A Study of Chinese Colour Terminology

Weiyuan Xu
Australian National University

This study represents a comprehensive investigation of Chinese colour terminology through both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. We find that: In Modern Standard Chinese, basic colour categories are designated by eight basic colour terms which anchor the nomenclature system. Tertiary terms are often morphologically derived from, and semantically defined by, the basic terms. Secondary terms provide interesting evidence of language change. There is no single internal semantic structure constant across basic and non-basic terms. The potentiality of syntactic function and collocation versatility of colour terms are generally determined by their morphological structures and semantic attributes. The gradual increase of varieties of functions; of overt grammatical constraints; and of the probability of syntactic extension is the trend in the development of syntactic function of colour terms.

Some figurative usages of colour terms stemmed from universal psychological associations, others were based upon Chinese-specific etymological or cultural factors. Western languages and cultures have significantly influenced MSC colour terminology. New colour terms used to be created overwhelmingly through semantic derivation. In more recent times they have been created mainly through morphological combination and affixation. The development of Chinese colour terminology conforms by and large to Berlin and Kay's universal evolutionary ordering.

ISBN 9783895863783. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 01. 227pp. 2006.

Chinese Internet Language

A Study of Identity Constructions

Liwei Gao
Defense Language Institute Over the past decade, the rapid development of Internet communication in mainland China has resulted in a new variety of Chinese, which is generally termed the Chinese Internet language (Henceforth CIL). The majority of Internet consumers in China are aged between eighteen and twenty-four, who are studying in two- or four-year colleges. This dissertation examines identity construction in the use of CIL by young Chinese netizens. It argues that the employment of CIL is not only attributable to such external factors as constraints from computers as a medium of communication but also, perhaps equally importantly, to such internal factors as netizens’ desire to construct various personal identities.



To make the argument, this dissertation first analyzes objective linguistic data, CIL usages on the lexical, sentential, and discursive level that were collected primarily from five Internet situations – BBS’s, chatrooms, Internet literature, personal e-mails, and public web sites. It then examines the subjective data collected through a questionnaire survey conducted in mainland China. The survey results strongly support the argument that CIL is oftentimes utilized for the purpose of identity construction. The types of identities that the survey participants would like to construct include those characterized with being 1) entertaining and interesting, 2) technologically well informed and being able to keep up with social developments, 3) modern, fashionable and cool, 4) internationally oriented or transnational, 5) unconventional and even rebellious, and/or 6) young, fresh and innocent.

This study contributes to the understanding of the interaction between language use and identity construction in the Internet arena. Aside from documenting a new type of language contact and convergence in the digital age, this dissertation also informs research on the social and technological factors responsible for language variation and change. Moreover, this dissertation study sheds light on such topics as language and culture, functions of language, and language attitudes.



ISBN 978 3 89586 382 0. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 02. 187pp. 2006.

The Acquisition and Use of Motion Event Expressions in Chinese

Liang Chen
University of Georgia

The study examined the structural and discourse characteristics of habitual descriptions of dynamic motion events in Chinese. It asked how these characteristics develop in children learning Chinese at different ages as contrasted with Chinese speaking adults. Contrasts with written productions by adults were also examined.

In expressions of motion events in Chinese, verbs marking path of movement (jìn “enter”) can either function alone or follow a verb marking manner of movement to form a serial verb construction. The linguistic analysis (Chapter 2) suggests the need of detailed examination of language use in diverse contexts to address the controversy over whether Chinese is best characterized as a verb-framed (Tai, 2003), satellite-framed (Talmy, 1985, 2000), or equipollently-framed (Slobin, 2004) language.

Motion event descriptions in both elicited oral narratives (Chapter 3) and fictional written narratives (Chapter 4) in Chinese exhibited characteristics that have been associated with and/or expected from both satellite-framed languages such as English and verb-framed languages such as Spanish. These hybrid patterns of motion event descriptions in discourse support characterizing Chinese as an equipollently-framed language. Equipollently-framed structural patterns of motion event description were found to emerge early in Chinese children (Chapter 5), while the richness of the most advanced features of motion event descriptions in connected discourse continues to develop throughout preschool and the school years.

