From temporal adverbials to discourse markers: The development of Chinese yuánláiand its Japanese cognate ganrai

Full Text

1. Introduction

The language contact between Chinese and Japanese has a long history, dating back to the 5th century CE when the Japanese began to use Chinese characters (kanji in Japanese) for writing. The most remarkable aspect of Chinese-Japanese language contact is the extensive borrowing of Chinese vocabulary by Japanese through written texts. According to a survey on 70 magazines published in 1994, about one third of Japanese vocabulary are Sino-Japanese words (NINJAL 2005: 32). Some of the loanwords have evolved into discourse markers (DMs). Their developmental pathways often differ from their Chinese counterparts, but sometimes share commonalities (see Rhee et al. 2021, Shibasaki & Higashiizumi in preparation).

Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai serve as a prime example of Chinese-Japanese language contact. They both consist of a morpheme meaning “origin, beginning” (yuán and gan) and a morpheme meaning “to come” (lái and rai), and thus they both literally mean “from the beginning, originally.” Ever since their first occurrences, yuánlái and ganrai have been used as temporal adverbials, which eventually gave rise to DM functions. In addition, their nominal uses with the meaning of “the past, origin” have persisted till today.

According to the Center for Chinese Linguistics (CCL) Corpora, Chinese yuánlái first appeared as元來 in the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE). This written form lasted until the late 14th century when 元 began to be gradually supplanted by原, a homonym of 元with the similar meaning, because of the taboo on using the same Chinese character as in the name of the preceding Yuan (元) Dynasty
(1271–1368 CE), or the name of the first emperor Yuanzhang Zhu (朱元璋) of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 CE) (cf. M. Li 2019, Dong 2020). In Present-Day Chinese, yuánlái is written as 原來 or its simplified form 原来.

元來entered Japanese in the 8th century CE through written texts. It was first read in the Japanese style (kun’yomi) as moto-yori ‘lit. from the origin’ or hajime-yori ‘lit. from the beginning.’ According to the investigation of the Corpus of Historical Japanese (CHJ) and Shinpen Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei (SNKBT, the New Complete Collection of Japanese Classic Literature), the Chinese-style reading (on’yomi) gwanrai first appeared in a Chinese poem included in Shasekishū (circa. 13th c. CE) and had been one of the major readings for 元來 until the 19th century when it gradually changed to ganrai. The simplified written form元来 has become the standard way of writing in Present-Day Japanese. On the other hand, during the 17th century, Chinese new written form 原來¹ was introduced into Japanese, but it had a low frequency and became obsolete in the 20th century (cf. Wang 2022).

The goal of this paper is to investigate the evolution of Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai from temporal adverbials to discourse markers. It aims to address the research questions regarding why Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai evolved into DMs with different functions despite of their common origin, and what roles pragmatic implicatures play in the process of their semantic changes.

This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 introduces some fundamental concepts utilized in this paper. Section 3 provides a brief overview of the data and methodology of this study. In Section 4, contemporary uses and historical contexts of Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai will be outlined. Section 5 delves into comparing and illustrating their pathways from temporal adverbials to discourse markers. Section 6 is the conclusion.

2. Theoretical background

2.1. Discourse markers

Discourse markers have been referred to with a variety of terms (see the latest review in Heine et al. 2021: Chapter 1, Traugott 2022: Chapter 4), and are often mentioned in the same breath with pragmatic markers (PMs). Fraser (1996, 1999, 2006) restricted DMs to the subset of PMs. Feng (2019: 216) took a similar stance when classifying Chinese PMs and DMs, claiming that “a DM is connective in nature, while a PM is not necessarily so.” In a similar vein, Shibasaki and Higashiizumi (in preparation) differentiate DMs and PMs by postulating that DMs are those which connect preceding and following information textually whereas PMs show the speaker’s attitude and are not necessarily connected to the following discourse. To highlight the connective nature of such elements, Traugott (2022) proposed the term “discourse structuring markers” to refer to “Connectors that allow the speaker/writer (SP/W) to signal what relationship they wish the addressee/reader (AD/R) to deduce from the linking of discourse segments in a non-subordinate way.” (p. 4) On the other hand, for a discourse marker that also signals the speaker/writer’s stance of evaluation, such as Chinese běnlái ‘originally,’ Zhan (2022) dubbed it a “stance discourse marker.”

