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21 - Semantic and Pragmatic Conditions on Word Order Variation in Chinese

from Part Four - Syntax-semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2022

Chu-Ren Huang
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Yen-Hwei Lin
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
I-Hsuan Chen
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Yu-Yin Hsu
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
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Summary

The canonical word order of Modern Chinese is SVO, and yet Modern Chinese does not demonstrate the patterns of a typical VO language. This chapter reviews representative arguments that have contributed to our closer understanding of what pragmatic and semantic factors condition word order variation in Modern Chinese. Discourse analyses in relation with information structure account for the pragmatic function of the preverbal object and why there is the relative ordering between subject and object in non-canonical SOV/OSV patterns, based on the notion of topicality, focus, and emphatic/contrastive function. Semantic accounts explain how the animacy of subject and object constrains the obligatory vs. optional ba marking of object in the SOV pattern and the acceptability of the OSV pattern. Finally, arguments based on iconicity principle and lexical aspect analyses are used to account for the relative ordering of verb and locative/temporal adverbials.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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