Dramatized Discourse: The Mandarin Chinese Ba -construction (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

Dramatized Discourse Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics (SFSL) Taking the broadest and most general defi...

Author: Zhuo Jing-Schmidt

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Dramatized Discourse

Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics (SFSL) Taking the broadest and most general definitions of the terms functional and structural, this series aims to present linguistic and interdisciplinary research that relates language structure — at any level of analysis from phonology to discourse — to broader functional considerations, whether cognitive, communicative, pragmatic or sociocultural. Preference will be given to studies that focus on data from actual discourse, whether speech, writing or other nonvocal medium. The series was formerly known as Linguistic & Literary Studies in Eastern Europe (LLSEE).

Founding Editor John Odmark Honorary Editors Eva Hajicˇová

Petr Sgall

Charles University

Charles University

General Editors Yishai Tobin

Ellen Contini-Morava

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

University of Virginia

Editorial Board Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Jim Miller

La Trobe University

University of Auckland

Joan Bybee

Marianne Mithun

University of New Mexico

University of California, at Santa Barbara

Nicholas Evans

Lawrence J. Raphael

University of Melbourne

Emeritus CUNY

Victor A. Friedman

Olga Mišeska Tomic´

University of Chicago

Leiden University

Anatoly Liberman

Olga T. Yokoyama

University of Minnesota

UCLA

James A. Matisoff University of California, Berkeley

Volume 56 Dramatized Discourse: The Mandarin Chinese ba-construction by Zhuo Jing-Schmidt

Dramatized Discourse The Mandarin Chinese ba-construction

Zhuo Jing-Schmidt University of Cologne

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Ph.D dissertation accepted by Faculty of Arts, University of Cologne.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zhuo Jing-Schmidt Dramatized Discourse : The Mandarin Chinese ba-construction / Zhuo Jing-Schmidt. p. cm. (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, issn 0165–7712 ; v. 56) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Chinese language--Syntax. PL1241.Z48 2005 495.1/5--dc22 isbn 90 272 1565 0 (Hb; alk. paper)

2005050298

© 2005 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

To my daughter: Tabia Yishui Schmidt

Table of contents

Preface Acknowledgments List of figures and tables Notational conventions Abbreviations Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Database Chapter 3 The syntax of the ba-construction: Overview 3.1 Compositional properties of the ba-construction 17 3.2 The ba-construction and mood 44 3.2.1 Indicative 44 3.2.2 Imperative 46 3.2.3 Interrogative 48 3.2.4 Subjunctive 51 3.3 The ba-construction and modality 52 3.4 The ba-construction and negation 54 3.5 The ba-construction in passive sentences 55 3.6 The ba-construction in causative sentences 56 3.7 The ba-construction as subordinate 58 3.8 Mandarin word order and the ba-construction 60 Chapter 4 Previous approaches 4.1 Disposal 67 4.2 Transitivity 82

xi xiii xvii xix xxi

1

13

17

67

 Dramatized Discourse

4.2.1 Overview 82 4.2.2 What is transitivity? 94 4.3 The causativity approach 105 4.4 The problem 107 Chapter 5 The hypothesis of discourse dramaticity 5.1 The system of discourse dramaticity 114 5.2 The human factor 115 5.2.1 Cognitive salience 117 5.2.2 Subjectivity and emotionality 120 5.3 Redundancy 123

113

Chapter 6 Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 6.1 Cognitive salience at the clause level 126 6.1.1 Cognitive salience and the number of participants 126 6.1.2 Cognitive salience and verbal dynamism 135 6.1.3 Cognitive salience and verbal modification 138 6.1.4 Cognitive salience of event and salient participants 167 6.1.5 Cognitive salience ant information structure 180 6.2 Cognitive salience at the trans-clause level 194 6.2.1 Foregrounding properties 195 6.2.2 Textual linking 197 Chapter 7 Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 7.1 The nature of linguistic subjectivity and emotionality 211 7.2 Conceptual metaphors 211 7.3 Intensifiers 219 7.3.1 Intensifying adverbs 220 7.3.2 Intensifying quantifiers 223 7.4 Mood and modality 226 7.4.1 Mood 226 7.4.2 Modality 228 7.4.3 The potential construction versus the modal verb neng 7.5 Frequency variation across discourse types as additional evidence 237

125

211

233

Table of contents

Chapter 8 An interim conclusion Chapter 9 The pragmatization of the ba-construction 9.1 Evolution and a functional view of syntactic change 245 9.2 Serial verb construction as source of change 248 9.2.1 Formal pressure towards change 250 9.2.2 Functional re-adaptation and its formal repercussions 256 9.3 Regulation and systemization 270 9.3.1 Data 270 9.3.2 Results 272 9.3.3 Discussion 280 9.4 Inadequacies of the OM postulation 289 9.5 Subjectification 293

241

245

Chapter 10 Final remarks

297

Notes References Text material Author index Subject index

301 309 327 329 333

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Preface

The ideas presented in this book originated from my observations of several grammars of the Chinese language. What struck me most was the common isolating style in which syntax was described to students. Among the many syntactical phenomena, the ba-construction has been the most controversial. The way it is generally dealt with causes confusion and frustration in me both as native speaker and as a student of linguistics. What is missing is a coherent explanation for the many peculiarities, synchronic and diachronic, that are observed of this construction. In the absence of a unitary explanation, observations scatter like pearls unconnected by a steady string. As a result, the construction has received a veil. For students acquiring Chinese as a foreign language, the Mandarin ba-construction appears to be a mystery or even an enigma. Quite often, these students are discouraged by the piles of “constraints” imposed on the use of ba, fearing that they may never master it. But syntax is not dead piles of constraints. Syntax functions in the service of communication – a vital activity in human existence. The abstract and mostly atomistic fashion in which the ba-construction is presented in textbooks and in linguistics has a hypnotic effect: It forces one to forget that syntax is a device of communicating people’s different intents. Who, in real life, doesn’t try to best express his ideas by choosing the most suitable sentence among many possibilities? Thus, if the most obvious is denied, it is hard not to feel that there must be something very wrong with much of what has been done with syntax. This book, therefore, is more concerned to explain why exactly the Mandarin ba-construction is used where it is used than to describe the constraints in isolation. To do so, I consulted real textual occurrences of ba-sentences along with their contexts as much as possible. The examination of sentence structure in context permitted me to identify the common semantic-pragmatic ground on which all the uses are based. Thus I was able to postulate that semanticpragmatic substance which motivates all the textual occurrences. The postulation of an invariant meaning for the ba-construction versus its “syntactic

 Dramatized Discourse

variants” provided me with a unitary explanation. With the invariant meaning pinned down, the seemingly disconnected arbitrary constraints become analyzable. Meanwhile, language is used by people. Therefore, to consider the “human factor” as a relevant aspect of linguistic analysis is inevitable. Specifically, human cognition and psychology offer a powerful tool with which to tackle the issue of bridging linguistic meanings with actual uses. In this book, cognitive salience of events on the one hand and speaker’s subjectivity and emotionality on the other are taken to be the motivating strategies of conceptualization and communication. By now, the reader has surely realized that my treatment of the baconstruction is about the interface between syntactic forms and pragmatic considerations. I hope that those who read this book will come to notice many things about the ba-construction they never noticed before. I hope that the discoveries they make through this book will help clarify some of the confusions they encounter.

Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to thank all those scholars whose studies of the Mandarin ba-construction have made it possible for this book to be born in a new light. Without the previous work they contribute to the subject, my exploration of the issue would have been much limited. I would also like to thank my students of “Introduction to Chinese Linguistics” and “Chinese III”, which I taught at the University of Cologne. Their constant attention and their endless curiosity have contributed enormously to our classroom discussions of grammar and language use, which, in turn, have always deepened my thoughts on linguistic analysis. To be precise, the practical question they have most frequently raised, namely, “When to use construction X versus Y, and why?” has been a great motivation for me to struggle toward more satisfactory answers by rising above sentence grammar which is taught in most textbooks. My deep appreciation goes to the two anonymous reviewers of the first draft of this book. Their critique and suggestions have been essential to the improvement of this work. This book would also have been much harder to write without the inspiration, help, support, and love of many other people. I am deeply grateful to my advisor, Professor Dr. Hans-Jürgen Sasse. Not only have his scholarly brilliance and his vision reassured me, time and again, that joining the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Cologne is worth the pains in taking the many hour-long train trips and dragging back and forth the book-filled suitcase, more importantly, his advice has protected me from many serious errors. Both his published works and his suggestions regarding the manuscript throughout the writing and the revising process have been the constant intellectual nourishment for me. I thank him for patiently accompanying me through the entire journey of dissertating. Naturally, all mistakes in this work belong to me solely. I welcome this opportunity to thank Professor Dr. Robert Kirsner of UCLA. His graduate course G238 in Form-Content Analysis kindled my interest in linguistic analysis and broadened my intellectual perspective. Moreover,

 Dramatized Discourse

Dr. Kirsner’s passion for linguistics and learning in general has been an enduring inspiration for me. I wholeheartedly thank him for the many valuable comments and the inspiring discussions he offerred me with regard to the manuscript throughout the entire editing process. I would like to thank many members of the Columbia School Linguistics Society whose questions and concerns about the content of the manuscript have greatly contributed to its improvement. I especially thank Professor Dr. Ellen Contini-Morava of University of Virginia and Professor Dr. Yishai Tobin of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, for the many insights and encouragement they so generously offered. I thank Professor Dr. Lutz Bieg of East Asian Institute, University of Cologne, for the important suggestions he made about the manuscript in the early stage of writing. I am also thankful to Professor Dr. Jian Wang of Department of German Studies, Beijing University. He has purchased, over and over again, Chinese books and ordered photocopies of Chinese journal articles for me from Beijing, which have become the source of text material of my dissertation. His knowledgeable help is truly appreciated. I would like to thank Professor Dr. Chris Stevens of UCLA, who has prepared me for the loneliness of the long-distance writer. Moreover, Professor Stevens has made valuable comments on the earlier ideas in the conception of this dissertation. I thank the University of California, Los Angeles, especially the Department of Germanic Languages, for offering me a variety of fellowships over years, without which I could not have been able to acquire the knowledge in linguistics and the research ability on which this dissertation rests. I owe a particular debt to my friend and mentor, Dr. Reba Braff-Simon. Her presence, though distant at times, has enriched my life. Her wisdom and insight have inspired me, and her unusual compassion and generosity have been a great gift to me. The encouragement she provided me throughout the dissertating process is invaluable. On the other hand, I thank her for the wonderful books, journal subscriptions and the revitalizing Californian trips she and her late husband, Dr. David Simon, gave me as presents. I wholeheartedly thank my parents-in-law, Hildegard and Lothar Schmidt, for their readiness to help and support us whenever we needed it. I especially appreciate their loving care for my daughter whenever childcare was otherwise unavailable. I am endlessly grateful to my husband, Dirk Schmidt. His love, his understanding of who I am, and his grudgeless support have ensured that I could

Acknowledgments

devote myself to this dissertation. His contribution to this project cannot be measured or described by words. I owe a lifelong debt to my parents, Professor Lifen Yang and Professor Ruifeng Jing who live in China. They have taught me the preciousness of learning and they made me eager to acquire knowledge. Their powerful patience, on the other hand, has been the most enduring nutrition that sustains my heart. I also thank my two loving sisters, Yang and Ting, for their presence in my parents’ life during my long absence. I have dedicated this book to my five-year-old daughter, Tabia Yishui, as a probably unwanted “present”. However, I insist on giving her the present because her birth has transformed me and given my life clarity. Her beautiful existence makes me unafraid of difficulties in my work and in my life. Z. J. S. Recklinghausen, March 2005

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List of figures and tables

Figures 6.1. 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8

Perfective versus imperfective constellation from speaker’s perspective Change in total frequency of ba versus jiang Change in frequency of ba versus jiang as full verb Change in frequency of ba versus jiang as instrumental Change in frequency of ba versus jiang as in the BA-construction Development of the attitudinal thetic use Development of other uses (verbal suffix and adverb) of jiang Change in frequency of na as verb and as preposition Change in frequency of yong as verb and as preposition

Tables 3.1 3.2 4.1 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14

Structures of the ba-construction Features that correlate with the relative position of verb and object Parameters of cardinal transitivity Choice of sentence type versus number of participants in corpus S Choice of sentence type versus verbal dynamism in corpus S Choice of sentence type versus number of VM units in corpus S Number of VM units per clause across sentence type in corpus S Types pf VM in use with the ba-construction The Mandarin aspect system Frequency of aspect markers in ba-clauses in corpus S Choice of sentence type versus discourse familiarity of subject in corpus S Specificity of the ba-NP in corpus S Definiteness of the ba-NP in imperatives in corpus S Frequency of ba-imperatives versus non-ba-imperatives in corpus S Familiarity degree of NPs in ba-clauses in corpus S Properties of foreground-background distinction Choice of sentence type versus sequentiality of event in corpus S

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6.15 6.16 6.17 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9

Choice of sentence type versus realness of event in corpus S Frequency of ba-clause versus non-ba-clause in CR in corpus S Distribution of CR in ba-clause in corpus S Choice of sentence type versus metaphor type in corpus S Percentage of each metaphor type within each sentence type Choice of sentence type versus use of intensifiers in corpus S Modal verbs in ba-clauses in corpus S Total number of ba-clauses in corpora S and M Total number of occurrences of ba versus jiang Total number of occurrences of ba versus jiang as full verb Total number of occurrences of ba versus jiang as instrumental Total number of occurrences of ba versus jiang as in the BA-construction Total number of occurrences of ba versus jiang as in the attitudinal thetic sentence Total number of occurrences of jiang as verbal suffix and adverb Total occurrences of na as verb and as preposition Total occurrences of yong as verb and as preposition Frequency of ba versus jiang in CC in corpora J and H

Notational conventions

1. (x): x is an optional element. 2. Single quotation marks ‘’ are used for meanings. 3. Italics are used for (a) short linguistic forms cited in the text; (b) emphasis in quotations. 4. Asterisk * is used for (a) ungrammatical or semantically anomalous forms; (b) forms which are well-formed in isolation, but which create ill- formed discourse in context. 5. Question mark ? is used for semantically or pragmatically questionable uses. 6. Chinese characters: Simplified Chinese characters are used in the examples. 7. Spell sound: pinyin, the standard pronunciation system of Mandarin Chinese adopted in the People’s Republic of China, is used in examples. All tone markers are left out because they are irrelevant to the analysis conducted here. 8. Glosses and translations: Each Chinese element is glossed with the most literal English equivalent possible. 9. Hyphens: (a) for linking two syllables of a compound word such as hao-chi ‘goodeat’ or ‘tasty’; (b) for linking main verb and a verbal modifier such as da-si ‘hit dead’.

Abbreviations

Abbreviation Term ADV ASSOC AUX BENEF CAUS CL COM COML CR CRS DISM DISS DUR EXP EXT GEN INCL INS NOM NP O OM P PASS PFV PN PRD PROH Q

Adverb Associative Auxiliary Benefactive Causative Classifier Complement Completive Conjunctive relation Currently relevant state Dismissive Dissipative Durative Experiential Extentative Genitive Inclusive Instrumental Nominaliser Noun phrase Object Object marker Particle Passive Perfective Proper name Predicate Prohibitive Question

 Dramatized Discourse

REL RES S T V VP VQ VR 1sg. 2sg. 3sg. 1pl. 2pl. 3pl.

Relative Resultative Subject Topic Verb Verbal phrase Verbal quantifier Verbal reduplication First person singular pronoun Second person singular pronoun Third person singular pronoun First person plural Second person plural Third person plural

Chapter 1

Introduction

This study offers a data-driven discourse analysis of the ba-construction of Mandarin Chinese.1 The analysis concerns the synchronic function of the baconstruction on the one hand and the historical development of this function on the other. This double task is pursued on the basis of the fundamental confidence in understanding language as “a uniquely human instrument of communication” (Diver 1995: 43). Communication is defined as “a social activity requiring the coordinated efforts of two or more individuals” (Gumperz 1982a: 1). Communication can be understood either in the narrow sense of immediate face-to-face interaction in the form of direct exchange of messages and responses or in the broad sense that language is directed by a sender toward a recipient (immediate or eventual) for a meaningful interpretation (see Schiffrin 1987: 5–6). If language is designed for communication, it follows that language is goaldirected and always occurs in a specific context. That is, speakers of a language normally do not walk about making random statements that are irrelevant to the given context in which the speakers are situated, however grammatically well-formed these statements may be. In fact, the communicative function of language determines that whatever is said or not said and how something is said are governed by the communicative intent of the speaker. That is, “we communicate with some end in mind, some function to be fulfilled”, as Bruner (1985: 36) puts it. The interpretation of a verbal utterance is to recognize the intent in the given context in which the utterance occurs. This idea was articulated by Austin (1962) who introduced the theory of speech acts in his How to Do Things with Words. Austin argued that when people speak, they are necessarily performing social acts by the use of language. Searle (1969), following Austin, proposed that people, upon hearing an utterance, interpret it by going from the sound of it to the intent encoded by the sound. That is, people hear others talk in terms of social acts. If the purpose of language is to express an intent, then the crucial task in analyzing language is to reconstruct that intent. Diver saw the reconstruction of the speaker’s intent as key to the analysis of linguistic constructions. He wrote (1995: 53):

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One step in the analytical procedure [. . .] will be to pin down the nature of the intent. In fact, more generally, pinning down the nature of the intent is the solution of the problem as a whole, the motivation for the configuration of the sound waves is largely to be found in an intent, an hypothesized intent, on the part of the speaker.

If our job is to identify the speaker’s intent conveyed by means of a construction, then we cannot ignore the context in which the construction is used to convey that intent. The necessity of taking into consideration discourse environments of the construction under investigation becomes compelling. Discourse environment is the linguistic representation of the real-world context in which a sentence is intentionally uttered. It consists of linguistic elements that form a coherent structure beyond a single clause.2 Based on the above considerations, the present study will not take as the primary target of examination decontextualized introspective sentences composed by the linguists, as, for instance, (1)–(2) below: (1) Zhang-san ba Li-si piping-le. pn ba pn criticize-pfv ‘Zhang-san criticized Li-si.’ (2) a. Wo ba Zhang-san da-le. 1sg. ba pn hit-pfv ‘I hit Zhang-san.’ b. Wo da Zhang-san -le. 1sg. hit pn -pfv ‘I hit Zhang-san.’ [Li & Thompson 1974b: 203, tone markers in the original are omitted here; glosses are mine, Z.J.S.]

Rather, we will provide an analysis on account of real occurrences of the baconstruction in texts together with the contexts in which it occurs, as, for examples, (3a, b)–(8a, b) below from the corpus S. The ba-clauses in the exerpts are underlined: (3)

‘Xiaocui, whose pumpkin face turned alternately blue and red in anger,

Chapter 1. Introduction

is speaking to Lisiye with exaggerating gestures: “Don’t you see? As soon as I pulled out the rickshaw, they cleared the street! How can you make a living this way? Kill me with one stab of a dagger! That’s rather neat. Slashing me like this is utterly unbearable.”’ a. Ganggang ba che la chu-qu just ba rickshaw pull out-go b. Yi dao ba wo zai le one dagger ba 1sg. slay pfv (4)

‘Old Qi called Ruiquan from the yard: “Ruiquan, good child, go burn all the Western books and the like. They all cost a lot of money, but can we keep them for them to cause trouble?”’ Ba yang shu shenme de dou shao-le ba ba Western book what nom all burn-pfv p (5)

‘He starts to think for her. If she stays in Peking, what will become of her? Her father will possibly give her to the Japanese in exchange of a well-paid post! This thought made him suddenly sit up. Let her go serve the Japanese? Let her give all her beauty, tenderness, and a thousand and a myriad kinds of wonderful voice, gaze, and movement to the beasts?’ a. Ta-de fuqin hai hui yin qiu-guan-de-lu er ba ta 3sg.gen father yet will for ask:post:get:money thus ba 3sg. songgei ribenren ne give Japanese p b. Jiao ta ba meili, wenrou, yu yi qian zhong yi make 3sg. ba beauty tenderness, and one thousand kind one

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wan zhong meimiao de shengyin, yanshen, dongzuo, dou myriad kind wonderful assoc voice gaze movement all songgei yeshou? give beast (6)

‘Her voice suddenly becomes clear and high: “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Let’s go. I’ll go with you!” “Are we walking there?” “Can’t we get an automobile?” “All the stores have closed their doors.” “Even if it were an iron door, I would crash it open! Come on!”’ Jiu shi tie men, wo ye hui ba ta za kai! even be iron door, 1sg. too would ba it crash open (7)

‘They all feel that it isn’t the best time for shopping for wood-ears and wish to criticize her a bit. But everyone knows that her behavior is out of a good heart, so no one says a word. Seeing that no one responds to her, she gives a sigh and shrinks her head back like a snail.’ Xiang woniu shide ba tou suo hui-qu resemble snail like ba head shrink back-go (8)


“‘Will China ever defeat Japan? The foreigners all say that in about three months, at most a half year, the matter will be finished!” Ding-John says very objectively, as if he were not a Chinese, but an English ambassador. “How is it finished?” “The Chinese army gets smashed.” Upon hearing this, Big-Red-Pepper gets so excited that she almost drops the wine bottle onto the floor. “Guan Xiaohe! Did you hear it? Although I’m a woman, I’ve got no less insight than you men! Boost your courage and don’t miss the chance!”’ a. Jihu ba jiu ping diao zai di shang. nearly ba wine bottle drop on earth top b. Ba danzi zhuang qi dian lai. ba gallbladder strengthen up a:bit come

Sentences (1)–(2) are neatly formed and perfectly grammatical. However, compared to the ba-clauses in (3)–(8), they are meager and anemic, devoid of human voice shaped by human intentions, motivations and emotions. They are simply out of context. Though they may well illustrate how individual constituents, namely the subject, the verb and the object, are sequentially organized into a grammatical sentence, they do not allow any inquiry beyond the syntactic structure as to, for example, why a speaker would want to utter a sentence like (2a) and not its apparent syntactic variant (2b) if they were indeed semantically equal, as many assume. To a question like this, an analysis based on isolated introspective sentences provides no answer except the superficial observation of the appearance, as stated by Li and Thompson (1974b: 203): It is important to note that the b˘a-construction has become the preferred form in Modern Chinese when the verb is polysyllabic. As we have mentioned earlier, many of the present-day SVO sentences have monosyllabic verbs such as d˘a ‘hit’, mà ‘scold’, ài ‘love’. . .etc. However, even such remaining SVO sentences are now facing the competition of an alternate SOV form, [. . .] On the other hand, if the verb is morphologically complex or modified, the b˘a-construction is usually preferred and often the only acceptable form.

