1

Introduction

1. Some basic facts

� Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language, and English is a West Germanic language of the

Indo-European language family.

� Chinese/Mandarin distinguishes itself from most other languages by being tonal and

having a special writing system, which employs Chinese characters (汉字 hànzì).

2. Typological characteristics of Mandarin and English

2.1 Tonal or not

� Along with many contiguous languages of Southeast Asia, Mandarin Chinese is a

tonal language.

� There are four tones in Mandarin Chinese:

• The first tone or the level tone (阴平 yīnpíng);

• The second tone or the rising tone (阳平 yángpíng);

• The third tone or the falling-rising tone (上声 shàngshēng);

• The fourth tone or the falling tone (去声 qùshēng).

� In addition to the four tones, there also exists a neutral tone (轻声 qīngshēng) in

Mandarin Chinese. Neutral tone words include those which do not have fundamental

tones (e.g. the question particle ma), and those which do have tones when

pronounced individually, but are not stressed in certain compounds (e.g. the second

ba in bàba ‘father’).

� Pinyin: There are many systems of transcribing Chinese in the Latin alphabet. Today

the most common romanization standard for Mandarin is Hànyǔ Pīnyīn (汉语拼音),

often known simply as Pīnyīn.

2.2 Isolating language or not?

� Isolating or analytic language: (i) The word was by and large coterminous with the

morpheme, and (ii) grammatical relationships were shown either by word order or by

the use of independent grammatical particles, rather than by affixes or by internal

changes in the word itself.

� A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language. E.g. uncontrollable

2

� In modern Chinese, however, 95 percent of morphemes are monosyllabic, but about

half or more than half of the words are polysyllabic and consist of more than one

morpheme.

� Therefore, by the criterion of one-morpheme-one-word, Chinese is not that isolating,

and neither is English in this respect.

� By the criterion of richness in inflectional morphemes, Chinese can be classified as an

isolating language, and English can be regarded as a fairly isolating language.

2.3 Monosyllabicity: morphemes or words?

� Chinese is not a monosyllabic language if monosyllabicity refers to words; however,

Chinese is indeed monosyllabic if monosyllabicity refers to morphemes. As for

English, it is not monosyllabic whether on the word level or on the morpheme level.

2.4 Topic prominence vs. subject prominence

� Chinese is a topic-prominent language and English is subject-prominent language.

� One of the most striking features of Mandarin sentence structure, and one that sets

Mandarin apart from many other languages, is that in addition to the grammatical

relations of ‘subject’ and ‘direct object,’ the description of Mandarin must also

include the element ‘topic.’ Because of the importance of ‘topic’ in the grammar of

Mandarin, it can be termed a topic-prominent language.

2.5 Word order

� Greenberg 1966: three major groups of world languages, namely VSO, SVO, and SOV

� As far as the distribution of VO and OV order is concerned, Mandarin is undoubtedly

a VO language. Because subject typically appears in the pre-verbal position in

Chinese, Chinese can be classified as an SVO language. By the same standard,

English is also an SVO language.

Phoneme, Tone, and Intonation

1. Phoneme and phonological system:

� Phoneme: The smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a

distinction in meaning.

3

� Differences in the phonological system between English and Chinese:

• English has dental fricatives (i.e. /θ ð/), but Mandarin does not.

• With respect to plosives/stops, being voiced or not is a phonemic feature in

English, but in Mandarin the relevant feature is not voicing, but aspiration.

• Mandarin has a group of retroflex sounds that English lacks.

• With respect to front vowels, rounding is a relevant feature to Mandarin, but not

to English.

� Phonological universals:

• The minimal vowel system includes /i a u/. All known languages are said to have

these three vowels, or slight variations of them.

• All languages have stop consonants.

• If a language distinguishes stops at three places of articulation, then these places

are labial, dental/alveolar (coronal), and velar.

2. Tone, intonation, and their functions

2.1 Tone

� Definition of tone: the pattern of pitch changes that affects the meaning of a word.

Tone is a suprasegmental property.

� Phonetic properties of tone: The primary acoustic correlate of tone is fundamental

frequency (F0), the main articulatory correlate of tone is the tension of the vocal folds,

and the perception of tone depends on the perceived pitch level of F0. (Pitch is a

perceptual term referring to a listener’s perception of the F0 of the speech signal.)

� Tone classification: Since tone is manifested by the pitch of the voice, each tone is

classified according to: (i) how high or low the pitch is (PITCH LEVEL); and (ii) what

the pattern of pitch change is (PITCH CONTOUR).

(1) Simple classification of tone

a. Level tone: high, mid, low

b. Contour tone: rising, falling, rising-falling, falling-rising

• In terms of tonal classification, Mandarin has one level tone and three contour

tones.

2.2 Intonation

� When we speak, the pitch of our voice is changing continuously. The pattern of pitch

changes over a word, phrase or sentence is called INTONATION, which is also part of

suprasegmental phonology. Intonation expressed syntactic and contextual meanings

but not word meanings. In other words, TONE makes use of pitch variation to

distinguish word meaning, whereas INTONATION is the pitch variation pattern to

4

convey the syntactic and contextual meaning of a word, phrase or sentence, such as

statement, question, affirmation, command, surprise, and emphasis.

� In a non-tone language like English, pitch variation is used only for intonation. On the

other hand, in a tone language like Mandarin, pitch variation is used for both tone and

intonation.

