ɬwa:n⁵ as a Marker of the Degree of Expressiveness in the Kam Language

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of syntactic collocations that include the constraints on an adjective phrase (AP) and adverbs or final particles (X) in the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction, as well as its pragmatic features and grammatical functions in the Kam language. ɬwa:n⁵ functions as an exclamative marker (EM) that conveys the expressive meaning of the speaker’s attitude. The primary lexical meaning of ɬwa:n⁵ is ‘to calculate’ or ‘to regard as’, and the word is borrowed from Chinese (算 suàn, ‘to count’, ‘to calculate’, ‘to regard as’). The role of ɬwa:n⁵ in the construction ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X will mainly be discussed in this paper. In addition, the adjectives that can collocate with ɬwa:n⁵ are subject to a gradeability restriction, that is, only gradable adjectives can collocate with ɬwa:n⁵. In general, the ɬwa:n⁵ construction is used to express that the speaker expected an existing situation with a gradable property; in reality, the degree follows a particular scalar and surpasses the expectation.

1. Introduction

The objective of this paper is to provide a syntactic and pragmatic description of the ɬwa:n⁵ + adjective phrase (AP) + degree adverb construction that accounts for the collocation characteristics of ɬwa:n⁵ and the functions of ɬwa:n⁵ in speech acts. Two core concepts are essential for this study: the first is the exclamative, and the second is the expressive.

Kam, which is known as Dong (侗) in Chinese, is a member of the Kam–Sui branch of the Tai–Kadai languages that are spoken in Southern China. Typologically, this language is an isolating language that has tones. Analytically, it uses functional words such as particles or conjunctions in phrasal verb structures to express grammatical categories such as aspect and mood. Structurally, Kam is a head-initial language with basic constituent orders, in which the head precedes a dependent, such as N–Adj and Adj–Adv. The basic word order in Kam is SVO, with the subject preceding the verb. The main focus in this paper is on adjectives and their collocations. A construction modifies nouns (N–Adj) and is intensified by adverbs (Adj–Adv), whereas adjectives can also be reduplicated to intensify the degree or to increase the effect that the adjectives describe. In addition, adjectives occur in constructions to intensify them and to convey subjective evaluations of the situation depending on the context.

An exclamative, which some linguists have also called an exclamatory, refers to the utterance of a word or phrasal expression to convey that the speaker’s expectation has been surpassed. Crystal (2008, p. 177) defined it as “a term used in the classification of sentence functions” and as “referring to any emotional utterance, usually lacking the grammatical structure of a full sentence, and marked by strong intonation”; examples include “Gosh! What a fool he was!” and “How nice!”. Crystal also stated that “these sentences are sometimes called exclamatives. Semantically, the function is primarily the expression of the speaker’s feelings—a function which may also be expressed using other grammatical means”. In some contexts, exclamatives are used as compliments and some are exaggerated in order to flatter. In this paper, ɬwa:n⁵ is treated as acting as an exclamative marker (EM) of the degree of expressiveness to convey the speakers’ evaluation to an exceedingly high degree. Therefore, it is interesting to analyse the entire functional range of ɬwa:n⁵ in the Kam language by considering various contexts.

Before going into detail, a few points of terminology should be clarified. Another concept that is sometimes considered to be similar to an exclamation is an interjection. In many previous studies, interjections have been referred to as linguistic markers that indicate the mental state of the speaker (Wierzbicka 1992; Ameka 1992; Potts 2006; Enfield 2007; Gutzmann 2013). Levinson (2017, p. 214) stated that “interjections like Wow, My God are used to mark exclamations”. In this paper, the researcher will use the terms “exclamation/exclamative” because the use of ɬwa:n⁵ in a construction conveys an exclamative mood without the use of any canonical interjections. ɬwa:n⁵ is not essentially an interjection, although it functions as a marker with an exclamative mood in the expressive utterances. Therefore, ɬwa:n⁵ is considered to be an exclamative marker (EM) in the Kam language in this paper, and will be referred to as EM (exclamative marker) in the following sections. In their analyses of exclamatives, scholars such as Potts (2006), Rett (2011) and Gutzmann and Turgay (2014) have classified them as expressives with semantic and pragmatic interpretations.

In modern linguistic scholarship, the term expressives is sometimes considered to be equivalent to ideophones and mimetics (Dingemanse 2012). In support of Dingemanse’s perspective, some scholars, such as Aikhenvald (2007) and Sun and Shi (2004), have presented similar viewpoints in their studies by using brackets for both the expression of expressives and for ideophones. Despite the common notions of feelings, emotions and opinions involved in the definition, the use of expressives as a technical term remains elusive and is a source of controversy among scholars. Nonetheless, studies of ideophones, reduplication, echo words, onomatopoeia and other non-categorical forms have been receiving more attention from scholars over the past two decades, and linguists investigating different language families have disagreed regarding the definition of expressives. In this paper, the term expressives will be used in a narrow sense to refer to expressions that convey the speaker’s emotional and evaluative attitude to a high degree. Therefore, this aim of this paper is to clarify subtle issues within the study of expressives and to propose best practice regarding the uses of expressives in the Kam language.

With regard to expressive constructions, researchers of Mandarin are well aware of the widely observed ABB (adjective + reduplicated suffixes) pattern, such as 闹哄哄 nào hōnɡ (‘noisy’, ‘full of clamour’) in Mandarin. In East Asian contexts, languages such as Japanese (Dingemanse and Akita 2017), Korean (Kwon 2018), Tibeto-Burman (D. Jiang 2021) and Hmong–Mien (Li 2006) have a large number of expressives or ideophones. Accordingly, expressive language features are prominent in East Asian languages, including the Kam language. Expressives convey an aesthetic effect in narrative discourse, and the mastery and skilful use of expressives can qualify a narrator as a distinguished storyteller (Gerner 2004). The skilful use of expressives is indeed a hallmark of language fluency, particularly in the case of languages that do not have writing systems. Similarly, only listeners who are well acquainted with expressives can understand and appreciate the feeling, manner, shape, colour or quality of the speaker’s expression.