Appearance, however, is no explanation: The syllabic structure and the morphological complexity of the verb do not explain the motivation underlying the actual choices speakers make between the ba-construction and its SVO alter-

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nate. Wishy-washy words like “usually” and “often” in the linguist’s vocabulary suggest the existence of murkiness in the analysis and leave the impression that a speaker’s preference of one structure over another may be arbitrary at times. This illusion of arbitrariness is most ardently preached in the generative treatment of the ba-construction. Sybesma (1999: 132), for instance, declares to the reader: [. . .] I will capitalize on the less-well-acknowledged fact that, generally speaking, every ba-sentence has a counterpart without ba, with (in all relevant respects) the same meaning.

Clearly, Sybesma regards the ba-sentence and its non-ba counterpart as synonymous. It may be true that every ba-sentence has a counterpart without ba, but it is an error to say that the two have the same meaning and vary freely in any context. In fact, the claim of “free variation” has been invalidated, time and again, by sign based analyses of linguistic constructions. In her Introduction to Meaning as Explanation: Advances in Linguistic Sign Theory, Contini-Morava (1995: 11–13) summarizes the studies that formidably challenge the notion of free variation. She emphasizes the existence of semantic contrast as an explanation for the conveying of particular messages in communication. In keeping with the communicative nature of language, structural preference must never be considered arbitrary. The reason is straightforward: apparent variation is always motivated by the speaker’s communicative intent and the speaker’s intent is not only relevant but central to linguistic analysis.3 As a matter of fact, none of the ba-clauses in the above examples (3)–(8) can be replaced with a so-called syntactic variant without the particular communicative intent being either weakened or even distorted. In fact, in each of these sentences the expression of intention, emotion or stance is systematically accomplished by means of linguistically real and analyzable structures that construct a coherent discourse: The subjunctive mood, the universal quantifier dou ‘all’, the hyperbolic quantifiers yi-qian ‘a thousand’ and yi-wan ‘a myriad’, the conceptual metaphor yeshou ‘beast’, the simile woniu ‘snail’, the modal adjunct jihu ‘almost’, the cohesive evaluative markers dao ‘rather’ and jiu. . . ye ‘even if ’, et cetera, are not used arbitrarily. They help to constitute the respective discourse environments in which the ba-construction occurs. In this sense, these correlating linguistic elements can be understood as contextualization cues with the aid of which we are able to interpret the respective utterances as expressions of indignation, request, determination, identity, etc., in short, as speech acts. Clearly, our interpretation of these messages immediately


dwells on the coherent discourse structures formed by the ba-construction, the correlating contextualization cues and the larger context in which the baconstruction occurs. As far as the larger context is concerned, we can see from the exerpts that the ba-clauses are used in describing theatrical excitement, as in (3a, b), (5a, b), (6) and (8a), in issuing compelling commands, as in (4) and (8b), or in depicting elaborate scenes, as in (7). In any case, the context of the ba-clause can be characterized as “dramatic”. The non-interchangeability of the syntactic forms exactly reflects the coherent construal of the discourse environments. By the same token, even the two introspective sentences (2a) and (2b) are not readily interchangeable in a given context, although they are statements of the same fact. Because human beings normally do not make arbitrary statements of facts, we shall imagine that (2a) and (2b) are meaningful expressions uttered for specific communicative purposes in certain contexts. Unsurprisingly, the contexts in which they may occur are indeed very different. For instance, (2a) and (2b) can be used as answers to the respective questions (2A) and (2B) below, which can be reconstructed in imagination: (2) A. Ni zenme zheme gaoxing? ‘You look so happy. Why?’ a. Wo ba Zhang-san da-le. ‘I hit Zhang-san.’ B. Ni haoxiang xinli you gui, gan shenme huai shi la? ‘You have a guilty look, what crap did you do?’ b. Wo da Zhang-san-le. ‘I hit Zhang-san.’

Both (2a) and (2b) state the fact of the speaker’s hitting Zhang-san. However, sentence (2a) can be identified as a braggart. That is to say, it gives a selfglorification account of the fact, showing that the speaker is proud of his deed. In sharp contrast, sentence (2b) is a low-key concession that is likely to be reluctantly made in front of a perceptive and strict parent or educator. The speaker is forced to admit committing an act that he feels bad about and does not wish to profile. It is clear that the choice of sentence types is not arbitrarily made here; rather, it reflects the way the speaker defines the discourse situations and produces according reactions. In short, the choice of the respective sentences

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types is motivated by the speaker’s intent in the given situations. For this consideration, the present study will attempt to identify the intent underlying the use of the ba-construction. We will do so by seeking the semantic-pragmatic property with which the syntactic difference between the ba-construction and its apparent variation may be correlated. In this study, we shall argue that discourse dramaticity is the semanticpragmatic property to which the choice of syntactic structures is sensitive. When the speaker’s communicative intent favors high discourse dramaticity, the ba-construction is chosen; when the speaker’s communicative intent prefers low discourse dramaticity, a non-ba-construction is chosen according to the concrete “background of expectation” (Sasse 1987) in the given context. Thus, synchronically, the ba-construction is used as a dramatizing strategy to draw the hearer’s attention to the events being communicated. By virtue of this dramatizing function, the ba-construction stands in semantic-pragmatic opposition to other syntactic forms in Mandarin Chinese including the fundamental SVO, the contrastive OSV and SOV, and the fossilized VS thetic sentences. To be precise, the use of the ba-construction as a discourse dramatizer gives the instruction to the hearer that the speaker is making an investment of his own perspective, his emotion or attitude in the proposition and wishes to be so interpreted by the hearer. The function of discourse dramatization is realized by a number of correlating linguistic strategies. These are: (1) the grammatical representation of cognitive salience of the event being communicated and (2) the expression of subjectivity and emotional intensity by means of lexical, grammatical and stylistic tools. The validation of this argument shall reveal the inadequacies of treating the ba-construction on the clausal level only, as previous approaches uniformly do. Diachronically, the syntactic change from a serial verb construction to the dramatizing ba-construction is no mysterious “drift” through time, as has been assumed. The change is structurally triggered and pragmatically motivated and is subject to functional selection within the synchronic system of grammar at each historical stage of development. From an evolutionary perspective, the development of the ba-construction constitutes an adaptive change whereby a minor structural change in syntactic representation triggers radically diverged communicative behavior (cf. Lieberman 1984, 1991). This behavior has a selective value towards enhanced social advantage by virtue of enhanced pragmatic value. The new communicative function in turn reinforces the structural elaboration of the ba-construction, which leads towards high expressiveness and dramaticity. Both internal (formal) and external (social) factors shape the path


of the development, which shows a strong tendency of semantic-pragmatic enrichment in the sense that a propositional meaning has come to express subjective messages (see Traugott 1982, 1989, 2003). The discussion of the diachronic development of the ba-construction will invalidate the notion of an “object marker”, which has been imposed upon the morpheme ba by previous approaches, synchronic and diachronic. Given our assumption that structural preference is always motivated by the communicative intent of the speaker, we view linguistic constructions as signs with indexical meanings, which the speaker uses to make instructions for the hearer to make appropriate inferences in communication. This view gives rise to our hypothesis of an invariant instructional meaning for the baconstruction that reflects the intent underlying the use of this construction. It is in the representation of this particular semantic substance that the baconstruction contrasts to other syntactic structures. The postulation of the invariant instructional meaning assures a semantic ground on which the interaction between syntax and pragmatics becomes linguistically analyzable. This is to say, we do not treat pragmatics as “radical pragmatics” independent of grammar and syntax; rather, pragmatics is solidly anchored on language structures with which meanings are conveyed (cf. Sadock 1984). The respective instructional meanings postulated for the ba-construction and its syntactic variants will explain the interrelations between the superficial phenomena observed with the ba-construction such as the presupposition of the subject and the object, the morphological complexity of the verbal phrase, the use of the perfective aspect marker le, etc., which otherwise seem mysterious and unrelated to one another. This study points to an ultimate goal, which is to show that a syntactic structure viewed in isolation from discourse is deceptive, and that an analysis of isolated syntax reveals neither the function of the structure nor the motivation for structural change through time. Such an approach dissociates language from its speakers, whose experience is the very content of linguistic expressions. Because “that language is a perfect symbolism of experience, that in the actual context of behavior it cannot be divorced from action and that it is the carrier of an infinitely nuanced expressiveness are universally valid psychological facts” (Sapir 1949: 11), an explanatory analysis of syntactic structures must take into account the human factor and study the syntax-pragmatics interface. The functional aspect of linguistic structures is key to both the synchronic analysis of actual uses and the diachronic study of syntactic change. In other words, if a framework enables us to penetrate the ”what and why” of a structure synchronically, then the same framework will empower our diachronic explanation of

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that structure. To be precise, the concern with the interaction between syntax and pragmatics, or, more directly, the concern with the pragmatic function of syntax, shall answer both synchronic and diachronic questions with respect to the ba-construction, and in that spirit, any other linguistic structure. This is the commitment we will make with this study. An overview of chapters is in order. Chapter 1 as an introduction informs the reader of the basic assumptions about language and syntax in particular on which the present study is based and offers the reader a clue of what to expect in this book; Chapter 2 outlines the database with a remark on the adequacy of the use of literary texts as the primary database; Chapter 3 introduces the ba-construction of Modern Mandarin in a syntactic overview with a wealth of examples as the raw material with which the characteristics and uses of the ba-construction are illustrated. A discussion of the controversy with regard to Mandarin Chinese word order is intended to shed light on the functional complementarity of sentence types in Mandarin Chinese. Chapter 4 reviews previous studies of the ba-construction on the synchronic level and discusses the unsolved problem. Attention is given to the disposal approach, the transitivity approach and the causativity approach, three influential analyses that predominate the understanding of the ba-construction in the literature. Chapter 5 provides the hypothesis of the system of speaker’s instruction to discourse dramaticity where the ba-construction contrasts to its syntactic variants. The hypothesis is made within the tradition of the form-content analysis that treats linguistic constructions as signs carrying invariant instructional meanings which reflect the speaker’s communicative intent. Two strategies, namely (1) cognitive salience and (2) subjectivity and emotionality, are predicted on the basis of the hypothesis of discourse dramaticity; Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 aim to validate the two strategies that directly bear on the hypothesis. Chapter 6 explores linguistic cues correlating with the ba-construction in the representation of cognitive salience on the clause level and the trans-clause level. Chapter 7 confronts the phenomenon of linguistic subjectivity and emotionality inherent in the discourse context where the ba-construcion is used to describe events. The analyses are carried out on account of quantitative textual data on the relevant linguistic properties predicted by the hypothesis. Frequency counts across two discourse types serve as extra evidence; Chapter 8 is an interim conclusion summarizing the synchronic analysis conducted in the previous chapters. Chapter 9 is devoted to the description and explanation of the diachronic development of the pragmatic function of the ba-construction. The notion of a “drift” and the notion of a grammaticalized object marker as a result of the drift are invalidated. Instead, a rich history of interwoven struc-


tural changes and functional innovations is reconstructed on the background of the given sociocultural contexts. The development of the ba-construction as a syntactic device for discourse dramatization is an adaptive process of language in use. Chapter 10 contains concluding remarks and a brief statement of future goals.

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Chapter 2

Database

The database for the synchronic analysis consisted of the following corpora: the corpus S, which is the core of the database, consisted of the first 16 chapters (165 pages) of Lao She ([1945]1999), a Modern Mandarin novel about the fate of a multi-generation Pekinger family during the dire time of the Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945. The novel is written in the voice of the third-person narrator, it is however packed with constructed first-person dialogues. The corpus W (Lao She [1940]1999) and the corpus C (Lao She [1957]1999), which consisted respectively of 58 pages and 105 pages of two modern Mandarin plays, were sporadically consulted. Apart from the narrative texts, corpus M (Yang & Gan 2000), which consisted of the first eight chapters of a contemporary introductory philosophical textbook for university students, provided data on the distributions of the ba-construction in the non-fictional type of discourse. For the diachronic analysis, we used two types of text material. The first type was purported for the token-based non-quantitative examination of the ba-construction in the earlier phase of its development where large bodies of colloquial narratives are unavailable. The second type was intended for the quantitative study of the grammatical regulation and systemization of the baconstruction in relation to its rivals in the later phase of development where colloquial texts abound. The first type of data contained a mixed source of historical textual examples either adopted from previous studies or cited from historical texts including Bian and Zhou (1999), Zhang (2000), and Guan (2000). The second type of data consisted of four corpora: corpus Y contained ten vernacular plays of the Yuan dynasty, corpus J contained the first 16 chapters of a vernacular novel of the Ming dynasty, corpus H contained the first 16 chapters of a renowned novel of the Qing dynasty, and corpus S was the same as the main corpus used for the synchronic analysis. In Section 9.3.1, we will describe this part of the historical data in more detail. Since the central idea underlying this study is the communicative nature of language, it is necessary to discuss the adequacy of the database on which the hypothesis, namely that the ba-construction signals high discourse dramaticity,

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is presented and validated. Specifically, we shall ask the question: Is literary discourse an adequate source of data? The answer is affirmative insofar as literary discourse resembles speech in its communicative nature. The broader sense of communication, as has been mentioned in Chapter 1, suggests that literary discourse is necessarily communicative because it is directed toward intended and eventual recipients, that is, the readers, within the shared symbolic system and is intended for meaningful interpretations. In fact, not only is literary discourse communicative in the broad sense of communication, many thinkers have expressed the idea that literary discourse actually resembles conversational discourse in its very mechanism. E. Sapir (1949: 11) observes: The history of writing is in essence the long attempt to develop an independent symbolism on the basis of graphic representation, followed by the slow and begrudging realization that spoken language is a more powerful symbolism than any graphic one can possibly be and that true progress in the art of writing lay in the virtual abandonment of the principle with which it originally started. Effective systems of writing, whether alphabetic or not, are more or less exact transfers of speech.

Goffman (1974), who uses examples drawn from novels or dramatic productions throughout, judges them a fruitful source of material by saying that “their deepest significance is that they provide a mock-up of everyday life, a puttogether script of unscripted social doings and thus are a source of broad hints concerning the structure of this domain” (1974: 53). Searle (1969) claims, “The literary is continuous with the non-literary. Not only is there no sharp boundary, but there is not much of a boundary at all”, for, he argues (1969: 59–64): [F]ictions and non-fictions contain the same illocutionary acts such as making statements, asking questions, giving orders, making promises, apologizing, thanking, and so on. Anyone [. . .] who wishes to claim that fiction contains different illocutionary acts from nonfiction is committed to the view that words do not have their normal meanings in works of fiction. The difference between fictions and non-fictions, then, is that the author of a work of fiction pretends to perform a series of illocutionary acts.

Searle regards the identifying criterion for whether or not a text is a work of fiction as necessarily lying in the “illocutionary intentions” of the author. He concluded that “there is no textual property, syntactical or semantic, that will identify a text as a work of fiction”.

Chapter 2. Database

In her 1985 lecture Hearing Voices in Conversation, Fiction, and Mixed Genres, Tannen (1985: 89–90) argues, on account of her own research and other scholars’ work, that “ordinary conversation and literary discourse have more in common than has been commonly thought”, and that indeed “literary language is made of the stuff of ordinary conversation” in the sense that “both operate on the same linguistic dimensions to create interpersonal involvement”. She concludes that “storytelling – conversational or literary, spoken or written – makes use of constructed dialogue” instead of reported dialogue. By the force of constructed dialogue, the storyteller aims to draw the hearer or reader to his or her confabulations and interaction is thereby engaged. Friedrich (1986) expresses the same point when he argues that language “is inherently, pervasively and powerfully poetic” (1986: 17). Rosen (1984, 1988) and Turner (1996) also insist that storytelling is a basic cognitive act of the mind. It is at the heart of everyday life and no one can avoid it. Supported on these arguments, it seems appropriate to consider literary discourse as an unprivileged art instead of something lofty and detached from ordinary storytelling, which we all engage in everyday interaction, to seek rapport with or to convince our relevant others. Meanwhile, although these arguments encourage confidence in the adequacy of the text material as database for our analysis, there are other studies that argue for the significant difference between written and spoken discourse with respect to certain linguistic properties (Chafe 1994; Christensen 1994, 2000). Chafe lists six properties that distinguish spoken and written discourse. These are: (1) the evanescence of speaking versus the permanence and transportability of writing; (2) the rapidity of speaking versus the slowness of writing; (3) the spontaneity of speaking versus the edited quality of writing; (4) the prosodic richness of speaking versus the lack of prosodic representation in writing; (5) the naturalness of speaking versus the unnaturalness of writing and (6) the situatedness of speaking versus the desituatedness of writing (1994: 41–50). For this reason, we shall recognize that although literary discourse (especially dialogue within a literary text) may indeed be similar to conversational discourse in the way the ba-construction is used, it’s also possible that they differ and that the differences amount to a redistribution of the frequencies with which various linguistic forms are used, just as Chafe points out. Thus more research in this respect would be necessary in order to provide definitive confirmation that our findings based on the literary data can be generalized beyond literary Chinese.

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Chapter 3

The syntax of the ba-construction Overview

. Compositional properties of the ba-construction Our goal in this chapter is to gain an initial impression of the ba-construction by taking a brief look at the major formal types of its structure. This statement of purpose may suggest that we are about to present the “syntactic facts” of the ba-construction. However, we are not free to do so. The reason is clear: there are many possible ways of presenting “facts” and none is value-free in terms of the linguist’s theoretical conviction. Thus, before preceeding any further, we shall beware of the false belief that “the facts” of a language are something independent of the theoretical framework within which the language is described. Reid (1977: 75) reminds us of the role theory plays in linguistic description: We are sometimes led to believe that “the facts” of a language exist prior to analysis like pebbles on a beach, readily accessible to cataloguing by mere inspection in advance of any theory; and that the job of the linguist is to account for these pre-established facts. . . The hypothesis presented in this paper and the quantitative data advanced to support it give a particularly striking demonstration that the opposite is the case: that “the facts” of a language are themselves creatures of a theory about that language; that a theory “selects” its own data, gathers its own evidence; that theory making and fact finding go hand in hand; that in linguistics at least, there is no such thing as objective description prior to explanation.

