List of Tables
List of Figures
Abbreviations
Databases and Electronic Corpora
序
前言

1 INTRODUCTION
1．1 The construction shi in Modern Chinese
1．1．1 “Right， okay， or fine”
1．1．2 Demonstrative pronoun
1．1．3 Existential
1．1．4 Copulative linking
1．1．5 “Focus marker”
1．1．6 Bound morpheme
1．1．7 Some questions about shi
1．2 An overview of the literature on shi
1．2．1 The grammatical category of shi
1．2．2 The origin of the copula shi
1．2．3 The previous research on Chinese cleft sentences
1．2．4 The development of the Chinese cleft
1．3 Data and methodology
1．4 An outline of the structure of the thesis

2 CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR AND CONSTRUCTIONALIZATION
2．1 Construction Grammar
2．1．1 Construction grammar as opposed to modular models
2．1．2 Three major constructional approaches
2．1．3 Some relevant concepts of Construction Grammar
2．1．3．1 Taxonomy and inheritance
2．1．3．2 Coercion
2．1．3．3 Usage-based model
2．2 Constructionalization
2．2．1 Two approaches to grammaticalization
2．2．2 Motivation： analogy and ' invited inference'
2．2．2．1 Analogy
2．2．2．2 Invited inferencing
2．2．3 Mechanisms： reanalysis， analogization and subjectification
2．2．3．1 Reanalysis
2．2．3．2 Analogization
2．2．4 Constructional taxonomies
2．2．5 Constructionalization dimensions
2．2．6 Constructionalization and constructional changes
2．3 Summary

3 A COPULA ANALY818 OF shi IN THE CHINESE CLEFT CONSTRUCTION
3．1 Introduction
3．2 The syntactic concept of “copula”
3．3 The semantics of copula
3．4 The constructional framework
3．5 The concept of cleft
3．5．1 The cleft construction
3．5．2 An adverb analysis of shi in the so-called shi cleft sentence
3．5．3 My analysis of Chinese cleft sentences
3．6 Conclusion

4 THE CONSTRUCTIONALIZATION OF shi：FROM A DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUN TO A COPULA
4．1 Introduction
4．2 Previous research on shi
4．3 The development of shi
4．3．1 A syntactic analysis of the classical copula sentence （CCS） in Old Chinese
4．3．2 The constructionalizatin of the copula
4．3．2．1 The semantic relatedness between the demonstrative pronoun and the copula
4．3．2．2 The enabling context
4．3．2．3 The mechanism of the constructionalization of shi
4．3．3 Statistical evidence for constructionalization of shi and further expansion
4．3．3．1 The increase of adverbs preceding shi
4．3．3．2 The decrease of sentence final particles
4．3．3．3 The decrease of the complex topic
4．3．3．4 The increase of [ NP COP NP]
4．3．3．5 The competition between shi and wei
4．4 Typology and Conclusion

5 THE CONSTRUCTIONALIZATION OF THE CLEFT CONSTRUCTION
5．1 Introduction
5．2 The emergence of the cleft construction
5．2．1 Shi： the copula in early Middle Chinese （200 CE-600 CE）
5．2．2 Nominalization [ XP de] ： in late Middle Chinese （700 CE-1000 CE）
5．2．3 The emergence of the cleft construction
5．2．3．1 The emergence of [NP COP NOM] （NOM=XP de）
5．2．3．2 The emergence of the cleft construction
5．2．3．3 The emergence of the cleft-sbj
5．3 Constructionalization
5．3．1 Motivation： Analogy and pragmatic inferencing
5．3．2 Mechanism： Analogization and Reanalysis
5．3．3 Conventionalization ： Frequency
5．3．4 Generality， productivity and compositionality
5．4 Conclusion

6 THE CONSTRUCTIONALIZATION OF A SET OF CONNECTIVES IN CHINESE
6．1 Introduction
6．2 Shi as the bound morpheme
6．3 The set of constructionalized connectives
6．3．1 Keshi 'but'
6．3．2 Haishi 'or'
6．3．3 Jiushi 'even if'
6．3．4 Yaoshi 'if'
6．4 Constructionalization dimensions
6．5 The motivations and mechanisms of the change
6．5．1 Motivations： invited inferencing and analogy thinking
6．5．2 Mechanisms ： reanalysis， analogization and subjectification
6．5．2．1 Reanalysis
6．5．2．2 Analogization
6．5．2．3 Subjectification
6．5．3 Frequency
6．6 Conclusion

7 CONCLUSION
7．1 Summery of the thesis
7．2 Thoughts on future study
7．2．1 Relativization and nominalization
7．2．2 The development of contrastive focus
7．3 Summary

BIBLIOGRAPHY