2.3 Meanings and functions of intonation

� Some basic meanings of intonation (those in italics can be extended to Mandarin)

(i) Fall

Finality, definiteness: I’m absolutely ˎcertain

(ii) Rise

General questions: Can you ˏhelp me

Listing: ˏRed ˏbrown ˏyellow or ˎblue

(fall is normal on the last item)

‘More to follow’: I phoned them right aˏway

(and they agreed to come)

Encouraging: It won’t ˏhurt

(iii) Fall-rise

Uncertainty, doubt: Its ˯possible

Requesting: Can I ˯buy it

(iv) Rise-fall

Surprise, being impressed: You were ˰first

� Functions of intonation

• Attitudinal function:

• Accentual function: Intonation helps to produce the effect of prominence on

syllables that need to be perceived as stressed.

• Grammatical function: The listener is better able to recognize the grammar and

syntactic structure of what is being said by using the information contained in the

intonation.

• Discourse function: Intonation can signal to the listener what is to be taken as

“new” information and what is already “given,” can suggest when the speaker is

indicating some sort of contrast or link with material in another tone-unit and, in

conversation, can convey to the listener what kind of response is expected.

5

Stress and Syllable

1. Stress

� Mandarin is a tone language, and English is a stress language.

� Definition of stress: Like tone, stress is also a SUPRASEGMENTAL PROPERTY of the

syllable. A STRESSED SYLLABLE is made more prominent or salient than an

UNSTRESSED SYLLABLE in a word, a phrase, or in the flow of speech by being higher

in pitch, longer in duration, and/or louder. E.g. horizon

In terms of articulation, a stressed syllable is produced with more respiratory energy

and laryngeal activity, and in terms of perception, a stressed syllable stands out as

more prominent or salient than its surrounding unstressed syllables.

� Stress and emphasis: Stress can also be used to emphasize a particular word or

syllable contrasting with another one in a phrase/sentence. Mandarin, like English

and all other languages, also has this kind of sentence level emphatic stress.

� Stress in SC and its interaction with tone

• The most obvious and uncontroversial exhibition of word stress in Mandarin is

demonstrated by those disyllabic words with a NEUTRAL TONE. When the first

syllable has a full tone (non-neutral tone) and the second one has the neutral tone

(i.e. is toneless), it is always the case that the first syllable is stressed and the

second one unstressed.

• However, when each syllable in a word has a full tone, as in most words in

Mandarin, it is not clear which syllable is stressed.

� Word stress in English: At least some rules can be formulated.

• Only strong syllables can be stressed. Weak syllables are always unstressed.

A strong syllable has a rime which either has a syllable peak which is a long

vowel or diphthong, or a vowel followed by a coda (that is, one or more

consonants). Weak syllables have a syllable peak which is a short vowel, and no

coda unless the syllable peak is the schwa vowel əəəə or (in some circumstances) ɪɪɪɪ.

� Stress in complex words

o Two major types of complex words: (i) words made from a basic word form

(which we will call the stem), with the addition of an affix; and (ii)

compound words, which are made of two (or occasionally more) independent

words (e.g. ‘ice-cream’, ‘armchair’).

6

o Affixes have one of three possible effects on word stress: (i) The affix itself

receives the primary stress (e.g. ‘semi-’ + ‘circle’ ˈsɜ:kl̩ → ‘semicircle’

semɪsɜ:kl̩; ‘-ality’ + ‘person’ ˈ̍̍̍pɜɜɜɜ:sn ̩̩ ̩̩ ‘personality’ pɜɜɜɜ:sn ̩̩ ̩̩ ˈ̍̍̍æləəəəti); (ii) the word is

stressed just as if the affix were not there (e.g. ‘pleasant’ ˈ̍̍̍plezn ̩̩ ̩̩t, ‘unpleasant’

ʌʌʌʌnˈ̍̍̍plezn ̩̩ ̩̩t; ‘market’ ˈ̍̍̍mɑɑɑɑ:kɪɪɪɪt, ‘marketing’ ˈ̍̍̍mɑɑɑɑ:kɪɪɪɪtɪɪɪɪŋŋŋŋ); (iii) the stress remains on

the stem, not the affix, but is shifted to a different syllable (e.g. ‘magnet’

ˈ̍̍̍mægnet, ‘magnetic’ mæg ˈ̍̍̍netɪɪɪɪk).

o As for compounds, perhaps the most familiar type is the one which combines

two nouns and which normally has the stress on the first element. E.g.

typewriter, suitcase, tea-cup, sunrise.

2. Syllable

� Phonetically (that is, in relation to the way we produce them and the way they sound),

syllables are usually described as consisting of a center which has little or no

obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud; before and after this

center (that is, at the beginning and end of the syllable), there will be greater

obstruction to airflow and/or less loud sound.

2.1 Syllable structure

� A syllable can be analyzed in terms of ONSET, RIME, NUCLEUS, and CODA (which are

consonants).

(1) syllable

onset rime

nucleus/peak coda

� A syllable that has no coda is called an OPEN SYLLABLE and a syllable that has a coda

is called a CLOSED SYLLABLE. In Mandarin, most syllables are open syllables.

� One major difference between the syllable in Mandarin and that in English is that

English can have more segments in the onset and coda, e.g. strange [streindʒ].

Compared with English, Mandarin has a simpler syllable structure and many

fewer syllable types.

In Mandarin, the onset typically contains just one consonant, and in some cases

contains a consonant and a glide (i.e. [j, w]). As for the coda, which most Mandarin

syllables do not have, it can contain only one consonant.