Expressives were previously viewed as adjectives or were defined by some as suffixes of adjectives in word reduplication (G. Zhang 1979; Qin 1981). Expressives play the role of intensifiers that convey an emotive attitude but have no descriptive aspect. The patterns of expressives vary in different languages, although one shared feature may be reduplication, and there are expressives in every language to some extent (Sun and Shi 2004).

As mentioned previously, expressives convey emotional and evaluative attitudes to a high degree. The four basic expressive constructions in the Kam language are:

Forms	Example	Meaning
1. A–tai¹–A–ŋa⁴	tjaŋ¹–tai¹–tjaŋ¹–ŋa⁴
	slow–dead–slow–dead	extremely slow
2. AX	tjaŋ¹ tʰau¹
	slow thoroughly	thoroughly slow
3. ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X	ɬwa:n⁵ tjaŋ¹ʔak⁹
	ɬwa:n⁵ slow exceedingly	how slow!
4. ABB	tjaŋ¹ njaŋ¹
	slow expr	totally slow

In these four constructions, the degree of the adjective is intensified by reduplication in the first construction: A–tai¹–A–ŋa⁴ is a four-syllable construction in which an adjective co-occurs with a pair of synonyms that mean ‘deadly’ to express an extreme attitude. If the adjective in the position of A is disyllabic, this construction will be expressed as AB-tai¹tai¹ŋa⁴ŋa⁴, as in ɕa⁵ɕin⁵tai¹tai¹ŋa⁴ŋa⁴ (‘extremely irritable’). In the second construction, X refers to degree adverbs in the following form: Degree adverbs such as tai¹ (‘deadly’) and tʰau¹^ʼ (‘extremely’) can occur in the position of X, and tʰau¹^ʼ is a Chinese loanword 透 tòu (‘extremely’, ‘thoroughly’). The use of tai¹ (‘deadly’) and tʰau¹^ʼ (‘extremely’) in this form expresses the maximum degree of the expression. The third construction, ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X, is the main research object of this paper. The last construction, ABB, contains the most easily recognizable morphological patterns in Mandarin and in some other Tai–Kadai languages: An adjective is followed by a two-syllable suffix or reduplicated rhyming to intensify its meaning. No previous study has investigated how ɬwa:n⁵ developed in Kam from its original meaning or due to language contact. Lacking any competing evidence, I maintain the working hypothesis that ɬwa:n⁵ is a Chinese loanword derived from 算 suàn (‘to count’). However, it is more likely that Kam borrowed the word from the local vernacular Guiliuhua (southwestern Mandarin) instead of borrowing it directly from standard Mandarin Chinese because Guiliuhua is the lingua franca of the area.

Key concepts, such as emotive and gradable concepts, will be investigated further in this paper. In this study, ‘emotive’ refers to the feelings or mental state of the speaker or to the implied feeling of the speaker in an utterance. A gradable adjective refers to qualitative adjectives that can vary in intensity or grade; examples of gradable adjectives include happy, important, cold and hot. Adjectives such as dead and freezing are non-gradable adjectives because they refer to absolute or extreme qualities.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: Section 1 includes a brief description of the Kam language, the literature reviews on interjection and ideophones/expressives, and some of the concepts in this paper. Section 2 presents the syntactic and semantic features of the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction, and includes a discussion of the constraints affecting it. Section 3 presents the pragmatic functions of the construction. Section 4 provides a discussion of the findings, and Section 5 is the concluding section that summarises the main idea of the study.

The data pertaining to the Kam language in this paper were mainly obtained via field research involving Kam speakers of the Xiakan dialect. Xiakan village is located in Rongshui Miao Autonomous County, Liuzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. For the Mandarin examples, I have cited well-known Chinese literature, such as 论语 lúnyǔ (‘The Tempting of Confucius’) and 红楼梦 hónglóu mèng (‘A Dream of Red Mansions’); I also consulted a native speaker regarding the use of the local variety of Guiliuhua (southwestern Mandarin).

The topic of this paper shares similarities with previous studies of the adverbial uses of hǎo (‘good’), lǎo (‘old’) and guài (‘strange’) in Mandarin Chinese, such as the work by Xie and Luo (2019). According to Xie and Luo’s description, the three adverbs were considered to be degree intensifiers; as expressives, they have usually been treated as pure degree adverbs in the xīn huá zì diǎn (‘The Xinhua Dictionary’) and in the literature on descriptive linguistics (Lü 1999). However, empirical evidence has shown that these adverbs actually combine both degree intensification and expressive meanings. Another Mandarin Chinese expressive construction, hǎo + yí + CL (an external degree intensifier construction), was reported by N. N. Zhang (2020). Specifically, the canonical intensifier hao is considered to be an expressive intensifier, which corresponds to Xie and Luo’s (2019) classification:

(1)

ta

he

de

yao

guai

ku

de

(Xie and Luo 2019)

3sg

drink

mod

medicine

strangely

bitter

mod

‘The medicine he takes is strangely bitter.’

(2)

hao

yi

duo

meilide

molihua

(N. N. Zhang 2020)

ei

one

cl

beautiful

jasmine

‘What a beautiful jasmine!’

In the Kam language, ɬwa:n⁵ has the property of conveying an emotive attitude in the exclamative mood, which has a similar expressive effect to the adverbs and constructions reported by Xie and Luo (2019) and by N. N. Zhang (2020).

2. Syntactic Features and Semantic Properties of the Construction

2.1. Syntactic Features of the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X Construction

Grammatically, the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction acts as a predicate in a topic sentence. An NP acting as an event or topic would normally appear before the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction. The topic or event is the thing that is discussed in the sentence, and it is the noun or noun phrase that generally acts as the subject of the sentence. Therefore, a sentence that contains a ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction is a sentence with a topic–comment structure in which the construction is a comment that evaluates the topic.

As there are different structures of AP in the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction, the different types of APs in ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X will be discussed:

The AP is a monosyllabic adjective:

(3)	na⁴	mu2	ɕa3	lɛ2	ɬwa:n⁵	la:i¹	ʔak⁹
	uncle	3sg	write	book	em	good	exceedingly
	‘How well his uncle writes!’
(4)	tjeu2	kʰun¹	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	ɬaŋ2	ʔak⁹
	cl	road	dem; this	em	straight	exceedingly
	‘How straight this road is!’