Given our functional view of language, as stated in Chapter 1, the syntax of a language has no reality independent of the communicative intent the speaker bears in mind in a given context. This idea necessarily underlies our description of the compositional properties of the ba-construction. Yet before arriving at an explicit hypothesis about the ba-construction, our description will necessarily remain an impressionist overview. By choosing authentic textual occurrences of the ba-construction as the object of the overview and by providing

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the basic context in which the ba-construction occurs, we avoid the hazard of “constructing” the object of description in a self-serving manner. Essentially, the syntactic organization of the modern Mandarin ba-construction can be fleshed out as ba-NP-VP. This structure can represent two entirely different syntactic relationships: (A) ba-O-VP and (B) ba-S-VP. The distinction between (A) and (B) depends on the logical role of the baNP. The first format encodes the inversion of the direct object (O) and the verb phrase (VP). That is, the verb phrase is postponed to a later slot vis-à-vis the object. The verb phrase is subject to syntactic constraints such that it can never be reduced to a single verb, but in principle consists of a verb and an obligatory verbal modifier. Format (A) is the most common form of the ba-construction. Format (B) is a ba-construction where the ba-NP is not the object of the matrix verb, but rather the subject (S) of the event. In this case, the event being communicated is intransitive, or “unaccusative”, to use Sybesma’s (1999: 138– 139) term. Compared to (A), format (B) is not used as frequently. The question about the relative infrequency of format (B), however, will not be dismissed as a trivial matter, which has been the case in the literature up to date. Rather, we will take the asymmetry in use seriously and offer an explanation within the framework presented in this work. In the following part, I will concentrate on the detailed syntactic description of both formats. As for (A) ba-O-VP, an instrumental can be inserted between O and the VP. The instrumental can be a prepositional phrase or a noun phrase. The presence or absence of this instrumental plays no part in the total grammaticality of the ba-construction. Therefore, we do not consider the instrumental as an essential component of the ba-construction. As a matter of fact, because of its relative independence of the ba-construction, the instrumental can appear before the entire ba-construction. For this reason, we do not single out cases of the baconstruction with an instrumental in the syntactic description. By virtue of the different compositions of the verb phrase, structure (A) shows a number of variations. First, structure (a) ba-O-V-COM features the VP of the ba-construction as a matrix verb followed by a complement (COM). This complement is the linguistic material that signals the degree, result, direction, or destination of the action. If semantic differentiations are to be made, there are mainly four types of complement. They are customarily termed: extentative, resultative, locative, and directive (cf. Liu 2003). There can be semantic overlapping between the four notions and the distinction is not absolute. Consider sentences (1)–(3):

Chapter 3. The syntax of the ba-construction

(1) ‘Tongfang’s loud cursing lasted a long while, after that Gaodi came over to calm her down. As usual, thunderstorms are followed by sunshines; Having let out all her anger, Tongfang was extraordinarily warm to Gaodi.’ Tongfang ba yuanqi fang jin, dui Gaodi tebiede pn ba anger release complete to pn extraordinarily qinre. warm (2)

‘When she saw that Guan Xiaohe was a bit scared, she got angry: “You fellow can’t tell what’s good and what’s bad. You want to eat it and you’re afraid it’s too hot, what a fool you are! Look, you just found your way and had a little success, how can you be afraid now? Is Qian your father? Are you scared to have people hit him dead with one slap?”’ Ni pa jiao renjia ba ta yi ge zuiba da si? 2sg. fear caus people ba him one cl slap hit dead (3) ‘Tongfang was waiting for her behind the gate; even before (Gaodi) called, Tongfang opened the gate for her.’ Mei deng jiao men, bian ba men kai kai-le. neg wait call door, simply ba gate open open-pfv

Sentence (1) features a ba-construction with an extentative complement jin ‘to the end, exhaust’ expressing the degree to which the action fang ‘release’ goes. Yet the semantic ambiguity is such that it can be equally regarded as a resultative when the ending state of the object is being considered. The context in which the ba-clause occurs is clearly dramatic, as the action of relieving the anger is compared to the violent natural phenomenon of thunderstorms. The ba-clause in (2) takes a simple resultative complement si ‘die, dead’ denoting the result of the action da ‘beat, hit’.4 This ba-clause makes an utterance loaded with extreme rage. As the context shows, the enraged speaker is exploding with a vehement verbal abuse to the hearer by fully exploiting the dramaticity of

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the sentence type she chooses – the ba-clause imbedded in a rhetoric question. The resultative complement of the ba-construction in (3) is a seeming reduplication of the main verb kai ‘open’. In real effect, the second kai ‘open’ denotes the resulting state of openness of the object caused by the action of opening signaled by the first kai. This complement is followed by the perfective aspect suffix le, which signals the change in the state of affairs. This configuration conveys a strong sense of eagerness in the action of opening the gate which is in keeping with the feeling of anxious anticipation as suggested by the context. A slightly different kind of resultative complement is illustrated by the basentences in the following excerpts: (4)

‘Gaodi has had quite a few boyfriends, but every time they saw Zhaodi, they abandoned her like bees that see another, more fragrant flower. She quarrels with her sister because of this and her sister fights back: “I don’t want to rob you of your friends, but they want to be my friends, what can I do? Perhaps your nose is not so very lovely?” This kind of ruthless attack is already enough to make Gaodi weep so much that her eyes get puffy, and her mother, to make things worse, reminds her: “That’s right. If you were finer and people liked you, you could’ve married someone earlier, which would save me a bit worries!”’ Zhezhong this:kind yan ku eye weep

wuqing de gongji, yi zu jiao Gaodi ba ruthless assoc attack already enough caus pn ba zhong swollen

(5) ‘Cheng Changshun had eaten a very early lunch and intended to get a half day’s good business done. He browsed several streets and shouted so hard that his throat became dry, but [he] didn’t even make one deal.’


Ba sangzi han gan ba throat shout dry

Note that the main verbs of (4) and (5), ku ‘cry’ and han ‘shout’, respectively, are intransitives and can not take objects on their own, i.e. * ku yan ‘cry eyes’ or * han sangzi ‘shout throat’. Yet with the help of the following resultative complement, the entire VP can take an object, i.e. ku zhong-le yan ‘cry until one’s eyes are swollen’ and han gan-le sangzi ‘shout one’s throat dry’. Note that it is appropriate here to adopt the so. . . that sentence type of English to translate the ba-clauses with the resultative, as such a translation aptly renders the strong impact of the world-changing actions being performed in the given contexts. In both contexts, the situation described by the ba-clause is meant to evoke the reader’s emotions towards the subject. Sentences (6)–(8) below feature more complex resultative complements with overt marking. In these sentences the verbal suffix de is attached to the main verb in the function of an overt resultative marker to introduce the following constituent ji di ‘extremely low’ in (6), jin-jin-de ‘very tight’ in (7), and jiao bu li di de luan zhuan ‘run around head over heels’ in (8), respectively, as the resulting state of the object caused by the action encoded by the main verb. Consider the uses of the ba-construction with such a resultative structure in the following contexts: (6)

“‘Where’s second brother? I’ve come to see him!” “He left again! Left!” Mr. Qian’s voice seems to harbor some secret. “What did he say?” “He?” Qian Moyin lowered his voice so much that he was almost whispering to Ruiquan. “He came to say farewell!”’ Qian Moyin ba shengyin fang de ji di, jihu xiang dui pn ba voice put res very low, almost as:if to Ruiquan eryu ne. pn whisper p

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(7)

‘Guan Xiaohe shut the door very tight, feeling anxious and restless. After the sun set, he became even more scared, fearing that someone in the west yard might come to take revenge. He dared not point this out, but he hinted that a night guard had to be around.’ Guanxiaohe ba men bi de jinjinde. pn ba door shut res very:tight (8)

‘Big Red Pepper was extraordinarily pleased and she declared: “All right, this was finally our first success! We have no way back any more. Let’s just keep going and work harder!” Having clarified this, she gave at least a dozen orders every five minutes just so the three servants kept running around head over heels. At one moment, she suggested a toast on her husband’s achievement; the next moment she wanted to invite her female friends to come and play mahjong; again she decided to change her clothes and go out to find out what was happening with Mr. Qian; then she took off the clothes she’d just put on a moment before and asked the cook to fix some oatmeal quickly.’

Ta mei wu fenzhong 3sg. every five minute san ge puren zhishi three cl servants order zhuan. turn

li zhishao xia shiji tiao in at:least give dozen cl de jiao bu li di res foot not leave ground

mingling, ba order, ba de luan assoc confused

What the contexts in which the respective ba-clauses occur have in common is the highly dramatic atmosphere described in (6)–(8). Whether the deep fear in (6), or the secret to be hidden in (7), or the mindless excitement and confusion


in (8), each situation is filled with the emotional particulars of the characters being depicted. The resultative complements used in these ba-clauses contribute just to the fabrication of the desired kind of atmosphere by providing an exagerated degree of theatricality. These examples show, once again, that the use of the ba-construction is context-sensitive. Apart from resultative complements, locative and directive complements are also frequently used with the ba-construction. Locative and directive complements cannot be strictly distinguished from each other in Mandarin Chinese. Locatives in concourse with the ba-construction do not signal the stative location of the object, but rather the change of location that occurs to the ba-NP caused by the action. In this sense they share motion with directives. Consider examples (9)–(10): (9)

‘Little Shun, Niuzi, and their clay bunnies are all seated at the table in order to please Great Grandpa Qi. Only the wife of the oldest grandson wouldn’t sit down, as she had to make the stir-fries. Tianyou and his son Ruixuan placed all the smile they could gather onto their faces.’ Tianyou he pn and lai de come assoc

Ruixuan ye er lia ba suo neng jihe qi pn father son two ba rel can gather rise xiao dou bai zai lian-shang.5 smile all display on face-up

(10) ‘The old woman was exasperated and shouted: “What are you people doing? Where are (you) taking my husband to? Let him go!” She held her husband’s arm tight.’ Yao ba laotou nong le dao naer qu? want ba old-man take pfv arrive where go

In sentence (9), the prepositional phrase zai lian-shang ‘on the face’ following the main verb bai ‘display, place’, signals the location in which the object xiao ‘smile’ ends up.6 This sense of motion is expressed by the English preposition onto. The use of the ba-construction here successfully creates the impression that the smile is an artificially produced grin, a facial expression elaboratedly

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manipulated as a social strategy to please the family’s oldest member whose birthday is being celebrated despite war-time hardship. Such a context of elaboration departs from the natural expression of joy and can therefore not be properly described by neutral sentence types. It is the dramatic nature of the context that calls for the use of the ba-construction.7 The ba-construction in sentence (10) is embedded in an interrogative, where the directive itself dao na-er qu ‘to where go’ constitutes the question. Yet this directive is nevertheless located in the postverbal position because of its syntactic role as complement. Note that in this ba-sentence the main verb nong ‘take, make’ takes the perfective suffix le before the complement, which signals that the action is viewed as a whole and that change in the state of affair has occurred as a result of the action. Clearly, the furious wife expresses not only her concern about the future whereabouts of her husband, but more importantly, her rage towards the enemy’s violent action. The expression of the strong emotion here is not arbitrarily related to the use of the ba-construction. Again, the context selects the sentence type. There is another type of directives that is further grammaticalized and as such denotes direction or destination in a more abstract sense. Consider sentences (11)–(13) below: (11) ‘Old-Three already went to bed because of his distress; Ruixuan roused him up.’ Ruixuan ba ta jiao qi-lai. pn ba 3sg. call rise-come (12) ‘The two pagoda trees outside are like two huge hens that stretch their loving wings to cover up all the five or six houses underneath them.’ fangfu as:though qi-lai rise-come

yao ba xiamian de wu liu hu renjia dou gaifu want ba underneath assoc five six cl house all cover shide. resemble

(13) ‘They – since they are not allowed to know what tomorrow will be like –


remember everything in the past, because they are going to separate, and perhaps forever.’ Tamen ba guoqu de yiqie dou xiang qi-lai. 3sg.pl. ba past assoc everything all think rise-come

The suffix qi-lai is used more abstractly in (12) and (13) than in (11). While the directive suffix in sentence (11) qi-lai ‘rise-come’ still refers to the upward direction of the physical movement, the same suffix in (12) can no longer be understood in terms of physical direction. It rather signals the fulfillment of the action gaifu ‘cover’. In so doing, the ba-clause fully conveys the protective power of the tree being described. Note also that the entire sentence features a trope that imaginatively assigns the tree a high degree of vitality and purpose. The same suffix in (13) refers to something in a more abstract domain, that is, the mental domain. The abstract directionality is to be conceived of in terms of the physical upward motion such that the ‘up’ in ‘to think up’ is, as Chao puts it, “up from below the threshold of memory” (1970: 211). The activation of memory is described here as a dramatic reaction to the deprivation in the present and the anxiety about the future. In this context, the ba-construction serves to profile the emotional intensity underlying the activation of memory. The ba-clause in (14) below offers another example of abstract complement: (14)

‘Having heard Zhaodi’s report, Xiaohe wasn’t moved at all. He only felt that the second son of the Qis was a bit stupid: Everyone has only one life. It’s not worth it if one has to kill himself just to kill others.’ Wei shuai si bieren, er ye ba ziji rao shang for smash dead others while also ba self add up

It is interesting here to notice that the two clauses in (14) contrast not only semantically, but also syntactically. The first clause is a regular VO type describing the goal of ‘killing others’ and the second is a ba-construction describing the means, that is, ‘killing oneself ’. The context suggests that Xiaohe considers the behavior described by the two clauses stupid in terms of his own philosophy of life. That is, he believes that the goal is not worth the means. Thus the goal is treated as slight by means of the unclaiming VO structure and the dramatic weight is assigned to the means by way of using the ba-construction.

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Such a contrastive arrangement is by no means accidental but purposeful: It is motivated by the speaker’s selective attention to the respective situations. When the VP of the ba-construction consists of a verb and an aspect suffix, we have the format (b) ba-O-V-ASP. L. Wang (1980) and Chao (1968), among others, have noted that the minimum addition to the main verb of a ba-clause is an aspect suffix. Sybesma (1999), following Chu (1978), calls this subtype of ba-sentences “the bare basentences” and analyzes them “as containing empty postverbal constituent”. A clarification of the nature of aspect suffixes in relation to the ba-construction is due here. First, aspect suffixes are postverbal constituents that are neither formally nor semantically “empty”. They are not dummy items, rather, they signal how the speaker views the event being described. Second, the presence or absence of the aspect suffix is not the single criterion by which the grammaticality of a ba-clause is judged. We have observed that non-aspectual monosyllabic complements such as jin in (1) and si in (2) can be used to modify the main verb without having to take any aspect suffix because they perform the same bounding function as aspect markers do. Clearly, aspect suffixes such as le are not the only minimum verbal modifiers. Mandarin Chinese has a number of aspect suffixes on varying stages of grammaticalization. They differ in frequency of use. The most frequently observed to co-occur with the ba-construction is the perfective le. Other aspect markers such as the tentative in the form of verbal reduplication, the durative zhe, and the experiential guo etc. are less frequently used with the baconstruction. I treat aspect markers as one kind of verbal modifier. Yet, in real discourse, on a page or out of a mouth, this kind of verbal modifier may co-occur with other kinds of verbal modifiers to form complex verbal complements. Consider the ba-sentences in (15)–(18): (15) “‘Ah?” Ruixuan seems to have forgotten about everything that just happened, staring stiffly at his younger brother, unable to utter a word.’ Ruixuan fangfu ba gangcai de yiqie dou wangji-le. pn seem ba just:now assoc everything all forget-pfv


(16)

‘Having given them the assignment, Big Red Pepper walked out, grumbling. With the name list and a few bills in her hand, Zhaodi put her tongue out, saying to Gaodi: “That’s it! The first thing is to get a few bucks. Big sister, let’s go out and have some fun, okay? When mother comes back, let’s just say that we’ve already visited all these families, but no one was home. And that’s it.”’ Deng mama hui lai, zanmen jiu shuo wait mother back come, 1pl.incl just say baifang guo le, keshi dou mei you ren exp pfv, but all not have people visit

ba ba zai at

ji jia dou several family all jia. home

(17) ‘Big-Fourth-Uncle, you go to the Qi’s and the Qian’s in a while and ask them to have a burning of the books and the like. The Japanese soldiers hate people who read books!’ Jiao tamen ba shu shenmede shao yi shao. caus 3pl. ba book and:the:like burn one burn (18)

“‘Well, that – ” said Mr. Guan, dropping his eyelids and opening his mouth a little in order to put up a very opinionated look. “That is – hard to say. After all it’s the government that doesn’t know how to deal with it. If they had dealt with it properly, the situation wouldn’t have become so bad!”’ Guan xiansheng ba pn ba zuo chu hen you act out very have

yan-pi eye-skin jianjie opinion

chui-zhe, zui zhang-zhe yi dian sink-dur mouth open-dur one bit de yangzi. assoc appearance

Apparently, the ba-construction is quite versatile in its capacity to take aspect suffixes. It not only takes the aspect suffix le for changing situations as in (15),

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but also takes the experiential guo as in (16), verbal reduplication as in (17), and the durative zhe which is typically employed in stative situations, as in (18). However, a quantitative study will show that it is much more frequently used with the perfective le than with all other aspect markers. A semantic-pragmatic solution is required to explicate this phenomenon. Note that both (15) and (16) make use of the universal quantifier dou ‘all’ as an adverb in immediate company of the ba-construction. The varying degrees of intensity expressed by the quantifiers will be shown to be a correlating strategy in fulfilling the pragmatic function of the ba-construction, which will be the topic of Section 7.3.2. When the VP of the ba-construction takes an adverbial in the preverbal position to modify the main verb and the postverbal slot remains unoccupied, the action itself is in focus. Thus we have (c) ba-O-ADV-V. Typically the preverbal adverbial signals the dynamism of the action, which is characterized by punctuality and kinetic force. Consider the ba-sentences in (19) and (20): (19)

‘His heart is racing but his face is forced to appear calm and his eyes are rolling in search of a way out, like eyes of a fox that is being circled in by hounds. He’s a fraid that the neighbors would see him. He’s forcefully pulling his hat forward so that people won’t easily recognize him.’ Ta ba maozi yongli wang qian che. 3sg. ba hat forcefully toward front pull (20) ‘Ruifeng didn’t have the same worries as his father and older brother; utterly enjoyingly, he kept digging his chopsticks into the tastier dishes.’ Er yi chun xiangshou de taidu ba kuaizi lao rather with pure enjoy assoc attitude ba chopsticks always wang hao yi dian de cai li shen. toward good a bit assoc dish in reach

The ba-sentences in (19) and (20) both have their main verb in the sentencefinal slot and both verbs have a directive element as part of their preverbal modifiers. In (19) it is wang qian, literally translating to ‘towards front’, mean-


ing ‘forward’ and in (20) it is the circum-position wang NP li, which literally translates to ‘towards NP’s inside’, meaning ‘into NP’. Both sentences describe the dynamic manipulation of an object with marked trajectory of motion. Moreover, the dynamic action of object manipulation is perceived in a remarkably negative light as a conspicuous act. The conspicuity of the action is brought out by the ba-construction. In this case, the preverbal directive component is indispensable to the grammaticality of the ba-clause that possesses no postverbal modifiers, e.g. the ba-clause of sentence (19) would be odd without the directive phrase which signals the direction and dynamism of the action. Compare (21) and (22): (21) Ta ba maozi yong-li che. 3sg. ba hat use-force pull (22) Ta yong-li che maozi. 3sg. use-force pull hat ‘He forcefully pulls his hat.’

It seems that the removal of the directive immediately causes a failure to direct or relieve the energy and dynamic generated by the ba-construction. The initial dramaticity associated with the ba-construction comes to a sudden halt and brings about no change of state. Importantly, without the trajectory of action being marked, the action ceases to be conspicuous, a quality the baconstruction serves to convey. The structural asymmetry between sentence form and adverbial modification correlates with the semantic imbalance between dramaticity and anticlimax, which explains the ill-formedness of sentence (21). The unmarked counterpart (22) in the SVO order, to the contrary, is acceptable without the same directive. The choice of sentence type in relation to situational dynamism will be shown later in this study to be motivated by the semantics of the respective sentence types. Another type of preverbal modifier is the preverbal numeral yi ‘one’ used to feature the dynamism of the action. This modifier does not signal the literal quantity of action (e.g. once vs. twice), but rather marks the general abruptness of motion, as in sentence (23): (23) Baoyu ba gan-zi yi huang. pn ba stick one swing ‘Baoyu gave the stick a (sudden) swing.’

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With the numeral yi ‘one’, sentence (23) expresses the suddenness and swiftness with which the action takes place. As L. Wang rightly observes, (23) cannot be transformed into its SVO counterpart with its meaning being intact. Consider sentence (24): (24) Baoyu yi huang gan-zi. pn one swing stick

Though both (23) and (24) may be said to denote the same truth-value proposition, sentence (24) is a much weaker representation of how the event is perceived and evaluated. Sentence (24) is weaker in the sense that the dynamism of motion is dispersed and unfocused. Accordingly, the sense of abruptness is not readily discernable and appreciable. This example shows that sentence forms play a significant role in bringing out the dynamism and abruptness associated with the yi-V structure. The unmarked SVO structure is not designed to play such a role because the information focus is given to the object while the verb is in a non-focus slot. The ba-construction, on the other hand, is obviously capable of such a task. On the other hand, sentence (21), which is ungrammatical because of the absence of the directive in the function of channeling the energy of the action, can actually be saved if we put the numeral yi ‘one’ in front of the verb che ‘pull’ to form (25), which takes on a new semantic aspect: (25) Ta ba maozi yong-li yi che. 3sg. ba hat use-force one pull ‘He gave the hat a yank.’

Note that the change in the translation of the main verb from ‘pull’ to ‘yank’ reflects the added jerkiness of the action modified by the preverbal numeral. The preverbal numeral is functionally different from the postverbal quantifier. Compare the minimal pair in (26): (26) a. Ta ba ganzi yi huang. 3sg. ba stick one swing ‘He gave the stick a (sudden) swing.’ b. Ta ba gan-zi huang-le yi xia. 3sg. ba stick swing-pfv one vq ‘He swung the stick once.’


In (26a), where the spotlight is concentrated on the action only, the dynamism of the action stands out unmistakenly. Compared to (26a), sentence (26b) contains two extra hedging elements in addition to the inversion of the verb and its quantification. First, by virtue of the perfective aspect marker le, the action of swinging the stick is viewed in its entirety and the dynamism of the action is not profiled. Second, the presence of the verbal quantifier xia signals that the quantification of the action rather than its dynamism is at issue. Accordingly, the sense of abruptness in (26a) is absent in (26b). Chao (1970) treats the form yi-V (i.e. the preverbal numeral plus the verb) as a free variant of the tentative aspect in the form of verbal reduplication. He says: “Sometimes, instead of V-V or V-(y)i-V, the first verb is omitted, resulting in (y)i-V” (1970: 349). His example is the following: (27) Ba yanjing yi fan. ba eye one roll ‘roll the eyes once’

Chao’s treatment is to be disputed on semantic grounds. If yi-V were indeed a free variant of V-V or V-yi-V, then it should be possible to reformulate sentence (27) in either the V-V structure or the V-yi-V structure. However, either transformation is impossible without necessarily changing the meaning of the original. Compare (27) with (28) and (29): (28) Ba yanjing fan-fan. ba eye roll-roll (29) Ba yanjing fan-yi-fan. ba eye roll-one-roll

While (27) denotes a short quick motion of rolling the eyes as in dismay, (28) and (29) denote a tentativeness that has nothing in common with the abruptness intended with (27). In fact, neither (28) nor (29) makes sense. The above discussion shows that preverbal modifiers are subject to the particular semantic constraint of dynamism characterized by directionally traceable movement or abruptness of action. A further type of ba-construction is observed to have two object NPs on each side of the main verb. When the second NP is the recipient of the direct object affected by the action, we have format (d) ba-O-V-Or, where the lower case r stands for recipient.