7

In English, the word can begin with a vowel, or with one, two or three consonants. No

word begins with more than three consonants. The word can end with a vowel, or

with one, two, three or (in a small number of cases) four consonants. No word ends

with more than four consonants. That is, the onset in English can have at most three

consonants and the coda can have at most four consonants.

2.2 (Re)syllabification

� A universal principle—the Sonority Sequencing Principle:

(2) The Sonority Sequencing Principle (The SSP)

The syllable has increasing sonority before the nucleus and decreasing sonority

after the nucleus.

• The sonority peak of a syllable is the nuclear segment or the more sonorous

segment within the nucleus.

(3) Sonority hierarchy (more sonorous > > less sonorous)

low vowels > > mid vowels > > high vowels > > approximants > > nasals > >

fricatives > > stops/affricates

Other than the acoustic and auditory characteristics that define the degree of

sonority, the sonority hierarchy corresponds to the degree of CONSTRICTION in

articulation.

� Another universal principle—the Maximal Onset Principle

• For a POLYSYLLABIC word, there is the question as to which consonants in the

middle of the word should be assigned to the onset of the following syllable and

which to the coda of the preceding syllable. E.g. [ət.ɹækt] or [ə.tɹækt]?

• The universal MAXIMAL ONSET PRINCIPLE prefers maximizing the syllabification

of consonants to the following onset as long as the resulting onset is a permissible

onset of the language in question.

Writing System and the Notion of Word

1. Writing system

1.1 Introduction

� While English uses the Latin or Roman alphabet, which is the most widely used

alphabetic writing system in the world, Mandarin employs characters, a non-

alphabetic writing system.

8

� Grapheme: It is the basic graphic unit in a script that corresponds to the smallest

segment of speech represented in writing. English graphemes are letters, whereas

Chinese graphemes are characters.

� Writing systems in the world can be differentiated along two dimensions. First is the

size of the speech segments that are represented by the basic graphic units, and

second is whether the graphic units encode speech sound only, or both speech sound

and meaning.

• Writing systems differ with regard to whether it is phoneme or syllable that is

represented by the grapheme. Graphemes in languages like English represent

phonemes, which may assume the form of a letter or group of letters. Graphemes

in languages like Chinese represent a syllable. Thus, the writing systems of

languages like English are said to be phonemic, whereas those of Chinese are

syllabic.

• Furthermore, graphemes differ with regard to whether they encode pure phonetic

values, or phonetic values together with meaning. Those used as pure phonetic

symbols devoid of meaning are called phonographic, whereas those encoding

phonetic value together with meaning are called logographic. The former are

exemplified by letters in languages like English, and the latter by characters in

Chinese.

1.2 Chinese writing system

� Pros or merits of the Chinese script: From a purely linguistic perspective, the Chinese

writing system has two major advantages in comparison to the various phonographic

writings which have been proposed for the language: (i) its capacity to differentiate

homophonous morphemes and (ii) its versatility in bridging time and dialects.

� Cons:

• Difficulty of learning

• Difficulty of use

• Contribution to dialectal diversity

2. The notion of “word”

2.1 Some definitions

� Word, hard to define: For speakers of some languages, the ‘word’ is a robustly

intuitive notion. But it seems that no matter what the language is, we have hard time

9

providing an exact definition that encompasses all and only those entities that our

intuition tells us are words.

� Linguistic criteria

• Orthographic word

• Sociological word: The sociological word is the zì 字 ‘character’ in Chinese.

• Lexical word or listeme

• Semantic word: semantic primitives

• Phonological word: potential pauses

• Morphological word: the result or “output” of a word-formation rule.

E.g. māotóuyīng (cat-head-hawk) ‘owl’

• Syntactic word: A syntactic word is a form that can stand as an independent

occupant of a syntactic form-class slot commonly designated in the literature as

X0 (i.e. the head or the core element of a phrase). This is probably the most

common current linguistic characterization of the notion “word.”

book, the book, that interesting book

On this definition, words are “syntactic atoms” or the minimal units of syntax.

2.2 The Chinese concept of ‘word’

� Recent psycholinguistic studies suggest that two-morpheme disyllabic words are

stored, retrieved and perceived as gestalt units. E.g. yuèliang ‘moon’; dàxiǎo ‘size’

Also, studies show that Chinese native speakers can have over 85 percent agreement

on word boundaries.

2.3 Word as a linguistic construct

� Rather than being an artifact of western linguistic analysis, word is real and

fundamental to the nature of language. It exists as a real linguistic construct

universally used in producing and understanding utterances.

10

Word Classes

1. Some general remarks on word classes

� It is common wisdom in modern linguistics that N and V are two basic categories.

The fundamental distinction between N and V might be a reflection of proto-

categories, a concept that traces its origin to psychological studies of human cognition.

� How to define word classes:

• The oldest way—notional definitions: In the old tradition, a noun is defined as “a

word that denotes a person, place or thing,” and a verb is an “action word.”

• A variant of the above semantic approach → more abstract semantic criteria: For

instance, a noun is a symbolic unit that semantically instantiates a schema referred

to as [THING].

• To supplement these meaning-based definitions (or even to replace them), word

classes are often defined in terms of their morphosyntactic properties, i.e. by

using inflectional and distributional properties.

