Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics
- Cambridge Handbooks In Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Part One Writing System/Neuro-cognitive Processing of Chinese
- Part Two Morpho-lexical Issues in Chinese
- Part Three Phonetic-phonological Issues in Chinese
- Part Four Syntax-semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse Issues
- 19 SVO as the Canonical Word Order in Modern Chinese
- 20 SOV as the Canonical Word Order in Modern Chinese
- 21 Semantic and Pragmatic Conditions on Word Order Variation in Chinese
- 22 The Case for Case in Chinese
- 23 The Case without Case in Chinese
- 24 The Syntax of Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese
- 25 The Chinese Classifier System as a Lexical-semantic System
- 26 Syntax of Sentence-final Particles in Chinese
- 27 Sentence-final Particles
- 28 Topicalization Defined by Syntax
- 29 An Interactive Perspective on Topic Constructions in Mandarin
- 30 Grammatical Acceptability in Mandarin Chinese
- Index
- References
20 - SOV as the Canonical Word Order in Modern Chinese
from Part Four - Syntax-semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse Issues
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2022
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics
- Cambridge Handbooks In Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Part One Writing System/Neuro-cognitive Processing of Chinese
- Part Two Morpho-lexical Issues in Chinese
- Part Three Phonetic-phonological Issues in Chinese
- Part Four Syntax-semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse Issues
- 19 SVO as the Canonical Word Order in Modern Chinese
- 20 SOV as the Canonical Word Order in Modern Chinese
- 21 Semantic and Pragmatic Conditions on Word Order Variation in Chinese
- 22 The Case for Case in Chinese
- 23 The Case without Case in Chinese
- 24 The Syntax of Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese
- 25 The Chinese Classifier System as a Lexical-semantic System
- 26 Syntax of Sentence-final Particles in Chinese
- 27 Sentence-final Particles
- 28 Topicalization Defined by Syntax
- 29 An Interactive Perspective on Topic Constructions in Mandarin
- 30 Grammatical Acceptability in Mandarin Chinese
- Index
- References
Summary
The debate on modern Chinese being SVO or SOV is facing a dilemma: the word order is SVO in an unmarked declarative sentence in Chinese, while Chinese exhibits many features shared by SOV languages. To tackle this difficult situation, researchers should focus on language types, but not the relative orders of subject, verb, and object. Based on the usage of modern Chinese, we have checked ten universals generalized in Greenberg (1963) which are relevant to this topic. It is shown that 90% of the universals support Chinese being a SOV language, and only one universal is on the SVO side. Modern Chinese is therefore argued to be located very close to the SOV end of a continuum.
Keywords
- Type
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- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics , pp. 428 - 443Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
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