Semantic and Pragmatic Conditions on Word Order Variation in Chinese

doi:10.1017/9781108329019.025

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

Edited by

I-Hsuan Chen and

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.

Keywords

Chinese word order SVO V and adverbials information structure semantic condition

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics , pp. 444 - 466

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108329019.025 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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