2. English word classes (BAS AARTS & LILIANE HAEGEMAN 2006)

� For English, most linguists agree on the need to recognize at least the following word

classes: noun, verb, adjective, preposition, adverb, determinative and conjunction.

� Word class boundaries and gradience: The problematic cases such as such raise the

more general question of whether the boundaries between the word classes can really

be sharply delimited.

• Prototype Theory and word classes: Cognitive linguists refuses to accept what we

might call the categorial straitjacket, and strive to build the concept of prototypes

into their theories.

• Gradience: We could say that both must and eat are verbs but that eat is a more

prototypical verb than must. This approach leads to postulating what is called

Subsective Gradience. That is, grammatical categories involve a categorial core (the

prototypes) as well as a periphery which consists of a number of less prototypical

members.

3. Chinese word classes (= Huang et al. (2009)’s “lexical categories”)

� Verbs and nouns—basic distinctions

11

• In Chinese, the two categories can be clearly distinguished on the basis of their

modifiability by the negative morpheme bu ‘not.’

• Another difference: Verbs can take objects directly, but the semantic argument of

a noun needs to be introduced by a preposition, in this case, dui.

(1) Verb

meiti baodao-le na-ci shigu.

media report-LE that-CL accident

‘The media reported that accident.’

(2) Nouns

meiti *(dui) na-ci shigu de baodao

media on that-CL accident DE report

‘the media’s report of that accident’

� Prepositions, conjunctions, adjectives, adverbs

(3) Prepositions

a. zhiyu ‘as for,’ guanyu ‘about,’ …

b. cong ‘from’

c. gei ‘to/for,’ zai ‘at,’ xiang ‘toward,’ …

d. ba, bei

Word Structure

1. Introduction

� Morpheme: the smallest meaningful unit. A word must consist of at least one

morpheme; there are no ‘morphemeless’ words. E.g. shyness

� Types of morphemes: Free morphemes can occur on their own, without any other

morphemes attached to them. Morphemes that appear only in combination with other,

usually free, morphemes are called bound.

� Simplex words and complex words: Words consisting of only one morpheme are

called monomorphemic or simplex words, and those that contain two or more

morphemes are called polymorphemic or complex words.

� Base: Morphemes like mother in motherhood and manage in management are called

bases since they serve as the basis for attaching other, usually bound, morphemes,

such as -hood and -ment. Bases can be simplex or complex.

Derivative: a word that is derived from the base. E.g. settlement

12

Root: a simplex base that cannot be analyzed any further into constituent morphemes.

Roots are the core elements of words, and normally a word cannot exist without a

root.

� Affixes: bound morphemes

• Prefix: affixes that are attached before the base

• Suffix: affixes that are appear after the base

• Infix: affixes that are inserted into the base

� Infection and derivation:

• Infection: Affixes that are used to encode grammatical information and to create

different word-forms of the same lexeme are called inflectional, and the

morphological expression of grammatical information and categories is termed

inflection.

• Derivation: Affixes that serve to create new lexemes are called derivational, and

the creation of new lexemes by affixation is called derivation.

Inflectional morphemes can be attached to most or all words of a given class,

whereas derivational morphemes have a more restricted usage. E.g. -ity: sanity,

clarity, stability, creativity, polarity (but: *longity; *joyfulity, *freeity)

Whenever an affix changes the word-class of the base, it is a derivational affix.

2. Word formation in English

� Derivation/Affixation: create new words by adding affixes to existing bases;

prefixation and suffixation

� Compounding:

(1) a. ashtray, windmill, hotline

b. income tax increase, education minister

c. fast-food, icy-cold, call-girl

• Compounds can generally be interpreted in such a way that the whole compound

denotes a subset of the entities denoted by the right-hand element. Thus, the right-

hand element of a compound contributes the main information about the meaning,

and can therefore be regarded as the more important element of the compound in

terms of meaning.

• The right-hand element is more important than the left-hand element in

determining the grammatical features of a compound, such as, for instance, its

number.

13

• It is the right-hand element, and not the left-hand element, that determines the

word-class of the whole compound.

• Generally, compounds have one element that is semantically and grammatically

more important than other elements. This element is called the head of the

compound. In English compounds, the head is usually the right-hand element.

The left-hand elements of compounds describe or specify the heads of compounds,

i.e. provide additional information about them. The left-hand elements are called

modifiers.

• Whereas NN compounding is the most productive pattern in English, VV

compounding is extremely rare.

� Conversion (zero-derivation, zero-affixation): change the word-class without any

change in form, e.g. to saw with a saw

� Shortening

• Truncations/clippings: doc

• Blending: smog

• Abbreviations: US

3. Word formation in Mandarin and Chinese morphology

3.1 Compounding: píngguǒ-shù (apple-tree) ‘apple tree’

� A large number of verb-verb compounds are composed of a verb that is followed

by a resultative complement. E.g. dǎ-pò (hit-break) ‘to break’

3.2 Derivation

� Prefixes: Chinese prefixes mostly involve morphemes like lǎo-/xiǎo-, di-, and chū-.

� Suffixes: yǔyán-xué (language-school) ‘linguistics’

� Infixes: potential markers -de- 得 ‘can’ and -bu- 不 ‘cannot’

(2) a. kàn-jiàn tā look-see 3RD

‘see him’

14

b. kàn-de-jiàn tā look-POT-see 3RD

‘can see him’

c. kàn-bu-jiàn tā look-NEG-see 3RD

‘cannot see him’

3.3 Shortening: Běitú ‘Beijing Library’ [Běijīng Túshūguǎn (Beijing-library)]

3.4 Conversion: jù ‘saw’ [N.] → jù ‘to saw’ [V.]

3.5 Clitics—beyond the limit of word

Clitics are linguistic particles with an ambiguous status between affixes and words.

