WHERE CENTERING MEETS

MANDARIN MINI-DISCOURSE

WUYUN SAINA

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

SEPTEMBER 2013

CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

香港城市大學

WHERE CENTERING MEETS

MANDARIN MINI-DISCOURSE

基於向心理論的漢語微篇章分析

Submitted to

Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics

中文、翻譯及語言學系

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

哲學博士學位

by

Wuyun Saina

烏雲賽娜

September 2013

二零一三年九月

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ABSTRACT

Previous studies argue that there are two types of passives, namely long and

short passives for Mandarin bei passive sentences, and it is suggested that they

have different structures, namely that long passives have the Agent present at

the syntactic structure, with the Agent completely missing from the syntactic

structure in short passives (Huang, 1999; Tang, 2004, 2006; and Xiong, 2003),

which is called the structure separation approach in this dissertation. The other

view on the relation between the two types of passives is the ellipsis/deletion

approach, namely that short passives are derived from the result of omitting the

Agent from long passives in syntax (Lü, 1980; Li, 1994). Which approach is more

appropriate and correct is one of the questions that this dissertation tries to

answer.

Unlike previous studies which are conducted at the sentential level, this

dissertation investigates the bei passive sentences from a discourse perspective.

Specifically, this dissertation takes a Centering perspective which examines the

transition states from one utterance to next and investigates the roles of

Mandarin bei passives in discourse. A total of more than 100 three-utterance

mini-discourse segments with the bei utterance in the middle is examined on

the basis of 11 novels and the data analysis suggests that the function of both

types of bei passives is to preserve the backward-looking center (Cb) from its

preceding utterance and pass it to its following utterance, though the roles of

the bei-object in these two types of passives are different: while the overt

bei-object helps prepare the introduction of a new Cb for the following

utterance, the covert bei-object can only help retain the original Cb from the

previous utterance. The data analysis also reveals that both types of bei-objects

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can function as the Cb for the bei passive sentence, linking the bei utterance with

its previous utterance, and they can also be the antecedents of the pronouns in

the following utterance, which suggests that the bei-object must be realized in

syntax, namely occupying a syntactic position, unlike what is suggested by the

structure separation approach. This finding argues for the ellipsis approach to

the relation between the two types of bei passives in Mandarin Chinese. To

further support this proposal, Mandarin ba-construction is incorporated into

this study, and a similar inter-sentential function is also observed.

Furthermore, this dissertation makes a series of additional comparisons. It

compares the division of labor between the pre-bei/ba topic and the

bei/ba-object, the different behaviors of bei/ba-sentences in Narrative and

Report modes, the different properties of the Centering framework and Givón’s

tradition, and so forth. These comparisons have led to the following

conclusions:

a. From a Centering perspective, different center transition states witness

distinct constructional patterns with a strong homogeneous nature

within each pattern. Considering these patterns, an inter-sentential

function for ba/bei-utterances is thus proposed, as pointed out earlier.

Similar to the bei case, the pre-ba topic also preserves the Cb from its

preceding utterance; while the ba-object, competing with the post-verbal

Recipient, functions to introduce a new Cb for the following utterance or

retain the original Cb from the previous utterance;

b. From a discourse mode viewpoint, it is shown that the bei passives in the

Narrative mode perform differently from those in the Report mode in

aspects such as referential choice, transition states, and possible

violations of the Zero-anaphora Rule. These differences are attributed to

their distinct interpretation patterns of tense, i.e. continuity vs. deixis in

this dissertation, and it is pointed out that the bei passives in different

modes bear distinct discourse functions;

c. By comparing the covert bei-object with the semantically inferable entity

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as well as the logical subject in the Middle Construction, it is shown that

only the covert bei-object could act as a center. This result further

vindicates that a covert bei-object also occupies a syntactic position, as

argued earlier. Hence a uniform syntactic structure is proposed for both

long and short passives, though the long and short passives differ in their

discourse functions—the former is adopted to introduce a new center so

as to prepare for a possible Cb Shift, whereas the latter is to avoid the

introduction of unnecessary centers so as to keep the information flow in

a more fluent manner, as pointed out earlier; and

d. Last by not least, by comparing the Centering approach with Givón’s

tradition towards discourse analysis, we think that Centering Theory is

the true analytical tool of calculating the degree of discourse coherence,

while Givón’s tradition is better treated as a measurement for discourse

relatedness, not directly the discourse coherence.

Unlike the previous studies, which follow Givón’s (1983) tradition, such as Xing

(1990), Myhill & Xing (1994), and Liu (2011), which scrutinize the contribution

of Mandarin bei passives related to topic continuity, the theoretical perspective

of Centering Theory, as adopted in this dissertation, explores in-depth the

unnoticed linguistic facts about Mandarin ba and bei-constructions, and thus

helps provide a more comprehensive portrait concerning the discourse

functions and syntactic properties of these two constructions in Mandarin

Chinese.