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The verb in this kind of construction is capable of engaging three participants including the sentential subject. The most frequently observed verbs are gei ‘give’, gaosu ‘tell’ and verbs with gei as recipient marker such as song-gei ‘give as a gift’, mai-gei ‘sell-to’, jiao-gei ‘hand over to’ and shuo-gei ‘narrate to, tell’. Consider the ba-sentences in (30)–(34): (30)

“‘The Japanese like minor advantages, perhaps they’ve set their sights on the Lugou Bridge this time.” “Why the Lugou Bridge out of all things?” wondered Mother of Little Shun. “A big bridge is nothing you can eat, nor can you move it away!” “There’re lions on the bridge! If I were asked to handle this matter, I’d just give them those lions. Being there on display, they’re useless anyway!”’ Wo jiu ba naxie shizi songgei tamen 1sg. just ba those lion give 3pl. (31)

‘He looks upon the Guans and the Guans can appreciate his foreign air, which lays the foundation of their friendship. In addition, the bit butter, coffee or authentic Oxford marmelade that he gets from the English Embassy are not desired by anyone except the Guans who understand the authenticity of these things. Therefore they have developed more connection to each other – He always sells this kind of Western goodies to the Guans fairly.’ yang huo gongdaode mai-gei Ta yongyuan ba zhe lei de 3sg. always ba this kind assoc western stuff fairly sell-to Guan jia. pn family


(32)

‘Shanghai is calling him! When he’s gone, who knows when he’ll see Mother again? Whether or not he’ll see her again? “Mother!” he cried out, wanting to tell her the secret in his heart. “What?” “Well – nothing really!” he ran out onto the yard. Looking up at the remote blue sky, he breathed out.’ Ta jiao-chu-lai, xiang ba xin zhong de mimi gaosu ta. 3sg. cry-out-come want ba heart in assoc secret tell 3sg. (33)

‘Thunderstorms are mostly followed by sunshines; having let out all her anger, Tongfang was extraordinarily warm to Gaodi. They began to have intimate conversations. In the back-and-forth of their contact, Gaodi told Tongfang her own little secret.’ Yi lai er qu de, Gaodi ba ziji de yidian xiao mimi one come two go crs pn ba self gen one:bit little secret gaosu-le Tongfang. tell-pfv pn (34) ‘Coming back home, he was almost too exhausted to be steady on his feet. Handing over the two playthings to Mother-of-Little-Shun, he walked into his own room speechlessly.’ Ba liang ge wanyier jiao gei Xiaoshuer de ma. ba two cl plaything hand:over give pn gen mother

This kind of ba-construction and its unmarked counterpart V-Or-O, where the recipient object precedes the direct object, are in complementary distributions

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in Mandarin Chinese. The choice between the two structures is motivated by communicative factors. For example, to put the ba-clause of (31) either in an unmarked SVO structure as (35), or in a contrastive OSV structure as (36), will yield an altered message: (35) Ta yongyuan gongdaode mai-gei Guan jia zhe lei de 3sg. forever fairly sell-to pn family this kind assoc yang huo. western stuff (36) Zhe lei de yang huo, ta yongyuan gongdaode mai-gei this kind assoc western stuff, 3sg. forever fairly sell-to Guan jia. pn family

(31) has an ironic undertone and is meant to show contempt. As we know, an intended irony is appropriately interpreted when the literal sense of the utterance is transcended. The flavor of irony meant with (31) gets lost in (35) and (36), both of which encourage a literal interpretation, which is semantically remote from the message of (31) and pragmatically inappropriate. Sentence (35) is unmarked in terms of word order and as such favors an unmarked interpretation of the actor-recipient-object relationship. Such an interpretation assigns a factual quality to the event being described and therefore allows no interpretation of irony. Sentence (36) differs from (35) only in terms of the perspective from which the event is described. By topicalizing the object which is by default not a topic, the speaker puts the object in contrastive light. Thus while (35) is about the subject, (36) is about the object. Neither (35) nor (36) is able to bring about the emotive sense inherent in irony. One can imagine that (31) is uttered with a sneer whereas (35) and (36) with an appreciative nod. The tendency to change the message associated with the syntactic transformation from a ba-construction to a non-ba-construction also applies to the other examples above. On the other hand, when the speaker wishes to communicate a literal and factual message, it is most likely that he will hold back from using the baconstruction so as not to send the wrong message. Compare (37) and (38) below:


(37) Wo, wo hai neng jie-gei ni ji kuai qian. 1sg. 1sg. still can loan-to 2sg. a:few cl money “‘I. . .I can still loan you a few dollars!”’ (38) Wo hai neng ba (zhe) ji kuai qian jie-gei ni. 1sg. still can ba this a:few cl money loan-to 2sg.

While sentence (37) expresses a tentative offer, sentence (38) cannot be used for the same purpose even if we specified the preposed object by adding the deictic marker zhe ‘this’. In fact (38) sounds so odd that it borders on ungrammaticality without some specific context. The tentativeness of (37) is materialized by the interplay of a number of linguistic factors: the syntactic choice of the SVO structure, the non-definite quantification, the modal particle hai ‘still’ with an undertone of ‘not quite’ in conjunction with the modal verb neng signaling possibility, and the stuttering with which the utterance is reluctantly begun. The ba-construction does not harmonize with this well-measured conglomeration of signs conveying reservation and caution. A special type of (d) involves the “pivotal construction” and takes the form of ba-O-V1-Or-V2 (see Chao 1970: 125). Here a second verb comes after the recipient object (Or) such that the Or has double syntactic status: Being the recipient of V1, it is also the subject of V2. It is interesting to note that V1 and V2 logically share the inverted direct object, which is the ba-NP, as in sentence (39): (39)

‘Coming into the house, Mr. Qian held Ruixuan’s hand tightly, crying: “Ruixuan!” He wanted to talk to him about Zhongshi. Not only did he want to talk about Zhongshi’s sacrifice for the country, he also wanted to tell Ruixuan everything about his son – what he was like in childhood, how he was at school, what he liked to eat. . .’

ye hai yao ba erzi de yiqie – ta you-shi shi shenme also still want ba son gen everything 3sg. young-time be what

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yangzi, zenyang shang xue, ai chi shenme. . . dou shuo-gei look how go school love eat what all speak-give Ruixuan ting. pn listen

In sentence (39), the verb at the very end of the sentence ting ‘listen’ is the predicate of the NP preceding it, that is, the recipient of shuo-gei ‘tell’. Meanwhile, the ba-NP, which is the direct object of the main verb shuo ‘speak, tell’, is also the logical object of the second verb ting ‘listen’. When the second NP controlled by the main verb is semantically a part of the first NP, we have (e) ba-O-V-Op, where the lower case p stands for partitive. Here, strictly speaking, the direct object of the main verb is not the ba-NP, but the second NP. However, since a part of the ba-NP is affected by the verb, the ba-NP can be considered partially affected by the verb and we can still operationally employ the format (e). It is interesting to notice that the ba-NP represents a definite set, whose identifiability is assured by the previous discourse whereas the second NP, i.e. the direct object Op, is introduced by an indefinite reference by virtue of which the identifiability of its referent is denied. The pragmatic contrast between the two is such that with the definite reference the hearer (reader) is “presupposed to have a form of control or knowledge of the objects referred to in a way that is not with indefinites” (Hawkins 1978: 204). This discrepancy in the hearer’s orientation generated in the partition of the definite whole and its indefinite component produces tension in discourse. Let us examine the common structure of the ba-sentences in (40) and (41): (40)

‘Having listened for a while, she could tell that the yonger man had no Peking accent, but spoke more like someone from Jiaodong. This aroused her curiosity and she decided to stand up to see if there was a crack in the curtain to peep through. Because she was eager to rise, she forgot about the window sill and bumped her head against it. She uttered only half of the word ‘ouch’, but was already heard by people inside the house. The light went out immediately.’ Ta ba ge “aiyou” zhi tu chu ban jie. 3sg. ba cl ouch only spit out half part


(41) ‘Mr. Qian had been in short clothes, so he quickly found his long robe and put it on in a hurry, getting one of the buttons into the wrong hole.’ Ba niukou kou cuo le yi ge. ba button button (vt.) wrong pfv one cl

Syntactically, both (40) and (41) can be reformulated in an SVO structure, where the definite whole is fused into the indefinite partitive object to produce an indefinite object. This fusion of O and Op in an SVO structure, as shown in (42) and (43) below, cancels out the tensive effect that generates from taking them apart and setting them in referential contrast by means of the ba-construction. (42) Ta zhi tu chu ban jie aiyou. 3sg. only spit out half part ouch ‘She only uttered a half of “ouch”.’ (43) Kou cuo le yi ge niukou. button wrong pfv one cl button ‘(He) got a button into the wrong hole.’

When transformed into (42), sentence (40) loses the definite referent ge aiyou ‘the word “ouch”’. Accordingly the object NP banjie aiyou requires an indefinite reading which is something like ‘a half “ouch”’ because of its position in the SVO sequence. That is to say, the hearer (reader) is not presupposed to have control or knowledge of the object. Yet there is the focus particle zhi ‘only’ that serves to instruct the hearer that the object uniquely deserves pragmatic attention. The non-engaging vagueness created by the indefinite reading of the object is not compatible with the attention demanded by the focus particle. The question mark before (42), then, is less a sign of questionable syntax than one of semantic oddity. On the other hand, the SVO structure encourages a literal interpretation of the NP banjie “aiyou” ‘a half “ouch”’ as if “ouch” could be divided physically. Since such an interpretation requires the help of metaphor and imagination, it falls out of the semantic-pragmatic capacity of the SVO structure whose unmarkedness favors literalness over dramaticity. Though sentence (43) violates neither syntactic nor semantic principles, it is too drab to fit into the discourse environment of sentence (41) in the absence of referential

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contrast between the definite set ‘the buttons’ and its indefinite member ‘one button’. These two examples, again, illustrate the dramatic nature of an event being described by the ba-construction and how the special organization of the two object NPs contribute to the dramaticity. A third type of double-object takes the form of (f) ba-O-V-Ot, where the lower case t operationally stands for transformation, which indicates that the identity of an object is perceived by the speaker as undergoing a certain kind of transformation as a result of the action described by the verb. To be concrete, the preverbal O undergoes transformation to become the postverbal Ot. The transformation can be either visible in the physical world or invisible in the subjective domain. The verb of this type of ba-construction is subject to both semantic and syntactic constraints. Semantically, the verb has to be those lexical items that either directly denote change, such as bian ‘change’ and huan ‘switch’, or those that do so by virtue of the addition of the verbal suffix zuo ‘make, as’ or cheng ‘become, into’, both signaling change, the latter being a stylistic variant of the former.8 Syntactically, one of the two suffixes is required in order to form structure (f). Consider sentences (44)–(47): (44)

‘He takes family, which has been viewed for thousands of years by China as the most sacred of all, only as a relationship in life. When his country is calling for help, no obstacle can keep him from coming to the rescue. Like a bird with full-fledged feather, he will fly away from the nest without hesitation.’ Ta ba zhongguo ji qian nian lai 3sg. ba China several thousand year since shensheng de jiating, zhi dang zuo yi sacred assoc family only regard as one de guanxi. assoc relationship

shi wei zui view as most zhong shenghuo kind life

(45)

‘When the oldest grandson was getting married, the entire house got renovated. Tianyou took care of the renovation – He wanted to turn his family


property into a fortress that can be passed on for ages so that he could face both his elders and his offspring without guilt.’ Ta 3sg. yi one

xiang ba fuqin zhi want ba father establish zuo zuyi chuan shi cl enough pass:on ages

mai de chanye bian cheng buy assoc property change into de baolei. assoc fortress

(46) ‘They only have to set up their machine guns and in a quarter of an hour’s time they’ll change Peking into a big slaughter house.’ yi one hen very

kezhong de gongfu bian ba Beiping bian cheng ge quarter assoc time already ba Peking change into cl da de tu chang. big assoc slaughter place

(47) ‘You have to take suffering an injustice as part of life, while trying to taste out a bit of sweetness from it in order to want to go on with life.’ Ni xu ba shou weiqu dang-zuo shenghuo. 2sg. must ba suffer injustice take-as livelihood

It is noteworthy that, similar to type (e) ba-O-V-Op, the two NPs surrounding the main verb of type (f) ba-O-V-Ot may differ from each other in terms of definiteness. When this is the case, the first, that is the ba-NP, is definite while the second NP is indefinite. This contrast creates tensive effect similar to that which we observed with sentences (40)–(41). Yet the second NP of (f) is not semantically restricted to the part-whole relationship characteristic of (e). Its reference is entirely open to any semantically and pragmatically proper entities, literally or metaphorically, in the speaker’s mind. Sentence (44) contrasts the generic and definite entity jiating ‘family’ in its unique cultural context expressed by the superlative attributive ‘viewed as the most sacred by China’ with the indefinite entity yi zhong shenghuode guanxi ‘a relationship in life’ which is an indifferent member of all potential referents. The tension between the two is dramatic. Sentences (45) and (46) both involve the use of conceptual

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metaphors to signal the high potentiality of change being communicated. In (45) the Ot yi zuo zuyi chuanshide baolei ‘a fortress that can be passed on for generations’ brings out the subject’s high ambition as a function of his sense of filial piety and family responsibility.9 The Ot in (46) ge hendade tuchang ‘a very big slaughter house’ evokes emotions by referring to any of the potential referents of slaughterhouses that can be imagined by the hearer. In sentence (47), both the ba-NP and the Ot are abstract nouns. Yet their references are definite because the notion of ‘suffering’ and the concept ‘life’ are both defined by shared cultural experience in the present context. These examples show that the ba-construction is apt to describe the drastically transformed identity of a discourse entity that is attended to by the speaker, an entity that is accessible to the hearer.10 The second major syntactic relationship denoted by the ba-construction is the more peculiar format ba-S-V. In comparison to the ba-construction involving object inversion, this structure typically lacks an agent in the sentenceinitial position, thus the form Ø-ba-S-V. Often, when there is a sentence-initial NP, it is the topic of the sentence and engages no “participation” (in Seiler’s sense 1984) in the event being described, thus the form T-ba-S-V (T for topic). The ba-NP, in both cases, is not the direct object of the main verb, but the actual subject. The main verb, in this case, is mostly intransitive in the sense that it normally makes an assertion about one participant and no more. Chappell (1991: 575–582) is one of the few scholars who take seriously this exceptional kind of ba-construction. She mainly focuses on the format Ø-ba-SV where no sentence-initial topic is present. She differentiates three subtypes of this construction, which are subsumed under the notion of causativity. These are (i) the “action causative with reflexive effect”, as in (48), (ii) the “experiencer causative”, as in (49) and (iii) the “event causative of displacement”, as in (50) below: (48) Duan le ban tian dou ba wo duan-fa -le. carry asp half day all ba I carry tired asp ‘It’s made me exhausted from carting things around so long.’ (49) Ba Pingping dou kuai qi-si -le. ba pn all soon upset-die asp ‘It just about had Pingping beside herself with anger.’


(50) Ba xiaochou shuai -le ge yang-ba-cha. ba clown fall asp cl flat-on-back ‘It made the clown fall flat on his back.’ [Chappell 1991: 576–581, originally numbered (39), (50) and (64), respectively.]

With regard to the first subtype, Chappell asserts, “This subcategory of intransitive ba encodes the inadvertent causation of an unpleasant feeling through the experiencer’s own action”. Here, the ba-NP is both the agent of the action and the experiencer of its effect. As for the second subtype, Chappell argues that this kind of the intransitive ba-sentence “belongs to the semantic domain of feelings and sensations. It encodes inadvertent causation of a temporary change of state in a person that is experienced to an excessive degree”. Note however the actual causer of the feelings or sensations is absent in the proposition and only the causee or the experiencer is described. Chappell rightly observes that this class of the intransitive ba-sentence requires the use of complemental intensifiers that indicate the extreme extent to which a feeling is experienced. The third subtype, according to Chappell, “encodes the causation of a change of locus for a person”. The verb of this subtype typically signals motion away from the speaker either in the sense of disappearance or dislodgement which is adversative in nature. Chappell’s fine-grained syntactic and semantic analysis reveals a number of properties of the intransitive ba-construction that have been ignored by other scholars. However, whether the postulation of causativity as the meaning of the ba-construction is appropriate depends on the answer to the question: Does causativity motivate and therefore explain the special properties of the baconstruction in contrast to the other methods of causativization in Mandarin? Note that Chappell considers causativity a given semantic category that is encoded by four different means at different linguistic levels in Mandarin. Thus all the four constructions have one and the same meaning, namely, causativity. This suggestion is inherently problematic because it cancels out the contrast among these constructions in terms of use. The apt description of the specific uses and contextual messages of the ba-construction, e.g. the emergence of new state of affairs, the extremety of emotional and sensational experience, the indication of loss and dislodgement etc., certainly suggests that this construction significantly differs from the other causative forms and that there is more to this construction than mere causativity. Clearly, the postulation of causativity fails to give credit to the semantic richness of the ba-construction as described

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in Chappell’s analysis, neither does it predict the use of the ba-construction in lieu of the other causative constructions. To illustrate the second type of the intransitive ba-construction, namely T-ba-S-V, let us look at Chao’s examples (Chao 1970: 344–345): (51) Ta ba ge zhangfu si-le, keshi bu-jiu you jia-le ge 3sg. ba cl husband die-pfv, but not-long again marry-pfv cl zhangfu. husband ‘She (suffered) her husband dying (on her), but before long s he married another husband.’ (52) Ta ba ge fuqin si-le. 3sg. ba cl father die-pfv ‘His father died.’

Here, the sentence-initial topic is an entity to which the speaker pays primary attention. The event being described is about this special entity that receives the speaker’s attention and interest. Note that the ba-NP in both (51) and (52) is preceded by a classifier signaling the reduced degree of salience of the entity referred to by the ba-NP. A probablistic explanation can be made in terms of the relative degree of attention assigned to the referents of the topic NP and the ba-NP. That is, the attention to the topic is paid at the expense of the competing entity, i.e. the ba-NP (cf. Tomlin 1997). Another point regarding the intransitive ba-construction that requires our attention is the commonly recognized unpleasant nature of the events described by the this construction. Chappell’s examples definitely confirm this point. Other grammarians such as L. Wang (1980) and Chao (1970) also treat the intransitive type as an exceptional form associated with semantic adversity, as Chao’s two examples in the previous paragraph show. It is true that sentences (48)–(52) illustrate the description of unpleasant events; however, we must not forget that events are judged by their human experiencers to be either pleasant or unpleasant. Thus, it is important to acknowledge the subjective role played by the speaker when he intends to reveal or conceal his attitude towards the events. The apparent link between unpleasantness and the use of the intransitive ba-construction is motivated by the extralinguistic principle of selective attention. It is established through the speaker’s intention to dramatize a salient event that arouses the speaker’s attention and concern. We can argue that unpleasant events, compared to pleasant


Table 3.1 Structures of the ba-construction ba-NP-VP A. ba-O-VP a. b. c. d. e. f.

ba-O-V-COM ba-O-V-ASP ba-O-ADV-V ba-O-V-Or(-V2) ba-O-V-Op ba-O-V-Ot

B. ba-S-VP a. Ø-ba-S-V b. T-ba-S-V

ones that are more likely to be taken for granted, are psychologically more marked and therefore receive more attention. The reason is obvious: Unpleasant events cause mental distress which is a negative, ailing state that bothers man and requires repair.11 So far we have acquired an overview of the various syntactic compositions of the ba-construction. In an effort to provide the reader with an overall view of the syntax of the ba-construction, Table 3.1 summarizes all the structures of the ba-construction. We have observed that, in all the structures of the ba-construction as listed in Table 3.1, the individual constituents are grammatically interdependent. The interdependency is three-fold. Apart from the obvious interdependency between the ba-NP and the main verb on the one hand, and between the main verb and its modifier on the other, the word ba introduces a third interdependent relation by introducing the entire hierarchical structure. If viewed from an inter-constituent perspective, the word ba may seem to be an object marker in the type (A) organization. However, what we will find in the later chapters of this study is that such a view is inadequate because it can neither fully cover the textual occurrences of the ba-construction nor explain the clausal and transclausal phenomena observable in the use of the ba-construction in a unitary way. In fact, it is the interplay of all the constituents that determines the function of the entire construction. Thus, the ba-construction must be considered an inseparable whole, as the primitive unit of analysis (see Croft 2001). In the study proposed here, we shall postulate an invariant meaning for the ba-construction that not only differentiates this structure from other syntactic structures but also uniformly describes its transitive and intransitive format.

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. The ba-construction and mood Mood is defined as “a grammatical category through which speakers of a language can indicate whether they believe that an event or state actually occurs, does not occur, or has the potential to occur” (Whaley 1997: 219). Thus mood is essentially a device designed for the purpose of expressing the speaker’s self. Lyons (1995) points out that it is inadequate to place mood in the grammatical category of verb because, he argues (1995: 179): The association of mood with verbal inflection is, in principle, contingent [. . .] Mood is best defined as that category which results (in those languages which have it) from the grammaticalization of subjective modality and other kinds of expressive meaning, including some part of what is nowadays commonly referred to as illocutionary force.