The AP is a disyllabic adjective:

(5)	tjeu2	kʰun¹	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	kɔŋ⁴ka:u⁶	ʔak⁹
	cl	road	dem; this	em	bumpy	exceedingly
	‘What a bumpy road this is!’
(6)	ljuk⁷	ȵa2	ɬwa:n⁵	ɕi⁵ɕa:k⁹	ʔak⁹
	room	2sg	em	messy	exceedingly
	‘What a disordered place your room is!’

The AP is in negative form, consisting of a negative adverb and a following adjective (monosyllabic or disyllabic):

(7)	ka:u⁴	ʨa2	ha:u¹wa⁴	ɬwa:n⁵	mɛ2	ɕik⁷ɕu⁵	ʔak⁹
	cl	dem; that	speak	em	neg	respectable	exceedingly
	‘How unrespectable that man is!’
(8)	ja:m2	ʔat⁷	na3	ȵa2	ɬwa:n⁵	mɛ2	la:i¹wa:ŋ¹	ʔak⁹
	smear	cl	face	2sg	em	neg	beautiful	exceedingly
	‘What an ugly smear on your face!’

As shown in Examples (3) to (8), it is clear that the adjectives that can occur in the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction are not strictly restricted by the number of syllables. The adjectives can be monosyllabic, disyllabic or compounding adjectives. These examples all express a feeling about something to a particularly high degree, such as excellent handwriting, a bumpy road, a disorderly room and an unrespectable man. In addition, the APs can be extended via other components to convey particularly high degrees, as shown in the following examples:

The AP in extended forms:

(9)	ka:u⁴	na:i2	wɛ⁴	a⁵ma:ŋ2	ɬwa:n⁵	tjaŋ¹	lai3	la:i¹	pɛ⁰
	cl	dem; this	do	what	em	slow	get	good	dfp
	‘This guy is slow at doing everything.’
(10)	ka:u⁴	na:i2	wɛ⁴	a⁵ma:ŋ2	ɬwa:n⁵	ljeu⁴	tjaŋ¹	ʔak⁹	pɛ⁰
	cl	dem; that	do	what	em	all	slow	exceedingly	dfp
	‘This guy is very slow at doing every single thing.’
(11)	ka:u⁴	na:i2	wɛ⁴	a⁵ma:ŋ2	ɬwa:n⁵	ljeu⁴	tʰiɛn¹ha⁵	tjaŋ¹	pɛ⁰
	cl	dem; this	do	what	em	all	world	slow	dfp
	‘This guy is the slowest in the world at doing everything. ’

The degrees expressed in Examples (9) to (11) are increasingly intensified by the superposition of the words that carry degree meanings. Example (11) is the most extreme degree that the Kam language can express. tʰiɛn¹ha⁵ is a Chinese loanword, 天下, tiān xià (‘under the sky’, ‘all around the world’); thus, tʰiɛn¹ha⁵ refers to the greatest extent. ljeu⁴tʰiɛn¹ha⁵ is a construction that conveys emotive meaning and describes the extremely high degree of intensity of an entity’s properties. The final particle pɛ⁰ adds the degree to the ɬwa:n⁵ construction. It can be used to modify the entire sentence and can also be used alone in the X position in place of the degree adverbs in the construction. In this case, the use of pɛ⁰ intensifies the exclamative force of the sentence. Another final particle, ʔɛ⁰, is also suitable in this context.

The features of A in APs have been discussed above. However, the types of adjectives that can occur in the construction are restricted. I will now provide some examples to illustrate the characteristics of the adjective that determine whether it can occur in ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X:

(12)	*lak⁴	ʨa⁶	ɬwa:n⁵	tiu⁵tiɛn3	ʔak⁹
	child	dem; that	em	naked	exceedingly
	Intended: ‘That child likes to be naked very much.’
(13)	*ʨʰik⁷	num⁴	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	la:k⁹	ʔak⁹
	cl	water	dem; this	em	boiling	exceedingly
	Intended: ‘What a boiling pot of water this is!’
(14)	*tɔ2	mu⁵	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	tai¹	ʔak⁹
	cl	pig	dem; this	em	dead	exceedingly
	Intended: ‘How dead this pig is!’

The syntactic structures in the three examples above match the formation of the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction. However, these examples are ungrammatical in these contexts. In (12), the adjective tiu⁵tiɛn³ (‘naked’) refers to a state of being ‘completely unclothed’; however, as there are no concepts relating to levels or degrees of nakedness, naked is not a gradable adjective. Similarly, la:k⁹ (‘boiling’) in (13) refers to water that is bubbling at 100 °C; therefore, boiling is a non-gradable adjective. Adjectives that are used to describe appearances, shapes, sounds and colours normally convey personal emotions, as the degree of liking or feeling disgust over existing things may vary from person to person.

2.2. Semantic Features of ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X Construction

Examples of degree adverbs in the Kam language are ʔak⁹ (‘very’), tai¹ (‘deadly’), tʰau¹^ʼ (‘extremely’, ‘thoroughly’) and han³ (‘very’). The adjective ʔɛ³ (‘stupid’) can be collocated with the ɬwa:n⁵ construction that functions as an intensifier equivalent to the degree adverb ʔak⁹; thus, we can interpret ʔɛ³ as an adverb (‘stupidly’). These adjectives primarily emphasise their high degree. For example, the sense of ʔɛ³ in the construction indicates that the speaker is lamenting that a certain degree is so high that it makes people stupid. As mentioned in Section 1, tʰau¹^ʼ is a Chinese loanword; han³ is also a Chinese loanword, 很 hĕn (‘very’). Of these degree adverbs, ʔak⁹ is collocated with the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP construction most frequently, as shown in the examples below:

(15)	nɔŋ⁴ti3	ɕa:u¹	ʨin¹	ɬwa:n⁵	la:i¹ja:k⁸	ʔak⁹
	baby	2pl	real	em	lovely	exceedingly
	‘How lovely your baby is!’
(16)	fan2na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	tu:n¹	ʔak⁹
	today	em	hot	exceedingly
	‘How hot it is today!’
(17)	ȵa2	ɬwa:n⁵	ʔɛ3	han3	pɛ⁰
	2sg	em	stupid	surpassingly	dfp
	‘How stupid you are!’
(18)	mu2	ɬwa:n⁵	ŋa⁶	han3
	3sg	em	greedy	surpassingly
	‘How greedy she is!’
(19)	fan2na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	ŋa:ŋ⁵	ʔɛ3
	today	em	cold	stupidly
	‘How cold it is today! ’
(20)	na⁴	mu2	ɕa3lɛ2	ɬwa:n⁵	la:i¹	ʔɛ3
	uncle	3sg	write	em	good	stupidly
	‘What beautiful handwriting his uncle has!’

