The Relevance of the principle of Relevance for Word Order Variation in Complex Referring Expressions in Mandarin Chinese

• Authors: Liang Chen , Tao Ming , Xiangyu Jiang
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Word order variation in Mandarin Chinese results in two constructions consisting of a noun phrase (NP), a cluster of a demonstrative and a classifier (DM), and a relative clause (RC): the OMN with the RC+DM+NP order and the IMN with DM+RC+NP order. This study used corpus data to show correlational patterns of constructional choices. Specifically, OMN is associated with new and inanimate NPs serving the grammatical role of object in the relative clause that serves the discourse function of identification. By contrast, for IMN, the head NP tends to carry given information, tends to be an animate entity, tends to serve the grammatical role of subject in the relative clause, and tends to have an RC that serves the discourse function of characterization. We suggest that the usage patterns can be interpreted in terms of the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance (Sperber and Wilson 1995).

Keywords

EN

referring expressions; relative clause; word order variation; Chinese; relevance theory; OMN; IMN

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Journal: Lodz Papers in Pragmatics
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 77-104

Dates

published

2015-07-08

received

2015-07-06

revised

2015-07-07

online

2015-07-08

accepted

2015-07-08

Contributors

author

Liang Chen

• University of Georgia, Communication Sciences and Special Education, 542 Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA 30602, United States

author

Tao Ming

• Concordia College, Department of Modern Language and Literature, 351 Bishop Whipple, 901 8th St. S., Moorhead, MN 58103, United States

author

Xiangyu Jiang

• University of Georgia, Linguistics Program, 142 Gibert Hall, Athens, GA 30602, United States

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/lpp-2015-0005