They are not attached to stems but are positioned within some syntactic categories

such as noun phrases and verb phrases. They are morphemes that are grammatically

independent, but phonologically dependent on some other word or phrase.

� Sentence-final particles: ne 呢； ba 吧； a/ya 啊；ma 吗

(3) nǐ qù ma?

2ND go Q

‘Will you go?’

[English clitics: ’m, ’re, ’s, -ve, -ll

Classifiers and Measure Words

1. Introduction

� Mandarin exhibits a whole array of classifiers that categorize nouns into different

classes.

2. Distinction between classifiers and measure words

� Classifiers vs. measure words:

“A classifier categorizes a class of nouns by picking out some salient perceptual

properties, either physically or functionally based, which are permanently associated

with entities named by the class of nouns; a measure word does not categorize but

denotes the quantity of the entity named by a noun.” (Tai and Wang 1990: 38)

• The distinction has a cognitive basis in that while classifiers refer to relatively

“inherent,” “intrinsic,” “essential,” or “permanent” properties of entities, measure

words refer to “contingent,” “accidental,” or “temporary” properties. That is,

15

while a classifier is used to “categorize” an object in reference to its salient

perceptual properties, a measure word is used to “measure” the quantity of an

object or a collection of objects.

3. Relevant cognitive categories in the Chinese classifier system

� There is evidence that the Chinese classifier system is cognitively based and that it is

not an arbitrary system for the classification of nouns. That is, the Chinese classifier

system largely reflects conceptual structures and human categorization.

• Animacy: In the great majority of Chinese dialects, animals are distinguished

from inanimate objects and organisms with respect to the use of classifiers. The

general classifier for the category of animals is zhī.

• Shape

o Longness: tiáo, gēn, zhī：

o Flatness: zhāng: used to categorize zhǐ ‘paper,’ zhuōzi ‘table,’ and chuáng

‘bed.’

o Roundness: lì: used for relatively small roundish objects such as mǐ ‘rice’ and

shāzi ‘sand’

• Size

o tóu: used for relatively large animals such as niú ‘ox’

o zuò ‘seat’: used for massive and solid objects such as shān ‘mountain,’ qiáo

‘bridge,’ and dàlóu ‘big building’

• Consistency

o tiáo: more flexible objects

o gēn & zhī: more rigid objects

o kuài: for hard object; e.g. yí kuàn tiě ‘one chunk of iron’

o tuán: for mushy objects; e.g. yì tuán miánhuā ‘one ball of cotton’

• Attributes referring to parts of objects

bǎ: still limited to those objects with a handle: dāo ‘knife’, jiàn ‘sword’, yǐzi

‘chair’

16

� The Chinese classifier system is cognitively and semantically motivated and is not

arbitrary. It mostly reflects conceptual structures, and it provides important evidence

that linguistic structure does involve general cognitive apparatus.

Notion of “Subject”

1. Towards a universal definition of “subject” (Keenan 1976)

1.1 Introduction

� Purpose: to provide a definition of the notion “subject of” which will enable us to

identify the subject phrase(s), if any, of any sentence in any language.

1.2 Thirty odd characteristic properties of basic subject

� The properties may be pragmatic, semantic, or syntactic. None of the properties is

both a necessary and a sufficient condition.

� Four major categories of b-subject properties

• Autonomy Properties

1. Independent Existence.

2. Indispensability.

3. Autonomous Reference. The reference of a b-subject must be determinable by the

addressee at the moment of utterance.

3.1 B-subjects are generally among the possible controllers of stipulated

coreference, either positive or negative.

3.1.1 B-subjects in general can control reflexive pronouns. And in some Ls

control of reflexives within clauses is largely restricted to b-subjects.

3.1.2 B-subjects are among the possible controllers of coreferential deletions

and pronominalizations.

3.1.3 The possible controllers of backwards pronominalization and deletions

include b-subjects.

3.2 The NPs which control “switch reference” indicators include b-subjects.

3.3 The NPs which control verb agreement, if any, include b-subjects.

3.4 B-subjects are the easiest NPs to stipulate the coreference among two or more

clauses.

17

3.4.1 If anaphoric pronouns in sentence complements of verbs of thinking can

be bound by NPs in the matrix clause, then these pronouns can always

occur in subject position in the complement clause.

3.4.2 NPs which can be coreferentially deleted in sentence complements when

coreferential with matrix NPs always include subjects.

3.4.3 The NPs which can be coreferentially deleted across coordinate

conjunctions include b-subjects.

3.4.4 The NPs which can be coreferentially deleted under verb serialization

generally include b-subjects.

3.5 Absolute Reference. In the overwhelming majority of cases, if a b-sentence is

true, then we understand that there is an entity (concrete or abstract) which is

referred to, or has the property expressed by, the b-subject. E.g. John worships

the Sun Goddess.

3.6 Presupposed Reference. Certain operations like negation, questioning, and

conditionalization in subjunctive form have the effect of suspending the

reference of normally referential NPs. The reference of a b-subject however is

harder to suspend under these operations.

3.7 Metaphoric Idioms. These often suspend the reference or existence implication

of NPs. And again, b-subjects are the most reluctant of the major NPs to

abandon their reference.

