The Interfaces of Chinese Syntax with Semantics and Pragmatics

The Interfaces of Chinese Syntax with Semantics and Pragmatics provides an in-depth exploration of a variety of interface phenomena in Chinese, a non-inflectional language, where to a large extent word order constrains its interpretation and defines its grammatical functions. Under the Dynamic Syntax approach, which takes the incremental left-to-right processing of linguistic forms to be a fundamental part of characterizing the relation between syntactic structure and semantic interpretation, a straightforward explanation is provided. The study features detailed analysis of a range of key grammatical constructions such as topic, passive, copular and cleft, where previous analyses were sought in pure syntactic, semantic or pragmatic terms. Clear and straightforward throughout, The Interfaces of Chinese Syntax with Semantics and Pragmatics will be of interest to graduate students and scholars of Chinese, linguistics and cognitive science.

Yicheng Wu is Professor of Linguistics at the Centre for the Study of Language and Cognition, Zhejiang University, P. R. China.

Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Chinese Syntax: A General Description 1 Introduction 2 Word order flexibility 3 Semantics in syntax 4 Pragmatics in syntax 5 Overview of the book 2 The Dynamics of Language Processing 1 A preliminary introduction 1.1 Compositionality and context-dependency 1.2 Interpretation and representation 1.3 Underspecification and resolution 2 The tools of Dynamic Syntax 2.1 Tree logic and treenode decorations 2.2 Requirements and tree growth 3 The dynamics of the parsing process * 3.1 Computational rules 3.2 Lexical actions 3.3 A basic example 3.4 Pragmatic actions 4 Simple clause structure in Chinese 5 Summary 3 The Dynamics of Verbal Underspecification in Chinese 1 Introduction 2 Previous analyses 3 A dynamic analysis 4 Summary 4 Topic Constructions 1 Introduction 2 Previous analyses 2.1 The variable analysis 2.2 The pragmatic analysis 3 A preliminary analysis 3.1 Single topic structure 3.2 Multiple topic structure 4 A dynamic analysis 4.1 English-style topic construction 4.2 Chinese-style topic construction 5 Summary 5 Passive Constructions 1 Introduction 2 Previous analyses 2.1 The Preposition Hypothesis 2.2 The Dual Function Hypothesis 2.3 The Verb Hypothesis 3 A preliminary analysis 3.1 Pragmatic voice 3.2 Left dislocation 3.3 The characterization of the canonical patterns 4 Problematic patterns 4.1 Bei construction with a retained object (BCRO) 4.2 Bei construction with an embedded ba construction (BCBC) 4.3 Bei construction with a locative patient (BCLP) 5 Summary 6 Copular Constructions 1 Introduction 2 Previous analyses 3 A preliminary analysis 4 A dynamic analysis 4.1 Predicative construction 4.2 Emphatic construction 5 Summary 7 The Cleft Construction 1 Introduction 2 Previous analyses 3 A dynamic analysis 4 Summary 8 Semantic Underspecification: Cases of Personal Pronouns 1 Introduction 2 Previous analysis of expletive ta 3 A dynamic analysis 3.1. A dynamic analysis of the typical and non-typical referential construal of ta 3.2 A dynamic analysis of the expletive construal of ta 3.3 Scope interpretation and expletive ta 3.4 Some implications 4 Summary 9 Conclusion 1 Contributions to Chinese linguistics 2 Reflections on linguistic theorizing References