Abstract
Researchers of grammaticalization have often suggested that decategorialization can be manifested as a cline of categoriality, statable as: major category (>intermediate category) > minor category (Hopper and Traugott 2003: 107). Previous studies investigated the full schema from a variety of perspectives and considerable concerns have arisen over the semantic and syntactic behavior, which yield fruitful results (Heine and Kuteva 2002). However, researches which have documented the fragmented schema, major category > minor category and major category >intermediate category, are scant. Therefore, the aim of this thesis attempts to discuss kau3 as an intriguing word showing the phenomenon of the fragmented schema in Taiwanese Southern Min (henceforth TSM). Kau3 can be classified into five main groups. To start with, kau3 is a main verb ‘arrive’. Next, kau3 is a preposition ‘at’, and ‘to’. Next, kau3 is a complement meaning ‘enough’. Next, kau3 is an adjective ‘enough’. Lastly, kau3 is an adverb ‘enough’, as well. The last two kau3 denoting enough mostly follows u7 ‘have’ or bo5 ‘not have’ successively. Put differently, the last two uses of kau3 are complement in semantic aspect, but kau3 gets lexicalized with verb in syntactic frame into an adjective and an adverb. The research involves reviewing the corpora that comprise the early and modern SM data. Early Southern Min data include nine SM playscripts and Go En; modern Southern Min data includes SM story series compiled by Hu Wan Chuan et al, and transcripts of SM soap operas. The analysis of this study was based on grammaticalization to indicate the relationship between the five sets of categories kau3. Result of this study shows the grammaticalization paths of the five sets of categories kau3. To conclude, this paper may be of importance to account for the dynamic relationship between the five sets of categories kau3, and providing researchers with a better understanding of how the meaning about kau3 is related to its grammaticalization paths and distribution.