The Characteristics, Evolution and Motivation of the Pattern“Monosyllabic Adjective + Yu”

The word “yu” in the pattern “monosyllabic adjective + yu” is in a certain stage in the continuum of “preposition →affix →suffix”. At the beginning, it is a preposition. However, with the constraint of double tone rhythm, neighboring co-occurrence of “X + yu” and analogical principle, this structure has begun to diverge again. A part of the pattern “monosyllabic adjective + yu” has gradually got mergedinto use. And the word “yu” has been degraded into an affix. Once such pattern has evolved to be a word, it is a transitive verb and then it develops in the direction of relation between an adverbial and the center word, among which “nan yu” and “yi yu” have become adverbs. And the evolution of the pattern into adverbs has not come to an end. And “yu” in the middle of the evolution is an affix which is a transitional linguistic unit.