As will be demonstrated in this paper, Chinese DM yuánlái has three uses, i.e., justificational, mirative, and background. Justificational and background yuánlái function to provide additional information to the preceding discourse, and hence are typical discourse connectors. Apart from clause linking function, mirative yuánlái also signals the speaker/writer’s attitude of unexpectedness towards the situation s/he is facing, much like “stance discourse markers” proposed by Zhan (2022). In order to cover all the non-lexical uses of yuánlái, this paper employs “discourse markers” in a broader sense, the same as what is defined in (1) by Heine et al. (2021: 6). In short, DMs in this paper are essentially discourse connectors, and they may or may not express the attitude of the speaker/writer.

(1) Discourse markers are (a) invariable expressions which are (b) semantically and syntactically independent from their environment, (c) set off prosodically from the rest of the utterance in some way, and (d) their function is metatextual, being anchored in the situation of discourse and serving the organization of texts, the attitudes of the speaker, and/or speaker-hearer interaction.

2.2. From temporal adverbials to discourse markers

The pathway from a temporal adverbial to a discourse marker is not uncommon among world languages, such as English after all (Traugott 2018: 26–43, Heine et al. 2021: 93–97), French enfin ‘at last’ (Hansen 2005, Heine et al. 2021: 162–165), and Chinese běnlái ‘originally’ (Zhan 2022), to name a few. Temporal adverbials contribute to the propositional content of its host clause by anchoring the time of the event being described, and therefore are truth-conditional. When they evolve into discourse markers, they may develop justifying and concessive uses such as English after all, or reformulative and interjectional uses such as French enfin. This study of Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai will add to our knowledge about what DM functions will arise from temporal adverbials.

The DM uses of Chinese yuánlái have received extensive attention from Chinese scholars. Xing (1985), Tang (2006), Yan (2011) and Zhao & Bai (2022) discussed yuánlái in Present-Day Chinese, and M. Li (2019), Dong (2020) and Chen (2021) examined its historical development. As for Japanese ganrai, Wang (2022) investigated its variation of written forms in different historical periods, along with comparison with Chinese yuánlái, but no study has been conducted on its DM use and semantic change. This paper explores and compares the history of Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai, with an emphasis on how they evolved into discourse markers.

2.3. Semantic types of yuánlái and ganrai

Paul Grice initially introduced the concept of implicature during the William James Lectures to address situations where a speaker’s intended meaning exceeds the literal interpretation of a specific utterance during communication (Grice 1975, 1989). His well-known general maxims of conversation were later reduced by Horn (1984, 2012a, 2012b) and integrated into a bipartite model of principles cited in (2). The Q-Principle (Q stands for quantity) brings together Grice’s Maxims of Quantity and Manner, and the R-Principle (R stands for relation) unites the Maxims of Quantity, Relation and Manner.

(2)   a. The Q-Principle (Addressee/hearer-based):
             Make your contribution sufficient. Say as much as you can.
        b. The R-Principle (Speaker-based):
             Make your contribution necessary. Say no more than you must.

Since the literal meanings of yuánlái and ganrai focus on the origin or beginning of a previous situation, there are two possibilities as to whether the same situation still holds true at the time of utterance. Following M. Li (2014, 2019), this paper distinguishes two semantic types of yuánlái (as well as Japanese ganrai), namely [+contrast] and [-contrast] as illustrated in (3), which is based on the differentiation of pragmatic implicatures indicated in (2).

(3)   a.  yuánlái [+contrast]:
According to the Q-Principle, since the speaker/writer has said as much as s/he can, the implicature is that what s/he said is only applicable to the time yuánlái denotes, i.e., in the past. Hence the situation at the time of utterance is assumed to differ from the previous one, and thus the sense of contrast arises. It can be translated as “previously” or “originally.”

b. yuánlái [-contrast]:
According to the R-Principle, the speaker/writer has only given the necessary information as to the time yuánlái denotes, so the implicature is that what s/he said may still hold true at the time of utterance. In this sense, yuánlái has the implicit meaning of “from the beginning till now” or “always.” In the case of Japanese ganrai, this meaning is further interpreted as “by nature” or “inherently.”

The two semantic types of temporal adverbial yuánlái can be demonstrated by examples (4) and (5), both of which are taken from the historical works in the initial stage of its development. In (4), yuánlái is used in a context that contrasts with the present time, whereas in (5), it simply signifies “from the beginning till now.” Note that in Present-Day Chinese, adverbial yuánlái has the default interpretation of [+contrast] although it is defeasible in certain contexts. As for its nominal use, the interpretation of [-contrast] is still feasible (see Example (9) in Section 4.1). By contrast, the default meaning of Present-Day Japanese ganrai is [-contrast], and the cases of [+contrast] are rare.