These studies, on the whole, suggest a close link between patterns of language structure and patterns of language use, and point to the influence of such patterns on children’s development of motion event descriptions.

ISBN 9783895868672. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 03. 144pp. 2007.

Bu-Yu, the Complex-Predicate Structures in Mandarin Chinese

Haiyong Liu
Wayne State University

In this book, the author surveys the internal structures of three classes of bu-yu, complex-predicate structures, in Mandarin. They are traditionally termed as jieguo-‘resultative’ bu-yu, keneng- ‘potential’ bu-yu, and miaoshu- ‘descriptive’ bu-yu. They all consist of P(redicate)1 and P(redicate)2.

The author offers a finer categorization within and without these bu-yu structures that differ in formation, aspect marking, negation, and A-not-A question formation.

His analysis of P1 and P2 incorporation explains why in jieguo bu-yu, only P2 is under the scope of negation and why an intransitive P2 can now assign case. He argues that keneng bu-yu is derived from jieguo bu-yu, based on the similarities in their interpretations, the transitivity of their P2’s, and the optionality in their object topicalization and pro-drop. He proposes, however, that keneng bu-yu is a serial-verb construction, the infix de being an analytical morpheme for both potentiality and causativity. A successive cyclic analysis accounts for the idiosyncrasy in keneng buyu A-not-A question, which takes the form of P1-DE-P2-P1-not-P2, different from the normal A-not-A questions.

He divides miaoshu bu-yu into descriptives, resultatives, and causatives, depending on the nature of their P2. When P2 is an individual-level predicate, we have descriptives, with P2 being the main predicate. When P2 is a stage-level predicate, we have resultatives or causatives. Resultatives has either subject-control or complex clausal structure, based on the finiteness of P2. Causatives have ECM. The de in descriptives is argued to be a nominalizer, which explains the peculiar P1-copying effect.

The de in resultatives is argued to be a complementizer like English ‘that’. The de in causatives is argued to be a prepositional complementizer like English ‘for’ that introduces an infinitive complement.

ISBN 9783895869020. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 04. 155pp. 2007.

Elliptical Predicate Constructions in Mandarin

Ruixi Ressy Ai
Harvard University

This book presents a study of elliptical predicate constructions in Mandarin Chinese (MC). Four types of VP ellipsis have been investigated across languages. They are: (a) VPE in disguise (alternatively known as V-Stranding VPE); (b) English-like VPE (vPE); (c) Antecedent Contained Deletion (ACD) and (d) Pseudo-Gapping (PG). It is shown that the distribution of these types of VPE constructions is quite impoverished in MC. For VPE in disguise or V-Stranding VPE, its distribution can only be detected when the object is [-animate], with the possibility of relating it to a context called strong pragmatic control.

For English-like VPE (vPE), it is argued that shi ('be')-supported construction is not an instance of vPE. Instead, it is an instance of deep anaphora, in the sense of Sag (1976a), and Hankamer and Sag (1976). Genuine vPE constructions in MC, however, do exist and they are licensed by a particular kind of modals, which can be (sometimes) combined with certain negative morphemes. This particular kind of modals refers to those that can indicate (epistemic or deontic) possibility. Modals indicating (epistemic or deontic) necessity, on the other hand, cannot license vPE in MC. ACD constructions are also limited in MC due to: (a) the limited distribution of VPE constructions in MC; (b) the limited process of relativization and (c) the peculiar Lfreconstruction of the ellipsis site. PG is impossible in MC because the syntactic machinery that can derive them is not available.

The study of elliptical predicate constructions in MC supports a mixed approach in analyzing (VP) ellipsis. That is, we need both the PF-deletion approach and the interpretive (or the LF-reconstruction/copying) approach. The identity condition for VPE constructions is argued to be LF-structural identity of predicates.