The eight sentences above include three collocations of ɬwa:n⁵+ AP + X constructions. They indicate that ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X is grammatical when the degree adverbs are ʔak⁹, ʔɛ³ or han³. In general, ʔak⁹, han³ and ʔɛ³ are equally acceptable in the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + degree adverb construction, and they can be used interchangeably without affecting the meaning of the sentence. In a natural speech context, the choice depends on the speaker’s preference. The elderly prefer native words such as ʔak⁹ and ʔɛ³ to Chinese loanwords, while young speakers opt for Chinese loanwords. However, tai¹ (‘deadly’) and tʰau¹^ʼ (‘extremely, thoroughly’) appear to be unusable in ɬwa:n⁵ constructions, as shown in Examples (21) and (22):

(21)	*tjeu3	kʰun¹	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	ɬaŋ2	tai¹
	cl	road	dem; this	em	straight	deadly
	Intended: ‘How straight this road is!’
(22)	*tjeu3	kʰun¹	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	ɬaŋ2	tʰau¹ʼ
	cl	road	dem; this	em	straight	extremely
	Intended: ‘How straight this road is!’

In Examples (21) and (22), if tai¹ and tʰau¹^ʼ must be retained, ɬwa:n⁵ must be removed to make these two sentences grammatical, as in Examples (23) and (24):

(23)	tjeu3	kʰun¹	na:i2	ɬaŋ2	tai¹
	cl	road	dem; this	straight	deadly
	‘This road is absolutely straight.’
(24)	tjeu3	kʰun¹	na:i2	ɬaŋ2	tʰau¹ʼ
	cl	road	dem; this	straight	extremely
	‘This road is extremely straight.’

The five degree adverbs described above are frequently used to modify adjectives in the Kam language. ʔak⁹, ʔɛ³ and han³ can be collocated with ɬwa:n⁵, while tai¹ and tʰau¹^ʼ cannot. Based on an analysis of the component meanings, tai¹ and tʰau¹^ʼ indicate the top or peak in terms of degree, while ʔak⁹, ʔɛ³ and han³ all suggest a general quantity and wide range of degree. In other words, tai¹ and tʰau¹^ʼ belong to the ungradable type; hence, they are incompatible with gradable adjectives. The semantics of the ɬwa:n⁵ construction suggest the interpretation of an extreme degree because the collocations only require the degree to reach a particular degree of scale, but not an absolute degree. In other words, the degree can vary among different speakers. Nevertheless, the absolute value is normally reached at the extreme, that is, zero or one hundred percent. tai¹ literally means ‘to die’ or ‘to be dead’, which is absolute zero, thus functioning as an extreme value. Similarly, tʰau¹^ʼ literally presents a complete degree with a limiting value.

The constraints on AP and X are discussed in Section 2.1 and in this section. The restrictions on the construction are discussed in this section. A given construction will normally be restricted by certain components, including semantics and structure. Based on the present data, it is interesting to note that, in most cases, the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction expresses a negative exclamation, despite there being a positive adjective in the AP. In some cases, a compounding positive adjective is rejected in the construction; it can only occur in a construction when it is prescribed by the negative adverb mɛ² (‘no’) to form an antonym with a negative meaning.

(25)

A:

pu⁴

nɔŋ⁴ti3

ɕa:u¹

tai¹ʨʰau3

nun2

ta⁵

kʰun¹

ja⁰no⁰

father

baby

2pl

drunk

sleep

middle

road

dfp

‘Your husband got drunk and slept on the road.’

B:

mun2

ʔɛ3

na:i2

ɬwa:n⁵

mɛ2ɕin3ɕau⁴

ʔak⁹

cl

stupid

dem; this

em

unrespectable

exceedingly

‘He is such an unrespectable man!’

(26)

A:

fai⁶

ʔa⁴

nɔŋ⁴

ȵau⁶

nja¹

kʰau⁴

num⁴

auntie

dfp

young sibling

loc; at

river

play

water

‘Auntie, younger brother is playing in the river.’

B:

ɬwa:n⁵

mɛ2jɔ⁴ȵau⁶

ʔak⁹

la⁶

ɬju2

kwa:n⁵

em

disobedient

exceedingly

look for

whip

first

‘How naughty he is!’

In Example (25), the AP in the construction is constrained by the combination of negative verbs and compounding adjectives; ɕin³ɕau⁴ refers to appropriate behaviour, and people who behave improperly in public will be considered to be mɛ²ɕin³ɕau⁴. Similarly, jɔ⁴ȵau⁶ means ‘obedient’, and is a compound of jɔ⁴ (‘to know’) and ȵau⁶ (‘to exist’, ‘be’): Children who do things that parents or adults do not allow will normally be considered to be mɛ²jɔ⁴ȵau⁶. However, ɕin³ɕau⁴ and jɔ⁴ȵau⁶ cannot occur in a ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction:

(27)	*mun2	ʔɛ3	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	ɕin3ɕau⁴	ʔak⁹
	cl	stupid	dem; this	em	respectable	exceedingly
	Intended: ‘He is such a respectable man!’
(28)	*ɬwa:n⁵	jɔ⁴ȵau⁶	ʔak⁹	la⁶	ɬju2	kwa:n⁵
	em	disobedient	exceedingly	look for	whip	first
	Intended: ‘How naughty the boy is! I will punish him!’