This statement certainly applies to the Mandarin Chinese mood. Structurally, however, unlike Indo-European languages, Mandarin Chinese does not employ morphosyntactic inflection or word order inversion to mark mood. All traditional categories of mood, that is, indicative, interrogative, subjunctive, and imperative, are encoded by means of different lexical mood markers in combination with appropriate intonations and contexts.12 As far as the combinatory properties of the ba-construction with mood are concerned, we will go through examples illustrating the syntactic details with regard to different moods in the following sections. .. Indicative From a truth-conditional perspective, the indicative is said to assert the truth of a proposition. Viewed from the functionalist perspective in terms of the communication of intent, however, the indicative is considered a subjective matter. Lyons states (1995: 256): If a language has a grammatical mood which is used distinctively and characteristically for the purpose of expressing the speaker’s unqualified epistemic commitment, that mood is traditionally described as the indicative.

The latter framework offers more satisfactory accounts for the semanticpragmatic aspect of utterances by taking into consideration the illocutionary force, or the emotional and social aspect, of speech. In Mandarin Chinese, the indicative mood can be expressed by declarative or non-declarative sentence types. Consider examples (53)–(54):


(53)

‘Ruixuan didn’t want to tell the family what he’d done in the school. He planned to tell them about it later when he has found another job and has compensated the deficit. Yet Old-Two’s comment makes his anger explode. Though still smiling, his smile is not nice to look at; in a low but very clear voice, he says: “I already quit that four hours of teaching!”’ Wo yijing ba na si-ge zhongtou ci diao-le. 1sg. already ba that four-cl hours quit dism-pfv (54)

“‘Shuling, you cannot go with him. If you mix up with him the whole time, you’ll get the detective behind you!” “I’m the director’s daughter, what dare the detective do with me?”’ Zhentan gan ba wo zenyang-le. detective dare ba 1sg. how-pfv

Both ba-sentences in (53) and (54) are utterances in the first person as part of constructed conversations. Sentence (53) states the fact that the speaker has done something and thereby brought about change in the world. Yet this truth-condition by no means exhausts the semantic content and the pragmatic consequence of the utterance. The modal adjunct yijing ‘already’, the dismissive verbal complement diao, and the perfective aspect marker le, all conjoined with the ba-construction, amount to high expressiveness that is beyond the simple truth of the proposition. Yet all these cues may not make any sense until we view them in the larger context in which the ba-sentence occurs. The text preceding the ba-sentence gives us a hint that the sentence is uttered while the speaker is in an emotional state of anger. Clearly, what seems arbitrary at first sight becomes meaningful and purposeful in the light of the context. The bacontruction is selected by the discourse context on account of its capacity to create dramaticity. Sentence (54) illustrates this point even more revealingly. The ba-construction in this sentence is embedded in a question. Yet this question is not used to

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elicit information from the hearer. It is not only a presumptuous claim of the speaker’s belief that the detective is not likely to perform any daring action that will harm the speaker. More importantly, it expresses, in an overbearing manner, the speaker’s feeling of superiority underlying such a belief. The overbearing manner inherent in this indicative cannot be retrieved via truthconditional interpretation of the ba-sentence. It is the combination of several linguistic elements that allows the proper interpretation of the utterance beyond the semantic capacity of any single element. Note that the ba-sentence here contains no verb of action in strictly grammatical sense. Instead, the question word zenyang ‘how, in what way’ occupies the position where the verb is otherwise expected. Such a substitution allows the hearer to make any hypothesis about the action that the hearer may consider harmful to the speaker. Yet the preluding context claiming the superior status of the speaker (‘I’m the director’s daughter’) and the auxiliary gan ‘dare’ preceding the ba-construction call into question the probability of the detective’s imprudent practice of any challenging action. As we know, not any action can be considered “daring”, but only those that are vivaciously bold and challenging. Self-evidently, vivaciously bold and challenging actions are dramatic. This helps us understand the nature of the action described by the ba-construction. .. Imperative The imperative mood is commonly used “for the purpose of imposing one’s will on others for the purpose of issuing directives” (Lyons 1995: 256). Like Indo-European languages, Mandarin Chinese encodes the imperative by leaving out the subject when the speaker and the imposee are situated in direct face-to-face interactions. In this sense the imperative mood is structurally distinct, as can be seen from (55)–(57) below: (55)

“‘Will China ever defeat Japan? The foreigners all say that in about three months, at most a half year, the matter will be finished!” Ding-John says


very objectively, as if he were not a Chinese, but an English ambassador. “How is it finished?” “The Chinese army gets smashed.” Upon hearing this, Big-Red-Pepper gets so excited that she almost drops the wine bottle onto the floor. “Guan Xiaohe! Did you hear it? Although I’m a woman, I’ve got no less insight than you men! Boost your courage and don’t miss the chance!”’ Ba danzi zhuang qi dian lai. ba gallbladder strengthen up a:bit come (56)

‘Xiaocui sighed, his pumpkin face cramped painfully. Old Mrs. Ma nudged him, saying: “Come on! Take the dumplings and give them to her! Give her a few sweet words! Don’t you dare fight again! Did you hear me?”’ Ba jiaozi gei ta na guo-qu! ba dumplings give 3sg. take over-go (57) ‘Old Mr. Qi called Ruiquan from the yard: “Ruiquan, good child, go burn all the Western books and the like. They all cost a lot of money, but how can we keep them to cause trouble?’ Ba yang shu shenme de dou shao-le ba. ba Western book what nom all burn-pfv p

All the imperative ba-sentences in the above excerpts are uttered in situations involving unequal social status in the speaker-hearer interaction. The superior feels entitled to issue demands to his/her inferior. In such contexts, the demands are issued in a way that reflects the speaker’s sense of authority: The speaker takes for granted the change of state as a result of the hearer’s carrying out of the demanded action. Thus it seems fully justifiable to associate the compelling nature of the demands with the use of the ba-construction. When the speech situation involves participants other than the speaker and the imposee, the imperative may take a subject to rule out possible confusion as to who is being imposed upon, as in (58) below:

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(58) Xiaocui, ni ba wan song-guo-lai ba. pn 2sg. ba bowl bring-over-come p ‘Xiaocui, bring over the bowl to me!’

Here, the name of the addressee is uttered to call for the addressee’s attention. In addition, the grammatical subject ni ‘you’ is added doubly to evoke the addressee’s consciousness of the forthcoming instruction. The sentence-final particle ba marks the proposition as imperative.13 In indirect discourse, commands and prohibitions which are prototypically encoded by the imperative mood, may be preferably formulated in the indicative mood, as in (59) below: (59)

‘Little-Shun is throwing pieces of bricks at the half red jujubes in the tree. Ruixuan who is walking by stops to speak to Little-Shun: “You won’t hit the jujubes and if you, careless as you are, happen to smash grandma’s window panes, you’ll have a good time!”’ Bu liushen ba Nainai wu de boli da-sui. not careful ba granny room gen glass hit-broken

The ba-sentence in (59) occurs in a context where a hypothesis of a dramatic event with unpleasant consequences is articulated as a gesture of disapproval, reproach and warning. To make his words deterrent to the child, the adult purposefully dramatizes the consequences by using the ba-construction to describe the hypothetical mischief. .. Interrogative The typical interrogative is used to solicit information from the addressee. Mandarin Chinese does not resort to word order inversion to mark the interrogative. Instead, either a sentence final interrogative particle or a V-not-V form turns a statement into a polar interrogative, or a yes-no question. A statement becomes a content interrogative, also known as the “wh-question” or the “x-interrogative”, whereby an interrogative word x, e.g. shenme ‘what’, shui ‘who’, nage ‘which’ nali ‘where’, etc., is used in place of a propositional


component of the sentence. In both cases, appropriate intonational properties contribute to marking the interrogative mood. Sadock and Zwicky (1985) group questions in English into three major types according to their conventional pragmatic functions. These are (1) yes-no question, (2) information question, and (3) alternative question. This classification applies to the communicative uses of questions in Chinese. As far as the ba-construction is concerned, its uses in the interrogative mood are rarely associated with the function of asking for information. That is, utterances formed in an interrogative ba-sentence mostly convey intentions other than seeking information. In this case, the interrogative sentence does not correspond to the interrogative mood and is traditionally called a rhetorical question. If information questions are used for the purpose of soliciting an answer from the addressee, rhetorical questions are used to provoke responses from the addressee by expressing the speaker’s own attitudes or emotions. Most questions involving the ba-construction are uttered exactly to this communicative end, as examples (60)–(62) below show: (60)

‘Fourth-Aunt came out of the house, dragging her worn-out shoes under the feet. With her big near-sighted eyes narrowing, she spoke: “Who said he was going to the army? Was it Xiaocui again? You chap, you’re gonna leave behind your wife to go to the army? How dare you! Are you leaving your wife to me to watch for you? Go home quickly and take a nap! When the shop opens, you’ll go pull your rickshaw nicely.”’ Ba laopo jiao gei wo kann zhe ma? ba wife reach give 1sg. watch dur q (61)

‘Big-Red-Pepper turned her gunpoint at her husband: “What’s the matter with you today? Aren’t you going out? Are you gonna leave everything to me? Aren’t you ashamed! Go now! it’s still early. You’d better be good and go out one more time! You’re not a girl with bound feet who worries about getting big feet from walking, are you?”’

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


Ba shiqing quan jiao-gei wo yi ge ren le-a? ba things all reach-to 1sg. one cl person crs-q (62)

“‘What? It was you, Oldest Brother, who let him go?” Ruifeng’s little dry face tightened like a drum. “He was determined to go and I couldn’t inhibit him; a passionate young man ought to go out!” “Oldest Brother, how nicely you put it! But you don’t think about it: he’ll graduate soon. After graduation he can grab some money to help the family make a living! Really, how could you let a hen go when it’s about to lay eggs?”’ Ni zenme ba zhi kuai yao xia dan de ji fang le zou ne? 2sg. how ba cl soon will lay egg assoc hen let pfv go q

The ba-clauses in (60) and (61) are turned into yes-no questions by the final interrogative markers ma and a, respectively. However, the purpose of these questions is to provoke emotion rather than to ask for information. To be precise, the kind of interrogative in (60) and (61) produces a provocative effect by challenging the mock expectation “yes” which is obviously inappropriate and unacceptable to the questioner. It is used to evoke guilt and shame from the addressee and, in real effect, is likely to silence the addressee by forcing him to answer “no”, which will give rise to further attack from the questioner. In this sense, the syntactic structure of the polar interrogative is performative and cannot be interpreted at face value. Similarly, sentence (62) does not aim at soliciting from the addressee an answer regarding the manner in which the action is conducted, for which the interrogative word zenme ‘how’ is normally used. The intention of the speaker is to accuse the addressee of lack of common sense defined in the speaker’s terms by forcing him into an interrogative mood in which an unknown variable ‘how’ is requested, though no answer to it is expected. Each of the speech acts performed by means of the ba-interrogative in (60)–(62) delivers scathing criticism: (60) is uttered by an authorative elderly woman known as ‘Fourth Aunt’ scolding a young neighbor; (61) is part of a harsh verbal abuse by an aggressive wife hectoring the hen-pecked husband;


(62) is a heckling challenge by a selfish younger brother confronting his older brother. The atmosphere characteristic of all these contexts is the dramaticity inherent in interpersonal confrontation. .. Subjunctive The subjunctive mood serves to express counterfactuality and is usually encoded by conditional sentences marked by conjunctions. It is known that because of the lack of verbal infection, the Chinese subjunctive does not formally differ from the simple conditional sentence and that counterfactuality is largely inferred on account of contextual cues (cf. Eifring 1988). The most frequently used subjunctive (conditional) markers are yao-shi and yao. The baconstruction can be used in the subjunctive mood to describe counterfactual situations as the hypothetical premise, as in (63) and (64) below, or to describe the hypothetical conclusion arrived at under the condition of a given premise, as in (65): (63)

‘Ruiquan dragged Little-Shun and skipped with him in a circle, then he held up Little-Niuzi and tossed her up into the air, only to catch her again in mid air. This made Little-Niuzi scream with giggles, which frightened Mother of Little-Shun. “Old-Three! What would we do if you broke her little arms or legs!” protested Mother of Little-Shun loudly.’ ni 2sg. ke only

yaoshi if zenme how

ba ta de nen gebo nen tui shuaihuai le, ba 3sg. gen young arms young legs break pfv ban handle

(64)

“‘Oncle Qi, we would’ve suffered less than this, had the Japanese wiped out the whole town with their bombs!” With these words, she looked up. Instead of tears, her eyes are filled with fire of rage.’

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Ribenren Japanese bi compare

yaoshi yong pao ba cheng hong ping le, dao if use bomb ba town bombard flat pfv rather zheme kenghai ren qiang a! this:way torture people better p

(65)

“‘Why! You see, every time when there is war, thieves, drug-dealers, and other tramps will shake it up. I know it clearly because I’m policeman. There’s nothing we can do about them although we know it all, for we don’t even know what tomorrow will be like for ourselves. This time, it’s even worse. Those who broke in were the Japanese. Of course they’ll let the hell break loose! You watch out! In the days to come, if there’s no open shouts for opium sales in the streets, you go ahead and dig out my eye-ball!’ ni ba zan de yanzhuzi wa-le qu. 2sg. ba 1sg. gen eyeball dig-pfv go

The above hypothetical sentences involving the ba-construction are used to express strong feelings in the speech acts of protest, outburst of rage and oath, respectively.

. The ba-construction and modality If a modal auxiliary verb occurs in a ba-clause, it precedes the ba-construction, hence MOD + ba-construction, as in (66)–(68): (66)

‘He seems to be a bit feminine, for he seeks comprehensive understand-


ing in his actions. For instance, when he was old enough to get married, he’d learned things like the sacredness of love and the freedom of marriage. But he married ‘Yunmei’ whom his father chose for him. He knew that he oughtn’t to tie his whole life onto a woman he doesn’t love, but he couldn’t stand to see the tearful eyes and worried faces of his grandfather and parents. He considered them and he considered his fiance. After his considerations, he understood everyone’s difficulty and he wished for overall understanding. So he had to marry her.’ Ta zhidao bu gai ba yi beizi shuan zai ge ta suo bu ai 3sg. know not ought ba one life tie at cl he rel not love de nüren shen shang. assoc woman body up (67)

‘Her voice suddenly becomes clear and high: “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Let’s go. I’ll go with you!” “Are we walking there?” “Can’t we get an automobile?” “All the stores have closed their doors.” “Even if it were an iron door, I would crash it open! Come on!”’ Jiu shi tie men, wo ye hui ba ta za kai. even be iron door, 1sg. too would ba it crash open (68)

‘At age twenty, she figured out that everything was meaningless. She longed to find an honest man who could give her a real sense of life. But she only deserved to be a concubine! Had she found a good man, she would’ve dumped all her bad habits – except that her seductive gazing was hard to correct all at once. However, a concubine is a toy that belongs

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to one man; she has to use the means with which she has seduced the audience (as a singer) in order to please him.’ Ta 3sg. yi one

xu ba meihuo zhongren de shouduan yong lai quyue must ba seduce people assoc means use come please ge ren. cl person

The modal verbs in these examples serve to express the subjectively felt obligation, determination and necessity, respectively. We will return to this point in Section 7.4.2.

. The ba-construction and negation Generally, Mandarin Chinese employs negative particles as the basic strategy to negate propositions. In principle, negative particles precede the predicate of the clause, which complies with the traditional maxim: negation of the predicate is equivalent to negation of the proposition (Lyons 1995: 170). As noted in 3.1, the ba-construction as a whole functions as the predicate of a ba-clause. Thus negation of the clause boils down to negation of the ba-construction, hence NEG + ba-construction. There are three negative particles, bu, mei(you), and bie in Mandarin Chinese, which are in functionally complementary distributions. All of them can be used to negate a ba-clause and the choice depends on the verbal aspect and mood of the clause in question. Consider sentences (69)–(71): (69) Ni yao bu ba ta guan shang, wo jiu yong shitou zasui le 1sg. then use rock smash pfv 2sg. if not ba 3sg. shut up, ta. 3sg. ‘If you don’t turn it off, I’ll just smash it with a rock.’ (70) ba shiqing nong qingchu. Shishishang, lian Ribenren ye mei In:fact even Japanese also not:have ba matter make clear ‘Actually, even the Japanese didn’t clarify the matter.’


(71) Dela, jiu pan zhe zhe yi hui bie ba shiqing nao da le. anyway only hope dur this one round proh ba thing stir big crs ‘Anyway, let’s hope that this time they won’t make it big!’

Sentence (69) employs the negative particle bu, negation marker for continuous situations, to negate the ba-clause. Sentence (70) uses mei, negation marker for discrete situations to negate the completion of the action signaled by the ba-construction.14 Sentence (71) uses the prohibitive marker bie to express the speaker’s warning of an undesired hazard. For a concrete account of the Mandarin Chinese system of negation, see Shi and Li (2000).

. The ba-construction in passive sentences The passive voice in Mandarin Chinese is semantically marked in the sense that it customarily signals an event that is detrimental. Because of this semantic aspect, the passive voice is also termed the “adversative” in the literature. For this reason, not all active sentences can be transformed into felicitous passive sentences. The ba-construction can be used within a passive sentence marked by bei, as part of the predicate, as in the following format: NP1 + bei + NP2 + baconstruction.15 The first NP is the grammatical subject of the passive sentence. The bei-construction, that is, everything that follows NP1, is the predicate of the sentence. Within the bei-construction, NP2 is the agent that performs the action communicated by the ba-construction. Consider (72) for an example: (72)

‘A priest, being the representative of God, is supposed to tell the truth. Thinking of this, Ruixuan smiled and earnestly asked the priest: “Father Dou! How do you think the Sino-Japanese war will develop?” The priest would like to smile a little, but his smile was held back by a tiny contemptuous twitch of the nerve. “I don’t know, I only know that the switch of dynasties is common in Chinese history!”’ Shenfu ben ye xiang xiao yi xia, keshi bei yi dian priest actually also think smile one vq, but pass a bit

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qingmie de shenjing bolang ba xiao lan hui qu. contemptuous assoc nerve wave ba smile hold back go

Here NP1 shenfu ‘priest’ is the grammatical subject of the passive sentence. NP2 yi dian qingmiede shenjing bolang ‘a contemptuous twitch of the nerve’ is the agent. The ba-construction describes the action that is conducted by the preceding agent. This passive sentence resembles the “dative passive” in German in that shenfu ‘priest’ is the actual recipient or experiencer of the effect caused by the action denoted by the ba-construction and the ba-NP xiao ‘smile’ can be understood as the logical subject.16 An English translation of this passive clause which renders this semantic aspect would be something like the following: ‘The priest would like to smile a bit, but it happened to him that his smile was held back by a tiny contemptuous twitch of the nerve’. Here, with the baconstruction and the bei-construction used together, an inadvertent dramatic facial expression is depicted with high vividity. . The ba-construction in causative sentences What we refer to as the causative sentence is the analytic causative marked by one of the causative verbs (hence CAUS) jiao ‘let’, rang ‘allow’, and shi ‘make’. An analytic causative sentence involving the ba-construction takes the syntactic form of NP1 + CAUS + NP2 + ba-construction. Here NP1 is the grammatical subject of the causative sentence, the causative verb is the predicate that takes an object, that is, NP2. NP2 is a pivot in the sense that it simultaneously acts as the subject of the following ba-construction. Consider the causative sentences in (73) and (74) below: (73)

‘When she saw that Guan Xiaohe was a bit scared, she got angry: “You fellow can’t tell what’s good and what’s bad. You want to eat it and you’re afraid it’s too hot, what a fool you are! Look, you just found your way and had a little success, how can you be afraid now? Is Qian your dad and you are scared to have people hit him dead with one slap?”’ Ni pa jiao renjia ba ta yi ge zuiba da si? 2sg. fear caus people ba him one cl slap hit dead


(74)

‘Gaodi has had quite a few boyfriends, but every time they saw Zhaodi, they abandoned her like bees that see another, more fragrant flower. She quarrels with her sister because of this and her sister fights back: “I don’t want to rob you of your friends, but they want to be my friends, what can I do? Perhaps your nose is not so very lovely?” This kind of ruthless attack is already enough to make Gaodi weep so much that her eyes get puffy, and her mother, to make things worse, picks on her: “That’s right. If you were finer and people liked you, you could’ve married someone earlier, which would save me a bit worries!”’ Zhe this yan eye

zhong wuqing de gongji, yi zu jiao Gaodi ba kind ruthless assoc attack already enough caus pn ba ku zhong. weep swollen

Recall that we have examined these two ba-sentences in 3.1 with regard to the verbal modifiers of the ba-construction. We have learned that the use of the resultative complements si ‘dead’ and zhong ‘swollen’ is indispensable for the well-formedness of the ba-construction. It is important here to note that the syntactic choice of the analytic causative at the sentence level requires the local compositional choice of the resultative complement (or the “lexical causative”) within the ba-construction. This correlation is no accident but demonstrates the tendency of mutual selection between structures of semantic affinity.17 The combination of the causative structure and the ba-construction in (73) and (74) intensifies the dramatic interactivity in the event by placing three participants, i.e. the causer, the causee that functions simultaneously as the actor, and the victim of the action, on the stage. Thus an extraordinarily dramatic effect arises from the complex interaction. Such an effect is desired and selected by the respective discourse contexts, that is, anger induced verbal attack in (73) and description of the theatrical emotional conflict between the adult siblings in (74).

