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A copula analysis of shi in the Chinese cleft construction
Author(s)
Date Issued
2013
ISSN
1606-822X
2309-5067
Citation
Language and Linguistics, 2013, vol. 14(4), pp. 755-789.
Description
Open access
Type
Peer Reviewed Journal Article
Abstract
This paper, based on a cross-linguistic understanding of the concepts of "copula" and "cleft", demonstrates that the Standard Modern Chinese shì is an invariant non-inflectional verb typically co-occurring with NPs whereby they together form the predicate of a copular sentence. According to Construction Grammar (theorized by Goldberg 1995, 2006. Croft 2001, 2005, etc.), a copular construction can be understood as a form and meaning pair that entails a proposition with the nominal semantics of specificational and predicational (Blom & Daalder 1977, Declerck 1988. Patten 2010, Zhan 2012). Furthermore, a constructional schematic taxonomy is proposed for the prototypical Chinese copular construction, under which the cleft construction is a subschema of the specificational copular construction. The Chinese cleft [NP COP NOM] denotes the specificational meaning (the NP and the nominalization representing a referential member and a non- referential but restricted set forming a member-class relationship) plus a contrastive focus. Finally, the cleft construction is treated to have two subschemas: cleft-sbj and cleft-obj. In a cleft-sbj sentence, the sentential subject is co-referential with the subject in the embedded nominalization, and the presence of the nominalizer de is optional. In a cleft-obj sentence, the sentential subject is co-referential with the object in the nominalization, and the presence of the nominalizer is obligatory. It will be shown that the treatment of shì as an adverb in the cleft-sbj sentence (Teng 1979, Huang 1998, etc.) falls short in explaining why shì can co-occur with an optional de. With a copula treatment of shì, the presence of de as a nominalizer logically follows from a specificational [NP COP NOM] analysis. Therefore, the Chinese cleft construction basically functions to signal, instead of a transitory process that an adverbial hypothesis implies, a non-transitory state or situation.
本文從類型學角度重新思考和分析漢語系詞和分裂結構的概念,將漢語系詞重新定義為通常與名詞短語構成謂語結構的無形態屈折變化的動詞.依照構式語法理論,漢語的系詞構式(或稱判斷構式)是個形式語義的統一體,表達的語義為指定性或描述性.文章提出典型系詞構式的等級層次分類,並指出漢語分裂構式 [NP COP NOM] 是系詞構式下指定性構式中的一個次構式,其表達的是指定性的語義且標示對比焦點.文章根據其形式和語義將分裂構式分成兩個次構式:分裂 – 主語和分裂 – 賓語,並進一步說明漢語分裂構式標示的是一個非臨時性的狀態而非一個臨時性的過程.
本文從類型學角度重新思考和分析漢語系詞和分裂結構的概念,將漢語系詞重新定義為通常與名詞短語構成謂語結構的無形態屈折變化的動詞.依照構式語法理論,漢語的系詞構式(或稱判斷構式)是個形式語義的統一體,表達的語義為指定性或描述性.文章提出典型系詞構式的等級層次分類,並指出漢語分裂構式 [NP COP NOM] 是系詞構式下指定性構式中的一個次構式,其表達的是指定性的語義且標示對比焦點.文章根據其形式和語義將分裂構式分成兩個次構式:分裂 – 主語和分裂 – 賓語,並進一步說明漢語分裂構式標示的是一個非臨時性的狀態而非一個臨時性的過程.
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