These two examples appear to be grammatically appropriate; however, semantically, Kam speakers tend to use the negative forms more directly. As mentioned in Section 2.1, the adjectives in the APs in Examples (3) and (5) included monosyllabic and disyllabic forms with both positive and negative meanings. This is because it is theoretically possible for ɕin³ɕau⁴ and jɔ⁴ȵau⁶ to occur in the construction, despite being unnatural in reality. In order to illustrate this contradiction, some examples are presented below:

(29)	la:k⁸	ja⁴	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	mɛ2	la:i¹	ʔak⁹
	child	bad	dem; this	em	neg	good	exceedingly
	‘He is such a bad guy!’
(30)	ʔat⁷	tin2	na:i2	ʨin¹	ɬwa:n⁵	la:i¹wa:ŋ¹	ʔak⁹
	cl	stone	dem; this	real	em	beautiful	exceedingly
	‘How beautiful this stone is!’
(31)	ʔat⁷	tin2	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	mɛ2	la:i¹wa:ŋ¹	ʔak⁹
	cl	stone	dem; this	em	eg	beautiful	exceedingly
	‘How ugly this stone is!’
(32)	*mu2	jun2	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	ja⁴	ʔak⁹
	cl	person	dem; this	em	bad	exceedingly
	Intended: ‘How bad the man is!’

la:i¹wa:ŋ¹ (‘beautiful’) conveys a positive meaning. Since the adjectives in ɬwa:n⁵ constructions are negative in most cases, when la:i¹wa:ŋ¹ occurs in a ɬwa:n⁵ construction as a positive adjective, it can be interpreted as expressing irony if it is not preceded by the adverb ʨin¹ (‘really’) to indicate affirmation. Comparing Examples (30) and (31), Example (31) is a more natural expression; in other words, negative words are a better fit for ɬwa:n⁵ +AP +X constructions. ja⁴ (‘bad’) and mɛ²la:i¹ (‘not good’) indicate a similar component meaning semantically, but mɛ²la:i¹ can occur in ɬwa:n⁵ +AP +X constructions, while ja⁴ cannot. In general, ja⁴ can also be used to describe a person; with regard to why it cannot occur in this construction, I think this may be related to the degree it denotes. ja⁴ is a word with extremely high negative semantics; therefore, ja⁴, like tai¹ (‘dead’), cannot occur in this construction. The ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction is usually used to express a speaker’s strong and emotional negative opinions. Therefore, the adjectives that can occur in the construction are expected to highlight the subjectivity of the speaker. If a speaker has a negative attitude, this exclamatory tone with a negative connotation sounds more like a complaint. This point is also an illustration of why most APs in the construction are negative in both form and meaning. In addition to the negation of the AP, a VP initiated by a negative form can occur in a ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction when the verb is an emotion verb, such as ‘like’ or ‘love’:

(33)	ja:u2	ɬwa:n⁵	mɛ2	ɕaŋ2	fa:i⁴	mu2	ʔak⁹
	1sg	em	neg	like	elder brother	3sg	exceedingly
	‘I do not like his elder brother very much.’
(34)	tan2	ʨuk⁵	ta:i⁴ɕa:i3	ɬwa:n⁵	mɛ2	haŋ3	ʔak⁹
	wear	clothes	raunchy	em	neg	love	exceedingly
	‘What raunchy clothes he/she wears!’
(35)	*mu2	ɬwan2	ɕaŋ2	mai⁴	ʨuk⁷	na:i2	ʔak⁹
	3sg	em	like	cl	clothes	dem; this	exceedingly
	Intended: ‘He likes these clothes very much’.

In these two contexts, the NEG + VP construction is grammatical in the construction; only emotion verbs such as ɕaŋ² and haŋ³ make sense, and the positive form must co-occur with a negative adverb to be effective. In Example (33), the speaker expresses a strong dislike of someone’s brother, and in Example (34), a high degree of disgust about someone’s clothing is expressed. Another emotion verb, mja⁵ (‘hate’), indicates that a negative emotion can also occur in the construction in the mɛ²ɕaŋ² and mɛ²haŋ³ position. This provides evidence that the ɬwa:n⁵ +AP +X construction can be used to express the speaker’s negative emotional feeling or evaluation.

As mentioned in Section 1, the original meaning of ɬwa:n⁵ was ‘to count’ or ‘to calculate’. To clarify how a verb can act as an exclamatory maker in expressing the degree of something, it is essential to analyse the component meanings of ɬwa:n⁵, including its original and extended meanings.

To determine why ɬwa:n⁵ in Kam has extended its context of use to include an exclamative mood, one can trace the meanings of suàn itself from its original meaning to its extended meanings. The literal meaning of suàn is ‘to calculate’ or ‘to count’, both in Chinese and in the Kam language. According to the orthography of 算 suàn (‘to count’) in 康熙字典 Kāngxi zì Diǎn (the ‘Kangxi Dictionary’), suàn is a character with a joint meaning that is related to bamboo, as in counting the rods/chips made from bamboo in ancient China; suàn is explained as meaning ‘counting’ in 说文解字 Shuōwén jiĕ zì (‘Paraphrasing Texts and Words’) (Xu n.d.). The Kangxi Dictionary is primarily a standard dictionary of early modern Chinese (pre-Qing and Qing times). In addition, Shuowenjiezi was the first standard dictionary of the Chinese language. This set of semantic meanings is also used in daily utterances in Kam in the following contexts:

• To calculate, count or take into account:

  (36)	tok⁸lɛ2	tjaŋ¹	na:i2	mɛ2	jɔ⁴	ɬwa:n⁵	ɕo⁵	ʔɛ⁰
  	learning	long	dem; this	neg	know	calculate	number	dfp
  	‘You have been to school for a long time, but do not know how to calculate’.

• To suppose, reckon or guess:

  (37)	ja:u2	ɬwa:n⁵	pa⁶	mu2	mɛ2	ɕu⁴	ma¹
  	1sg	guess	asp	3sg	neg	dare	come
  	‘I guess he would not dare to come’.