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. The ba-construction as subordinate Unlike English, Mandarin Chinese does not differentiate finite constructions from non-finite constructions through inflection. Accordingly, subordinate clauses in Chinese are different from subordinate clauses in English that consist of finite verbs. Apart from verbal inflection, subordination in Chinese differs from English in word order, as the formation of relative clauses shows. Nevertheless, the ba-construction illustrated in (75) fulfills exactly the same function as an English relative clause: (75) ‘Old Mr. Qi was very unhappy about how his eldest grandson rejected a bread-earning chance, but he couldn’t say anything, so he pretended not to have heard it.’ Qi laoren hen bu manyi zhangsun zhe ge ba pn senior very not appreciate eldest:grandson this cl ba mantou wangwai tui de banfa. steamed:bun outward push assoc method

Here, the ba-construction serves as an embedded attributive clause. It is inserted between the demonstrative zhege ‘this’ and the head noun banfa ‘the way of dealing with things’, the way a prenominal adjective modifier is used. Typologically, the Chinese attributive clause in (75) is of the prenominal type as against the postnominal type, as is in English and German. By way of the subordinate construction, the referent of the head noun is assigned a dramatic feature that violates common sense, a feature that makes the grandpa unhappy. Sentence (76) below illustrates yet another type of subordinate clause formed with the ba-construction: (76)

‘Having given them the assignment, Big Red Pepper walked out grumbling. With the name list and a few bills in her hand, Zhaodi put her tongue out, saying to Gaodi: “That’s it! The first thing is to get a few bucks. Big sister, let’s go out and have some fun, okay? When mother comes back, let’s just say that we’ve already visited all these families, but no one was home. And that’s it.”’


Zanmen jiu shuo ba ji jia dou baifang guo-le. 1pl.incl just say ba several family all visit exp-pfv

The ba-construction of (76) serves as the object or complement of the predicate shuo ‘say’ and describes what is to be said. Note that the subject of the relative clause formulated with the ba-construction is omitted because it is readily recoverable through contextual inference, though its presence is required in the English translation. The same is true with (77), where the ba-construction serves as an embedded relative clause, which is the grammatical object of the predicate zhidao ‘know’. (77) ‘He knows that he oughtn’t to tie his whole life onto a woman he doesn’t love, but he can’t bear to see the teary eyes and worried faces of his grandfather and his parents.’ Ta zhidao bu gai ba yi beizi shuan zai ge ta suo bu ai 3sg. know not ought ba one:life tie at cl he rel not love de nüren shen shang. assoc woman body up (78) ‘Having sent Xiaohe out of the house, she asked Tongfang to watch the house and let her two daughters also go out.’ Ba Xiaohe dafa zou ba pn dispatch go

The ba-construction of (78) has the function of an adverbial clause describing an event prior to the event encoded by the main clause. In the analysis of the sequentiality of foregrounded main-line events (Section 6.2.1), we will see that this kind of ba-clauses serves to redirect the hearer/reader’s attention to the on-going main-line event. In this section we have introduced the ba-construction of Modern Mandarin and exposed the reader to its structural peculiarities characterized by both the enormous combinatorial possibilities open to it and the specific structural constraints it is subject to. These are the basic facts about the baconstruction and will be elucidated in the light of the framework I set up for this book.

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Given that the structure of the ba-construction often involves object inversion, the identification of the fundamental word order of Mandarin Chinese has heavy bearings on our understanding of the function of the ba-construction. For this reason, it is particularly important to inspect the baconstruction within the total landscape of Mandarin Chinese word order. In the following section, we shall engage a brief discussion of Mandarin word order in order to put our investigation of the ba-construction in perspective.

. Mandarin word order and the ba-construction Word order of Mandarin Chinese has been a typological controversy. Some argue that Mandarin Chinese is primarily a VO language, others believe that Mandarin Chinese has mixed features and therefore is neither a VO nor an OV language, and that diachronically it has been drifting from a VO language to an OV language, especially on account of the emergence of the ba-construction. The first view is represented by Light (1979) and Sun and Givón (1985); the second view is propagated by Li and Thompson (1973, 1974b, 1975). According to Greenberg (1963a), the world’s languages fall into three types with respect to the relative position of the verb and the nouns in a simple transitive sentence: VSO, SVO, and SOV. Since the relative position of verb and object is the central concern and two orders of V and O are possible, the sequence OSV, where the object preceded both the subject and the verb, is also considered an OV order (see W. Lehmann 1978: 6). In addition, Greenberg gives a number of word order correlates. These are summarized and presented in Li and Thompson (1981: 18) and are reproduced in Table 3.2. As far as the synchronic description of Mandarin Chinese word order is concerned, Li and Thompson (1978: 233, 1981: 19) consider the basic order indefinable. The descriptive dilemma is three-fold, as described by Li and Thompson (1981: 19): First, the notion of subject is not a structurally well defined one in the grammar of Mandarin. A second and closely related fact is that the order in which basic words and phrases occur is governed to a large extent by considerations of meaning rather than of grammatical functions. This means that sentences with verbs at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end can be found in Mandarin. Languages that are relatively easy to characterize in Greenberg’s terms are always those in which word order is determined primarily on strictly grammatical grounds (i.e. independent of principles of meaning), such as French and Turkish. Third, whether it is taken to be verb medial or verb fi-


nal, Mandarin is inconsistent with respect to the features that correlate with VO or OV order according to Greenberg’s typological scheme. For example, sample texts reveal a greater number of VO than OV sentences, yet modifiers must precede their heads, which is an OV feature.

In their discussion of the dilemma, Li and Thompson suggest that Mandarin is a topic-prominent language, in which the sentence-initial constituent is not always the grammatical subject. Therefore it is difficult to identify the grammatical subject of a sentence. However, it seems that Li and Thompson fail to notice that the issue of topicality is one concerning the markedness of word order, in contrast to the “simple transitive” type in Greenberg’s terms. Even in European languages, in which the subject is presumably more definable, it is nevertheless possible to topicalize the object for purpose of semantic contrast, as shown in the following example in German: (79) Seinen Namen habe ich vergessen; aber ich weiß, wie er aussieht. ‘His name have I forgotten; but I know how he looks.’

This example shows that contrastive topicality is a discourse strategy that calls for more attention to the preposed object which is otherwise less eminent and less topicable than the subject. This semantic manipulation by means of the contrastive word order is only possible when there is a fundamental, noncontrastive order in the language. This principle holds for Mandarin as well. The only particular thing about Mandarin with respect to topicality is that contrastive topicality is more pervasive in this language than in European languages in compensation for its lack of morphology. The fact that “sentences with verbs at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end can be found in Mandarin”, as Li and Thompson assert, is exactly the evidence of topic manipulation as a discourse strategy and cannot be taken to discredit the linguistic value of the basic word order. In other words, the presence of all these types Table 3.2 Features that correlate with the relative position of verb and object VO languages

OV languages

Head/Modifier Verb/Adverb Noun/Adjective Noun/Relative Clause Noun/Possessive Other correlations Auxiliary/Verb Preposition/Noun No sentence-final question particle

Modifier/Head Adverb/Verb Adjective/Noun Relative Clause/Noun Possessive/Noun Verb/Auxiliary Noun/Postposition Sentence-final question particle

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of sentences in Mandarin does not mean Mandarin speakers may arbitrarily utter their words in any possible order without considerations of the meanings they intend to express. Meanings only actualize on the basis of the fundamental syntactic hierarchization, this being the unmarked basic word order of any language. Moreover, the vast literature on word order of the world’s languages suggests that few languages have all the word order correlates of one fundamental typological order. Dayley (1985) shows how competing functional motivations lead to natural inconsistency in word order. The fact that Mandarin has OV features does not qualify this marked order as the predominant order of Mandarin. In fact, a functional approach to word order has proved more plausible than a purely typological account. Timothy Light eloquently argues that the OV order is a marked, contrastive order in Mandarin Chinese and that only an unmarked order may be identified as the typologically fundamental order of a language. With regard to the nature of universal word order correlates, Light argues that these are “statistical conclusions” and cannot be used to “prove that a language has a given word order unless the correlates actually correlate with a high incidence of the expected order and unless that order has no special attached meaning” (1979: 158). Light’s analysis of the relative position of modifiers to nouns, for example, shows that Greenberg’s correlates cannot be reliably used to predict the fundamental order of Mandarin. He explains (1979: 174): The SOV feature of modifier preceding head is simply topicalization on a nonclausal level and thus a reinforcement of the claim that Mandarin is a topicprominent language. This puts a further emphasis on the precaution that word order correlates given by Greenberg cannot serve as basic evidence to predict the default order of any given language apart from actual evidence of a correlative unmarked order. [emphasis in the original]

Sun and Givón (1985) have quantitatively demonstrated that Mandarin is synchronically a typical VO language in terms of the textual distributions of VO and OV orders. Their investigation further proves Light’s claim of the contrastiveness of the OV order vis-à-vis the basic VO order. In the current study, I adopt the insights arrived at by Light and Sun and Givón with regard to the identification of the fundamental word order of Mandarin. Following from this general view of Mandarin word order, we can determine the order of the ba-construction with relative ease. My contention is that the ba-construction is not to be equated with a simple OV construction. This claim is based on the following considerations:


First, from the OV viewpoint, ba-sentences that do not have an object must be rejected as wrong or arbitrarily exceptional utterances for the OV formula to hold. This problem is consistent with the problems posed by the disposal and the transitivity approaches, which I will discuss in more detail in the forthcoming chapter. Second, the OV order of Mandarin Chinese is independent of the baconstruction. That is, the inversion of verb and object can occur without the help of an extra object marker. Let us consider the following examples: (80) ZANMEN -DE XIFU zanmen guanjiao. 1pl.incl -gen daughter-in-law 1pl.incl discipline ‘OUR daughter-in-law WE discipline.’ (It’s OUR daughter-in-law, it’s OUR job to discipline her.) (81) REN-ZHENG WU-ZHENG zanmen qi bei. witness evidence 1pl.incl have ready ‘Witness and evidence, we have both ready.’ (82) TA DE KU GUA ni gei xi-xi. 3sg. gen pant shirt 2sg. benf wash-wash ‘Her clothes, you wash them for her.’ (83) Tamen lian TONG NIUKOU dou na zou. 3pl. even bronze buttons all take away ‘They even took bronze buttons.’ (84) Zhe lao taitai YI-GE DA ZI bu shi. this old lady one-cl big character not recognize ‘This old lady can’t even read one character.’

Sentences (80)–(84) are all structured in the basic OV order. They fall into two different sentence forms, i.e. OSV and SOV, with respect to the relative position of the logical subject and the object. Sentences (80)–(82) are of the OSV order where the object NP is foregrounded to the foremost slot of the sentence. This order serves to make a contrastive topic of the object NP, which is otherwise a part of the comment in the sentence-final position in an unmarked SVO sequence. In sentence (80), for example, the preposed object NP containing the inclusive pronoun zanmen is contrasted to all entities that are excluded from the alignment between the speaker and the addressee. The resulting message is

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something like ‘As for OUR daughter-in-law, it is to US (and no one else) that she belongs, therefore it is OUR (and no one else’) business to discipline her’. Sentences (83) and (84), on the other hand, feature the SOV sequence. This is a strategy to put the object in the foreground of the comment and make a contrastive focus of it. The subject in the sentence-initial position remains the non-contrastive topic. This arrangement has the effect that an otherwise regular sentence focus (by default in sentence-final position in the unmarked SVO order) is elevated to the status that demands extraordinary attention. For this contrastive focus to be recognized as such, apart from the markedness of the word order, either a focus particle such as lian. . . dou ‘even’ must be used, or a negation marker such as bu, mei or bie must precede the verb. Sometimes the two mechanisms co-occur. For example, sentence (83) sets the object NP tong niukou ‘bronze buttons’ in the contrastive focus. This contrastive focusing is actualized by the marked syntactic order on the one hand and the lexical focus particle lian. . . dou ‘even’ surrounding the object NP on the other. Clearly, the object inversion in OSV and SOV is an attention-getting strategy adopted according to the “background of expectation”, to use Sasse’s (1987) term, that holds between the speaker and the hearer in their interaction dynamic. Whether the object is known or new, it is assigned attention on account of what is expected in communication. Tsao (1990) argues that both OSV and SOV are structures used for double-topic expressions. The entity that occupies the sentence-initial position is the main topic and the entity that follows is the secondary topic. The relative order of the two topics depends on the speaker’s presupposition and expectation in discourse. Despite the disagreement on the nature of the preposed entity, which requires further research, it is obvious that the object inversion involved in both OSV and SOV is a pragmatically motivated strategy of attention manipulation in discourse. Also clear is the fact that the actualization of such a strategy in Mandarin Chinese does not require aid from any morphosyntactic marking such as case marking e.g. in German. Sentence (79), to recall the German strategy, has a foregrounded object seinen Namen ‘his name’. Apart from foregrounding, this object is marked in the accusative case by means of inflection on both the possessive determiner and the head noun. Mandarin Chinese is different in this respect. The two inversion constructions claim attention simply by virtue of their marked word order. This phenomenon should be all but surprising about the Chinese language that is famously qualified as isolating because of its lack of morphology.18 The ba-construction, however, confronts us with a different story. Here we have a morpheme ba heading an X-VP construction. The X-VP sequence allows two completely different compositional representations: (A) O-VP, when


X is the object of the VP, with a variety of possible verbal modifications; and (B) S-VP, when X is the logical subject of the VP. When X is O, then the OV order is a marked order in contrast to the fundamental VO order of Mandarin Chinese as described in the previous paragraphs. When X is non-O but a logical subject, then we are not concerned with contrastiveness but the usual subjectpredicate situation of an intransitive sentence. In both cases, the focus position of the sentence is reserved for the entire ba-construction as the predicate. This focus status of the ba-construction is essential, irrespective of the grammatical relation between the VP and the preceding NP. When the sentence subject is present, as it normally is, then a typical topiccomment relation holds between the sentence subject and the ba-construction (hence S-ba-OV). In this case, the proposition encoded by the sentence is what Sasse (1987) terms “entity-central” in the sense that something new is said about a given entity. As we will show in Section 6.1.4, the NPs (subject and object) of an entity-central ba-clause are predominantly salient in the sense that they are readily accessible by the hearer and the focus primarily falls on the verb phrase following the object. As we have seen in 3.1–3.7, the compositionality of the VP is sophisticated such that the verb is never on its own in a ba-construction but always requires modification of some kind. Semantically, the grammatical modification serves to specify the action described by the verb. This semantic specification of the action is expected of the ba-construction. The semantic-pragmatic property we seek in the present study will explain the correlation between the focus status of the ba-construction and the complexity of the VP. On the other hand, when the sentence subject is missing and the ba-NP is the logical subject of the sentence (hence ba-SV), then we have an “eventcentral” sentence that reports of a happening for its own sake. In this case, the focus domain of the sentence covers the entire sequence ba-SV.19 However, it will become clear in the course of this study that the event-central sentences in the form of the ba-construction are pragmatically different from the regular event-central sentences in Mandarin, which take the simple form of an SV sequence. The difference lies in the speaker’s self-expression by means of the ba-construction instead of the simple SV construction. The obvious structural flexibility observed with the X-VP following the morpheme ba speaks against any account that identifies the sequence X-VP with the OV sequence only. To do so is to limit the enormous range of structural and pragmatic potential of the ba-construction. Given that the morpheme ba is absolutely flexible and receptive in its capacity to tolerate both sequences (OV and SV) in Mandarin Chinese, it follows that the function of

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the morpheme ba can be neither an object (transitive) marker nor a disposal marker, nor anything else that marks only syntactic relationship between the individual constituents. The peculiar capacity for structural diversity that allows the ba-construction to subsume both sequences OV and SV under one linguistic construction requires that the meaning of the ba-construction be sought at a level of linguistic organization above the clause. That is the level of discourse pragmatics. However, the structural diversity of the ba-construction has been insufficiently appreciated and was rather considered a disturbing factor in previous studies of the ba-construction, something to feel sorry for, something that has been giving rise to treating ba-sentences with non-OV (but SV) structure as exceptions. In fact, previous approaches to the ba-construction never even looked for linguistic organization above the clause level. It is the opposite stance that I will take in this work, for the complex reality about the construction and its uses is the best guide to the uncovering of the pragmatic power that is rooted in, yet rises above, its structure. In this section I have attempted to clarify the word order status of the baconstruction. The clarification of the fundamental word order of Mandarin Chinese contributes to the conception of the idea that the ba-construction is syntactically marked. In terms of word order, the ba-construction not only constitutes markedness, it also exhibits diversity, as the word ba can possibly either lead the OV or the SV structure. Such syntactic markedness requires functional motivations and has functional consequences. This is the idea I shall develop in the sections hereafter. The discussion of word order in the present section has involved intuitive notions such as “focus”, “attention” and “contrast”. These notions pertain to the way a speaker uses word order as a signal that conveys the speaker’s communicative intent according to the “background of expectation” between the speaker and the hearer. Given that pragmatic considerations motivate variations in word order, the particular order arrangement of the ba-construction will necessarily reflect the pragmatic factors that give rise to the information structure of this construction. In 6.1.5 we shall discuss the empirical evidence for such a correspondence. To sum up, Chapter 3 allows us to observe the syntactic organization of the ba-construction in a variety of authentic linguistic environments and thereby eases our way into a deeper understanding of its special discourse function. The observations made so far prepare us for a critical review of previous approaches to the ba-construction, all of which are restricted to sentence grammar.

Chapter 4

Previous approaches

The usual approach to the ba-construction in Mandarin Chinese has been to define it as an exclusively clausal feature. The common procedure has been to look at a single simplified (usually hypothetical) ba-clause relative to some contrast-set such as a non-ba-clause in SVO order and to discuss the special semantic features of the NP following ba and that of the main verb in order to define the conditions under which a ba-construction is used. Discourse pragmatics was interesting only insofar as it was considered relevant to the local semantics of the ba-NP, the main verb, or the verbal complement. Microscopic clausal contexts were understood in isolation from macroscopic trans-clausal contexts. So far as I know, no analyst has ever attempted to view the ba-construction in a larger discourse context than within the boundary of the clause. Trans-clausal textual distributions of the ba-construction in real bodies of discourse were completely ignored. All past approaches to the ba-construction share this limitation. Before attempting to remedy these oversights, we shall briefly review previous approaches.

. Disposal The first influential treatment of the ba-construction was offered by the Chinese grammarian L. Wang (1947, 1980). He coined the term chuzhi shi, or the disposal construction, to describe the “purposeful action” taken with regard to the direct object of the ba-construction. L. Wang asserts, “the disposal form states how a person is handled, manipulated, or dealt with; how something is disposed of; or how an affair is conducted” (L. Wang 1947: 160–161, translated in Y. C. Li 1974: 200–201). He further specifies the action of disposal with examples: Since it is especially designed for disposing, the disposal form cannot be used unless the action possesses the quality of disposal. For instance, wo ai ta, ‘I love him’ cannot be restated as wo ba ta ai, ‘I take him and love him.’ Again,

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tao shu kai hua ‘Peach tree bloomed’ cannot be restated as tao shu ba hua kai, ‘peach tree took the blooms and bloomed’.

Apparently L. Wang considers the semantic content of the main verb as the determinant of the disposability of the entire ba-construction. According to L. Wang, the following conditions allow the formation of the disposal construction in Modern Mandarin: (1) A. postverbal complement as resultative: Ba jiu tang-de gun-re-de na lai. ba wine heat-res roll-hot-crs take come ‘Heat the wine to a boil and bring it over.’ B. locative: Qingwen shen shou ba Baoyu de ao wang ziji pn stretch hand ba pn gen jacket towards self shenshang la. body-up pull ‘Qingwen pulled Baoyu’s jacket onto her own body.’ C. postverbal dative: Ba na tiao huan wo ba! ba that cl return 1sg. p ‘Give that one back to me!’ D. verbal (kinetic) quantifier: Wo ba ta da le yi-dun. 1sg. ba 3sg. hit pfv one vq ‘I gave him a good whacking.’ E. aspect marker: Ta ba shu lao na zhe. 3sg. ba book always hold dur ‘S/He always has the book in her/his hand.’

As we can readily observe, all the conditions described above concern, in one way or another, the modification of the matrix verb. L. Wang also identifies cases where the use of the ba-construction is obligatory:

Chapter 4. Previous approaches

(2) A. preverbal kinetic quantifier a. Baoyu ba ganzi yi huang pn ba bamboo:stick one swing ‘Baoyu gave the bamboo stick a swing.’ b. Baoyu yi huang ganzi pn one swing bamboo:stick B. postverbal complement: a. Ba jiu tang de gunre de na lai. ba wine heat res hot crs take come ‘Heat the wine to a boil and bring it over (while it’s still boiling hot).’ b. Tang jiu gun-re-de na-lai. heat wine roll-hot-crs take-come [L. Wang 1947: 165; glosses are mine, Z.J.S.]

