A Research on Functional Grammar of Chinese

A Research on Functional Grammar of Chinese
Author: Bojiang Zhang
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2020-04-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 100002637X

The functional perspective on Chinese syntax has yielded various new achievements since its introduction to Chinese linguistics in the 1980s. This two-volume book is one of the earliest and most influential works to study the Chinese language using functional grammar. With local Beijing vernacular (Pekingese) as a basis, the information structure and focus structure of the Chinese language are systematically examined. By using written works and recordings from Beijingers, the authors discuss topics such as the relationship between word order and focus, and the distinction between normal focus and contrastive focus. In addition, the authors also subject the reference and grammatical categories of the Chinese language to a functional scrutiny while discussion of word classes and their functions creatively combines modern linguistic theories and traditional Chinese linguistic theories. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese linguistics and linguistics in general.

Fundamental Structures of the Chinese Language

Fundamental Structures of the Chinese Language
Author: Taciana Fisac
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2024-03-29
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1003853528

Fundamental Structures of the Chinese Language is an exceptional resource for understanding how Chinese grammar functions in natural discourse. This book departs from the conventional approach of superimposing grammatical constructs from English onto Chinese and focuses on the topic–comment structure inherent in the Chinese language. Constructions that are usually considered complex or challenging for students whose mother tongues are subject–verb–object languages will be more easily understandable with this analysis. Simple and complex verbal structures are discussed in depth with the incorporation of the aspect category, which provides an enormous richness of nuances in the internal development of the action, and word order is considered one of the key features of the Chinese language. All the explanations are applied to numerous examples of real Chinese texts. This textbook is a valuable resource for students, teachers, and researchers in Chinese language courses including Chinese translation, Chinese linguistics, and comparison linguistics in general.

The Blackwell Companion to Syntax

The Blackwell Companion to Syntax
Author: Martin Everaert
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 3575
Release: 2008-04-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1405178418

*** Pre-Order The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, second edition, publishing December 2017. Find out more at www.companiontosyntax.com *** This long-awaited reference work marks the culmination of numerous years of research and international collaboration by the world's leading syntacticians. There exists no other comparable collection of research that documents the development of syntax in this way. Under the editorial direction of Martin Everaert and Henk van Riemsdijk, this 5 volume set comprises 70 case studies commissioned specifically for this volume. The 80 contributors are drawn from an international group of prestigious linguists, including Joe Emonds, Sandra Chung, Susan Rothstein, Adriana Belletti, Jim Huang, Howard Lasnik, and Marcel den Dikken, among many others. A unique collection of 70 newly-commissioned case studies, offering access to research completed over the last 40 years. Brings together the world’s leading syntacticians to provide a large and diverse number of case studies in the field. Explores a comprehensive range of syntax topics from an historical perspective. Investigates empirical domains which have been well-documented and which have played a prominent role in theoretical syntax at some stage in the development of generative grammar. Serves as a research tool for not only theoretical linguistics but also the various forms of applied linguistics. Contains an accessible alphabetical structure, with an index integral to each volume featuring keywords and key figures. Each multi-volume set is also accompanied by a CD Rom of the entire Companion. Like the prestigious Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics series, this multi-volume work, in the new The Wiley Blackwell Companions to Linguistics series, can be relied upon to deliver the quality and expertise with which Blackwell Publishing’s linguistics list is associated.

Classifier Structures in Mandarin Chinese

Classifier Structures in Mandarin Chinese
Author: Niina Ning Zhang
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2013-05-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110304996

This monograph addresses fundamental syntactic issues of classifier constructions, based on a thorough study of a typical classifier language, Mandarin Chinese. It shows that the contrast between count and mass is not binary. Instead, there are two independently attested features: Numerability, the ability of a noun to combine with a numeral directly, and Delimitability, the ability of a noun to be modified by a delimitive modifier, such as size, shape, or boundary modifier. Although all nouns in Chinese are non-count nouns, there is still a mass/non-mass contrast, with mass nouns selected by individuating classifiers and non-mass nouns selected by individual classifiers. Some languages have the counterparts of Chinese individuating classifiers only, some languages have the counterparts of Chinese individual classifiers only, and some other languages have no counterpart of either individual or individuating classifiers of Chinese. The book also reports that unit plurality can be expressed by reduplicative classifiers in the language. Moreover, for the constituency of a numeral expression, an individual, individuating, or kind classifier combines with the noun first and then the numeral is integrated; but a partitive or collective classifier, like a measure word, combines with the numeral first, before the noun is integrated into the whole nominal structure. Furthermore, the book identifies the syntactic positions of various uses of classifiers in the language. A classifier is at a functional head position that has a dependency with a numeral, or a position that has a dependency with a generic or existential quantifier, or a position that represents the singular-plural contrast, or a position that licenses a delimitive modifier when the classifier occurs in a compound.

A Systemic Functional Grammar of Chinese

A Systemic Functional Grammar of Chinese
Author: Eden Sum-hung Li
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2007-02-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1441127496

This book presents an analysis of Chinese grammar from a systemic functional perspective. Its main focus is the clausal grammar of Chinese, and Dr Li provides a thorough analysis of Chinese clauses according to their constituent parts. However, uniquely, the second half of the book extends this examination into an analysis of Chinese discourse and text analysis. Professor Halliday's foreword praises Eden Li's thorough analysis, and shows its relevance to the field of systemic functional linguistics in general. Systemic Functional Grammar of Chinese provides the reader with a general theoretical framework of grammar and discourse analysis from a systemic functional perspective.

The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure

The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure
Author: Caroline Féry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 993
Release: 2016-07-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0191005401

This book provides linguists with a clear, critical, and comprehensive overview of theoretical and experimental work on information structure. Leading researchers survey the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields. Following the editors' introduction the book is divided into four parts. The first, on theories of and theoretical perspectives on information structure, includes chapters on focus, topic, and givenness. Part 2 covers a range of current issues in the field, including quantification, dislocation, and intonation, while Part 3 is concerned with experimental approaches to information structure, including language processing and acquisition. The final part contains a series of linguistic case studies drawn from a wide variety of the world's language families. This volume will be the standard guide to current work in information structure and a major point of departure for future research.

Constraints on Reflexivization in Mandarin Chinese

Constraints on Reflexivization in Mandarin Chinese
Author: Haihua Pan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2013-11-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1135655413

First Published in 1997. Mandarin ziji has challenged many syntacticians to probe for its properties and specifically its relationship to Binding Condition A (BCA), which dictates that an anaphor must be bound by a syntactically prominent (or c-commanding) noun phrase in a very local domain (Governing Category or GC). This book argues for the separation of contrastive and non-contrastive reflexives. This book will also show that ben-ren/shen and their compound forms, being inherently contrastive, differ from ziji and its compound forms in the contexts accessible to them; the latter can access linguistic contexts only, but the former can also access utterance situations and world knowledge.