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1

1.1 SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................................... 1

1.2 MAIN PROPOSALS ...................................................................................................................... 2

1.3 AN OVERVIEW OF THE DISSERTATION .......................................................................................... 4

CHAPTER TWO: ON CENTERING THEORY ............................................................................................ 7

2.1 A BRIEF INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 7

2.2 CANONICAL CENTERING THEORY ................................................................................................ 9

2.2.1 Centers, utterance, and discourse segment ....................................................................... 9

2.2.2 Basic Constraints and Rules of CCT ................................................................................. 19

2.2.3 Hu and Pan (2002) .......................................................................................................... 27

2.3 VARIANTS OF CT ..................................................................................................................... 35

2.3.1 Meta-Informative Centering Theory ............................................................................... 35

2.3.2 Dynamic CT ...................................................................................................................... 41

2.3.3 Centering on OT ............................................................................................................... 50

2.3.4 Parametric CT .................................................................................................................. 56

2.4 ESSENTIAL NOTIONS OF CT AND SOME NOTORIOUS PROBLEMS ..................................................... 61

2.4.1 A unique Cb vs. center branching .................................................................................... 61

2.4.2 Realization ....................................................................................................................... 68

2.4.3 Constraint 3’ role ............................................................................................................. 73

2.4.4 Coherence vs. Salience ..................................................................................................... 75

2.4.5 Cf-ranking ........................................................................................................................ 78

2.4.6 Anaphoric resolution ....................................................................................................... 86

2.5 SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................... 93

CHAPTER THREE: MODES OF DISCOURSE ......................................................................................... 96

3.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 96

3.2 A DRT FORMALIZATION ........................................................................................................... 98

3.3 SITUATION TYPE .................................................................................................................... 102

3.4 FROM TEMPORAL AND ASPECTUAL INFORMATION TO THE TEXT PROGRESSION ............................. 108

3.4.1 Text progression—temporal vs. atemporal .................................................................. 108

3.4.2 Aspectual information ................................................................................................... 112

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3.4.3 Interaction of tense interpretation with aspectual information within DRT frame ... 114

3.5 REFERRING EXPRESSIONS ....................................................................................................... 120

3.5.1 Proximate-Obviative pronoun system ........................................................................... 121

3.5.2 Familiarity status of referring expressions ................................................................... 123

3.6 SURFACE PRESENTATION ........................................................................................................ 127

3.6.1 The topic-comment partition ........................................................................................ 130

3.6.2 The focus-background partition ................................................................................... 132

3.6.3 Non-canonical constructions—take passive in English for instance ........................... 133

3.7 SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................. 134

3.7.1 A summarization of five discourse modes ..................................................................... 134

3.7.2 The classification of discourse ....................................................................................... 136

3.8 INTERACTION BETWEEN CENTERING THEORY AND DISCOURSE MODES ....................................... 138

CHAPTER FOUR: A DATA ANALYSIS OF BEI-UTTERANCE ................................................................. 142

4.1 DATA ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................................... 142

4.1.1 A general data presentation.......................................................................................... 144

4.1.2 The contribution of bei-utterance to discourse coherence ........................................... 168

4.1.3 A comparison between Narrative mode and Report mode .......................................... 200

4.2 COMPARING CENTERING APPROACH WITH GIVÓN’S TRADITION ........................................................ 208

4.2.1 The discourse function of bei-utterance ....................................................................... 208

4.2.2 Comparing with Givón’s tradition ................................................................................. 213

4.3 LONG VS. SHORT PASSIVE ....................................................................................................... 219

4.3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 219

4.3.2 A two-way comparison .................................................................................................. 220

4.3.3 Implications for the syntactic structure of passive ....................................................... 223

4.3.4 Extension to two atypical passive in Mandarin ............................................................ 228

4.3.5 Interim summary ........................................................................................................... 255

4.4 REVISITING CENTERING THEORY ............................................................................................. 256

4.4.1 Definition verification ................................................................................................... 257

4.4.2 Cf-template ranking of bei-utterance ........................................................................... 260

4.5 SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................. 262

CHAPTER FIVE: A DATA ANALYSIS OF BA-UTTERANCE—SOME FURTHER SUPPORT ........................ 268

5.1 DATA ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................................... 268

5.1.1 A general data presentation.......................................................................................... 269

5.1.2 The contribution of ba-utterance to discourse coherence ........................................... 278

5.1.3 A comparison with bei-utterance .................................................................................. 295

5.2 IS BA-CONSTRUCTION ANTIPASSIVE? ....................................................................................... 296

5.2.1 Antipassive in ergative languages ................................................................................ 296

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5.2.2 Antipassive in accusative languages ............................................................................. 309

5.2.3 Antipassive vs. passive ................................................................................................... 315

5.2.4 Is ba-construction antipassive? ..................................................................................... 316

5.3 SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................. 328

5.3.1 Cf-template ranking of ba ............................................................................................. 328

5.3.2 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 332

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 335

6.1 REFINEMENTS TO CENTERING THEORY .................................................................................... 335

6.2 MAIN FINDINGS AND CONTRIBUTIONS ...................................................................................... 336

6.3 FURTHER ISSUES .................................................................................................................... 338

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................... 341

APPENDIX I:.................................................................................................................................... 356

APPENDIX II: .................................................................................................................................. 362