Quantifying grammaticalization: reassessing the <i>yi</i> -construction as the ancestor of Chinese disposal constructions

Abstract Grammaticalization research has long emphasized the important roles of frequency, entrenchment, and analogical extension in linguistic change, but many debates in diachronic syntax remain unresolved due to the lack of quantitative evidence. One such debate concerns the origin of the Chinese disposal construction: whether the yi -construction (以) in Archaic Chinese should be regarded as the ancestor of later BA-type disposals. This study addresses two core controversies related to this debate: (i) the origin of the yi -construction with yi as an object marker, and (ii) whether this construction qualifies as a disposal construction. Drawing on corpus data and employing quantitative methods, the analysis shows that disposal yi -constructions developed directly from serial verb constructions of the form [V1(= yi ) O1 V2 O2], and that preverbal yi + DO constructions were significantly more frequent than postverbal ones. This frequency asymmetry made the preverbal type the entrenched model for BA-type disposals, confirming the yi -construction as the ancestor of later disposal constructions. Three counter-arguments claiming that there exist behavioral differences between the yi -construction and the later BA-type disposals are substantiated to be untenable. Theoretically, the study reconceptualizes the preverbal yi -construction as the prototype ancestor by showing how its selection resulted from the confluence of micro construction-level entrenchment and a macro system-level syntactic tendency toward leftward expansion. Methodologically, it demonstrates how corpus-based statistical testing can provide replicable evidence for resolving long-standing disputes in historical syntax.