(4) 元來不見，他自尋常；無故相逢，卻交煩惱。

‘In the past when we didn’t meet, everything was normal. When we happen to meet now, it brings troubles.’ 
(c700 Zhuo Zhang, You Xianku [CCL, see also M. Li 2019: 370])

(5) 唯黄河以北鎮、幽、魏、路²等四節度元來敬重佛法，不毀拆寺舍，不條流僧尼。佛法之事，一切不動之。

‘Only the four military commanders of Zhen, You, Wei, and Lu in the north of the Yellow River always respected Buddhism and did not demolish temples or drive away monks and nuns. Matters related to Buddhism remained unchanged.’
(838–848 Rutang Qiufa Xunli Xingji, Vol. 4 [CCL, see also M. Li 2019: 370])

3. Data and methodology

The data used for this paper are drawn from 4 electronic corpora and 1 database. The sources for Chinese and Japanese data are summarized in (6) and (7) respectively. The last access date for all the sources was April 2, 2024.

(6)   a. The Center for Chinese Linguistics (CCL) Corpora consists of the Classical Chinese Corpus (circa. 500 BCE–1930 CE) and the Modern Chinese Corpus (1930–present). The two corpora comprise selected written text data amounting to 5,841,676,206 tokens of characters. Available online at http://ccl.pku.edu.cn:8080/ccl_corpus/.

b. The Media Language Corpus (MLC) consists of transcribed Contemporary Chinese data from radio and TV broadcasting during the period 2008–2013, and includes 241,316,530 tokens of characters. Available online at https://ling.cuc.edu.cn/RawPub/.

(7)   a. The Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ) is comprised of 104.3 million words, covering 11 contemporary genres of written texts during the period of 1971–2008. Available online at https://shonagon.ninjal.ac.jp/.

b. The Corpus of Historical Japanese (CHJ) consists of selected written text data between the 8th century CE and 1925. Available online at https://chunagon.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/.

c. Shinpen Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei (SNKBT) [The New Complete Collection of Japanese Classic Literature] is a database consisting of 88 volumes of books published by Shogakukan which consists of 236 representative works of Japanese Classic Literature between the 8th and 19th centuries CE. Available online at https://japanknowledge.com/contents/koten/.

The methodology is qualitative. Candidates for analysis are manually searched and identified according to their written forms in Chinese characters. The readings for Japanese kanji words in historical literary works rely on Japanese syllabaries attached to Chinese characters, if applicable. The DM uses of Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai are rather easy to identify since they are placed solely in clause-initial positions except for mirative yuánlái, whereas for their lexical uses, they tend to appear in clause-medial positions.

Apart from the data extracted from the above corpora and database, a few constructed examples are employed to test the syntactic positions of yuánlái in different uses. The constructed data provides insights into language-user’s knowledge and intuition that are not accessible through corpora.

4. Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai

4.1 Yuánlái in Present-Day Chinese

As a temporal adverbial, yuánlái is typically used in such contexts as contrasted with the time of utterance indicated by xiànzài ‘now,’ as in (8). Even if there is no such a context, the use of yuánlái still has the implication that the current situation differs from that of yuánlái clause. Its nominal use also has a default interpretation of [+contrast], but this reading can be cancelled by using adverbs such as réng ‘still’ as in (9).

(8) 我國在知識產權保護方面正面臨著一些新的問題，一些原來在門店銷售的假冒偽劣商品，現在正從門店銷售轉移到了互聯網上。

‘Our country is facing some new problems in the protection of intellectual property. Some counterfeit or inferior products that used to be sold in physical stores are now being sold on the internet.’ (2010 Jiaodian Fangtan, CCTV [MLC])

(9) 藍翎雖已離休，但仍經常坐在原來的辦公室裡讀書、寫作。

‘Although Ling Lan has already retired, she still frequently sits in her former office to read and write.’ (1994 Baokan Jingxuan [CCL])

DM yuánlái in Present-Day Chinese has two uses. The first use, henceforth “justificational yuánlái,” is illustrated in (10). Yuánlái is placed in clause-initial position, usually followed by a comma in written texts and a pause in spoken language. It functions as a connector, signaling that the following discourse segment provides the justification or explains the reason for what is said or written in the preceding discourse, corresponding roughly to it turned out that in English.

