Usage of 選

[chrix]

in the flurry of news who's gonna run for what in Taiwanese politics, I've noticed an interesting use of 選:

- 蘇貞昌其實要選總統

- 如果当选，我一定会做完，不会选2012总统

The second one is a Singaporean newspaper quoting 蘇貞昌, but the same newspaper also uses 參選, so it might be an abbreviated use of that?

What I'd like to know:

- is this a usage restricted to Taiwan?

- is this a lexical or a grammatical pattern? If the latter, do you know of similar examples.

- Also I'd be interested in the grammatical relatioship between 選 and 總統 here. It doesn't look like it's used with the name of the election (no meaningful hits for "不選大選"), but rather with the name of the office.

[skylee]

I am not sure why it is interesting and have no idea about the grammar part. 選 here means 競選 or 參選. I think it is not a Taiwan thing. 選議員 / 選特首 etc are common and can mean both the action the candidates take to join the election and the voters' action to vote for a candidate, depending on the context.

[chrix]

One reason it's interesting is that none of the dictionaries I consulted have this meaning, they all basically point to "choose, elect", not "enter into an election". So it looks like a fairly recent development.

At first I was thinking it might be some kind of grammatical voice thing, but right now I think this is just a meaning extension, so a lexical process.

Thanks for confirming HK usage.

[Kenny同志]

选 is used improperly here in my point of view. 选总统 is to elect a president while to run for presidency is 竞选总统。 It was highly likely that 竞 or 参 was missing. (such things happen often, at least on some big media based in the mainland, Tecent being a prominent one among them.). 选总统 placed in the context doesn't make sense to me.

[chrix]

Thank you kenny, but the evidence suggests that at least in TW and HK, it's no longer improper usage. But the fact that you find it improper reinforces my idea that it might be a recent development....

[skylee]

I think it is not necessarily a recent development. Isn't there a theory that the farther away from the centre of the culture (or at the rim of the culture) people tend to retain more older/traditional customs, practices, language etc? Like a ripple. Or something like that.

[chrix]

Yes, the centre-rim theory in dialectology, and that holds true for many things. But even at the rim, innovation can occur and do occur. But I've also checked Literary Chinese dictionaries, because for the rim to retain something, it must have been present in older stages of the language to begin with.

Also, if it was an older usage, it probably would have been recorded in a dictionary as "regional". Of course lexicographers can miss something, but usually they're pretty good at this. I mean if you do find this recorded in an older dictionary, this would of course refute my hypothesis... Or if it was recorded say in a Cantonese or Hokkien dictionary, then it might be interference from a regional language, but still a new phenomenon as far as Mandarin is concerned.

But also, running for office is a relatively recent phenomenon in Chinese culture, so that's another argument (though not strictly linguistic).