• To be valid or to count:

  (38)	pu⁴	ȵa2	ha:u¹	mɛ2	ɬwa:n⁵
  	father	2sg	speak	neg	valid
  	‘Your father cannot make the final decision’.

• To regard as, take as, belong to or be entitled to:

  (39)	hai¹ɬjɛn2	pɛ⁰	ha3	ɬwa:n⁵	mun⁵	ȵa2
  	pay (money)	dfp	only	regard	poss	2sg
  	‘It can be regarded as yours only after paying (money)’.

When examining Chinese literature and daily expressions, one can see that utterances including the meaning of suàn have also been observed in Kam:

(40)	子	曰	噫	斗	筲	之
	zǐ	yuē	yì	dǒu	shāo	zhī
	Confucius	said	pooh	container	container	auxi
	人	何	足	算	也
	rén	hé	zú	suàn	yě
	people	what	sufficient	count	dfp

‘The Master said “Pooh! There are so many narrow-minded people, not worth being taken into account!”’

(41)	杜	郎	俊	赏	算	而	今
	dù Dumu	láng title (male)	jùn remarkable	shǎng perceptiveness	suàn reckon	ér auxi	jīn today
	重	到	须	惊
	chóng	dào	xū	jīng
	again	come	certainly	surprised

‘Dumu (a famous poet) has remarkable perceptiveness, I reckon that if he comes here again today, he must be surprised’.

—Yangzhouman (K. Jiang n.d.)

(42)	谁	说	了	算
	shuí	shuō	le	suàn
	who	speak	asp	valid
	‘Who has the final say?’

(43)	你	也	算	贫贱	之	交	了
	nǐ	yě	suàn	pínjiàn	zhī	jiāo	le
	2sg	also	regard as	poverty	auxi	contact	asp
	‘You are regarded as a friend of my early, difficult days’.

This expression was found in A Dream of Red Mansions (Cao and Gao 2005) when Jiayucun spoke to an acquaintance.

The listed meanings include the common uses of suàn in Chinese, and the Kam language adopted them for ɬwa:n⁵ in the identical position in a sentence. However, there is no meaning that expresses an exclamative mood or adds a degree in the original Chinese meaning or in the extended meanings. When comparing Kam to the local Guiliuhua dialect, a co-expression of suàn as an intensifier was found:

(44)	这	个	妹仔	算	靓	了
	ʨe⁴	kɔ⁴	mai⁴ʦa:i3	swa:n⁴	lja:ŋ¹	lja:u3
	dem; this	cl	girl	ei	beautiful	asp
	‘This girl is so beautiful’.
(45)	那	个	仔	算	乖	了
	na⁴	kɔ⁴	ʦa:i3	swa:n⁴	kwa:i¹	lja:u3
	dem; that	cl	boy	ei	well-behaved	asp
	‘That boy is so well behaved’.

In the two examples of the local Guiliuhua dialect, we can see that there is a similar construction: swan⁴ + AP + X. In Guiliuhua, the X in the construction can only refer to the aspect marker, while the X can be a degree adverb or the final particle pɛ⁰. There is no canonical degree adverb in the expression in Guiliuhua; however, the expression represents the speaker’s attitude to a higher degree than when using normal-degree adverbs. Therefore, I have defined it as an expressive intensifier here.

By comparing the semantics of “suan” and “ɬwa:n⁵” in this article, I believe that the semantic meaning ‘regard as’ is closer to the construction of the Kam meaning, which means that ɬwa:n⁵ in the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction should be ‘regard as’ in its own sense, that is, the speaker regards the situation with a certain degree or attitude. With regard to the meaning suggested by ɬwa:n⁵ as an EM, ɬwa:n⁵ has been grammaticalized logically from its original meaning. In the case of exclamative expressions, ɬwa:n⁵ appears to have first been used to accept or judge an existing thing, regardless of its positive or negative properties, and then to increase the degree.

3. Pragmatic Functions of the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X Construction

In contrast to other canonical exclamative sentences in which the expressive components can be attributed directly to final particles or to intonation, the ɬwa:n⁵ construction is coded via a declarative intonation, and a final particle is optional. The utterance of ɬwa:n⁵ in Kam results in an expression of expectation, which is less straightforward. Analyses of the pragmatic functions of the ɬwa:n⁵ construction can be conducted based on evaluation and attitude.

(46)	Man:	tɔ2	ka:i⁵	ȵam⁵na:i⁶	laŋ⁵	mɛ⁰
		cl	chicken	this evening	delicious	ifp
	‘Is the chicken delicious tonight?’
	Woman:	ɬwa:n⁵	laŋ⁵	pɛ⁰
		em	delicious	dfp
	‘Delicious!’

In this conversation, the woman is being asked about the taste of the chicken that has been served for dinner. The woman answers using the construction ɬwa:n⁵ + delicious + pɛ⁰. However, this is sometimes complicated because a ɬwa:n⁵ +AP +X construction does not always align with the meaning of the adjective. In other words, a positive adjective does not normally occur in ɬwa:n⁵ +AP +X constructions. If a positive adjective occurs in the construction without a confirmation marker, it can be interpreted as being either positive or negative. There are two possible meanings of the woman’s answer:

(a)	She likes it.	surprise
(b)	She does not like it.	irony

To understand the attitude of the speaker, we need to consider the context or what had taken place previously. Imagine that a discussion pertaining to how to cook the chicken had taken place during the day, and that there had been some disagreement. The man cooked the chicken in his own way and the woman did not like the taste at all; thus, when she said ɬwa:n⁵laŋ⁵pɛ⁰, she expressed irony via criticism of the taste. Her implication is that the man should have cooked the chicken in the way that she had told him to do so. Another interpretation is that the woman was pleasantly surprised by the taste.

