Subjectivity in Mandarin Chinese: The meaning and use of causal connectives in written discourse Published by LOT phone: +31 30 253 6111 Trans 10 3512 JK Utrecht e-mail:
[email protected] The Netherlands http://www.lotschool.nl Cover illustration: The author’s office (the place where this dissertation was written) and its surroundings, photographed by Assaf Toledo. ISBN: 978-94-6093-147-5 NUR 616 Copyright © 2014: Fang Li. All rights reserved. Subjectivity in Mandarin Chinese: The meaning and use of causal connectives in written discourse Subjectiviteit in Mandarijn Chinees: De betekenis en het gebruik van causale connectieven in geschreven tekst (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 29 augustus 2014 des middags te 4.15 uur door Fang Li geboren op 4 augustus 1977 te Hebei, China Promotor: Prof.dr. T.J.M. Sanders Co-promotor: Dr. J. Evers-Vermeul This thesis was accomplished with financial support from Huygens Scholarship, granted by Nuffic. For my family TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 1 Introduction CHAPTER 2 25 The relevance of subjectivity for the characterization of Mandarin causal connectives: A literature review CHAPTER 3 53 Subjectivity and result marking in Mandarin: A corpus-based investigation CHAPTER 4 95 On the subjectivity of Mandarin reason connectives: Robust profiles or genre-sensitivity CHAPTER 5 123 On the online effects of subjectivity information encoded in causal connectives CHAPTER 6 149 Conclusion and discussion REFERENCES 175 SAMENVATTING IN HET NEDERLANDS 189 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 203 CURRICULUM VITAE 209 CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1.1 The notion of subjectivity in language Language is generally used as a vehicle to communicate messages.