TY - CHAP
T1 - Referential Instructions in Mandarin Nominal System
T2 - Bare Nominal Constructions Versus Prenominal Modifications
AU - Meichun, LIU
AU - Ye, Yingying
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - This study aims to account for the referentiality in Mandarin nominals by observing bare nouns and prenominal modifications. Bare nouns are unique and common in Mandarin; Modified nouns here refer to nouns with one or more modifications with de. Based on corpus findings, this study proposes a form-meaning mapping account for referential properties summarized as follows: bare nouns are a convenient device encodes two opposite ends of referential instructions, which are highly identifiable to listeners or there is no instruction/no need to identify the referent; the middle continuum are fulfilled with prenominal modifications. Semantically the more prototypically characterizing the modification is, contextually the more informationally given and identifiable the modification is, the much closer it is to head noun. In sum, the study is significant in showing that semantic prototypicality and information flow at the discourse-level work together to determine preferentiality marking and functional position of prenominal constructions in Mandarin.
AB - This study aims to account for the referentiality in Mandarin nominals by observing bare nouns and prenominal modifications. Bare nouns are unique and common in Mandarin; Modified nouns here refer to nouns with one or more modifications with de. Based on corpus findings, this study proposes a form-meaning mapping account for referential properties summarized as follows: bare nouns are a convenient device encodes two opposite ends of referential instructions, which are highly identifiable to listeners or there is no instruction/no need to identify the referent; the middle continuum are fulfilled with prenominal modifications. Semantically the more prototypically characterizing the modification is, contextually the more informationally given and identifiable the modification is, the much closer it is to head noun. In sum, the study is significant in showing that semantic prototypicality and information flow at the discourse-level work together to determine preferentiality marking and functional position of prenominal constructions in Mandarin.
UR - https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/publications/referential-instructions-in-mandarin-nominal-system(c45a48e7-ef2e-47ae-afde-85369e4a8a0b).html
U2 - 10.1007/978-981-32-9240-6_12
DO - 10.1007/978-981-32-9240-6_12
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9789813292406
SN - 9789813292390
BT - From Minimal Contrast to Meaning Construct
ER -