nam a22 c 4500 scld.12/960016487 nljbp 250625081026.6 cr ||||||||||| 241210s2019 ne |||||||||||||||||eng|d 2019980913 9789027262349 (e-Book) nljbp eng nljbp nljbp PL1893 495.17 23 CF/2GDCM bicssc LAN009000 bisacsh He, Xiaoling author Patient-Subject Constructions in Mandarin Chinese Syntax, semantics, discourse Xiaoling He Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2019 ©2019 1 online resource (xi, 204 pp.) text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse 1879-5382 12 Includes bibliographical references and index. Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Previous studies of the patient-subject construction -- Chapter 3. What the PSC is not -- Chapter 4. Syntactic and semantic properties of patient-subject constructions -- Chapter 5. ‘Inactiveness’ and ‘backgrounding’ -- Chapter 6. PSC in typological perspective -- Chapter 7. Summary and conclusion 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. Provided by publisher. Discourse studies Pragmatics Semantics Sino-Tibetan languages Syntax Theoretical linguistics He, Xiaoling author Hardbound version: Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2019 9789027203403 DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/scld.12 JB e-Platform https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027262349