factors that may affect the alternation of Chinese analytic causative constructions with shi, rang and ling based on regiolectally balanced corpora. Our analyses show that: 1) the causee of ling-constructions tends to be an experiencer, followed by adjectives, and ling-constructions are significantly more likely to appear in a relative clause. 2) Compared with ling, both shi and rang are more favored when the effected predicate is a transitive verb and more disfavored than ling when the causee is an experiencer. 3) The probability of shi significantly increases when the causee is definite or serves as a patient, whereas rang favors the causee whose semantic role is an agent; The probability of rang significantly decreases when the causee is a theme. 4) There is a significant interaction between Variety and ClauseType, i. e. the influence of ClauseType is strongest in Mainland Chinese, with shi and rang preferring different clause types, whereas in Taiwan Chinese and Singapore Chinese, rang is always favored. The usage of ling shows no significant cross-variety variation. This study not only shows the benefit of Cognitive Sociolinguistics for synthetically analyzing language internal and external factors, but also contributes to the research on Chinese analytic causative constructions and variation in Chinese varieties by analyzing large-scale data and incorporating considerable predictors. Key Words: analytic causative constructions; construction alternation; lectal variation; Cognitive Sociolinguistics; multinomial logistic regression