Abstract This article claims that the conjecturing clause-taking huaiyi predicate in Modern Chinese (e.g. Renmen huaiyi zheming taoyi de jingcha hen keneng canyu le zheqi anjian. ‘People conjecture that the escaped policeman had probably been involved in the case.’) is actually a parenthetical structure. Diachronically, it does not develop from an NP-taking huaiyi predicate (e.g. Wo hen huaiyi zhe ge shuofa. ‘I doubt the statement a lot.’) or a doubting clause-taking huaiyi predicate (e.g. Du Yifu changchang huaiyi ta yu erzi you guo nazhong ge’ermen yiqi de shiguang. ‘Du Yifu often doubted that he had had times of buddy loyalty with his son.’). Rather, it develops from a prosodically separated conjecturing huaiyi predicate. The goal of this paper is to show that its formation did not follow the commonly accepted matrix clause pathway, whereby a parenthetical clause-taking predicate develops from a corresponding matrix clause structure. Instead, it followed a hypothesized conjoining pathway, which involves the loss of a phonetic gap between a prosodically separated huaiyi predicate and the clause with which it occurs.

中文翻译：

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现代汉语推测从句谓语的形成

摘要 本文主张现代汉语中带怀义谓语的推测从句（如《人门怀义哲明道义德精茶》可能灿玉乐哲奇安建。“人们推测逃亡的警察很可能参与了此案。”）实际上是一个括号结构。历时上，它不是从一个带NP的怀义谓词（如Wo hen huaiyi zhe ge shuofa。'我很怀疑这个陈述。'）或一个带疑问的子句的怀意谓词（如Du Yifu changchang huaiyi ta yu erzi you）发展而来。郭纳中哥尔门义气德世光。“杜义夫经常怀疑他和儿子有过什么哥们忠心的时候。”）。相反，它是从一个韵律分离的猜想怀义谓词发展而来的。本文的目的是表明它的形成没有遵循普遍接受的矩阵子句途径，由此，括号从句谓词从相应的矩阵从句结构发展而来。取而代之的是，它遵循了一个假设的连接路径，其中包括在韵律上分离的怀义谓词与其出现的从句之间的语音间隙的丢失。