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- Title
Directional verb constructions in Mandarin: The interface of syntax and pragmatics.
- Authors
Chien-hung Lin; Jung-hsing Chang
- Abstract
In modern Chinese, a Directional Verb Construction (DVC) may contain either two or three verbs. DVCs with two verbs can be represented in three different ways, and DVCs with three verbs can be represented in four different ways. The different positions of the shared internal noun phrase (NP) argument result in divergent word orders of DVCs. Based on the Corpus of the United Daily News, this study discusses the syntax-pragmatic interface in Chinese DVCs within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) with the intention of ascertaining how NP arguments are linked to syntax in DVCs, while at the same time accounting for what pragmatic factors play a role in determining constructional schemas for argument linking. The results show that different patterns of DVCs have different focus domains, and that the differential activation state of the internal NP argument plays an essential role in determining word order. Considering the correlation between activation state and focus domain, a highly activated internal NP tends to be linked to the position following the word b or immediately following V1. In contrast, a least activated NP tends to be linked to the position immediately following V2 or V3.
- Subjects
VERBS; WORD order (Grammar); SYNTAX (Grammar); CHINESE language; PRAGMATICS
- Publication
Concentric: Studies in Linguistics, 2023, Vol 49, Issue 2, p224
- ISSN
1810-7478
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1075/consl.22048.lin