(10) 第二天一大早，吳強就搭車趕到拍戲現場。可他一進門就看到現場已是燈火通明，戲已經開拍了，他嚇了一跳，以為自己遲到了。再仔細一看，是在拍那位名角的戲。原來，那個女演員昨晚沒有回去，就住在這家提供拍戲場地的酒店，所以一早就趕著先拍她的戲了。

‘Early the next morning, Qiang Wu rushed to the filming location by car. But as soon as he entered, he saw that the set was already brightly lit and the filming had started. He was taken aback, thinking that he was late. But upon closer inspection, he realized that they were filming the scene of a famous actress. As it turned out, the actress had not gone back home the previous night and stayed in the hotel where the filming location was provided, so they started filming her scenes early in the morning.’
 (2005 Qingkui Bian, Zhongguo Beipiao Yiren Shengcun Shilu [CCL])

While justificational yuánlái is usually found in narratives with preceding discourse, written or spoken, DM yuánlái of the second use solely appears in colloquial language with or without preceding discourse, cf. (11) and (12). It is typically used in such a context that the speaker finds out something not known to him/her before. This paper follows Tsai & Yang (2022) and refers to this use as “mirative” because it always carries the tone of unexpectedness³.

(11) 當她的目光落在窗臺上那個頑皮的史諾比上時，一下蹦起來，跑過去把它拿在手裡：“呀，我還以為你早在路上隨手丟了呢，原來你又把它帶回來了！”

‘When her gaze fell on the naughty Snoopy on the windowsill, she suddenly jumped up and ran over to pick it up and take it in her hand, saying, “Oh, I thought you had thrown it away on the way, but you brought it back again!”’ (2002 Dongzhi [CCL])

(12) 身穿紅衣的楊欣，如火球一樣沖入狼陣。狼見狀嚇得四處逃竄。狼嚇跑後，楊欣喃喃地說：“原來狼也怕人。”

‘Xin Yang, dressed in red, rushed into the wolf pack like a fireball. The wolves were frightened and ran away in all directions. After the wolves had fled, Yang Xin murmured, “So wolves are also afraid of humans.”’ (1996 People Daily [CCL])

Another difference between mirative yuánlái and justificational yuánlái lies in their syntactic positions. Mirative yuánlái may appear in clause-initial or clause-medial position, whereas justificational yuánlái occurs only clause-initially. When yuánlái is in medial position, i.e., right after the subject or the topic of the clause, the clause may be ambiguous between temporal and mirative readings, cf. (13a). The latter is often but not obligatorily accompanied by intonation of surprise. When yuánlái is in initial position, it may have three readings, i.e., temporal, mirative or justicational, cf. (13b). In the case of justificational reading, preceding discourse is indispensable. Not surprisingly, two yuánlái may cooccur in one clause, with mirative or justificational yuánlái in initial position and temporal yuánlái in medial position, as illustrated in (13c)⁴.

(13) a. 他原來在北京工作。

Temporal: ‘He used to work in Beijing.’

Mirative: ‘So he is working in Beijing!’ (constructed example)

b. 原來他在北京工作。

Temporal: ‘He used to work in Beijing.’

Mirative: ‘So he is working in Beijing!’

Justificational: ‘It turned out that he is working in Beijing.’ (constructed example)

c. 原來他原來在北京工作。

Mirative + temporal: ‘So he used to work in Beijing!’

Justificational + temporal: ‘It turned out that he had worked in Beijing.’
 (constructed example)

4.2. A brief history of yuánlái

As the predecessor of yuánlái, monomorphemic yuán, a noun meaning “origin,” had been used as a temporal adverbial with the same lexical meaning as yuánlái (M. Li 2019, Dong 2020). Yuánlái arose through combining yuán and lái, which is a recurrent process called “disyllabification” in the history of Chinese. Lái has been a temporal suffix from the Middle Chinese (3th c. CE to 10th c. CE), and attached to some monosyllabic temporal nouns and adverbs to create disyllabic words. It originally meant “to come,” but as a suffix it can be interpreted as “from” or even meaningless because there was no obvious semantic change when yuánlái substituted yuán⁵.

The development of yuánlái can be divided into three stages. At Stage I (from 7th c. CE), yuánlái was a temporal adverbial or a noun with the interpretation of [+contrast] and [-contrast], cf. (4) and (5)⁶. At Stage II (from 9th c. CE), mirative yuánlái appeared, as exemplified by (14) and (15). It remains a mystery how the adverbial use gave rise to the function of mirativity because no bridging context of the two uses has been discovered (see also M. Li 2019).

