Grammaticaiization and Subjectivization of 'Po'

摘要

This paper investigates the grammaticaiization of "po" on the basis of a survey on examples from Chinese classic works, and finds that: 1) the use of "po" shifted from an adjective to a degree adverb and a scope adverb; 2) the use of "po" shifted from an objective scope adverb to a modal adverb. This paper focuses on the syntactic environment that triggered the grammaticaiization of "po" and how it became a functional word. The increasing subjectivity of this functional word is also discussed.