3.8 Topic. b-subjects are normally the topic of the b-sentence, i.e. they identify

what the speaker is talking about.

3.9 Highly Referential NPs (e.g. personal pronouns, proper nouns, and

demonstratives) can always occur as subjects.

3.10 Subjects are the most natural targets of “advancement” transformations.

3.11 Basic, or relatively basic, subjects have wider scope, logically speaking, than

non-subjects. [semantic forms]

3.12 B-subjects are normally the leftmost occurring NP in b-sentences.

3.13 The NPs which can be relativized, questioned, and cleft include b-subjects.

3.14 The NPs whose possessors can be relativized, questioned, and cleft include b-

subjects.

3.15 A personal pronoun is rarely present in a position relativized if that position is a

b-subject one.

18

3.16 B-subjects are always among the NPs in a language which can undergo raising.

3.17 Subjects can always be expressed by morphologically independent, possibly

emphatic, pronouns. These pronouns can be conjoined with full NP.

3.18 NPs which allow floating quantifiers (e.g. all the boys left/ the boys all left)

include subjects.

• Case Marking Properties

1. B-subjects of intransitive sentences are usually not case marked if any of the NPs

in the language are not case marked.

2. The NPs which change their case marking under causativization include b-subjects.

3. The NPs which change their case marking in action nominalizations include b-

subjects. Usually a b-subject changes to a possessor case or the noun-subject

agent case.

• Semantic Role

1. The semantic role (Agent, Experiencer, etc.) of the referent of a b-subject is

predictable from the form of the main verb.

2.1 B-subjects normally express the agent of the action, if there is one.

2.2 Subjects normally express the addressee phrase of imperatives.

2.3 B-subjects normally exhibit the same position, case marking, and verb

agreements as does the causer NP in the most basic type of causative sentence.

• Immediate Dominance: The b-subject is immediately dominated by the root node

S.

1.3 Another classification of the properties and the Promotion to Subject Hierarchy (PSH)

(1) Promotion to Subject Hierarchy (PSH)

Coding Properties > Behavior and Control Properties > Semantic Properties

position > case deletion, movement, case changing Agency, autonomous

marking > verb properties, control of cross-reference existence, selectional

agreement properties, etc. restrictions, etc.

19

2. Subjects in English

(2) The dog is chasing the cat.

(3) The novel was written by Ernest Hemingway.

(4) There comes the bus.

3. Subjects in Mandarin

3.1 Properties of subject in Mandarin

(5) Subject properties in Chinese

a. Subject is always unmarked by preposition.

b. In position, subject can be normally identified as the first animate NP to the left

of the verb; otherwise, the NP immediately before the verb.

c. Subject always bears some selectional relation to the main verb of a sentence.

d. Subject tends to have a specific reference.

e. Subject plays an important role in the following coreferential NP

pronominalization or deletion process: true reflexivization, imperativization,

and Equi-NP deletion.

4. Subject vs. topic

4.1 Properties of topic in Chinese

(6) Properties of Chinese topic

a. Topic invariably occupies the S-initial position of the first clause in a topic

chain.

b. Topic can optionally be separated from the rest of the sentence in which it

overtly occurs by one of the four pause particles a (ya), ne, me, and ba.

c. Topic is always definite.

d. Topic is a discourse notion; it may, and often does, extend its semantic domain

to more than one clause.

e. Topic is in control of the pronominalization or deletion of all the coreferential

NPs in a topic chain.

f. Topic, except in clauses in which it is also subject, plays no role in such

processes as true reflexivization, Equi-NP deletion, and imperativization.

(7) Zhe-ben shu (a), wo yijing nian-le san-bian, haishi bu dong.

this-CL book (PART) I already read-ASP 3-times still not understand

‘Speaking of This book, I have already read (it) three times; still I don’t understand

(it).’

20

4.2 Comparison of Subject and Topic

(8) Two groups of processes:

Group A: Processes in which subject plays an important role are true

reflexiviation, Equi-NP deletion and imperitivization.

Group B: Processes in which topic plays an important role are coordinate

conjunction reduction, Topic-NP deletion, the former being a special

case of the latter, relativization and relativized NP deletion.

� Groups A and B seem to form natural classes. The processes in Group A are those

that have to do with clause-internal mechanisms, and those in Group B are processes

that go beyond a single clause.

� This above observation ties in very well with the semantic domain of subject and

topic respectively. Subject is a syntactic notion and it has its domain over a VP node.

It is, therefore, expected that it should play an important role in clause-internal

grammatical processes. Topic, on the other hand, is a discourse notion and it may

extend its domain over several clauses. It is not surprising that it should play an

important part in all these processes which invole more than one clause.

(9) Overlapping:

Na-ke shu hua xiao, _____ yezi da, _____

TOPIC SUBJECT TOPIC SUBJECT TOPIC or SUB.

that-CL tree flowers small leaves big

hen nan-kan, suoyi wo mei mai _____.

TOPIC or DIR. OBJ.

very ugly so I not buy

‘The tree (topic), (its) flowers are small. (Its) leaves are big. (It) was ugly; so I

didn’t buy (it).”