If these cases definitely require the use of the ba-construction, then there must be something special about them that should explain such a requirement. Therefore a natural solution would be to examine the nature of the preverbal kinetic quantifier and the postverbal complement, which might have led to new insights into the function of the ba-construction. L. Wang, however, seems to look away from this and instead suggests abstractly that the ba-construction expresses the result of the action in these cases. However, one has to wonder, for example, what result the action in sentence (Aa) of (2) really has if any at all. The answer is apparently disappointing because no resultative whatsoever is conceivable. On the other side, L. Wang identifies a number of inhibitory conditions for the use of the ba-construction in the semantics of the verb. These are: (3) A. verbs signaling mental acts: a. Wo ai ta. 1sg. love 3sg. b. Wo ba ta ai. 1sg. ba 3sg. love B. verbs signaling receptive phenomena:20

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a. Wo kanjian ta. 1sg. see 3sg. b. Wo ba ta kanjian. 1sg. ba 3sg. see C. verbs denoting no disposal of the object: a. Wo shang lou. 1sg. (go)up stair b. Wo ba lou shang. 1sg. ba stair up (go) D. verbs signaling unexpected affairs: a. Wo shi le yi kuai shoupa. 1sg. pick pfv one cl handkerchief b. Wo ba yi kuai shoupa shi le. 1sg. ba one cl handkerchief pick pfv E. verbs singaling existentiality: a. Wo you qian. 1sg. have money b. Wo ba qian you. 1sg. ba money have c. Ta zai jia. 3sg. at home d. Ta ba jia zai. 3sg. ba home at [L. Wang 1947: 165; glosses are mine, Z.J.S.]

L. Wang’s generalizations are problematic for a number of reasons. First, although L. Wang pins down these semantic categories as incompatible with the disposal construction, he fails to go further and extract a common characteristic that is responsible for the common failure of all these verb categories to agree with the ba-construction. What kind of shared deficit do the categories “mental act”, “receptive”, “non-disposal”, “unexpectedness”, and “existential”


show? Or: What is it that underlies their common incompatibility with the ba-construction? L. Wang is unable to get to the core of the problem and thus his generalizations are a mere list of observations. Second, his observations are made on the basis of sentences with little communicative reality and which maximally resemble robotic talk. This second problem ultimately explains the first one I just discussed. Note the degree to which all these sentences are stripped of context and how much they are alienated from the mellow and thoughtful flow of natural speech filled with the twists and turns of human feelings. Even clausal contexts are unavailable, needless to say the absence of trans-clausal ones. This makes any generalizations based on observations of such structures highly unreliable. As soon as an utterance is given a bit of a human touch, we will start rubbing our eyes and gasping in wonder just how little the previous observation reveals about the way we speak. For example, with regard to verbs of “mental act”, we can do the following remedy to a ba-construction involving such a verb by adding a common complement of exaggeration which people tend to use when they talk about things like the “mental act” of ‘love’, as in (4b) below: (4) a. John ba Mary ai. pn ba pn love b. John ba Mary ai de si-qu-huo-lai. pn ba pn love res dead-go-alive-come ‘John is madly in love with Mary.’

This example shows that the semantic quality of “mental act” does not necessarily disqualify the verb ai ‘love’ as a candidate for the verb of the baconstruction and that its relevance in the issue is fluid and might be a mere fantasy in a given context. The same problem is real with the semantic domain of “receptive phenomena”. As for the third domain, non-disposal, it is futile to say that the ba-construction means disposal by showing an illicit sentence where it is used with a non-disposal verb. The futility of such a claim reminds of the attempt to prove that a platypus does not lay eggs by showing a photograph of a platypus not laying eggs (S. Y. Wang 1969). The semantic domain of unexpectedness is mysterious because unexpected events are, in fact, frequently found in the form of the ba-construction, as in (5) below from the corpus C:

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(5)

“‘Huh! The Emporer was gone, wasn’t that a big reform after all? But after so many reforms, Yuan Shikai still wanted to be the Emporer. After Yuan died, the world has all been chaotic, there’s bombing today and the city is shut tomorrow. Reform, huh! I’ll keep my pigtail, what if the reform brings back the emperor, unexpected as it may be?”’ Wanyi ba huangshang gai huilai ne? unexpectedly ba emperor reform back q

It is clear that the semantics of the verb does not explain all the actual uses of the ba-construction. Something at a higher level must be sought to explain the uses of the ba-construction exactly there where it is used. My defense of this point will pervade this study. In his 1980 book, L. Wang makes a few more observations. First, he points out that the disposal construction intimately correlates with lexical causative compositions in the form of a verb with an adjective attached to it such as piao-bai ‘bleach-white’, chui-gan ‘blow-dry’, and da-si ‘beat-dead’, where the action denoted by the verb is the cause of the state denoted by the following adjective. To illustrate the mutual preference between the ba-construction and the causative, L. Wang ranks the preference for the three sentences: (6) a. Yi-ding yao BA Huai-he xiu-hao. decidedly must ba the Huai-River repair-good b. Yiding yao xiu-hao Huai-he. decidedly must repair-good Huai-River c. Yiding yao BA Huai-he xiu. decidedly must ba Huai-River repair [L. Wang 1980: 413; glosses are mine, Z.J.S.]

The question mark before (6b) means that “we don’t usually say this, though it is allowed”, and the asterisk before (6c) means that “we don’t say this”, as L. Wang puts it. However, he does not explain what it is about the disposal and the causative construction that makes them prefer each other to the other two sequences.


Second, he observes that in Modern Mandarin the ba-construction has an extended use for expressing “something unfortunate or unhappy” (1980: 414), which has developed during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, i.e. between the thirteenth and the seventeenth century. The following examples of the extended use are taken from L. Wang: (7) Pian you ba Feng yatou bing le. unfortunately moreover ba pn girl ail crs ‘To make things worse, Feng-girl fell ill just now.’ (8) Ba wo na yaoqiang de xin, yi-fen ye mei you le. ba 1sg. that ambitious assoc heart, a:bit too not have crs ‘Not even a bit is left of my ambition.’

In both sentences, the main verb is intransitive and the NP following ba is more of a subject than an object in relation to the verb. L. Wang leaves this variety of ba-construction untreated because, as he says, this usage is not frequent enough to compete with the disposal usage and is therefore ignorable. Let it be mentioned here that both sentences are real utterances, or constructed conversations, from the vernacular novel Hong Lou Meng of the 18th century and not thought up by the linguist. Had the analyst accepted them the way they are instead of discarding them as exceptional, more light could have been thrown on the use of this type of ba-construction. The reason why sentences like (7) and (8) are rejected as exceptions within the disposal framework is that the events they encode exhibit one-participancy. This oneparticipancy has one concrete syntactic demonstration: there is no grammatical subject in (7) and (8). Pragmatically, these sentences are not topic-comment entity-central sentences, but event-central, or thetic, sentences in the sense of “event-reporting” (Sasse 1987, 1995). The events reported on here are both of one-participancy. In sentence (7), the NP behind ba, a proper name, is actually the subject of the verb bing ‘fall ill, ail’ and the notion of a direct object is not applicable here. Certainly the lack of object suggests that nothing can be disposed of and the lack of subject means that there is no agent to conduct any disposal. Therefore, the notion of disposal is completely irrelevant in this case. The same is true of sentence (8). Now I would like to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that the baconstruction of both sentences is accompanied by highly subjective expressions. These are what Halliday calls modal adjuncts: pian ‘awry, unexpectedly’ signaling that the speaker feels sorry for the event that is against his expecta-

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tions and you ‘again, moreover, to make things worse’, which is used to express the speaker’s emotional resistance to the undesired situation, as in (7).21 In sentence (8) we encounter yi-fen ‘a bit’ and ye ‘even’, both being highly biasing discourse markers. These two sentences are not arbitrary linguistic facts and the reason why the ba-construction is used exactly here requires elucidation. Yet the fulfillment of this goal is beyond the established disposal approach. Third, L. Wang notices a new pattern of disposal with a nominalized verb phrase as postverbal direct object of the main verb. His examples are adopted from Mao’s writings: (9) ‘Sun Zhongshan was keen and saw this point and with help from the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communists he re-explained democracy.’ ba sanminzhuyi chongxin zuo le jieshi ba democracy anew make pfv explanation (10) ‘As for us, cultural professionals of intellectual heritage, if we want our work to be welcomed by the multitude, we must change and reshape our thoughts and feelings.’ jiu de ba ziji de sixiang ganqing lai yi ge bianhua, then must ba self gen thought feeling come one cl change, lai yi fan gaizao come one cl reshape [L. Wang 1980: 415; glosses and translations are mine, Z.J.S.]

Here the function verbs zuo ‘make’ and lai ‘bring’ serve to form the predicate in combination with the nominalized action verbs jieshi ‘explain’ in (9), and bianhua ‘change’ and gaizao ‘reshape’ in (10), respectively. L. Wang suggests that this pattern is motivated by prosodic considerations. He wrotes (1980: 415): The characteristic of this structure is not hard to see: ‘explanation’, ‘change’, and ‘reshaping’ are all action nouns; the word ‘make’ has to be combined with them to form a complete concept. Therefore they are different from a usual object. Thus it is not necessary to use a causative or add other complements in order to easily solve the problem of rhythm.


My impression, however, is that the most obvious characteristic of this structure is the endocentric emphasis on the nominalized content verb of action so that the action is kept in focus and maintains its informative weight until the long string of components is terminated. If the respective acts were denoted by simple verbs ‘explain’, ‘change’, and ‘reshape’ instead of nominalizations of the verbs plus the ba-construction, then the respective object NPs would have to be placed at the end of the sentence to take the spotlight, which is against the writer’s intention to stress the actions per se. It seems, therefore, that it is discourse that is at play and prosody is the by-product of this pragmatic need. To justify his claim of the disposal function, L. Wang argues (1980: 408): Just as verbs do not always designate action, the disposal construction does not always designate disposal. However, in Modern Colloquial Chinese, the main function of this construction is to designate disposal; it designates disposal even more in the modern literary language of Chinese. Thus the disposal function is predominant and productive. [translation is mine, Z.J.S.]

In his concluding remarks on the ba-construction, L. Wang states (1980: 416): The disposal form is one of the signs marking the progression of Chinese grammar toward perfection. The fronting of the object enables prosodic pausing after the object so that longer clauses won’t sound lengthy and clumsy. More importantly, the fronting of the object signals a kind of disposal, a kind of goal-reaching action, which renders the language more powerful. [translation is mine, Z.J.S.]

Here, the first question arises as to whether prosodic preference has an independent nature or if it is subject to pragmatic necessity. The second question concerns the “powerfulness” of the disposal form, which L. Wang intuitively claims but fails to linguistically elucidate: What is it about the structure of disposal in relation to its function that renders it powerful? Unfortunately, the notion of disposal is unable to account for the intuition about the expressive power associated with the ba-construction. Obviously, the limitation is due to the restricted level of the description. A deeper explanation must transcend sentence-level semantics. Two other synchronic studies in the “disposal” tradition are conducted by Y. C. Li (1974) and Mei (1978). Y. C. Li offers a much-detailed account of the properties and behavior of the object and the verb of a ba-construction. He finds that the verbs in sentences with the ba-construction are typically transitive, anaphoric action verbs, and that the fronted objects of these sentences are anaphoric source nouns. He defines the term “source” as a presupposition in the speaker’s mind. Y. C. Li does not see the semantic and functional

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uniqueness of this construction, but rather considers it a common syntactic phenomenon. Mei, on the other hand, identifies two special functions of the morpheme ba as: (1) to mark the following NP as part of the presupposed information, and (2) to mark the following NP as specific in reference. However, he does not explain why the NP following ba has to be specific or presupposed, as the regular SVO construction can have an object NP that is equally specific and presupposed. Compare the underlined parts of the two sentences in (11) below: (11)

‘Qin: You chap, you’re even slyer than your father! Humph, you wait and see. Sooner or later I’ll take back the house!’ Wang: Don’t do that please, Master! Qin: Not only will I take back the house, I’ll also sell all the land in the country and the business in the town!’ a. Zao wan wo ba fangzi shou hui qu. early late 1sg. ba house take back go b. Wo budan shou hui fangzi, 1sg. not:only take back house chengli de maimai ye dou town assoc business too all

erqie also mai sell

ba xiangxia de di, ba country assoc land, le. pfv

The very same event of taking back the house is described with the baconstruction in (11a) and with the VO construction in (11b), whereby the NP fangzi ‘the house’ is equally presupposed and definite, that is, identifiable for both the speaker and the hearer in the given discourse contexts. Why, then, is there the difference in the choice of sentence types? The answer is neither the property of the NP nor any other local properties within the clause. The answer is what the speaker tries to achieve by using the respective constructions in the respective discourse contexts. In (11a), the speaker expresses his menacing determination of taking back the house. In (11b), where the expression of the will of taking back the house is already accomplished and the determination to do even more awaits expression, the VO construction takes over in the first, backgrounded, clause, and leaves the ba-construction to the heavy-duty task in the


second, foregrounded, clause. The distribution of emphasis in the two clauses in (11b) is clearly marked by the textual linking conjunctions budan ‘not only’ and erqie ‘but also’, which signal that the ba-clause is foregrounded at the cost of the SVO clause. Certainly, trans-clausal considerations like this are beyond the constituent-oriented approach. To return to the basic topic of this section, the SVO clause in (11b) is no less capable of expressing disposal than the baconstruction in (11a). Obviously, then, the claim of disposal as the meaning of the ba-construction is beside the point. Li and Thompson (1981) continues and defends the disposal approach. They argue that the ba-construction “signals how the referent of the b˘a noun phrase is dealt with as a result of the event named by the verb” (1981: 479). They contend that the message of disposal can be explicitly expressed by the verb or implicitly suggested by the combination of the verb and the added complement. Li and Thompson make six observations about the ba-construction which they believe comply with the disposal meaning: (1) The ba-construction cannot be formed with verbs such as you ‘have’, xiang ‘resemble’, xing ‘be surnamed’;22 (2) The disposal meaning of the ba-construction does not require purpose; (3) Disposal needs not be a physical effect only, it can be abstract; (4) Disposal explains why the ba-construction is commonly used in imperatives; (5) The disposal meaning of the ba-construction is incompatible with the potential forms of the resultative verbs with the resultative particle de; (6) The disposal meaning requires that the negative particle bu/mei ‘not’ is placed before ba instead of the main verb. To generalize the usage of the ba-construction, Li and Thompson cite two conditions under which it is appropriate to express a message in such a construction. These are: (1) The NP following ba is “definite, specific, or generic”; (2) The message indicates “disposal, something happening to the entity referred to by the ba noun phrase” (1981: 483). It is noticeable here that Li and Thompson do not specify the nature of the word ba as an accusative marker, as they have been doing in their diachronic analyses (1974b, 1975). Instead, they seem to concentrate on the semantics of the ba-construction and the defense of the disposal meaning. A discussion of their diachronic analysis of the ba-construction will be taken on in Chapter 9 of this study. Let us now take a closer look at Li and Thompson’s analysis within the disposal framework with respect to the grammaticality of the following sentences formed with the ba-construction, as given by Li and Thompson (1981: 467– 468):

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(12) Ta ba xiao mao ai. 3sg. ba small cat love ‘S/He loves the kitten.’ (13) Ta ba ni xiang. 3sg. ba 2sg. miss ‘S/He misses you.’ (14) Wo ba nei-jian shiqing liaojie. 1sg. ba that-cl matter understand ‘I understand that matter.’23 (15) Ta ba Zhangsan kan dao-le. 3sg. ba pn see arrive-pfv ‘S/He was able to see Zhangsan.’ (16) Ta ba ge chang-le. 3sg. ba song sing-pfv ‘S/He sang the song.’ (17) Tao shu ba hua kai-le. peach tree ba blossom open-pfv ‘The peach trees are blooming.’ (18) Ta ba xiao mao ai de yao si. 3sg. ba small cat love res want die ‘S/he loves the kitten so much that s/he wants to die.’ (19) Ta ba ni xiang de fan dou bu ken chi. 3sg. ba 2sg. miss res food all not will eat ‘S/He misses you so much that s/he won’t even eat her/his meals.’

Li and Thompson explain that the reason why sentences (12)–(17) are ungrammatical lies in the semantics of the verbs. These verbs, they say, do not conceptually qualify as verbs of disposal, which is required by the ba-construction. Curiously, the verbs in sentences (18) and (19), though identical to those of the sentences (12) and (13), acquire a disposal quality through the addition of the complemental expressions. For example, the complement yao si, literally ‘want


to die’, is said to “hyperbolically create an image that such an intense love must have some effect on the ‘small cat”’ (1981: 469). This argument is too wanting to pass for a plausible explanation. I invite the reader to figure out what kind of effect on the “small cat” can be possibly inferred from sentence (18). The answer is negative because the verbal modifier yao-si is a mere grammaticalized intensifier and does not mean what the two syllables literally designate. That is, its literal sense associated with physical death is not active, or, in Haiman’s words, its “natural connection with [its] original referent becomes obscure” and its use is “emancipated from the original stimulus or referent that [it] once modeled” (Haiman 2002: 556). Its core feature is its high degree of subjectivity characteristic of exaggerations. Therefore, a suitable translation of yao-si would be ‘terribly’ or ‘awfully’ and not ‘wanting to die’. Clearly, the modifier’s function of intensification has nothing whatsoever to do with the object xiao mao, but refers to the sentential subject ta, as Li and Thompson also admit. What the complement does is to modify the verb ai ‘love’ by specifying the extreme intensity of the emotion or the extent to which it goes. The object xiao mao is a passive participant in the entire event and whether or not it is affected by the action ai ‘love’ is entirely irrelevant to the semantics of the sentence under investigation. It is no surprise that Li and Thompson fail to specify the effect on the object in their ad-hoc claim. They are not able to do so because no such effect is identifiable or even conceivable as far as the given sentence is concerned. If no effect is exercised on the object by the modified verb, doesn’t it mean that the notion of disposal betrays the best intention on the analyst’s part? Furthermore, does the complement yao si in any way upgrade the verb ai ‘love’ in its capability of disposal by virtue of hyperbole? The answer is no. What the hyperbole really does, is to express a subjective judgment of the extreme degree to which the action of ai ‘love’ goes. Hyperbole is by definition a subjective undertaking. The term “subjective” is used in a variety of senses. I consider its conception in perceptual terms (in Langacker’s sense) fundamental to its logical and psychological definitions. Langacker states that “an entity is subjective to the extent that its role as observer is maximized, and its role as object of observation is minimized” (1987: 493). As a matter of fact, as an intensifier, the phrase yao si ‘terribly, awfully’ can be used practically in any context where high subjectivity is desired. Its use is a communicative ritual. If the grammaticality of (12) is undermined due to the lack of the extravagant exaggeration only, then the issue is not the verb’s capability of disposal at the propositional level, but rather the attitudinal component at the discourse level. If the modified verb of (18)

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is no more capable of disposal than the unmodified verb of (12) despite the hyperbole, then, the notion of disposal is irrelevant to the point. The same mechanism is operant in determining the felicity of sentence (19) versus the ungrammaticality of (13). In other words, the ba-construction cannot be used in plain objective statement. It demands a certain degree of subjective elaboration. Likely, sentences (14)–(17) are ungrammatical despite the presence of the definite referent of the ba-NP in (15) and the presence of the aspect suffix le in (15)–(18), which allegedly justify the use of the baconstruction. Their common deficit is not the semantic weakness in the sense of disposal on the part of the verb; the problem is their flatness and dullness in the absence of expressive elements. All things being equal, when such elements are added to the plain sentences, their grammaticality can be saved. Sentence (14), for instance, can be transformed into a perfectly felicitous utterance when we attach an extentative complement to it. Consider sentence (20) with the extra attachment in boldface: (20) Wo ba nei jian shiqing liaojie de qing-qing-chu-chu. 1sg. ba that cl matter investigate res very clear ‘I found out all about that matter.’

The added complement is an elaborated form of qing-chu ‘clearly’ through emphatic reduplication and renders the statement substantially weightier in subjectivity and expressiveness by specifying the extent or degree of the action of investigating. Obviously, this extra amount of expressivity is all it takes to ensure the grammaticality of the sentence, even though the verb itself is still incapable of exercising disposal as it is in (15). Sentence (16) can be improved by adding an adverb zhongyu ‘finally’, as shown below in (21): (21) Ta zhongyu ba Zhangsan kan dao-le. see arrive-pfv 3sg. finally ba pn ‘S/He was finally able to see Zhangsan.’

What does the adverb zhongyu ‘finally’ contribute to the sentence such that (21) is well formulated in contrast to (16)? The answer is the communicative bias, or subjectivity, with which the modal adjunct is associated. The speaker uses zhongyu ‘finally’ to express his subjective evaluation of the situation against his own presuppositions and expectations. In other words, the speaker has long expected the situation that “he be able to see Zhangsan” but the actualization of the situation temporally contradicts the speaker’s anticipation. The seman-


tic quality of the main verb in terms of disposal is not germane here. Even L. Wang’s classic example, formulated by Li and Thompson in (17), can gain enough vitality and recover from its ungrammaticality if an adequately subjective complement is added to it. Sentence (22) contrasts, in the presence of the string in boldface, with (17) in acceptability. (22) Tao-shu ba hua kai de bieti duo haokan le peach tree ba blossom open res needless:to:say how pretty crs ‘The peach trees are blooming so wonderfully.’

Clearly, the deadpan statement of the fact that “the peach trees are blooming” in the form of (17) is not compatible with the ba-construction, while a specification of how the speaker perceives the fact, namely “so wonderfully”, licenses the use of the ba-construction. The added extentative complement does not increase the sense of disposal by specifying how the action of “blooming” per se proceeds; it addresses instead how the speaker feels about it and thereby creates a distinctly subjective dimension to the utterance. Note that the English translation is a weakened version of the original phrase where the subjectivity is pronouncedly stronger by virtue of the entire amalgam of attitudinal elements bieti ‘don’t-mention, needless to say’, duo ‘how, how much’, and the sentence final modal particle le suggesting a currently relevant state.24 These examples show that disposal fails to predict that sentences (12)–(17) are odd whereas sentences (18)–(22) are felicitous merely on account of the semantic aspect of the verbs, for, as I have demonstrated, they are equally non-disposal. So far it suffices to say that the disposal hypothesis lacks insight into the overall discourse quality associated with the ba-construction due to its fixation on the local semantics of the main verb. Following from the previous discussion, we can see that to assign the meaning “disposal” to the ba-construction poses two problems. First, the ba-construction does not always have anything to do with how someone or something is disposed of, not even in the most remote sense of that word. Rather, the ba-construction appears in immediate association with messages of subjectivity that have little to do with “disposal”. Second, the conditions that allegedly determine the use of the baconstruction do not unitarily predict the actual use of the ba-construction and its grammaticality.

