Abstract
Based on the data gleaned from modern Taiwanese Hakka and Basel mission materials, this paper focuses specifically on the constructionalization of two loi2 'come' (= LOI)-marked purposes constructions, viz., the V-C-LOI construction and the V-DUR-LOI construction, which are referred to collectively as the V-X-LOI construction. We suggest that the purpose reading of LOI in the V-X-LOI construction comes from the pragmatic inference that the second event in the serial verb construction is interpreted as the purpose of the first motion event. With the strengthening of the implicature, we see generalization and expansion of verbs in the V slot from motion verbs to non-motion verbs. Given that the purpose reading can be easily inferred from the discourse, the purpose event tends to be dropped, hence leading to the emergence of the V-X-LOI construction. The purpose analysis can explain why the construction has the following properties, all of which are central conceptual ingredients of purpose: (a) it is future-oriented; (b) it expresses the speaker's desire; (c) the result is only hypothetical. In addition, the predominance of the V-Dp-L/O-Dd construction in the Basel texts indicates that the rise of the V-X-LOI construction may have much to do with the high frequency of occurrence of the location object (L) or theme object (O) in-between the path directional (Dp) and the deictic directional (Dd) in the complex directional construction.