In general, the ɬwa:n⁵ construction indicates that the speaker expected an existing situation with a gradable property, while, in reality, the degree depends on a particular scale and has surpassed the expectation. With regard to the positive properties, the ɬwa:n⁵ construction can express an illocutionary force of surprise or amazement, whereas the ɬwa:n⁵ construction can imply that the construction can have a negative illocutionary force. Consider the three contexts in Examples (47) to (49) below:

Situation 1: A and B are eating something that has been cooked with chilli:

(47)	A:	ljan⁶	ʨa2	pa:i¹	lɛ⁰	num⁴ʔda¹	num⁴mok⁸
		spicy	dem; that	go	ifp	tear	mucous
	‘Is that so spicy? You are tearing up and your nose is running’.
	B:	la:k⁸ljan⁶	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	ljan⁶	pɛ⁰	mɛ2	ȵa2	ɕi⁵	ma⁰
		chilli	dem; this	em	spicy	dfp	neg	2sg	try	dfp
	‘How spicy this chilli is! Won’t you have a try?’

In this conversation, the interlocutors have underestimated the spiciness (as a degree) of the chilli. A makes an enquiry when observing that B is tearing up and that B’s nose is running. The degree of the chilli’s spiciness is unexpectedly high, which exceeds the speaker’s expectation.

Situation 2: This conversation occurred during a minority event festival at which people (normally females) wear ethnic costumes.

(48)	A:	ni¹	la:k⁸ma:k⁹	na:i2	fa:ŋ2	la:u3ja:ŋ⁶	la:i¹wa:ŋ¹	la:u3ja:ŋ⁶
		cl	girl	dem; this	tall	same	beautiful	same
	‘These girls are identically tall and beautiful’.
	B:	ʨin¹	lɔ⁰	ɬwa:n⁵	jun2	ʔak⁹
	real	dfp	em	attractive	exceedingly
	‘Yes, how attractive!’

In this conversation, the discussion pertains to the beauty of a group of young girls. Speaker A describes the group of young girls as having similarly nice figures and appearances. B agreed with A, and A expressed her opinion via an exclamation about the girls because she liked the scene to a particularly high degree. jun² (‘attractive’) is a positive adjective; when ʨin¹ (‘really’) acts as an affirmative marker in this sentence, a positive adjective can occur in this situation without ambiguity.

Situation 3: Someone finds that the fish in the pond have died because the water level was too low, and attempts to determine the cause:

(49)	A:	wɛ⁴na:u¹	mɛ3	ma¹	num⁴	le⁰	mɛ3	liŋ⁴	ʔa⁰
		why	neg	come	water	ifp	neg	drought	dfp
	‘Why is there no running water? It is not drought season’.
	B:	mɛ3	jɔ⁴	na:u¹	ʔa:u¹	jaŋ¹	ɬak⁷	kwa:n⁵	ʔe⁰
		neg	know	who	take	grass	block	tube	dfp
		‘I don’t know who blocked the (water) pipe by the grasses so deeply’.
	A:	je⁰	ha:ŋ2	jun¹	na:i2	la:i3lɔŋ2	ɬwa:n⁵	nam¹	ʔak⁹
		intr	cl	person	dem; this	heart	em	black	exceedingly
		‘How malevolent this person is!’

In this situation, A is very angry because someone blocked the water pipe to the pond, which resulted in the death of the fish. In this case, speaker A expressed their attitude toward this event and judged the unknown person as being malevolent. Therefore, the speaker used an EM to express his anger to a particularly high degree and simultaneously presented a negative assessment of the person whom that they judged.

Nevertheless, there are other specific intentions that the ɬwa:n⁵ construction can express. Consider Example (46) again:

(50)	Man:	tɔ2	ka:i⁵	ȵam⁵na:i⁶	laŋ⁵	mɛ⁰
		cl	chicken	tonight	delicious	ifp
	‘Is the chicken delicious tonight?’
	Woman:	ɬwa:n⁵	laŋ⁵	pɛ⁰
		em	delicious	dfp
		‘Delicious!’

There are two possible ways of interpreting the woman’s answer. In a positive interpretation, the woman had assumed that the chicken would taste nice. However, after eating the chicken, she found that the taste exceeded her expectations. She had not imagined that the chicken would be as delicious as it was. In a negative interpretation, the woman did not believe the chicken would be delicious and found that the chicken was unpalatable. She responds to the man using ɬwa:n⁵laŋ⁵pɛ⁰ and appears to agree with him. However, the expression is meant ironically; she does not agree with the man, but replies ‘yes, it is delicious, exceeding my imagination!’ This type of pragmatic function is still being applied, but it normally occurs between interlocutors who are in a close relationship, such as couples or intimate friends, although some individuals simply like to use this style of speaking.

(51)	A:	kɔŋ¹	ȵa2	ɕa⁵	ȵau2	ja:u⁵	ȵwe⁴	nɔ⁰
		grandfather	2sg	climb	rooftop	repair	tile	dfp
	‘Your grandfather is climbing up to the rooftop to repair the tiles’.
	B:	je⁰	ʨʰai¹	hɔ3	pa:i¹	ʔo⁰	ɬwa:n⁵	ʨai¹mɛ3li¹	ʔak⁹
		intj	tell	neg	go	dfp	em	naughty	exceedingly
	‘I told (him) not to do that. He is such a naughty man!’

In this case, the elderly grandfather is doing something that appears to be dangerous from the point of view of the younger person. ʨʰai¹mɛ³li¹ is a compound word that normally refers to insubordinate teenagers. When used to refer to one’s elders, it is typically used as banter that implies the expression of love and respect for one’s elders. Elders are supposed to stay at home or walk around safely, but are not supposed to climb onto roofs or do things that may be physically harmful to them.

(52)	A:	tɛ¹	ʔa⁴
		Grandma	dfp
		nɔŋ⁴	lɔŋ⁴	tin¹	lau2	pak⁹	kʰa:u⁴	num⁴ȵwɛ2
		younger sibling	put	foot	enter	mouth	play	saliva
		‘Grandma, little brother put his foot into his mouth and is playing with saliva’.
	B:	ji⁵	ɕa:u¹	ɬwa:n⁵	mɛ2la:i¹	pɛ⁰
		intj	2pl	em	naughty	dfp
		‘Oh, how naughty you are!’