ISBN 9783895861499. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 05. 284pp.2008.

Mandarin Resultative Verb Compounds

Where Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics Meet

Chao Li
The City University of New York

This book undertakes two major tasks. First, it offers a lexical-semantic account of Mandarin resultative verb compounds (RVCs) within the event structure model of argument representation and argument realization developed on the basis of Levin & Rappaport Hovav’s work (particularly Levin 1999 and Rappaport Hovav & Levin 1998). On this account, the complex thematic relations expressed by RVCs result from different interactions of the individual thematic relation expressed by each component of the compound and the composite thematic relation expressed by the whole compound, and from the different ways of realizing the Causer and the Causee.

Second, the book places the study of Mandarin RVCs in a larger context and examines four aspects of Mandarin RVCs from a crosslinguistic perspective, namely the subject-oriented reading (when the causing predicate is unergative or transitive), the “scare reading,” the occurrence in the inchoative frame of a causative alternation, and the use of a stative causing predicate. It shows that all these phenomena are crosslinguistically marked and thus typologically significant. It argues that the differences among English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Romanian, and Swedish with respect to the first three phenomena fall out of the difference in the way the resultative is formed (namely, compound resultatives vs. non-compound resultatives), the headedness of the compound (and the degree of topic prominence of the language).

The lexical-semantic account proposed is of theoretical significance in at least three respects. First, lexical (and syntactic) rules, like ordinary lexical items, are language memory bank items, although they themselves are not lexical items. As a result, there is no need to list the outputs of the rules in the lexicon or in the language memory bank. In turn, it does not necessarily lead to polysemy when the same verb is used in different syntactic frames. Second, both simple event roles licensed by simple events and complex event roles licensed by complex events should be recognized. Finally, the division of labor should be maintained, syntax should be made simpler, and the complete isomorphism between syntax and semantics should be abandoned.

ISBN 9783895860676. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 06. 174pp. 2008.

Model Letters in Late Imperial China

60 Selected Epistles from 'Letters from Snow Swan Retreat'

Daniel Z. Kadar
Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

This volume introduces the reader to the historical Chinese epistolary corpus, in particular model letters, via sixty translated and thoroughly annotated letters selected from the Letters from Snow Swan Retreat (雪鴻軒尺牘). This collection, dating from the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), became one of the most influential and renowned manuals for letter writers. The present book is a groundbreaking work not only because it provides a translation of this difficult-to-read source, but also because no single-authored corpus of Chinese letters has been translated into English to date.

Letters from Snow Swan Retreat is an invaluable source for researchers and advanced students of Sinology. Furthermore, it is an important material for historical pragmaticians, historical politeness researchers and other experts of historical linguistics, with an interest in epistolary activity across cultures. Finally, the letters presented here are of interest to ‘lay’ readers devoted to Chinese literature due to the enjoyable archaic style of the translations.

The present book is a useful reference material for student readers: along with a detailed introduction of the corpus studied, it supplements the translated texts with three Appendices and a Glossary of epistolary expression; this Glossary is the most extensive historical Chinese epistolary glossary that has ever been produced in English.

Dániel Z. Kádár is a Research Fellow in the Department of Oriental Studies of the Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He has a Ph.D. in Chinese linguistics. His research interests include historical Chinese letter writing, politeness research and historical pragmatics. He has written and edited several volumes of international standing, some recent ones including ‘Politeness in Historical and Contemporary Chinese’ (co-written with Yuling Pan, London: Continuum), ‘Politeness in East Asia’ (co-edited with Sara Mills, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), ‘Politeness across Cultures’ (co-edited with Francesca Bargiela, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) and ‘Chinese Discourse and Interaction’ (co-edited with Yuling Pan, London: Equinox). He is also widely published in journals of international standing such as the ‘Journal of Politeness Research’.