(14) 卻是偶然行未到，元來有路上寥天。

‘It was by chance that the path had not yet been reached. Contrary to my expectations, there was a way to ascend the vast sky.’ (c850 Gan Fang, Tizeng Li Jiaoshu [CCL])

(15) 師因半夏上黃蘗，見和尚看經。師雲：“我將謂是個人，元來是揞黑豆老和尚。”

‘The Master went up to Huangbo Mountain in early summer and saw a monk reading scriptures. The Master said, “I thought he was another person. I didn’t know he is the old monk who collects black beans⁷.”’ (c860 Zhenzhou Linji Huizhao Chanshi Yulu [CCL])

At Stage III (from 16th c. CE)⁸, background yuánlái and justificational yuánlái came into being. Background yuánlái offers background information for the referent mentioned in the preceding context, and justificational yuánlái, as stated in Section 4.1, provides the reason. The former is illustrated in (16), where yuánlái initiates a detailed account of the profile of bǎozhèng ‘village head.’ It is named “background” because the discourse segment prefaced by yuánlái deviated from the main slot of the story and thus not indispensable to the storyline. In (16), the narratives about Heng Lei, the local soldiers and the big man resumed after the inserted introduction to the village head, who was not on stage in this scene. On the other hand, as illustrated in (17), the story will become apparently incomplete if the discourse segment following justificational yuánlái is omitted. The background use of yuánlái is obsolete in Present-Day Chinese.

(16) [At that time, Heng Lei arrived at the Lingguan Temple and saw a big man sleeping on the altar. The local soldiers approached and tied him up, taking him away from the temple. It was still early in the morning, just before dawn. Heng Lei said, “Let’s take this guy to the Chao family’s estate to get some food, and then take him to the county office for questioning. ]
一行眾人卻都奔這保正莊上來。原來那東溪村保正，姓晁名蓋，祖是本縣本鄉富戶。

‘The group of people headed to the Chao family’s estate. Actually, the village head of Dongxi was named Chao Gai, whose ancestors were wealthy in the same county and town.’

[He was always ready to help people in need and was willing to make friends with heroes from all over the world. Anyone who came to him for help, no matter how good or bad, was allowed to stay at his estate… Heng Lei and the local soldiers escorted the big man to the front of the estate and knocked on the door…] (c1524 Nai’an Shi, Shuihu Zhuan [CCL])

(17) [When Wu Song saw the tiger flip over and come back, he wielded his stick in both hands and put all his strength into one strike from mid-air. Only a loud sound was heard as the branches and leaves of the tree were chopped off and fell.]
定睛看時，一棒劈不著大蟲，原來打急了，正打在枯樹上，把那條哨棒折做兩截，只拿得一半在手裡。

‘Upon closer inspection, the strike missed the tiger. It turned out that it was in such a hurry that he hit the dead tree instead, breaking the stick in half and leaving only one half
in his hand.’
 (c1524 Nai’an Shi, Shuihu Zhuan [CCL])

4.3. Ganrai in Prensent-Day Japanese

In most cases, Japanese ganrai displays the feature of [-contrast], corresponding roughly to from the beginning till now or by nature in English, as in (18). It is usually not equivalent to Present-Day Chinese yuánlái since yuánlái has lost this meaning. On the other hand, ganrai is also used as a temporal adverbial, meaning “originally” or “previously,” as in (19), which is the exact equivalent of yuánlái. Like yuánlái, ganrai also has the nominal use, cf. (20). Ganrai in both (19) and (20) bears the feature of [+contrast].

(18) 私は元来怠け者の性格で、仕事や人間関係について消極的です。三十四歳になる今日まで彼女がいません。しかし、結婚はしたいと思っています。

‘I am inherently lazy and passive when it comes to work and interpersonal relationship. I’m 34 years old now and I’ve never had a girlfriend. However, I do want to get married.’
(2005 Yahoo Chiebukuro [BCCWJ])

(19) ストレスという言葉は「外力によるひずみ」という意味で、元来は工学用語である。

‘“Stress” means “strain caused by external forces.” It is a term that originally came from engineering.’ (2004 Shigeta Saito, “Utsu” kara Genki ni Nareru Hon [BCCWJ])

(20) 山本という姓は、もちろんこの養子先のもので、元来の姓は出口という。　

‘The surname Yamamoto is, of course, the name of his adopted family, and his original surname was Deguchi.’ (2005 Tomohiko Suzuki et al., Nihon Autorō Retsuden: Oyabun [BCCWJ])

