Article

Verb and clause in Chinese discourse: Issues of constituency and functionality

Authors:
  • The Compleat Wordsmith / 老馬文通
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the author.

Abstract

While most scholars seem to agree with Tsao (1990) as to the inadequacy of the notion of "sentence", as traditionally defined in Indo-European languages, for the analysis of Chinese, two opposing trends have emerged in defining the basic grammatical units for Chinese. On the one hand, Tsao himself extends the study of grammar into its discourse contexts, taking the topic chain, "a stretch of discourse headed by one or more topics...followed by one or more comment clauses" as the basic unit. On the other hand work in the structuralist tradition (Zhu 1985, Lu 1993) takes the smaller unit of "phrase" as basic, and more recent investigations into the grammar of spoken Chinese from an intonational viewpoint (Tao 1991, 1996) seem to confirm this insight. In attempting to reconcile these two tendencies in the description of Chinese grammar, what is needed is a way of linking grammatical and discourse organisation: in effect, seeing grammar as one the layers of meaning of the text. In this project, determining the status of the verb is crucial since it is commonly regarded as central to the definition of grammatical units, the principle of "one verb per clause" (Tao 1996) often being invoked as a way of justifying the boundaries of the clause. However, as has often been noted, the range of elements of the verb class in Chinese is so wide, and their potential to combine freely with each other is so great, that applying such a principle in practice is very difficult. The present study recognises the basic structure of successive verbal elements as a logical one (Ouyang 1986) defined by a combination of taxis and logico-semantic relationships - in effect treating all verb combinations like serial verb constructions (Li & Thompson 1981). The boundaries of the clause can then be determined by the Theme and Rheme structure (Fang et al. 1995), and various verbal elements then be identified as functioning either textually, to introduce and focus on particular pieces of information, or interpersonally, to mediate the exchange between interlocutors in terms of mood and modality, or experientially, to represent the main and associated processes in the model of experience given by the clause. Such a multifunctional analysis allows us not only to account for all the different types of structures entered into by verbal elements in Chinese, but also provides a way of reconciling competing views of basic grammatical structure in Chinese.

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.

