台灣閩南語動詞前「一下」的句法和語意

This paper studies the ‘numeral ‘one’ plus verbal classifier’ sequence in Taiwanese Southern Min that serves as a subordinating conjunction in connecting two clauses that denote a temporal or clausal proximity between the occurrence of the two events in question. It can be translated as ‘in a very brief time/almost at once/right after/very quickly’ or even ‘in no time’ in English. I show that it marks inchoativity, which involves the beginning of a situation. It behaves like a time-frame adjunct in requiring a telic predicate despite the fact that it targets on the beginning of a new state after the natural end and inducing the beginning meaning when it occurs with a state or an activity. Crucially, it also behaves like a minimizer which is subject to a subjective evaluation of the speaker. This explains why usually either to then’ or tsiah ‘only’ is used in the main clause of such a construction.