While lexical ganrai can occur both clause-medially and clause-initially, DM ganrai is exclusively placed in clause-initial position, providing additional information for the referent mentioned in the preceding discourse. I will refer to this use as “elaborative.”⁹ As exemplified by (21), ganrai is typically followed by the construction n=to i-u mono=wa ‘n=quo say-npst thing=top,’ which is usually employed to illustrate the essence of n. Sometimes ganrai is also followed by “n=top,” as in (22). In both cases, n is the main topic of the preceding discourse, such as “film” in (21) and “(Seoul’s) subway” in (22). This use of elaborative ganrai resembles the background yuánlái (see Section 4.2). While both serve to offer supplementary details about a preceding referent, the distinction lies in that the background information introduced by the yuánlái clause is entirely fresh within the discourse, whereas the ganrai clause adds further elaboration.

(21) [Director Sidney Lumet is known for his societal dramas such as 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network. However, his talent is also fully utilized in suspense and mystery films. The screenplays are written by British craftsperson Paul Dehn, known for the legendary work Orders to Kill and the bizarre work The Night of the Generals.]
特筆すべきはミステリ映画にスター・システムを導入した点だ。元来映画というものは小説とは違って、配役ひとつで観客の興味をひくかひかないかが、決定するきらいがある。

‘Notably, he introduced the star system to mystery films. Actually, unlike novels, films can often rely heavily on casting to arouse the audience’s interest.’
(2003 Nonaka Rodi & Yoshinori Nagata, Ekkyoosuru Honkaku Misuteri [BCCWJ])

(22) [Anyway, it’s convenient that this apartment is right next to the subway station. I have a prepaid card worth 10,000 won (about 1,000 yen), so I can ride without buying a ticket every time.]
つまり、行きたい駅まで運賃はいくらなのか確かめる必要がないのだ。元来、ソウルの地下鉄はとてもわかりやすくできている。

‘In other words, I don’t need to check how much the fare is to the station I want to go. Actually, Seoul’s subway system is very easy to understand.’
(2004 Kōtaro Sawaki: Sakazuki: World Cup [BCCWJ])

4.4. A brief history of ganrai

According to the investigation of SNKBT and CHJ, 元来 in the history of Japanese was read in multiple ways, including Japanese-style motoyori or hajimeyori, and Chinese-style gwanrai. Gwanrai changed to ganrai in the 19th century CE.

Examples (23) and (24) are two of the earliest occurrences of 元来¹⁰ with the readings of motoyori and hazimeyori respectively, where moto means “origin,” hazime means “beginning,” and yori means “from” or “since.” At this stage, 元来 only appeared in written texts which were mere imitation of Chinese writing style.

(23) 此地平原、元来無岡。

‘This place is a plain, and from the beginning there have been no hills.’
 (c713 Pizen no Kuni Pudoki [SNKBT])

(24) 即日、敕曰、元来諸家貯於神府宝物、今皆還其子孫。

‘At that day, in accordance with the imperial edict, all the treasures of each family stored in the divine treasury from the beginning will be returned to their descendants.’
(720 Nihon Shoki [SNKBT])

Gwanrai is attested first in a Chinese poem included in Shasekishū (circa. 13th c. CE), a collection of Buddhist tales. In the same period, it occurred in the colloquial language documented in a military chronicle tale Soga Monogatari, which demonstrated that gwanrai had been completely absorbed into Japanese vocabulary. Like ganrai in Present-Day Japanese, gwanrai predominantly had the interpretation of [-contrast], as (25) illustrates, and only in a few cases the interpretation of [+contrast] is feasible, cf. (26). This tendency prevailed throughout the history of the Japanese language.

(25) 兼隆、この由を聞くよりも、「伊豆の山は、元来、大衆剛強の所なり。なまじひなることをし出だし、世間の人の口にかからんよりは」とて、今度の軍は留まりぬ。

‘Upon hearing this, Kanetaka thought, “The mountains of Izu have always been a place where the monks are strong. It is better to avoid doing unnecessary things and being ridiculed by others,” so he called off the battle.’ (c1300 Soga Monogatari [SNKBT])

(26) 汝が父、元来、箱根の権現を信じ給ひし故、御事をも箱王と呼ばれたり。

‘As at that time your father believed in the deity of Hakone, he named you Hakowau (lit. king of Hakone).’ (c1300 Soga Monogatari [SNKBT])

The earliest attested instance of DM gwanrai is (27) in the 17th century CE. Gwanrai appeared clause-initially and was followed by X¹¹=to i-u=wa which is equivalent to X=to i-u mono=wa in Present-Day Japanese explained in Section 4.3. In this case, the reading of lexical gwanrai is still available since the writer is explaining the nature of “flattering a man.” At the same time, the clause-initial position of gwanrai and the structuring of background information evokes a new interpretation of gwanrai as a discourse connector as it provides additional information for “flattering” which has just been discussed.

