Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 34:2 (2024) ► pp.293–318

Definite reference and discourse prominence in Longxi Qiang

| South China Normal University

This paper focuses on the uses of the definite marker -tì in Longxi Qiang, a Tibeto-Burman language. Although the selection of referring expressions made by speakers is based on referent accessibility or cognitive status, at the same time, referring expressions have pragmatic and interactive dimensions. The concept of identifiability can account for the uses of the definite marker -tì; however, this concept is not sufficient to explain the selection of -tì in certain discourse contexts. Accordingly, this paper discusses the discourse uses of non-referential definite noun phrases. In addition to encoding definiteness, -tì serves as a prominence marker to trigger the interpretation that an entity, an action or a property is prominent, and the speaker intended to highlight the topicality. With respect to discourse functions, -tì is attached not only to noun phrases but also to verb and adjective phrases, fillers and connectors. These uses of -tì have been expanded into Wenchuan Mandarin.

Keywords: definiteness, identifiability, discourse prominence, topicality, Longxi Qiang
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and methodology
  • 3.Previous approaches on felicitous uses of definite articles
  • 4.Definite marker -tì and indefinite marker -kà
  • 5.Prominence marker -tì
    • 5.1Definition and testable criteria of prominence
      • 5.1.1Relatively highly accessible discourse referents
      • 5.1.2Dynamic prominence
      • 5.1.3Structural attraction
    • 5.2Prominence of topicality marked by -tì
  • 6.Discussion: Further support for the discourse function of -tì
    • 6.1-Tì cooccurs with làmò or connectors
    • 6.2Lighter linguistic material for prominent referents
    • 6.3Proximal demonstrative ʨì ‘this’ as a definite marker
    • 6.4Evidence from bilingualism
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 May 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.22024.zhe
References
Apothéloz, Denis, and Marje-José Reichler-Béguelin
1999 “Interpretations and Functions of Demonstrative NPs in Indirect Anaphora.” Journal of Pragmatics 311: 363–397. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ariel, Mira
1988 “Referring and Accessibility.” Journal of Pragmatics 241: 65–87.Google Scholar
1990 Accessing Noun-phrase Antecedents. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Arnold, Jennifer E.
1998 “Reference Form and Discourse Patterns.” Ph.D. diss. Stanford University.
Chafe, Wallace L.
1974 “Language and Consciousness.” Language 501: 111–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1976 “Givenness, Contrastiveness, Definiteness, Subjects, Topics, and Point of View.” In Subject and Topic, ed. by Charles N. Li, 25–55. New York: Academic PressGoogle Scholar
1987 “Cognitive Constraints on Information Flow.” In Coherence and Grounding in Discourse, ed. by Russell S. Tomlin, 21–52. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1994 Discourse, Consciousness and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
1996 “Inferring Identifiability and Accessibility.” In Reference and Referent Accessibility, ed. by Thorstein Fretheim, and Jeanette K. Gundel, 37–46. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chiarcos, Christian
2011 “Evaluating Salience Metrics for the Context-Adequate Realization of Discourse Referents.” In Proceedings of the 13th European Workshop on Natural Language Generation (ENLG), 32–43. Association for Computational Linguistics.Google Scholar
Christophersen, Paul
1939 The Articles: A Study of Their Theory and Use in English. Copenhagen: Einar Munksgaard.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard, Martin Haspelmath, and Balthasar Bickel
2008 Leipzig Glossing Rules. Retrieved from: [URL]
DuBois, John W.
1980 “Beyond Definiteness: The Trace of Identity in Discourse.” In The Pear Stories: Cognitive, Cultural, and Linguistic Aspects of Narrative Production, ed. by Wallace L. Chafe, 203–274. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Epstein, Richard
2002 “The Definite Article, Accessibility, and the Construction of Discourse Referents.” Cognitive Linguistics 121: 333–378. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette K., Nancy Hedberg, and Ron Zacharski
1993 “Cognitive Status and the Form of Referring Expressions in Discourse.” Language 691: 274–307. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haude, Katharina
2019 “On Discourse-Semantic Prominence, Syntactic Prominence, and Prominence of Expression: The Case of Movima.” Journal of Pragmatics 1541: 22–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, John A.
1978 Definiteness and Indefiniteness. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene R.
1982 “The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases.” Ph.D. diss. University of Massachusetts.
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P., and Beatrice Primus
2015 “Prominence Beyond Prosody: A First Approximation.” In pS-prominenceS: Prominence in Linguistics. Proceedings of the International Conference, ed. by Amedeo De Dominicis, 38–58. Viterbo: Disucom Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Chenglong
2007 Puxi Qiangyu Yanjiu [A Grammar of Puxi Qiang]. Beijing: Minzu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Hung, Yu-Chen, and Petra B. Schumacher
2012 “Topicality Matters: Position-Specific Demands on Chinese Discourse Processing.” Neurosci. Lett. 5111: 59–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “Animacy Matters: ERP Evidence for the Multi-Dimensionality of Topic-Worthiness in Chinese.” Brain Research 15551: 36–47. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kadmon, Nirit
1990 “Uniqueness.” Linguistics and Philosophy 131: 273–324. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lambrecht, Kund
1994 Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J.
1995 “Pragmatic Relations and Word Order in Chinese.” In Word Order in Discourse, ed. by Pamela A. Downing, and Michael Noonan, 297–329. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J., and Chenglong Huang
2003 A Grammar of Qiang: With Annotated Texts and Glossary. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Charles N., and Sandra A. Thompson
1976 “Development of the Causative in Mandarin Chinese: Interaction of Diachronic Processes in Syntax.” In The Grammar of Causative Constructions, ed. by Masayoshi Shibatani, 477–492. New York: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liu, Guangkun
1998 Mawo Qiangyu Yanjiu [Studies on the Mawo dialect of the Qiang language]. Chengdu: Sichuan Nationalities Publishing House.Google Scholar
Lyons, Christopher
1999 Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ortmann, Albert
2014 “Definite Article Asymmetries and Concept Types: Semantic and Pragmatic Uniqueness.” In Frames and Concept Types: Applications in Language and Philosophy, ed. by Thomas Gamerschlag, Doris Gerland, Rainer Oswald, and Wiebke Petersen, 293–321. New York: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Craige
2003 “Uniqueness in Definite Noun Phrases.” Linguistics and Philosophy 261: 287–350. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schumacher, Petra B., and Klaus von Heusinger
2019 “Introduction to Prominence in Discourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 1541: 18–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sun, Hongkai
1981 Qiangyu Jianzhi [A Brief Description of the Qiang language]. Beijing: Nationalities Press.Google Scholar
von Heusinger, Klaus, and Petra B. Schumacher
2019 “Discourse Prominence: Definition and Application.” Journal of Pragmatics 1541: 117–127. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zheng, Wuxi
2020 “The First Person Singular Pronoun Topic as Attention-Getter in Interaction: A Study of qámà in Longxi Qiang.” Journal of Pragmatics 1561: 1–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar