Aspects in Fengshun Hakka spoken In Thailand: Perfective, Experiential, and Inchoative

Abstract

This research is part of my dissertation ‘A Study of Hakka Aspectual System’ for Mahidol University and Thailand Research Fund. It aims to explain the syntactic and semantic structures of Perfective, Experiential, and Inchoative aspects of Fengshun Hakka spoken in Thailand. The Hakka aspectual system generally can be divided into two major categories: bounded and unbounded. According to Chappell (1989a, b), the bounded aspect refers to an event containing either the beginning or the end point, while the unbounded aspect refers to an event without a time limit. The bounded situations can be subcategorized into Perfective, Experiential, and Inchoative aspects. To add an interesting view to this study, the Miaoli Hakka dialect spoken in Taiwan, Jieyang Chaozhou, and Mandarin have been compared with the Fengshun dialect to point out real characteristics of the Hakka aspectual system. The comparison with the Miaoli dialect spoken in Taiwan demonstrates how the three bounded aspects of the two Hakka dialects are expressed. The language contact with Chaozhou in Fengshun Hakka is probably pointed out as one factor by which the bounded aspects in Fengshun Hakka are distinguished from those in the Miaoli dialect.