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Patient-subject constructions in Mandarin Chinese : syntax, semantics, discourse / Xiaoling He.
- Format:
- Book
- Thesis/Dissertation
- Author/Creator:
- He, Xiaoling, author.
- Series:
- Studies in Chinese language and discourse (SCLD) ; volume 12
- Studies in Chinese language and discourse (SCLD), 1879-5382 ; volume 12
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Mandarin dialects--Grammar.
- Mandarin dialects.
- Mandarin dialects--Passive voice.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (218 pages)
- Place of Publication:
- Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company, [2019]
- Summary:
- 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.
- Contents:
- Previous studies of the patient-subject construction
- What the PSC is not
- Syntactic and semantic properties of patient-subject constructions
- "Inactiveness" and "backgrounding"
- PSC in typological perspective
- Summary and conclusion.
- Notes:
- Description based on print version record.
- Revision of author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Hong Kong, 2006, titled On the patient-subject construction in Chinese.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9789027262349
- 9027262349
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