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1 results

  • 7 - Information Structure

  • Yuzhi Shi, National University of Singapore
  • Book:
    The Evolution of Chinese Grammar
    Published online:
    16 March 2023
    Print publication:
    23 March 2023, pp 142-174

  • Summary

    This chapter shows that there were fundamental changes in two types of information structure: one is at the clause level, involving the arrangement of new and given information, and the other is at the predicate level, involving the arrangement of resultative and non-resultative (accompanying) information. The first is cross-linguistically true and can be found in many other languages; the second may be particular to the language and has thus far been known to exist only in Chinese. Throughout the entire history of Chinese grammar, these two principles of information organization are critical for understanding how the grammar has evolved over time. On the one hand, both reflect the results of grammatical developments; on the other hand, they motivated a series of significant changes in history that together have largely shaped the grammatical system of Contemporary Chinese.