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Patient-subject constructions in Mandarin Chinese : syntax, semantics, discourse / Xiaoling He.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Studies in Chinese language and discourse ; v. 1212,Publisher: Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company, [2019]Description: 1 online resource (x, 204 pages)Content type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9789027262349
  • 9027262349
Uniform titles:
  • On the patient-subject construction in Chinese
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version:: Patient-subject constructions in Mandarin Chinese.DDC classification:
  • 495.17 23
LOC classification:
  • PL1893 .H4 2019
Online resources:
Contents:
Introduction -- 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 discourse -- PSC in typological perspective -- Summary and conclusion.
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"-- Provided by publisher.
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Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Hong Kong, 2006, titled On the patient-subject construction in Chinese.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- 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 discourse -- PSC in typological perspective -- Summary and conclusion.

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on December 03, 2019).

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