This paper explores the diachronic development of Mandarin yao4 要 in terms of grammaticalization (Hopper 1991, Hopper and Traugott 1993), a corpus-based approach (Hans and Mair 2004) and constructional grammar (Goldberg 1995). Such a study is conducted based on the inspection into the data gleaned from the Pre-Qin to Modern texts featuring several electronic corpuses, such as the Scripta Sinica database and Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese. Three main issues are to be tackled in this paper. The first one is the development of the modality senses of yao4 要; the second one is its competition with another modal verb yu4 欲 in Early Modern Chinese, and the last one is its development as conjunctions after late Tang.
As attested in the data, the modality senses of yao4 developed as follows. The alethic sense appeared in the 1st century; the epistemic and the burgeoning use of deontic sense came about during the 3rd and the 6th century; the decreased use of epistemic and deontic senses and the dominance of volitive sense took place around late Tang. As for the semantic sources of these modality senses, this study presents the following assumptions with explanations. Briefly, alethic yao4 is considered the extension of the meanings of ‘importance’ and ‘main point’ of the earlier verb yao4. Deontic yao4 is assumed to be derived from an earlier pivotal construction, NP1 + yao4 + NP2 + VP. Moreover, the deontic sense is also the consequence of the interactions between the four original verb meanings: ‘restrain’, ‘intercept’, ‘threat’, and ‘want to have’. The volitive yao4 is surmised to result from the sense of ‘want to have’. The epistemic yao4 denoting future is presumed to have its origin in the previous deontic use denoting both desire and obligation (Traugott and Dasher 2002). In the discussion of the “yao4+X” construction which was commonly seen around the 3rd century, the shared deontic modal sense between yao4 and the words dang1當, xu1須, and ying1應and the concept of irrealis account for the co-occurrences in Middle Chinese.
To account for the competition between yao4 and yu4, I put forward some motivations such as their similar senses of the earlier uses before serving as modal verbs, the similar development paths of modality senses and the function of serving as conditional markers. In comparing yao4 and yu4, I make statistics for their use frequencies in several domains, such as modality senses, co-occurrence with other modal verbs, negation, animacy of the subject, and cases of serving as conditional markers. These statistics show that yu4 was more grammaticalized than yao4 by late Tang, but was gradually superseded by yao4 later on. The reasons might be the prevalent use of volitive yao4 since late Tang. Besides, in terms of language economy, while yao4 stably expressed deontic and volitive senses around late Tang, yu4 dominantly conveyed volitive sense, which led to the preferred use of yao4. What is more, the principle of “one form for one meaning and one meaning for one form” (Bolinger 1977: X) also accounts for the decline of yu4. Thus, in Modern Chinese, yu4 is rarely used in colloquial texts and it is restricted to formal occasions or texts written in classical Chinese (Lu 1996).
I also examine the development of yao4 as conjunctions in Early Modern Chinese. In particular, on the strength of a large number of chronological data, I explore the functions of seven “yao4-type” conjunctions, including yao4 要, yao4shi4 要是, yao4bu2shi4 要不是, zhi3yao4 只要, yao4bu4ran2 要不然, yao4bu4 要不, and yao4bu2jiu4shi4 要不就是. During Early Modern Chinese and Modern Chinese, yao4 yielded the function of discourse markers to show suggestions, rhetorical questions and inquiries (Huang and Chang 2010). Besides, I look into the development of yao4shi4 要是and identify four critical constructions leading to its use as a conditional conjunction in the Ming Dynasty.
Last but not the least, the development process of yao4 from a verb to a modal verb and finally to conjunctions are in keeping with the three tendencies of semantic change that Traugott and Dasher (2002) propose. Besides, the development process of yao4 reflects several characteristics of grammaticalization, such as de-categorization, layering, persistence, and subjectification (Hopper 1991, Brinton and Traugott 2005).

本文從歷時的角度搭配著語料庫的使用探討漢語「要」在語法化過程中的三個議題。首先以Palmer (2003) 和Nuyts (2006)的分類為基礎，探討助動詞「要」的情態意義發展。其次為「要」與「欲」自唐朝至明朝的競爭，最後是七個「要類連接詞」的語意及功能發展，以及對「要是」的深入討論。
漢朝時期，「要」發展出真理情態語義，來源應為上古名詞性表示「重要」、「要領」的「要」。判斷情態及義務情態語義發展於南北朝時期，且以後者為大宗。前者的語意來源為同時表示「欲求」及「義務」的義務性情態語義，後者的語意來源為一軸心句式以及四個動詞「要」的語意互動關係。唐五代時期，「要」出現意願性的情態語義，源自表示「欲求」的動詞「要」。其出現的時間較晚應為另一個高頻助動詞「欲」的影響。此外，「要」在三世紀開始常與「應」、「當」「須」、「欲」這些助動詞共現，是因它們都可表示「非實然性」，以及除了「欲」之外，其他三項和「要」在當時期都主要表示「義務」情態語義 (朱 2008)。
自上古到晚唐五代時期，「欲」頻繁地作為表示「意願」的助動詞，但是在現代漢語中它只出現在特定的語境或文本，取代它原本地位的助動詞之ㄧ是「要」。為了釐清兩者的發展關係，本文從許多面向比較兩者，如：情態語義，與另ㄧ助動詞的共現，否定詞，主語的有情性，以及條件標記。統計頻率顯示至晚唐時期，「欲」的語法化程度高於「要」，但之後其功用逐漸被「要」取代，原因有二。一為語言經濟因素：至晚唐時期，由於「要」可以穩定表現義務或意願的情態意義，說話者傾向淘汰幾乎只表示「意願」的「欲」。二為「ㄧ形式對應ㄧ意義」的自然語言原則 (Bolinger 1977)。而「欲」的情態語義由表示「意願」至具判斷性的「未來」的發展過程，可由Diewald (2002)提出的三個語境類型來解釋，且「欲」的主語由有情擴大到無情包含了兩個泛化的過程。
七個要類連接詞中，「要不然」與「要不」在近古漢語和現代漢語間繼續發展為言談標記來表示提議，反詰，或疑問。條件連接詞「要是」的發展為四個構式驅使(coerce)的結果。第一和第二個構式中，「要(是)」與讓步標記「雖」的共現增強了「要(是)」的轉折語意，且與「是」的共現使「要」獲得了「強調」的語意。第三個構式中，「要(是)」可以脫離「雖」而存在，並與一些關連副詞：「乃」、「故」共現，這促使「要(是)」帶出一個推論，並因此可以出現在句首。至明朝時，「要是」已經完全詞彙化成為一個條件連接詞，連接上下語句的「條件－結果」關係。
總體而論，「要」由動詞至助動詞再到連接詞以及言談標記的語法化過程，大致符合了Traugott and Dasher (2002)提出的語意演變的三個傾向，即先呈現客觀的描述功能，再呈現文本功能，進而呈現說話者的主觀態度。此外，也反映了Hopper (1991)提出的一些語法化的特點，如：去範疇化(de-categorization)、新舊並存(layering)、存古性(persistence)，以及主觀化(subjectification)。

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Corpuses:
Academia Sinica Tagged Corpus of Old Chinese 中央研究院上古漢語標記語料庫: http://old_chinese.ling.sinica.edu.tw/
Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese 中研院現代漢語平衡語料庫:
http://db1x.sinica.edu.tw/kiwi/mkiwi/
Scripta Sinica Database 漢籍電子文獻資料庫:
http://hanchi.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/ihp/hanji.htm
NTHU Institute of Linguistics Database of Mandarin Chinese 清華大學漢語資料庫.
http://140.114.116.3/db/