Referring expressions in Chinese and English discourse

This dissertation attempts to account for the use of referring expressions in Chinese, based on Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski's (1993) Givenness Hierarchy, and compares the discourse use of Chinese referring expressions with those of English.{dollar}{dollar}eqalign{lcub}&rm THE GIVENNESS HIERARCHY{lcub}:{rcub}cr &{lcub}rmbuildrel{lcub}in{rcub}over{lcub}focus{rcub}{rcub} > {lcub}rm activated{rcub} > {lcub}rm familiar{rcub} > {lcub}rmbuildrel{lcub}uniquely{rcub}over{lcub}identifiable{rcub}{rcub} > {lcub}rm referential{rcub} > {lcub}rmbuildrel{lcub}type{rcub}over{lcub}identifiable{rcub}{rcub}cr &{lcub}it{rcub}quadleft{lcub} {lcub}that{rcub}atop{lcub}{lcub}thisatop this {lcub}rm N{rcub}{rcub}{rcub} right{rcub}quad {lcub}that {lcub}rm N{rcub}{rcub}quad {lcub}the {lcub}rm N{rcub} {rcub}quadquad left{lcub} {lcub}rm indefinite{rcub}atop{lcub}this {lcub}rm N{rcub}{rcub} right{rcub}quad {lcub}a {lcub}rm N{rcub}{rcub}cr{rcub}{dollar}{dollar}; The dissertation tests the Givenness Hierarchy to see if it adequately explains the use of referring expressions in Chinese. The data for this study are drawn from spoken and written texts from several different text types (cf. Biber 1986, 1988). The spoken data represent three different speech situations, i.e., face-to-face casual conversations, news broadcasts, and public speeches. The written texts represent different types, including short stories, novels, academic prose, magazine and journal articles, published letters and personal letters. The spoken and written data cover a range of formality and degree of planning.; The results of the study show that the Givenness Hierarchy cannot account for the choice of form when two forms meet the sufficient cognitive requirements for appropriate use. More specifically, the Givenness Hierarchy fails to account for choices in Chinese between yi 'one' NP and a bare NP when type identifiable is a necessary and sufficient condition for the appropriate use of both, or between nei 'that' NP and a bare NP when uniquely identifiable is a necessary and sufficient condition for the appropriate use of both.; It is proposed that within the individual categories of the Givenness Hierarchy, further distinction of the degree of discourse salience must be made in order to account for the distribution of Chinese NP forms in discourse. For example, the study shows that nei 'that' encodes a uniquely identifiable referent and is used to increase referential salience, while a bare NP encodes a referent of neutral referential salience. Following Givon's (1984) line of research, the use of the numeral yi 'one' is to code pragmatically important referents in discourse vs. the use of a bare NP to indicate referentially unimportant referents.; To interpret the distribution of referring expressions in Chinese discourse, a number of properties of different expressions have been identified and characterized. The distal demonstrative determiner nei 'that' has an associative anaphoric use, encoding an entity whose referent is uniquely identifiable based on what Hawkins (1978, 1991) calls P-sets, association sets. This function of nei as an associative anaphor demonstrates that its deictic function has become weak. In this regard, nei is beginning to function like the English definite article the.; The distal demonstrative determiner nei has a recognitional use in talk-in-interaction, to use Schegloff's (1996) terms, negotiating shared knowledge and personal experiences.; The demonstrative determiners zhe/na 'this/that' are studied in terms of word order variation. When in postverbal position, they function as definite markers, precluding indefinite interpretation of the postverbal NP. In preverbal position, they tend to increase referential salience of the subject/topic NP.; The demonstrative pronouns are compared with the neuter pronoun ta 'it' and zero when referring to inanimates. The neuter ta and zero tend to continue a topic...