Patient-Subject Constructions in Mandarin Chinese

Syntax, semantics, discourse

Xiaoling He

| Nanyang Technological University Singapore

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027203403 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027262349 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

As a distinctive syntactic structure in Mandarin Chinese, the Patient-Subject Construction (PSC) is one of the most interesting but least well-understood structures in the language. This book offers a comprehensive account of the history, structure, meaning and use of the PSC. Unlike previous descriptions which were framed in terms of pre-existing grammatical notions such as ‘topicalization’, ‘passivization’ and ‘ergativization’, this book offers a fresh look at the PSC, in which its syntactic and semantic as well as its discourse functions are examined within the system of major construction-types of the language as a whole. The PSC, being low in transitivity, serves primarily the function of backgrounding in discourse. Typologically, the PSC bears a resemblance to middle constructions in Indo-European and other languages, raising interesting questions about ways to understand congruent and divergent syntactic structures across the world’s languages. This book will be of interest to students of Chinese Linguistics as well as Language Typology.

[Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse, 12] 2019. xi, 204 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/scld.12

Table of Contents

Abbreviations | pp. ix–x

Major chronological divisions of Chinese history | pp. xi–xii

Chapter 1. Introduction | pp. 1–10

Chapter 2. Previous studies of the patient-subject construction | pp. 11–32

Chapter 3. What the PSC is not | pp. 33–58

Chapter 4. Syntactic and semantic properties of patient-subject constructions | pp. 59–86

Chapter 5. ‘Inactiveness’ and ‘backgrounding’: PSC in discourse | pp. 87–108

Chapter 6. PSC in typological perspective | pp. 109–126

Chapter 7. Summary and conclusion | pp. 127–134

References | pp. 135–144

Verbs

Appendix I. Verbs | pp. 145–148

Appendix II. Other sources | pp. 149–172

Appendix III. Dictionary | pp. 173–202

Index | pp. 203–204

“He’s style is lucid and highly accessible. She illustrates every point with ample examples. [...] This book will be of special interest to students of Chinese Linguistics as well as of Language Typology, as it is based on the author’s important theoretical discoveries and methodological innovations. Students and researchers of Chinese syntax and of language phenomena from a construction grammar approach are guaranteed an enlightening, and not least pleasant, reading experience.”

Xingbing Liu, Sichuan International Studies University, in Pragmatics and Society 11:4 (2020)

“On l’aura compris, cet ouvrage est une importante monographie sur les ‘constructions à sujet-patient’ et le seul à ce jour écrit dans une langue autre que le chinois, ce qui permettra à tout lecteur non sinophone de comprendre les différentes fonctions syntaxiques et sémantiques de ces CSP dont l’auteure a bien montré qu’elles doivent être considérées comme des constructions indépendantes, au même titre, entre autres, que les phrases passives, topicalisées ou autres formes à marqueur différentiel de l’objet.”

Lin Xiao, EHESS-CRLAO, in Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 2020

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