A Study Of The Referentiality Of Chinese Pro-forms And The Related Forms

This dissertation mainly discusses the REFERENTIALITY of Chinese pro-forms and related forms within the framework of linguistic typology.The dissertation consists of eight chapters.As the general introduction,Chapter 1 highlights the significance of the research topic of pro-forms,the aims and purposes of the research,and offers introductions of important terms and the theoretical framework,as well as of existing researches.Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 provides detailed descriptions of Chinese demonstratives and demonstrative phrases.Chapter 2 discusses Dem+Cl+N constructions with classifiers of different sub-kinds,based on the clear distinction between pragmatic functions of demonstrative phrases and semantic properties of the referents of demonstratives.In Chinese it is natural to keep "referents" with non-referential interpretation in demonstrative phrases while the whole demonstrative phrases can still be "definite".In the meantime,the classifiers can co-occur with non-referential nouns in demonstrative phrases,which shows that Chinese is a pragmatic-prior language.In addition,non-generic/generic and non-referential/referential are two pairs of parallel concepts in Chinese,which do not reflect a hyponymy-hypernym distinction but are closely related and interact with each other.Chapter 3 describes constructions of "CL+N" and "liang(?)+CL+N" which are definite in referentiality and the indefinite construction of "yi(-)+CL+N" in Ruian dialect,and compares with the corresponding or related constructions in Cantonese and Mandarin,analyzes different performances in terms of syntactic flexibility and the cross-linguistic constraints of pragmatic factors.Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 discuss interrogative pronouns.Chapter 4 offers a special observation of the human-designated interrogative pro-form against a typical context of Shi-sentence(“?”??),describing interrogative proforms "Shenme ren"(Lit.what-person,???),"Shui"(lit.who,?)and "Nayige ren"(Lit.which on person,????)."Shenme ren"(???)is used for kind-referring,both attributively and referentially."Nayige ren"(????)is used for denoting individuals,with referential value only."Shui"(?)is used for both kind-referring and individual-referring,both attributively and referentially,which makes it a multifunctional interrogative proform.It is not the syntactic positions but the complicated referentiality of interrogative proforms themselves that play the key role in interpreting the semantic properties of interrogative pro forms.Chapter 5 discusses the referentiality of free-choice interrogative pro-forms.Additionally,"dou"(?),a lexical quantification item and an important trigger of free-choice interpretation thus "dou(?)"is discussed in this chapter."don(?)"indicates the specificity of the referents.However,it is still a much more pragmatic-oriented factor than the equivalent quantifiers in Wu dialects.Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 discuss the referentiality of personal pronouns.Chapter 6 describes "Pronoun+Men(?)" in Mandarin,drawing the conclusion that "Pronoun+Men(?)" is a specific collective marker based on the research of archaic Chinese and the data from Chinese dialects.However,"Lai(?)"in Rui'an dialect is a marker of less pragmatically affected specific category.Such a difference is not so overt in "Pomouns+(?)" while manifected much clear when "Lai(?)" co-occur with common nouns(referring to people)and proper names.Chapter 7 discusses the possessive constructions with personal pronouns as the possessor.There may be some dialects in which the referential category parasites on the possession category.For instance,different possessive markers indicate different degrees of specificity,which can be regarded as the underdeveloped specific category.Chapter 8 as the conclusion summarizes the main points the innovations as well as the remnant of the limits and underdeveloped argumentations of this dissertation.It also raises some issues for later clarifications.The basic conclusions of this paper are as follows:?.In Chinese languages,non-generic/generic,non-referential/referential dichotomies are two pairs of parallel concepts,which do not reflect a hyponymy-hypernym distinction but are closely related and interact with each other.?.Individual reference is the only full-fledged category in Chinese languages,with the overt marker,i.e.,classifiers.?.There may be underdeveloped specific categories in some dialects,which parasite on collective and/or possession categories and so on.Reversely,the specific interpretation in Mandarin is of higher degree of pragmatic-oriented property and can be cancelled under certain circumstances.IV.By analyzing the referential system,the dissertation concludes that Mandarin is a much more typical pragmatic-prior language,while Wu dialect is a more syntactic-oriented languoid from the perspective of the referential expression.