Topic Prominence and Subject Prominence

1. Introduction

� Four basic types of languages:

(i) languages that are subject-prominent (e.g. Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Finno-

Ugric, Simitic, Dyirbal, Indonesian, Malagasy; )

(ii) languages that are topic-prominent [e.g. Chinese, Lahu (Lolo-Burmese), Lisu

(Lolo-Burmese)]

(iii) languages that are both subject-prominent and topic-prominent (e.g. Japanese,

Korean);

(iv) languages that are neither subject-prominent nor topic-prominent [e.g. Tagalog,

Illocano (Philippines)]

21

� In subject-prominent (Sp) languages, the structure of sentences favors a description in

which the grammatical relation subject-predicate plays a major role; in topic-

prominent (Tp) languages, the basic structure of sentences favors a description in

which the grammatical relation topic-comment plays a major role. In type (iii)

languages, there are two equally important distinct sentence constructions, the

subject-predicate construction and the topic-comment construction; in type (iv)

languages, the subject and the topic have merged and are no longer distinguishable in

all sentence types.

2. Subject vs. Topic

� Definite. One of the primary characteristics of topics is that they must be definite. A

subject, on the other hand, need not be definite

� Selectional relations. An important property of the topic is that it need not have a

selectional relation with any verb in a sentence; that is, it need not be an argument of

a predicative constituent. The subject, on the other hand, always has a selectional

relation with some predicate in the sentence. The so-called “dummy subject” are only

apparent exceptions, since they have no semantic content, and cannot therefore be

included in a generalization concerning the semantic relationship between nouns and

verbs.

� Verb determines “Subject” but not “Topic.” A correlate of the fact that a subject is

selectionally related to the verb is the fact that, with certain qualifications, it is

possible to predict what the subject of any given verb will be.

� Functional role. The functional role of the topic is constant across sentences. It sets a

spatial, temporal, or individual framework within which the main predication holds.

Clearly, this function of specifying the domain within which the predication holds is

related to the structure of the discourse in which the sentence is about. In cases where

the subject NP is not empty, the functional role of the subject can be defined within

the confines of a sentence as opposed to a discourse.

� Verb-agreement. The verb in many languages shows obligatory agreement with the

subject of a sentence. Topic-predicate agreement, however, is very rare.

� Sentence-initial position. The surface coding of the topic in all the languages

examined by Li & Thompson always involve the sentence-initial position. However,

subject is not confined to the sentence-initial position.

� Grammatical processes. The subject but not the topic plays a prominent role in such

processes as reflexivization, passivization, Equi-NP deletion, verb serialization, and

imperativization.

22

� Conclusion: The topic is a discourse notion, whereas the subject is to a greater extent

a sentence-internal notion. The former can be understood best in terms of the

discourse and extra-sentential considerations; the latter in terms of its functions

within the sentence structure.

3. Characteristics of topic-prominent languages

� Surface coding. In Tp languages, there will be a surface coding for the topic, but not

necessarily for the subject.

� The passive construction. The passive construction is common among Sp languages.

Among Tp languages, on the other hand, passivization either does not occur at all (e.g.

Lahu, Lisu), or appears as a marginal construction, rarely used in speech (e.g.

Mandarin), or carries a special meaning (e.g. the ‘adversity’ passive in Japanese).

� “Dummy” subjects. “Dummy” or “empty” subjects, such as the English it and there,

the German es, the French il and ce, may be found in the Sp language but not in a Tp

language.

� “Double subject.” Tp languages are famous for their pervasive so-called “double

subject” constructions.

(1) Nèike shù yèzi hěn dà (Mandarin)

that tree leaves very big

‘That tree (topic), the leaves are big.’

� Controlling co-reference. In a Tp language, the topic, and not the subject, typically

controls co-referential constituent deletion.

(2) Nèike shù yèzi dà, suǒyi wǒ bu xǐhuān ______.

that tree leaves big so I not like

‘That tree (topic), the leaves are big, so I don't like it.’

� V-final languages. Tp languages tend to be verb-final languages. Japanese, Korean,

Lisu, and Lahu are indisputable verb-final languages.

� Constraints on topic constituent. In certain Sp languages, the topic-comment type

of sentence is highly constrained in terms of what can serve as the topic constituent.

For example, Indonesian only allows the surface subject constituent and the genitive

of the surface subject constituent to be the topic. In topic-prominent languages, on the

other hand, there are no constraints on what may be the topic.

� Basicness of topic-comment sentences. “Perhaps the most striking difference

between a Tp language and a non-Tp language is the extent to which the topic-

23

comment sentence can be considered to be part of the repertoire of basic sentence

types in the former but not in the latter” (Li & Thompson 1976: 471).

� Summary of distinguishing characteristics of Tp languages: In these languages, topics

are coded in the surface structure and they tend to control co-referentiality; the topic-

oriented ‘double subject’ construction is a basic sentence type, while such subject-

oriented constructions as the passive and ‘dummy’ subject sentences are rare or non-

existent.

Zero Anaphora and Null Subjects

1. “Zero pronouns” in Mandarin

� A salient feature of Mandarin grammar is the fact that noun phrases that are

understood from context do not need to be specified (hence “zero pronoun”).

However, the use of pronouns is much more common in Indo-European languages,

especially in English.

� The third person pronoun in Mandarin is rarely used to refer to an inanimate entity.

� One common situation in which noun phrases are unspecified is the topic chain,

where a referent is referred to in the first clause, and then there follow several more

clauses talking about the same referent but not overtly mentioning that referent.

� Mandarin is a null-subject or topic-drop language and English is not.

2. Pronouns

� Pronouns often do occur in Mandarin conversation.

