By applying the concepts of indexicality and enregisterment, this paper demonstrates how different discourse particles and their collocations index various personae in Singapore Mandarin and how media representations enregister them within the community. The theory of persona is shown to explain… read more
Other than subcategorized argument locative PPs (e.g. 放在桌子上 fàng zài zhuōzi-shàng ‘put on the table’), the postverbal position in Modern Mandarin Chinese can only be filled by limited types of adjunct locative prepositional phrases (e.g. 跳在桌子上 tiào zài zhuōzi-shàng ‘jump onto the table’). Among… read more
Given the historical and linguistic contexts of Singapore, it is both theoretically and practically significant to study Singapore Mandarin (SM), an important member of Global Chinese. This paper aims to present a relatively comprehensive linguistic picture of SM by overviewing current studies,… read more
This study analyzes semantic constraints affecting the order of motion morphemes in Mandarin Chinese multi-morpheme motion constructions (MMMCs, e.g. zǒu-jìn fángjiān ‘walk into the room’ (lit.) ‘walk-enter room’ vs. *jìn-zǒu (lit.) ‘enter-walk’). We classify Chinese motion morphemes into four… read more