(27) [Therefore, by using such means repeatedly, a woman naturally learns the behavior of a man who is already prone to lying. Although she may also lie later, everything a courtesan says and does when trying to please a man is considered a lie by those who do not understand the true nature of love. However, this does not mean that means such as flattering or adulating do not exist.]
これも、焼くぞ、焼かるるぞといふ根源をたづねみれば、いとしも悪からぬなり。元来男をやくといふは、いつはりをいひて、その男によく思はれんとの心から焼くなり。

‘But if one were to inquire about the origin of flattering or being flattered, one would find it truly valuable. Actually, flattering a man was done out of a desire to make him think he was popular, even if it meant lying.’  (c1600–1700, Kana Sōshishū, [SNKBT])

5. Discussion

The development of Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai can be summarized in Table 1. In present day, they are only partially equivalent in the lexical use. However, since ganrai [+contrast] is not so commonly used, and [+contrast] is the default reading for yuánlái, in most cases they are not translatable. In the domain of DM functions, they have no commonality except for background yuánlái and elaborative ganrai which are similar in that they both provide additional information to a referent in the previous discourse.

As mentioned in Section 4.2, it remains unclear how mirative yuánlái arose from its adverbial use. Dong (2020) proposed a hypothesis that mirative yuánlái derived from background yuánlái¹² in that the sense of mirativity may have arisen from the contrast between the preceding discourse and the yuánlái-prefaced background information. However, she also admitted that mirativity was the first DM function attested in historical documents, so she further hypothesized that background yuánlái might have not been recorded although it was used in the colloquial language of that time. Since no empirical evidence is available, for the time being this hypothesis cannot be authenticated.

Table 1. Meanings and functions of Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai through time 

Background yuánlái is likely to have directly derived from its adverbial use with [+contrast]. Since adverbial yuánlái is temporal in its original meaning, the clause containing adverbial yuánlái is restricted to past time. By hypothesis, the background information indicated by yuánlái was first restricted to situations in the past, but later extended to situations free of temporal restrictions (see the description of present-day yuánlái by Xing 1985). The mechanism of semantic change from temporal to textual is a case of metaphor: things happening in the past is liable to be reinterpreted as the background or the reason. Justificational yuánlái seem to have evolved one step further to denote the causal relationship between the preceding and the following discourse segments. Compared with lexical yuánlái, justificational and mirative uses are freed from temporal restriction because the background information or the new findings are not necessarily what happened in the past.

Another difference between lexical yuánlái and DM yuánlái lies in that the former can appear in interrogative sentences, but the latter cannot. This echoes the findings that DMs are syntactically unattached (cf. Heine et al. 2021: 50). In terms of syntactic positions, adverbial yuánlái and mirative yuánlái can be either clause-initial or clause-medial immediately following the subject or the topic of the clause, whereas background and justificational yuánlái are basically positioned clause-initially, which is the typical position for a clause linker.

Japanese ganrai exhibits a different scenario on its pathway to a DM. Lexical ganrai has been primarily used with the interpretation of [-contrast], which acts as the starting point of its DM use. Lexical ganrai can appear in clause-initial position and more frequently in clause-medial position, but DM ganrai is solely placed clause-initially. Its discourse function is to provide elaborative information which is typically anchored in non-past tense although past tense is also plausible.

The difference between DM yuánlái and DM ganrai originated from their meanings as temporal adverbials. Both mirative and justificational uses of yuánlái stem from the inherent feature of [+contrast]. Mirative yuánlái emphasizes the disparity between the situation witnessed by the speaker and its underlying cause, while justificaional yuánlái offers a previously undisclosed explanation. On the other hand, ever since Japanese ganrai was borrowed from the Middle Chinese, it has been carrying the interpretation of [-contrast], with the strong tendency of denoting “from the beginning till now” or “by nature.” In this background, it is unlikely for ganrai to develop mirative or justificational DM functions.