� It is not enough just to say that whenever the referent can be understood or figured

out, a zero pronoun can be used, because there are times when it would be quite

obvious what the referent for a given pronoun would be if it were omitted, and yet it

must be used. The important notion in this respect is “highlighting.”

� 1st and 2nd person pronouns: The speaker has some reason to call attention to the fact

that it is that particular person who is being addressed. It is also normally more

respectful to highlight that the question is being addressed to that hearer and to no one

else.

� In general, ordinary information-seeking questions will contain pronouns in most

contexts, since the context is neutral with regard to what the referent of the pronoun

might be. Since questions such as these are in no way expected in most contexts, the

use of the pronoun highlights the fact that the subject of the question is indeed the

hearer himself/herself.

24

� Due to implicit contrast and the need of highlighting, subjects are nearly always

expressed with verbs such as xiǎng ‘think,’ juéde ‘feel,’ shuō ‘say’; these expressions

typically offer the speakers subjective and personal assessment of the topic under

discussion.

� First person pronouns are rarely omitted in statements that initiate conversation: at

the beginning of a conversation, there are no assumptions about what the subject of

the sentence is.

� In sum, decision to use a pronoun in referring to people and things depends not only

on whether the referent is understood, but on whether there is reason to highlight the

referent of the pronoun in the context in which it occurs.

3. Syntactic constraints on zero pronouns

� The occurrence of a pronoun can, however, be required by the syntactic structure of a

sentence. There are two syntactic environments in which a zero pronoun is not

allowed, regardless of the discourse factors.

• First, the noun phrase occurring immediately after a preposition cannot be a zero

pronoun.

• Second, the pivotal noun phrase in a serial verb construction cannot be a zero

pronoun.

Clause Types

1. Introduction

� Clause type is the technical term referring to the syntactic categories of declarative,

interrogative, imperative and exclamative, each of which is associated with a

characteristic use.

Clause type Example Characteristic meaning/use

Declarative She is sensible Statement

Interrogative Is she sensible? Question

Imperative Be sensible! Directive

Exclamative How sensible she is! Exclamatory statement

� Illocutionary force: A typical utterance of the declarative would be a statement, used

to assert the proposition, but a typical utterance of the interrogative would be a

question, used to question the proposition.

25

2. Declaratives and statements

� There are at least two types of linguistic factor that may disrupt this correlation

between declarative clause type and the illocutionary force of statement.

• Firstly, when illocutionary verbs such as forgive, promise, testify, offer, and

congratulate are used performatively, the statement force is relegated to

secondary status. E.g. when the declarative clause I congratulate you is used by

the speaker to congratulate the addressee, it has the primary illocutionary force of

a congratulation rather than a statement (as reflected in the likelihood of its being

reported as You congratulated me rather than You said you congratulated me).

• Secondly, a declarative can be endowed with indirect directive force by various

additional means, such as the use of a modal (e.g. You will/must be here by five),

or an expression of the speaker's wishes (e.g. I would like you to accompany me).”

3. Interrogatives, questions, and inquiries

� Pragmatically, questions are prototypically associated with the illocutionary category

of inquiry.

� Classification of questions

• Yes/no-questions have two possible answers, positive and negative.

• Alternative questions have a set of alternatives as answers which can be derived

directly from the question, the propositional content being logically equivalent to

a disjunction of propositions.

• Wh-questions (sometimes also referred to as special, open, and variable questions)

express a proposition containing a variable, the answer being arrived at by the

substitution of a value for the variable.

Chinese is a wh-in-situ language, and English is not.

• “Conducive questions”: They are biased towards one particular answer (e.g.

Doesn't he look handsome?)

• Questions with interrogative tags: In English, the tags are formed via reduction of

an interrogative clause, and typically change both the polarity and illocutionary

force of the utterance (e.g. She's very tall, isn't she?; She isn't very tall, is she?).

• Declarative questions (i.e. yes/no-questions or alternative questions with

declarative syntax where the question meaning is signaled via prosody or

punctuation, as in He has left?).

26

• Echo questions: They are formed by questioning some element of what the

previous speaker has said.

(1) A: He invited Sally.

B: He invited who?

4. Imperatives and directives

� A property of the imperative construction is its capacity to assign an agentive role to

the subject where it wouldn't have such a role in the corresponding declarative (e.g.

Sue is polite describes a state, but Be polite enjoins the addressee to engage in a

certain type of activity, the exercising of good manners).

� Imperative clauses can be subclassified syntactically into two types: ordinary

imperatives and let-imperatives (or ràng-imperatives in Chinese).

5. Exclamatives and exclamatory statements

� In English, exclamative clauses feature the fronting of a wh-phrase (more specifically,

a wh-phrase with how or what, these being the only wh-items that can express degree),

except when the wh-phrase is subject and therefore already in initial position.

� Syntactically, Mandarin does not have a distinct type of exclamatives because the

English exclamatives are expressed through (i) a declarative, (ii) some degree words

like duo ‘so’ and duome ‘so,’ AND (iii) prosody in Chinese.

Questions to Think about

� Typological differences between Chinese and English

� Functions of intonation which English and Chinese share

� Difference between tone and intonation

� Word formation processes both English and Chinese utilize

� Differences between subject and topic

� Differences between topic-prominent languages and subject-prominent languages

� Are English and Mandarin monosyllabic languages? If so, in what sense? If not,

please justify your answer.

27

� Pros and cons of the Chinese writing system

� Differences between classifiers and measure words