ISBN 978 3 929075 62 5. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 07. 242pp. 2009.

A Palaeographical & Phonological Analysis

Chris Button
SOAS, University of London

Rejections of ideographic Huiyi graphs, whose composition belies membership of the Xingsheng category of phonetic compounds and the Xiangxing category of pictographs that form their phonetic base, may be questioned on the basis that Xiangxing and Huiyi cannot be clearly distinguished in the earliest inscriptions. However, once these original Huiyi graphs have become firmly entrenched as Xiangxing graphs and viable entities for the production of Xingsheng graphs, it does seem unlikely that new graphs would be created irrespective of their pronunciation.

The reasonable premise, that Chinese writing essentially consists of Xiangxing graphs with their Xingsheng derivatives, means that the issue is not whether Huiyi is a viable distinction but rather whether explanations via polyphony are viable alternatives. A role for polyphony in the Chinese script is without doubt, yet any notion that polyphony was a fundamental driving force in the creation and development of the script differs fundamentally from these sporadic cases of graphic convergence or synonymic interchange. More thorough palaeographical analyses, combined with more sophisticated reconstructions of Old Chinese, vindicate suggestions that Huiyi is an artificial distinction without requiring any recourse to polyphony.

ISBN 9783895866326. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 08. 111pp. 2010.

Corrective Focus in Mandarin Chinese

“A Question of Belief?"

Markus Greif
University of Bielefeld

The present study investigates the impact of constrastive focus (CF) on the prosody in Mandarin Chinese (MC), known as a tone language. CF in corrections – hence, corrective focus – was often defined mainly in terms of semantic alternatives replacing a corrected item (e.g., Rooth 1992, Krifka 2007). In these frameworks, speaker-hearer assumptions, or mutual beliefs have been considered more or less (ir-)relevant (e.g., Chafe 1976). There is, however, an approach according to which the violation of speaker-hearer beliefs is the main factor for regarding an expression as contrastive, i.e., the Contrastive Focus Hypothesis (CFH; Zimmermann 2007).

As a consequence, linguistic marking of CF would be restricted to those cases in which the propositional content of particular information is considered by the speaker to be highly unexpected for the addressee, assuming that a language reserves grammatical devices for marking contrastiveness at all. Apart from that, it has been proposed a counterpresuppositional focus type – correcting presupposed information (on the polarity of a proposition) – as distinct from corrective focus (Gussenhoven 2007). Several studies found that MC marks (wh-)focus in terms of specific adjustments of the lexical tones, both on- and post-focally (e.g., Jin 1996, Xu 1999). These results have been implemented in the TA model (Xu & Wang 2001) and developed further in the PENTA model by Xu (2005) and Xu et al. (forthcoming). However, few is known about corrective focus in comparison to wh-focus in this language – and there has been no empirical study on the impact of the violation of mutual beliefs on the realization of CF.

Both aspects are at the center of interest in the present study. Two types of corrective foci (COR) have been investigated systematically by means of a semi-spontaneous elicitation method. In the first type of COR foregrounded, or asserted material is to be corrected by the participants (A-COR), while the second type of COR applies to presupposed background information (P-COR). A third type of focus, i.e., narrow wh-focus, or neutral information focus (NIF) serves as the baseline condition to be compared with A-COR and P-COR. It can be shown that only P-COR has been consistently distinguished from NIF by the speakers, and that A-COR and P-COR differ considerably in their prosodic realizations. Thus, the results show that, first, MC allows for marking relatively subtle distinctions by means of prosody.

Second, accounts such as the CFH are supported by the present data. These results are basically supported by the syntax speakers used: i.e., the so-called ‘initial bare shi4-clefts’ (Paul & Whitman 2008). Based on these results one may suggest a contrast-related communicative function that is (quasi-)independent from the semantic process of replacing propositional content to be implemented in the PENTA model.

ISBN 9783862885114. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 09. 182pp. 2012.