... So, for example, the adjective in English is assimilated to the group class of the noun, the most common Head of groups in which the adjective appears (an analysis with deep roots in European linguistics, as we shall see later in this chapter), leading some scholars to claim that its own individual patterning is neglected (for example Tucker 1998, and in this volume). Furthermore, the experiential bias of the constituency-based rank scale has led some scholars to suggest that it be restricted to experiential structure only (for example McDonald 2004;McGregor 1991McGregor , 1996. ...
... This move, however, has been criticised by kinds of groups and sees all verbal elements as slotting into positions in one large single 'starting structure' that realises all of the metafunctionally distinct semantic options in the clause. In a comparable move, McDonald (2004), in the context of a descriptive challenge in Mandarin Chinese whereby the different metafunctions define structures that do not seem to coincide with a common clause structure, restricts the scope of the verbal group to experiential elements only, with the pre-verbal interpersonal elements expressing meanings of mood and modality understood as operating directly in the clause structure. Similarly McGregor (1996a), for a largely equivalent notion of 'verb phrase', recognises a rank scale for experiential elements only and, in further work revisiting the whole issue of types of structure and their hook-up with different metafunctional meanings (cf. ...
... However, the next step of modifying the lexicogrammatical analysis has never been taken -except, of course, in the work of Fawcett and his colleagues operating within a very different conceptualisation of the relationship between system and structure. In work on Chinese (McDonald 1998(McDonald , 2004, a language with even more sparse structural marking than English, this author has been led to define the constituency structure in solely experiential terms, with various parts of this structure given an interpersonal 'colouring' or identified as part of a textual 'wave'. So, without going into more detail here, it could be argued that problems with the rank scale are but one symptom of the much broader problems of a lexicogrammar that is somewhat straining at the seams. ...
Chapter
Full-text available
The concept of group in systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is more complex than its equivalents in other theories of grammar or syntax for a number of reasons. 1 It is not an autonomous structural notion, but rather is understood as the realisation of systemic features – that is, the syntagmatic combinations recognised in the group, as in other grammatical units, are the realisation of paradigmatic options. 2 In standard ranked constituency versions of SFL (for example Halliday 1994 [1985]), the group takes its place on the rank scale whereby units of different ranks play different kinds of functional role and exhibit different kinds of structural patterning. 3 By means of this notion of rank scale, the group takes an intermediate position: linked by one trajectory to the structure of the clause, in that each group realises a particular function in the clause structure, and by another trajectory to classes of word, in that words are classified according as they play functions in the structure of the group. 4 The group incorporates two principles of structure: univariate, in which a single kind of functional relationship is seen as multiplied recursively, for example modification involving a Head and one or more Modifiers; and multivariate, in which a number of different functional roles can be recognised, for example Deictic^Numerator^Thing, with all groups able to be analysed in both ways. 5 In many languages, group rank accommodates two distinct kinds of structure: the group proper, which is the expansion of a central word and contains a Head plus Modifiers and/or Qualifiers; and the phrase, which is the contraction of a clause and mimics the Process–Participant structure.
... The "structure" here refers to a clause that is defined as "a textual Theme-Rheme structure." (Fang et al., 1995;McDonald, 2004) (0) The miscue results in a structure which is completely syntactically unacceptable. The miscue disrupts the structure of the clause and does not have any possible grammatical relationship with either prior or preceding portions of the clause. ...
... This category discusses whether a miscue that occurs in a structure is semantically acceptable in the reader's dialect. The "structure" here refers to a clause that is defined as "a textual Theme-Rheme structure" (McDonald, 2004). ...
... or a textual Theme-Rheme structure(McDonald, 2004) from a systemic functional approach. This approach is more applicable to the analysis of grammatical patterns in Chinese and is adopted in my study. ...
Article
This paper attempts to develop a framework for the functional analysis of Chinese within the theoretical background of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG). It focuses its discussion on the controversial issues emerged from previous Chinese studies, aiming to provide new insights into these uncertainties. Given that the terminology in SFG is originally created for the analysis of English, the key terms in the framework are defined by examining their functions in the linguistic environment of Chinese to prevent any distortion of the characteristics in the language. The framework consists of the systematic descriptions of Chinese clauses in experiential, interpersonal, and textual dimensions. The descriptions end up by proposing the realization statements for Transitivity, Theme and Mood systems in Chinese. The framework also includes the descriptions of grammatical categories above and below clause in Chinese. In particular, the grammatical structures of clause complex and various types of group/phrase are examined for this purpose.
Article
Previous studies of Chinese modal verbs in the traditional framework (e.g. Lu 2004 ; Peng 2007 ; Tang 2000 ; Tiee 1985 ; Tsang 1981 ; Xie 2002 ; Xu 2007 ) have mainly focused on the description of semantic and syntactic features of modals that occur in the middle of the clause and attached little significance to the functions that modal verbs serve when they appear at different positions in the clause. Similarly, in a systemic functional framework, modal verbs in the middle of the clause receive the most attention. Their interpersonal functions are thoroughly explored; however, their textual functions are seldom discussed as they are believed to mainly appear in the middle of the clause buried in the Rheme rather than at the beginning or at the end of the clause. This paper examines the functions that modal verbs serve when they occur in different places in the clause from the perspective of systemic functional grammar. It argues that modal verbs are functionally motivated and the position of the modal verbs in the clause expresses particular meanings. When situated medially in the clause, modal verbs function as the Modality in the interpersonal structure of the clause, and as part of the Rheme in the thematic structure of the clause, marking the transition between Theme and Rheme. When occurring at the beginning or in the middle of the clause before a nominal group, some modal verbs of obligation serve as focus markers and identify the subsequent nominal group as the marked information focus of the clause. In the thematic structure of the clause, clause-initial modal verbs of obligation and probability function as interpersonal Themes to foreground the speaker’s modal assessment. Finally, when placed at the end of the clause, modal verbs serve either as the Predicator or Modality in the interpersonal structure of the clause and as the unmarked information focus of the clause.
Thesis
Full-text available
Substantial amount of evidence have been proposed that text is a highly organized linguistic product. Despite the evidence, a fundamental notion of a discourse unit which recursively occurs in constructing an extended discourse structure has been absent. Instead, understanding discourse structure has mostly estimated by discourse boundary cue-phrases This dissertation aims to propose a formal way of representing a discourse unit and further explores its cognitive substantiality as a provision for the knowledge-based discourse processes. For these goals, a corpus-based study and two experimental studies are conducted by using Korean narrative text. In corpus-based study, potential discourse units are isolated by using overly specified noun anaphors and null pronouns. The generalization turns out that the target discourse unit is the unit that includes no more than one nucleus, a main goal that a writer intends to achieve. In the experimental studies, the proposed formal representations of discourse units are hypothesized as a mental knowledge that language users employ to interpret writer-intended discourse structure. Positive results are achieved from the production experiment as well as information recall experiment. Subjects show their capability of interpreting a writer-intended discourse structure without an explicit discourse cue-phrase. They also demonstrate that the structure of the proposed discourse unit affects the information accessibility. The findings and results are discussed in terms of centering theory for the anaphora resolution/production, and discourse processing model.
Article
This paper provides a typological interpretation of differences between Chinese and English in grammatical metaphor (GM), a phenomenon arising from the interaction of semantics and lexicogrammar and extending the meaning potential in a language. This paper first describes typological features in Chinese and English in terms of the three variables relevant most to the lexicogrammatical realization of a semantic meaning, namely the order of grammatical constituents, the degree of grammatical specificity and the location of grammatical realization. On the basis of the description of typological features, this paper explores the GM differences in Chinese and English and their inherent reasons from three perspectives: (1) the formal distance between congruent and metaphorical expressions, (2) the subdivision of certain GM categories and (3) the extent of using GM. The study reveals that all the GM differences observed are engendered by one or more than one typological variation between Chinese and English.
Article
This article presents an outline functional grammar of Chinese based on the framework presented in M.A.K. Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar. The description is divided into five areas for teaching purposes (only the first three of which are treated here), covering basic clause structure, additional elements, clause marking, clause complexing and group and word structure. Particular adaptations for Chinese include: • recognition of only two layers of clause structure: Experience (transitivity) and Message (theme/information) ; • organisation of the message structure around two points: starting point or Topic (Theme) and centre of attention (New)-the first of these may be "absolute" i.e. have only thematic function; • recognition of three main process types: action, state and relation, and three circumstance types; • recognition of a complex verb+postverb structure to allow for the quasi-compound nature of many verbal groups in Chinese; • separation of clause systems into basic, and marked, to account for the optional presence in the clause of such grammatical features as aspect, phase etc. This description is put forward as an initial functional reinterpretation of the grammar of Chinese, and also as a test-case for the application of systemic-functional theory to a language other than English.
Article
In this article, syntactic evidence is presented to show that the two functions of place adverbials in Chinese cannot be reduced to one, and that both functions must be considered as semantic primes in the semantic structure of Chinese. (CLK)