From affirmation to concession

Abstract

The Modern Chinese concessive connective kě shì (e.g., kàn shàngqù bù zěnmeyàng, kě shì chī qǐlái què tǐng bùcuò [‘it looks not so good, but it tastes quite good’]) did not develop from a clause-initial emphatic kě shì structure that has a pragmatic counter expectation meaning (e.g., kě shì tā shuōde [‘it was really she who said it’]), but from an affirmative response marker kě shì in Early Modern Chinese (e.g., kě shì ne, míng’er nǐ sòngwǒ shénme? [‘quite right, what do you send me as gifts tomorrow?’]). Shì in the connective did not develop from a copula shì, but from an adjective shì meaning ‘right, true’ (e.g., rán, shì yě [‘right, it’s true’]). The hypothesised pathway may be explained as the grammaticalisation of an affirmative response marker used in the context of token agreement, and may be adopted to account for the formation of an Old Chinese concessive connective rán (e.g., rán Zhèng wáng, zǐ yì yǒu bùlì yān [‘but if Zheng State perishes, it serves you no good, either’]). It gives support to an extra-clausal source for the formation of a sentence connective.