The Emergence and the Disappearance of the ‘verb+indirect object with 于+direct object’ Construction through ‘LIAO’ Constructions in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions

This paper analyzes the emergence and the disappearance of ‘V+yu (于)+IO(Indirect Object)+DO(Direct Object)’ construction observed in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty. Chinese has undergone diachronic word order change from SOV to SVO. In the process of this change, the two objects in the ditransitive construction sequentially move after the verb. As the focused argument, DO first moves after the verb, resulting in the emergence of the ‘IO+V+DO’ construction. Subsequently, IO also moves after the verb and to distinguish it from DO, the preposition ‘yu’ is added. This leads to the emergence of the ‘V+yu+IO+DO’ construction, with the focused element DO appearing at the end of the sentence. However, because the heavy argument ‘yu+IO’ is positioned before the light argument DO, violating the Weight Principle, the preposition ‘yu’ eventually disappears and ‘V+yu+IO+DO’ construction disappears from the history of Chinese as it is replaced by ‘V+IO+DO’ construction.