In this situation, the grandmother is apparently scolding the little one who has put his foot into his mouth, but she is actually using the negative expression to convey a level of affection for the naughty baby. In this expression, the expressive effect can produce an exclamative mood, even without the interjection ji⁵. ji⁵ is optional in an exclamative sentence; it intensifies the emotive meaning and only occurs in the initial position of a sentence.

Although it can be argued that ɬwa:n⁵ only has an adverbial use, I will show that ɬwa:n⁵ constructions have characteristics that are similar to those of other expressives. In this section, I compare the differences between the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction and other expressive forms, as mentioned in Section 1.

It is worth mentioning that the adjectives that occur in the construction A tai¹ A ŋa⁴ are adjectives that have negative meanings, such as ‘bitter’, ‘sour’, ‘greedy’ and ‘slow’, while positive meanings such as ‘delicious’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘sweet’ rarely occur. In other words, A tai¹ A ŋa⁴ only expresses negative emotions. Nevertheless, other constructions such as AX and ABB do not restrict the adjectives’ positive or negative connotations. A large number of ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X constructions convey negative evaluations in an exclamative mood, and a tiny proportion of them express a complimentary meaning or irony by using a positive adjective in certain contexts. To illustrate the differences in these constructions, I provide the following examples of expressing the same concept ‘the gully is steep’ in different ways:

(53)	tjeu2	hik⁷	na:i2	hjɛn2	tai¹	hjɛn2	ŋa⁴	(A tai¹ A ŋa⁴)
	cl	gully	dem; this	steep	die	steep	die
	‘This is such a steep gully!’
(54)	tjeu2	hik⁷	na:i2	hjɛn2	tʰau¹	(AX: A + tʰau¹ʼ)
	cl	gully	dem; this	steep	extremely
	‘This gully is extremely steep’.
(55)	tjeu2	hik⁷	na:i2	ɬwa:n⁵	hjɛn2	pɛ⁰	(ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X)
	cl	gully	dem; this	em	steep	dfp
	‘What a steep gully this is!’
(56)	tjeu2	hik⁷	na:i2	hjɛn2	hjɔk⁷	hjɔk⁷	(ABB: A + EXPR + EXPR)
	cl	gully	dem; this	steep	expr form
	‘This gully is so steep’.

The four examples all indicate a particularly high degree of steepness of the gully. In the A tai¹ A ŋa⁴ construction, the speaker clearly and subjectively conveys the steepness of the steep gully to the maximum degree, while the AX construction merely displays the extreme value and the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction presents the maximum degree via a strong exclamation. The commonly used ABB construction conveys the maximum degree of the steepness of the gully via phonological reduplication. As is shown in Examples (53) and (56), structurally, the four constructions are more likely to be treated as synonyms in an expression, and no two of them can be used in a sentence at the same time. The difference in the four constructions is that AX expresses an extreme value, indicating an extremely high degree. A tai¹ A ŋa⁴ only has a negative semantic meaning, expressing the speaker’s extreme dissatisfaction. ABB indicates a high degree. Only the ɬwa:n⁵ construction includes an exclamation in addition to the high degree, indicating that the degree is higher than the speaker’s expectation.

4. Discussion

In this paper, the researcher discussed the syntactic collocations, semantic restrictions and pragmatic functions of the ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction in Kam by analysing language materials. The research results suggest that ɬwa:n⁵ has been grammaticalized, which touches on the degree of expressiveness in the construction, and highlights that only gradable adjectives and negative adjectival phrases can occur in the ɬwa:n⁵ construction. In addition, ɬwa:n⁵ should be considered to be an EM, but does not simply have an adverbial function. The argument is that it can function as an expressive intensifier that adds an exclamative sense to the expression, but not as a canonical intensifier. Moreover, its position in the sentence indicates that ɬwa:n⁵ is not as common an intensifier as are other degree adverbs because there is already a canonical adverb of degree, X, in a ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X construction.

The present study is in line with recent studies that have indicated that expressives or ideophones convey the speaker’s sensory experiences and emotions in a vivid way. Simultaneously, this study is in agreement with the previous suggestion that expressives should be an independent word-class category and not a sub-group of adjectives. However, in contrast to earlier findings, ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X only makes sense if it is considered as a whole.

There were some limitations to this study, including in the sampling of the languages in the area and the links among the constructions in Kam and in Chinese, which may have affected the interpretation of the research results. The results of the present research extend the model and add a new understanding of Kam expressives, thus providing a novel dimension and possibilities for future studies of the syntax and typology of expressives.

With regard to whether the ɬwa:n⁵ construction should be considered to be a marker in an expressive construction or as simply having an adverbial use, it can actually be both because it has the function of intensifying the degree of something. Furthermore, it is worth conducting further studies of the typology of expressives by using the comparative concept (Haspelmath 2010) to identify the expressive scope, such as the structure, the markedness, and the depictive, iconic and sensory imagery. This paper presents the preliminary findings of my study of Kam expressives; in future, expressive typological diversity will be analysed via phonological typology and pragmatic functions will be analysed via an appraisal framework.

5. Conclusions

The exclamatory construction ɬwa:n⁵ + AP + X was discussed in this paper by investigating the collocation properties of ɬwa:n⁵, with a focus on the exclamatory function, syntactic features, semantic properties and pragmatic functions. The methods of evaluation and attitude developed by Du Bois (2007) were adopted. ɬwa:n⁵ is considered to be a loanword from southwestern Mandarin with the primary meaning of ‘to count, calculate, regard as’ that has been analysed as an expressive marker conveying exclamatory and expressive meanings. In terms of structural collocations, APs are generally adjectives with negative meanings and are gradable adjectives; adjectives with extreme meanings, such as tiu⁵tiɛn³ (‘naked’) and la:k⁹ (‘boiling’), cannot occur in this construction. Positive adjectives can usually occur in the negative form, that is, a negation plus a positive adjective becomes a negative adjective. When an AP is used to convey a positive meaning and a positive adjective is present, the word ‘real’ is added to make the expression affirmative; otherwise, it might be interpreted as being ironic. Similarly, when X is used as a degree adverb, extreme sense adverbs such as tai¹ (‘deadly’) and tʰau¹^ʼ (‘extremely’) cannot be used in the construction.