Another potential reason for the limited versatility of ganrai may stem from its conservative historical development. Unlike yuánlái, ganrai has predominantly been used in written language and only rarely found in colloquial contexts (for this characteristic of ganrai in Present-Day Japanese, also see Hida & Asada 2018: 131). This is a common feature of Sino-Japanese vocabulary in contrast to native Japanese words. In fact, ganrai faces competition from synonymous native Japanese words such as motomoto ‘from the beginning, originally, always, by nature, naturally’ and motoyori ‘from the beginning, originally,’ which are often interchangeable with ganrai but are applied in a broader range of discourse genres. There exists a tendency for expressions predominantly used in written language, as opposed to those used in everyday speech, to evolve more slowly in terms of their semantic and pragmatic extensions (see Higashiizumi et al. 2024 for relevant discussion).

6. Conclusion

This study examined the developmental pathways of Chinese yuánlái and Japanese ganrai from temporal adverbials to discourse markers. They both started their journeys as temporal adverbials signifying “originally, from the beginning,” but later diverged into distinct trajectories. Yuánlái evolved along the pathway characterized by [+contrast], giving rise to mirative, background and justificational markers. On the other hand, ganrai started with the feature of [-contrast], and developed into an elaborative marker. The distinction between [+contrast] and [-contrast] could be attributed to the application of Q-principle and R-principle proposed by Horn (1984, 2012a, 2012b).

The findings of this study provide novel perspectives on the emergence of discourse markers derived from shared Chinese etyma through language contact within the Sinosphere. It is revealed that constraints stemming from lexical meanings can influence the emergence of potential DM functions. Furthermore, the contextual genre may also have impact on the versatility of DM uses.

_{¹ 原來in Japanese was read as genrai, which had the same meaning as ganrai. In this paper, Japanese genrai will not be discussed because as a synonym of ganrai, it only existed for a short period of time.}

_{² The symbol “、” is a common punctuation mark in Chinese writing. It functions similarly to the comma in English but is specifically used to separate nominal items in a list.}

_{³ Zhao & Bai (2022) referred to DM yuánlái as jie fanyuqi biaoji (marker of removing counter-expectation) because according to their analysis, the preceding discourse is what the speaker/writer did not expect, and the function of yuánlái to state the reason for his/her counter-expectation. Justificational and mirative uses of yuánlái are dubbed shiyin xing (explanatory) and xingwu xing (enlightening) functions respectively in Zhao & Bai (2022).}

_{⁴ (13c) is grammatical but slightly unnatural to some native speakers because two yuánlái are used adjacently and with different meanings. This sentence will be improved if the second yuánlái is replaced by yǐqián or zhīqián both meaning ‘previously.’}

_{⁵ A similar case of běnlái ‘originally’ developing from monomorphemic běn ‘root, basis, origin’ is discussed by Zhan (2022). For the history of other Chinese disyllabic X-lái, where X is a temporal noun or adverb, see Z. Li (2019: 55–62) and Chen (2021).}

_{⁶ It is unknown when adverbial yuánlái lost the interpretation of [-contrast].}

_{⁷ “Black beans” is a metaphor for “scriptures” probably because Chinese characters written in black look like black beans from afar.}

_{⁸ M. Li (2019) and Dong (2020) used some earlier examples which were claimed to be taken from works of the Song Dynasty (960–1276 CE), but since the dating of these works they cited is not considered authentic among scholars, this paper sets the starting point of Stage III at a much later period.}

_{⁹ What Traugott (2022: Chapter 6) called elaborative markers in English include also, further, furthermore, and moreover. They resemble elaborative ganrai in that the DM-prefaced discourse segment is the continuation and expansion of the preceding discourse.}

_{¹⁰ The original written form of rai should be 來. It was adjusted by the compliers of SNKBT to the Present-Day Japanese form 来.}

_{¹¹ X is a noun or a clause.}

_{¹² In Dong (2020), background yuánlái is referred to as chaxu biaoji ‘interpolated narrative marker’ and justificational yuánlái is called jieshi biaoji/shuoming biaoji ‘marker of interpretation/illustration’. Mirative yuánlái is called guanlian fuci ‘conjunctive adverb’.}

_{¹³ Bracketed numbers in Table 1 indicate the numbers of corresponding examples quoted in Sections 3 and 4.}

About the authors

Wenjiang Yang

Author for correspondence.
Email: wenjiangyang@um.edu.mo
ORCID iD: 0009-0000-1802-0630

Associate Professor of Japanese linguistics at University of Macau, Macao SAR, China. He received his PhD in Japanese linguistics at Peking University, China in 2014. His research interests include morphology, syntax, semantics, historical linguistics and contrastive linguistics, with a special focus on tense, aspect, evidentiality and discourse markers in Present-Day Japanese as well as their diachronic evolution.

References