Aspect, tense and mood : Context dependency and the marker LE in Mandarin Chinese Ljungqvist, Marita 2003 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Ljungqvist, M. (2003). Aspect, tense and mood : Context dependency and the marker LE in Mandarin Chinese. Department of East Asian Languages, Lund University. 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LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 Download date: 07. Oct. 2021 Aspect, tense and mood: Context dependency and the marker le in Mandarin Chinese Marita Ljungqvist Arin Marita Ljungqvist Arin Department of East Asian Languages Lund University Box 713 220 07 LUND, SWEDEN [email protected] © Marita Ljungqvist Arin, 2003 Printed in Sweden KFS AB, Lund 2003 ISBN 91-628-5623-5 To Tobias, my fellow traveller Contents Acknowledgements.................................................................. v Abbreviations........................................................................... vi Introduction.........................................................................................vii Why do we need another study on le? .........................................vii Aim and scope .............................................................................vii Methodology................................................................................viii Outline .........................................................................................ix 1. Situation types, tense, aspect and modality ......................... 1 1.1. Situation types ......................................................................1 1.2. Tense.....................................................................................3 1.3. Aspect...................................................................................6 1.3.1. The “metaphorical” definition of aspect..................................8 1.3.2. The time-relational definition of aspect...................................9 1.3.3. The perfect and the perfective..................................................11 1.3.4. Problems with existing analyses of aspect in Chinese.............12 1.4. Modality................................................................................15 1 1.5. Concluding remarks .............................................................16 2. Problems with previous studies of le ................................... 19 2.1. Terminological problems......................................................21 2.2. Definitions that fail to explain the function of le ..................25 2.2.1. Verbal le as a perfective marker ..............................................25 2.2.2. Verbal le as a marker of completion........................................26 2.2.3. Verbal le as a marker of anteriority .........................................32 2.2.4. Sentence-final le as an inchoative marker ...............................34 2.2.5. Sentence-final le as a perfect marker.......................................36 2.3. One or two le?.......................................................................39 2.3.1. The historical origin issue..................................................…..39 2.3.2. The dialect issue.......................................................................43 2.3.2.1. Cantonese .................................................................................. 44 1 Include definitions of all relevant terms used throughout this work. i 2.3.2.2. Other dialects ............................................................................ 45 2.3.3. The syntactic/semantic issue....................................................48 2.3.3.1. Unified treatments of le in the literature ................................ 49 2.4. Concluding remarks..............................................................57 3. Relevance Theory ................................................................ 60 3.1. Ambiguity is semantic incompleteness.................................61 3.2. Tense and aspect in a relevance-theoretic framework...........62 3.2.1 Non-linguistic information........................................................63 3.2.2 Procedure ..................................................................................64 3.3. Concluding remarks..............................................................66 4. Boundary as an invariant semantic core-feature of le.......... 67 4.1. Time......................................................................................68 4.2. Attitude.................................................................................68 4.3. Concluding remarks..............................................................75 5. Verbal le .............................................................................. 77 5.1. Non-perfective interpretations of verbal le ...........................79 5.1.1. Simple sentences......................................................................79 5.1.1.1. Perfect sentences with le........................................................... 79 5.1.1.2. Perfect types .............................................................................. 93 5.1.2. Subclauses of complex sentences ............................................103 5.1.2.1. Sequential sentences ................................................................. 105 5.1.2.2. Conditional sentences ............................................................... 108 5.2. Verbal le and the perfective aspect .......................................113 5.3. Modality................................................................................115 5.4. Concluding remarks..............................................................119 6. Sentence-final le .................................................................. 122 6.1. Non-perfect interpretations of sentence-final le....................123 6.1.1. The discourse use of le and the perfective aspect: opening a discussion ................................................................125 6.1.2. The discourse use of le and the perfective aspect: culmination of a progress.........................................................128 6.2. Sentence-final le and the perfect tense..................................135 6.3. Modality................................................................................137 6.4. Concluding remarks..............................................................143 7. One or two le—further indications of functional overlapping ......................................................................... 144 7.1. Concluding remarks..............................................................149 ii 8. Conclusion........................................................................... 150 8.1. Conclusion............................................................................150 8.2. Suggestions for further research ...........................................151 8.2.1. Negation and le ........................................................................151 8.2.2. “Double le” sentences..............................................................152 References ............................................................................... 154 iii List of Figures Figure 1. Perfective aspect: The relation between the temporal boundaries of a situation and the Reference Time interval R...............................................10 2. The interpretive procedure of the Passé Composé.........................................66 iv Acknowledgements I am grateful for support from the foundations of Carl-Fredrik Lyngby and C-J Tornberg that has enabled me to make trips to China to collect material and to spend one semester as a visiting research student at the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics at City University of Hong Kong. I further wish to express my gratitude to the following people, who all in different ways have contributed to the completion of this thesis: To my supervisor Lars Ragvald, who originally came up with the idea that I should write this thesis. To Inga-Lill Hansson, Susanna Björverud, Marina Svensson, Elna Andersson, Richard Roeser and other colleagues at the department of East Asian Languages who have given me constructive comments and support. To Roger Greatrex, for always encouraging me and for proofreading my manuscript. To my colleagues at the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong, in particular Xu Liejiong, Pan Haihua and Peppina Lee Po- Lun, who have patiently read through parts of my work and given me helpful advice as well as engaged me in interesting