A Cognitive-Functional Approach to Topic Constructions in Beijing Mandarin by Linjun LIU Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in LINGUISTICS Department of Linguistics University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba Copyright © January 2009 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-53003-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-53003-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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This reproduction or copy of this thesis has been made available by authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research, and may only be reproduced and copied as permitted by copyright laws or with express written authorization from the copyright owner. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Throughout writing this dissertation I was fortunate to have the assistance and support of a number of people who influenced the direction this study has taken. Terry Janzen, my supervisor, has given me countless insightful comments and suggestions, and has been the source of much encouragement in my PhD programme. The other members of my committee, Hongyin Tao, Jila Ghomeshi, David Pentland, and Hua Li, have made many excellent suggestions. Many thanks go to the Department of Linguistics, University of Manitoba, for fostering the cognitive and functional linguistic study. Any errors are, of course, my own. My thanks also go to Beijing Language and Culture University for granting me a four-and-a-half-year leave, without which my pursuit of a degree in Canada would have been impossible. The writing of this dissertation was supported by a University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship and a J. G. Fletcher Award from the Faculty of Arts, University of Manitoba. Finally, nothing could have been accomplished without my family's support, encouragement, patience and perseverance. Thank you. Linjun Liu The University of Manitoba January 2009 A Cognitive-Functional Approach to Topic Constructions in Beijing Mandarin by Linjun LIU Abstract Mandarin Chinese has long been accepted as a topic-prominent language. However, a consensus has never been reached on how to define or characterize the notion of topic. Given the pragmatic orientation of the notion and the heterogeneity of topic-comment constructions, a cognitive-functional approach has been adopted in this research to analyze a spoken corpus of Beijing Mandarin. On the basis of what has been found about structurally identified topics in the corpus, I have argued that topic constructions are best taken as specific instantiations of the schema of Conceptual Reference Point for the ensuing comments. Spoken data are more indicative of online processing than are written texts. Taking advantage of this, I have examined how pauses and pause particles are interrelated with topic marking and topic verbalization. A comparison between marked grammatical subjects and unmarked ones has revealed that the former are more heavily coded. Following the iconicity principle or the accessibility theory as proposed by Givon (1983), Ariel (1988, 1990), etc., topics convey more information than subjects. iii The investigation into the discourse use of several high frequency pause particles, namely ne, ba, ma, a (and its phonetic variants), and two lexical topic markers, i.e., dehua and laijiang, shows that they, like Japanese wa or eyebrow raise in ASL, are all polysemous: they fulfill different discourse functions by marking topics of different semantic roles and information statuses. These topic markers are also observed to occur successively and co-occur with each other in topic marking. The richness in topic markers and topic marking manners further evidences topic as a complex category that demands a schematic characterization. Following detailed analysis of topic instantiations in the spoken corpus, a schematization of topic as a complex linguistic category is expounded first horizontally then vertically. Topic as a schema is then characterized as follows: topics of all semantic roles may fulfill the function of conceptual reference point in spontaneous speech, and the reference point may sometimes be objective, especially when the relationship between topic and its target referent(s) resembles some objective ones, such as the possessive or the part-whole relationship. IV Table of Contents List of Abbreviation x List of Tables xi List of Figures xii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The Issue 1 1.2 Cognitive Linguistics as an Alternative 2 1.2.1 Outlining cognitive linguistics and its relevance to this research 2 1.2.2 Topic as conceptual reference point 3 1.3 A Corpus Approach 4 1.4 Thesis Chapters 8 1.5 Summary 11 Chapter 2 Review of Previous Studies on Mandarin Topics and Proposal of the Cognitive Approach as an Alternative 12 2.1 Findings on and Controversies over Topic 13 2.1.1 Topic versus subject 13 2.1.2 Syntactic topic versus pragmatic topic 15 2.1.3 Central versus marginal properties of topic 18 2.1.4 Topic identification 24 2.1.5 Summary 34 2.2 A Cognitive Approach to Topic 35 2.2.1 An overview of cognitive linguistics 35 2.2.2 Cognitive Grammar on reference point 38 2.2.3 Cognitive Grammar on topic 40 2.2.4 Insights of the reference point model for topic study in Mandarin 43 2.3 Findings in Other Topic-Prominent Languages 47 2.3.1 Tagalog 47 2.3.2 Japanese 49 2.3.3 American Sign Language 51 2.3.4 Section summary 52 2.4 Summary 52 Chapter 3 Pause and Pause Particles as Topic Markers and a Coding Property Based Approach to Topic Identification 53 3.1 Pauses as Topic Markers 53 3.1.1 Some general observations 53 3.1.2 Shi's (1995) detailed discussion on pausing and topic marking 55 v 3.1.2.1 Obligatory subtypes 56 3.1.2.2 Optional subtypes 60 3.1.2.3 A brief discussion 62 3.2 Pause Particles as Topic Markers 63 3.2.1 Some general observations 63 3.2.2 Some specific findings 64 3.2.3 Summary 68 3.3 Discourse Use of Pause Particles in Beijing Mandarin 68 3.3.1 Zhang and Fang (1996) on pause particles 68 3.3.2 Yuan (2002) on pause particles 70 3.3.3 Summary 71 3.4 A Coding Property Based Approach to Topic Identification 72 3.4.1 Coding properties as the primary concern 72 3.4.2 Topic identification 74 3.4.3 Summary 80 3.5 Defining Some Grammatical Terms 80 3.5.1 Clause 80 3.5.2 Topic-comment constructions (TCs) 82 3.6 Summary 83 Chapter 4 Methodology of a Corpus Study 85 4.1 Data: The Beijing Corpus 85 4.2 Corpus Analysis Procedure 87 4.3 Research Goals 90 4.4 Summary 91 Chapter 5 Pausing and Topic Marking 92 5.1 Pausing in Nominal Constructions 92 5.2 Pausing in Double-Subject Constructions 96 5.2.1 Occurrence of pauses 96 5.2.2 Semantic relationship between topic and subject 98 5.2.3 Word order flexibility and its impact on construction semantics 101 5.2.4 Possession as the prototype relationship between topic and subject 102 5.2.5 Distribution of double-subject constructions 106 5.2.6 Summary 107 5.3 Pausing in TOP-subject Constructions 108 5.3.1 Frequency of occurrence 108 5.3.2 Distribution of TOP-subject vis-a-vis SP 109 5.3.2.1 Within TCs 110 5.3.2.2 Within subordinate clauses of CCs 113 5.3.2.3 Within LDs 114 5.3.2.4 Within TOP-subject constructions , 116 5.3.2.5 Summary 117 vi 5.3.3 Coding forms of topic in TOP-subject vis-a-vis subject in SP 117 5.3.4 Discourse functions of TOP-subject constructions 126 5.3.4.1 Referencing to some findings in English 126 5.3.4.2 Context of use of TOP-subject in Beijing Mandarin 128 5.3.4.3 Information status of topic in TOP-subject 131 5.3.4.4 Summary 136 5.4 Summary 137 Chapter 6 Topic Markers in Beijing Mandarin 139 6.