In:Patient-Subject Constructions in Mandarin Chinese: Syntax, semantics, discourse
Xiaoling He
[Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse 12] 2019
► pp. v–viii
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Published online: 27 June 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/scld.12.toc
https://doi.org/10.1075/scld.12.toc
Table of contents
Table of Contents
Abbreviations
ix
Major chronological divisions of Chinese history
xi
Chapter 1.Introduction
1
1.1Patient-Subject Construction
1
1.1.1The scope of ‘patient’
1
1.1.2The syntactic position of patient
3
1.2The problem of the PSC
4
1.3The present approach
7
1.4Organization of the book
9
Chapter 2.Previous studies of the patient-subject construction
11
2.1The PSC is an age-old construction in Chinese
11
2.2General properties of the PSC
13
2.2.1High text frequency
13
2.2.2Syntactic properties
14
2.3Previous studies of the PSC
16
2.3.1Phonetic marking of the grammatical distinction
16
2.3.2Lexical approaches
17
2.3.3Syntactic approaches
22
Chapter 3.What the PSC is not
33
3.1PSC is not topicalization
33
3.1.1Prosodic cues
33
3.1.2Subjecthood
35
3.1.3Focus, subordination and nominalization
37
3.2PSC is not passive
40
3.2.1Two opposing views
40
3.2.2Why PSC is not passive
42
3.3PSC is not an ergative construction
54
3.3.1Ergativity
54
3.3.2Ergative structures
55
3.3.3The PSC is not an ergative construction
56
Chapter 4.Syntactic and semantic properties of Patient-Subject Constructions
59
4.1Sub-classifying the PSC
59
4.2Different kinds of PSC and their semantic properties
61
4.2.1NP + V + Complement
61
4.2.2NP + Adverbial + V
62
4.2.3NP + V + le 了/zhe 着/guo 过
75
4.2.4NP + V + NP
78
4.2.5Two special forms
79
4.2.6Summary
79
4.3Two challenges for the “inactiveness” account
81
4.3.1Imperative sentences
81
4.3.2The problem of zhengzai
83
4.4Chapter summary
86
Chapter 5.‘Inactiveness’ and ‘backgrounding’: PSC in discourse
87
5.1The polysemy of PSC
87
5.1.1The PSC as envisioned within event structure
88
5.2Inactiveness as grammatical construal
91
5.2.1Construction meaning
92
5.2.2Relations between constructions
96
5.3Discourse functions of PSC
98
5.3.1An empirical study
101
5.4Chapter summary
108
Chapter 6.PSC in typological perspective
109
6.1PSC-like structures in other languages
109
6.1.1Reflexive constructions
110
6.1.2Middle constructions
112
6.2The Chinese PSC as a middle construction
118
6.2.1Sentence form and meaning
118
6.2.2The active-middle opposition and its cognitive basis
119
6.3Unaccusativity and ergativization
120
6.3.1Unaccusativity
120
6.3.2Ergativization
123
6.4Chapter summary
125
Chapter 7.Summary and conclusion
127
7.1A new picture of the PSC
127
7.2Further studies
130
7.2.1The voice system
130
7.2.2The ba-construction
130
7.2.3The PSC and the bei-construction
131
7.2.4The classification of construction types in Chinese
133
References
135
Appendix I.Verbs
145
Appendix II.Other sources
149
Appendix III.Dictionary
173
Index
203