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. Transitivity .. Overview The most influential transitivity analysis of the ba-construction is offered by Chao (1970). Chao proposes the term “pretransitive verbal construction” (1970: 344) to describe the ba-construction. Yet Chao offers no clear definition of his term “pre-transitive”, nor any definition of what is conceived of as “transitive”. He merely maintains that the pre-transitive verbal construction is a type of serial verb construction, where ba is the pretransitive verb to “mark the goal object” of the action (1970: 261). According to Chao, the pretransitive verb ba itself has little semantic content vis-à-vis the second verb, which expresses the action. Chao’s wording vaguely suggests that ba is an empty object or case marker. Chao discusses the following aspects of the ba-construction: First, Chao specifies the nature of the NP following ba as definite in the referential aspect. He argues that even in cases where the ba-NP is preceded by a classifier ge or yi-ge, which is a compound of the numeral ‘one’ and the classifier ge, both resembling the indefinite article a(n) in English, the ba-NP refers to something quite definite, as in (23): (23) ta ba ge zhangfu si le, keshi bujiu you jia le ge 3sg. ba cl husband die pfv, but soon again marry pfv cl zhangfu husband. ‘She suffered her husband dying (on her), but before long she married another husband.’

Second, Chao observes that the meanings of the second verb are not always disposal, as L. Wang proposes. Chao regards the term disposal too narrow to cover all cases of the ba-construction, “unless taken in a very broad sense, including disposal in an abstract sense” (1970: 344). He lists a number of “defective verbs” that do not in principle take the pretransitive ba: you ‘have’, shi ‘be’, xiang ‘be like’, zai ‘exist, be at’, and certain verbs of motion lai ‘come’, qu ‘go’, jin ‘enter’, chu ‘exit’, hui ‘return’, dao ‘arrive at, go to’. Chao does not offer any explanation as to why these are incompatible with the ba-construction. Yet he does find counterexamples such as the following: (24) Ta ba zher de xuexiao dou jin guo le, yi ge xuexiao 3sg. ba here assoc school all enter exp pfv, one cl school


ye mei biye even not graduate ‘He took and entered every school here, but did not graduate from any one of them.’ [Chao 1970: 344, original translation, glosses are mine, Z.J.S.]

Neither sentence (23) nor (24) fits into the disposal framework, indeed. The subject of sentence (23) ta ‘she’ is not the agent, but the experiencer of the event, namely, “her husband died”, over which the subject has little control. As for (24), “going to school” is not a way to dispose of school, nor does it make sense to ponder over what happens to school as a result of someone’s going to school. What both (23) and (24) do show, however, is that the ba-construction is used contrastively. The conjunction keshi ‘but’ between the two conjoined clauses of (23) suggests an explicit contradiction perceived from the speaker’s perspective and expresses the speaker’s personal opinion on the matter. Between the two conjoined clauses of sentence (24), a similar contradiction is at play, as the second clause discredits the effort described in the first clause by suggesting the opposite result. The quantifier yi-ge. . . ye mei ‘not even. . .one’ in the second clause stands in total contrast to dou ‘all’ in the first clause. The tension that generates from this semantic contrast is both emotive and evaluative and creates high subjectivity in the expression. Chao does not perceive this discourse dimension as unique to the ba-construction, though he challenges the disposal framework with his examples, of which he himself fails to offer more plausible explanations. More examples given by Chao feature the ba-construction with what he calls “verbs of nondirected motion” (1970: 345). He presents these examples as isolated hypothetical ba-constructions without subjects. To make these examples closer to real utterances, I have added a first person pronoun as subject in my reproduction of his examples below: (25) [Wo] ba yizi zuo ta le. 1sg. ba chair sit collapse pfv/crs ‘I have collapsed the chair, sitting on it.’ (26) [Wo] ba lu zou cuo le. 1sg. ba route walk wrong pfv/crs ‘I have taken the wrong road.’

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(27) [Wo] ba difang pao shou le. 1sg. ba place run familiar pfv/crs ‘I have familiarized myself with the place, running about in it.’ (28) [Wo] ba tui zhan lei le. 1sg. ba leg stand tired pfv/crs ‘I have fatigued the legs, standing on them.’

It shall be mentioned here that the verbs in boldface are those that are considered intransitive in traditional grammars of the Western languages where transitivity pertains to the presence of an object and intransitivity the absence of one. However, Mandarin Chinese does not formally fit into this conception of transitivity. There are a number of language-specific features that defy a strict formal distinction between transitivity and intransitivity. For one thing, Mandarin Chinese has no morphological case marking and the object is identified via the sentence position it occupies as well as the semantic-pragmatic context in which it occurs. Secondly, the direct object is not in formal opposition to the oblique object, as illustrated by sentences (29)–(30) below, where all of the verbs in the a sentences are formally identical to the verbs in the b sentences, though the verbs in a may be considered intransitive while those in b transitive from the perspective of Western traditional grammar. In Mandarin Chinese, they are all immediately followed by an NP, which formally behaves like a direct object, but semantically resembles an oblique object more than a direct object. Consider these sentences: (29) a. Wo zuo huoche, ni zuo feiji. 1sg. sit train, 2sg. sit airplane ‘I take the train, you fly with the airplane.’ b. Wo kai huoche, ni kai feiji. 1sg. drive train, 2sg. drive airplane ‘I drive the train, you fly the airplane.’ (30) a. Wo zuo bandeng, ni zuo shafa. 2sg. sit sofa 1sg. sit stool ‘I sit on the stool, you sit in the sofa.’


b. Wo ban bandeng, ni ban shafa. 1sg. move stool, 2sg. move sofa ‘I move the stool, you move the sofa.’

In these examples, the verb zuo ‘sit’ directly takes objects without the formal help from any prepositions. Thus, despite its incapability of object manipulation, the verb zuo exhibits the same syntactic behavior as the verbs kai ‘drive’ and ban ‘move’ that take direct object NPs. The verb pao ‘run’ in sentence (31a), too, formally exhibits the transitive behavior like that of shao ‘burn’ in (31b): (31) a. Wo pao-le hao ji jia shangdian, shenme ye mei mai. 1sg. run-pfv good few cl store what also not buy ‘I went to several stores but bought nothing.’ b. Wo shao-le hao ji jia shangdian. 1sg. burn-pfv good few cl store ‘I burnt quite a few stores.’

Yet despite the fact that the verbs in the a sentences are formally transitive, that is, they are immediately followed by an NP, they do not fulfill the semantic requirement of transitivity in the sense that an agent does something to an object, as suggested by Lyons (1968: 359). Nor do they fit anywhere onto the continuum of transitivity in Hopper and Thompson’s terms (1982: 3). For one thing, the NPs they take can hardly be considered a participant in the event, and even less a patient that undergoes change caused by the action performed by the agent. In other words, the NPs huoche ‘train’, feiji ‘airplane’, bandeng ‘stool’, shafa ‘sofa’, shangdian ‘store’ in the a sentences above are locatives denoting the location of the event rather than object NPs. Clearly, no change whatsoever occurs to them due to the actions of the agents. Thus it is quite obvious that the idea of transitivity is not a straightforward phenomenon in Mandarin Chinese grammar. If the semantic concept of transitivity were to be taken as a relevant descriptive notion for the analysis of Mandarin Chinese, then verbs exhibiting identical formal behavior would have to be judged differently such that some can be called transitive and others must be considered “non-transitive”. In Section 4.2.2 we will return to the issue of transitivity with a more detailed discussion of the varying ways in which it is defined and propose a unitary argument that it is inappropriate to explain the uses of the ba-construction in terms of transitivity only.

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Back to the review of Chao’s pre-transitivity approach, we notice that Chao regards the ba-NPs of (25)–(28) as inverted objects, for he asserts: “The second verb usually has its goal of action in the object of the pretransitive” (1970: 345). This claim is murky because the notion “goal of action” is left undefined. When understood in its most general sense, the word “goal” denotes “the end toward which effort and ambition is directed” according to the Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1993: 972). If this is what Chao implies with his wording, we have trouble making sense of sentences (25)–(28) in terms of his description. It is hard to imagine that, for instance, the goal of sitting in a chair is the collapsing of the chair or that getting fatigued legs is the goal of standing, as far as we can see from sentence (25) and (28), respectively. The problem with the term “goal” is the intentionality of action it signals. Such a semantic aspect, however, is at odds with what is inferable from the utterances. Instead of an intended goal, sentences (25) and (28) convey the unintended result of the action described. Furthermore, Chao fails to reflect on the attitudinal aspect of sentences (25)–(28). What these sentences have in common is that the speaker does not merely report a plain fact, but rather delivers a comment on the event in each case. Concretely, (25) expresses a certain amount of amazement about an unusual episode, (26) hints at a tinge of irritation upon the reflection of a mistake, (27) suggests self-acknowledgment in a slightly braggart manner and (28) reveals a complaint. These messages are beyond truth-conditional information and cannot be arrived at by examining the transitivity relationship between the participants at the propositional level. Chao further presents sentences where the ba-NPs are the actual actors of the main verb, hence the type ba-S-VP. (32) Ba ge zei pao-le. ba cl burglar run-pfv ‘allowed the burglar to escape’ (‘The burglar escaped.’) (33) Ba ta ji si-le. ba 3sg. worry die-pfv ‘made him worry to death’ (‘He was worried to death.’)


(34) Ba wo mang de shou mang jiao luan. ba 1sg. busy com hand haste foot confuse ‘kept me so busy, that my hands and feet were all confused’ (‘I became so busy that my hands and feet got all restless’.) [Chao 1970: 345; glosses and translation of (34) are mine, Z.J.S.]

Chao translates these two sentences in a way such that the English sentences are subjectless and thus grammatically incomplete, although the original Mandarin sentences are perfectly complete the way they are. In fact, had a subject been added to the original sentence (32) before ba, the sentence would have been odd if not completely unacceptable in Mandarin: (35) Wo ba ge zei pao-le. 1sg. ba cl burglar run-pfv

On the other hand, Chao’s translations of ba as ‘allowed’, ‘made’ and ‘kept’ in (32), (33), and (34), respectively, are inaccurate because they assign meanings that are not inherent in the semantics of the word ba as it is proposed by Chao. The causative sense hidden in ‘allow’ and ‘make’ is only a vague impression, and not part of the meaning of the ba-construction. If the ba-construction is not used to communicate causality, the inference must result from factors independent of the semantics of the ba-construction, e.g. when the hearer reads the speaker’s mind and accordingly interprets the speaker’s emotion and attitude as the indirect ascription of causation.25 A further aspect about sentences (32)–(34) and the previous sentences (25)–(28) is their alleged indication of misfortune. These sentences fall largely into the peculiar group which L. Wang calls the extended usage of the baconstruction for the description of undesired events. Is the extended use necessarily bound to signaling something unfortunate or unhappy, as L. Wang feels? Sentence (27), for instance, conveys nothing negative even to the most discerning ear and thus definitely disagrees with that generalization. If negativity is not inherent in the meaning of the intransitive ba-construction, what, then, produces the effect that the intransitive ba-sentences are felt to be associated with misfortunes? The answer, as we have argued in Section 3.1, is to be found in the interaction between the human psychological principle of selective attention and their ability to manipulate meanings to fulfill their communicative needs. Concretely speaking, misfortunes are psychologically marked and draw more attention from the person who experiences them either as participant

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or as observer. Accordingly, in describing misfortunes, the speaker will tend to adopt a marked grammatical construction to dramatize the events if he wishes to profile their unpleasant nature. A third observation made by Chao concerns the syllabic structure of the second verbal expression. He rightly observes that the second verbal expressions are uniformly polysyllabic except in traditional plays and verses. To illustrate this point, Chao offers the minimal pair of (36) and (37) for an example. Compared to the non-ba-sentence (36), the ba-sentence (37) is judged ungrammatical. Chao attributes the ungrammaticality of (37) to the monosyllabicity of the second verbal expression. Let us consider these two sentences: (36) Wo hen zhe ge ren. 1sg. hate this cl person ‘I hate this person.’ (37) Wo ba zhe ge ren hen. 1sg. ba this cl person hate

With regard to the syllabic structure of the action verb as a constraint on the use of the ba-construction, Chao states (1970: 346): The general philosophy of the polysyllabicity of the second verb seems to be that, since a pretransitive is employed to advance the position of the object and get it out of the way, something more elaborate is presumably meant to be said than can be expressed by just one morpheme, which would have the effect of an anticlimax.

Chao’s statement is insightful insofar as it captures the gist of the baconstruction as having more to say than the plain SVO sentence. The oddity of sentence (37) lies exactly in the failure of the single verb to articulate this “something more” that is required by the ba-construction. The sentence suddenly falls short exactly there where it is expected to unfold. However, if we allow the sentence to unfold by adding something to the verb in solitude, we can easily rectify the expression and make it acceptable. Consider (38) below as the refreshed version: (38) Wo ba zhe ge ren hen tou le. 1sg. ba this cl person hate through crs ‘I hate this person through and through.’


The complement tou ‘through, thoroughly’ serves to add intensity to the degree to which the emotion of hatred goes. With the help of the modal particle le denoting “currently relevant state” (CRS), it brings the sentence to a satisfactory completion with high emotional intensity. For a realistic utterance, matching intonation, vocal qualities, gesture and other paralinguistic cues would be required to support the verbal intensity. The possibility to utter sentence (38) demonstrates that the degree of emotional intensity rather than the number of syllables possessed by the verb is determinative of the felicity of the ba-sentence. Built on the observation of obligatory polysyllabicity, Chao proceeds to discuss the elements that make the second verbal expression polysyllabic. He first examines suffixes and complements. As for suffixes, Chao notes that the minimum addition to the second verb is an aspect suffix such as the durative zhe and the perfective le. Yet he does not explain why it should be so. As for complements, Chao differentiates between predicative complements, resultative complements, and potential complements. In fact, Chao’s distinction between predicative and resultative complements is very murky, as far as his examples illustrate. Predicative complements are exemplified by (39) and (40): (39) ba shiqing kan de tai renzhen ba matter see res too serious ‘Take things too seriously’ (40) Ba wo qi de yanjing zhi fa huo. ba 1sg. anger res eye keep emit fire ‘Angered me so much that my eyes kept emitting fire. ’

Chao notes that predicative complements in general apply more to the subject than to the object and the opposite is true with resultative complements. Note that to view the complement in (40) as resultative is equally justified, for ‘my eyes kept emitting fire’ results from anger described by the main verb qi ‘anger, enrage’ in its transitive use. Thus resultative complements can either denote what happens to the ba-object, as in (41), or refer to the state or change of state of the subject of the entire ba-construction, as in (42). Consider (41) and (42) below: (41) Ni ba fan zhu lan le. 2sg. ba rice/meal cook soft pfv/crs ‘You cooked the rice too soft.’

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(42) Ni ba fan chi bao le. 2sg. ba rice/meal eat full pfv/crs ‘You have eaten yourself full.’

Let it be mentioned here that both sentences convey a sense of resentment and cannot be interpreted as simple reports of fact. Sentence (41) suggests a reproach and (42) can only make sense when uttered in a suitably contrastive context, e.g. as an utterance filled with bitterness and resentment hinting that the speaker’s own state is perceived as less desirable than that of the addressee. Actually, (42) sounds odd and ambiguous without any such context that supports the successful interpretation of this bitterness. Repair is made with sentence (43), which requires accompanying facial expressions, intonation and voice qualities that support the interpretation of the emotional irritation: (43) Ni ba fan chi bao le, ke wo hai e zhe ne! 2sg. ba rice/meal eat full pfv, but 1sg. still starve dur p ‘You have eaten yourself full, but I am still starving!’

With regard to the potential complement, Chao captures the phenomenon that this kind of complement does not mix with the ba-construction, as (44) is unacceptable, while (45), where the modal verb neng ‘can’ is used to express potentiality, is well-formed. (44) Wo ba ta shuo de xin. 1sg. ba 3sg. talk res believe ‘I can convince him.’ (45) Wo neng ba ta shuo xin le. 1sg. can ba 3sg. talk believe crs ‘I can convince him.’

The difference between (44) and (45) breaks down to the difference between the potential complement marked by the potentiality particle de and the modal verb neng ‘can’. Both structures, according to Chao, express potentiality. Now the question naturally arises: If they were semantically identical, why would they differ in their compatibility with the ba-construction? Chao does not commit himself to the explanation of this problem. My contention is that both forms are linked to the message of potentiality, yet in very different manners. To be precise, the potential complement marked by de expresses a rather objective


evaluation of potentiality and ability weighed against the given circumstances. The modal verb neng, on the other hand, expresses the subjective belief in the potentiality or the promise of a commitment to the task in question. The two are therefore no semantic equivalents. In effect, the difference between (44) and (45) equals that between ‘I’m able to convince him’ and ‘I can convince him’ in English (see 7.4.3 for more details regarding this issue). A semantic explanation of the ba-construction must capture this contrast and account for it. Unfortunately, the pretransitive approach is limited to the surface formality of object inversion and is unable to offer an adequate explanation. A further possible formation of the polysyllabic verbal phrase, as Chao observes, is the adverb-verb combination. Chao points out the indispensability of the adverb in this formation, as it is ungrammatical to say ba jiu he for ‘drink the wine’, while to say ba jiu buting de he ‘drink the wine incessantly’ is perfectly in order. As usual, Chao only describes the phenomenon without actually explaining what semantic contributions the adverb makes and why such contributions are essential to the grammaticality of the structure of which it is a part. On the whole, given that Chao’s approach is primarily concerned with the description of the superficial formal properties of the ba-construction, his failure to explain the function of these properties is hardly surprising. Less ambiguous than the pretransitive approach is Thompson’s (1973) explicitly announced transitivity analysis of the ba-construction. Thompson argues that the function of the ba-construction is to denote a three-term relationship expressed in the formula X ba Y Z. Here, the item ba is a transitive marker signifying the “pass-over” of the effects of the action expressed by the verb (Z) from the agent (X) to the patient (Y). She contends that the baconstruction is used to answer the question ‘what did X do to Y?’ The question, in essence, seems to be an illustrative translation of L. Wang’s more abstract term “disposal”. The difference is Thompson’s analysis is atomistic, as she assigns meaning to the item ba instead of the ba-construction as an inseparable whole. Furthermore, the reader should be alerted here to the lack of semanticpragmatic isomorphism between Thompson’s question in English and its Mandarin counterpart. To be accurate, the same question must be formulated with the ba-construction in Mandarin: X ba Y zenme le? which is semantically more marked than the English version. We say it is more marked because it presupposes the speaker’s speculation or assumption that X did something BAD to Y. To render this negative connotation, ‘what the hell did X do to Y?’ would be a more appropriate English translation. On the other hand, the answer to this question does not have to be formulated with the ba-construction if the

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communicative intent of the speaker so dictates. Consider the following two exchanges between a concerned mother (M) and her child (C): (46) M: Ta ba ni zenme le? 3sg. ba 2sg. how pfv ‘What (the hell) did he do to you?’ C: Ta ba wo da le yi dun. 3sg. ba 1sg. beat pfv one vq ‘He gave me a good whacking!’ (47) M: Ta ba ni zenme-le? 3sg. ba 2sg. how-pfv ‘What (the hell) did he do to you?’ C: Mei zenme, jiu shuo-le wo ji ju. neg how just speak-pfv 1sg. a:few sentences ‘Nothing. He just delivered a few remarks about me.’

The child’s answer in sentence (46) is formed with the ba-construction and thereby confirms the mother’s negative assumption conveyed by the baconstruction in her question. The answer to the same question in (47) begins with the negation of the mother’s underlying assumption and then goes on in the form of the unmarked SVO construction as a dedramatizing strategy conveying the message that ‘what happened was no big deal’. If, however, the negation mei zenme ‘nothing’ were followed by an utterance with the baconstruction, the answer would be conveying a very strange message, if not purported for the special effect of irony, as in (48): (48) M: Ta ba ni zenme-le? 3sg. ba 2sg. how-pfv ‘What (the hell) did he do to you?’ C: Mei zenme, ta ba wo da-le yi dun! neg how 3sg. ba 1sg. beat-pfv one vq ‘Nothing. He gave me a good whacking!’

Sentences (46)–(48) show that the ba-construction may or may not be used to answer the question ‘what did X do to Y?’ as Thompson claims. As a matter of fact, both the question and the answer to it are associated with a finer-grained


message than the straightforward “pass-over of action” from X to Y. Moreover, the possibility of the alternative answer in the SVO format demonstrates that the constructional choice made by the speaker between the ba-construction and the unmarked SVO is highly discourse-sensitive. Another major problem that besets Thompson’s transitivity approach is how to explain the intransitive ba-construction, that is, the composition ba-SVP. Apparently, the very notion of transitivity determines that a structure used to describe intransitive events must be rejected within the framework based on that notion. Unsurprisingly, the intransitive ba-sentences remain untreated by Thompson. Sun (1995) adopts Hopper and Thompson’s notion of transitivity and treats ba as a “high transitivity marker”. Sun postulates the meaning for ba as conveying “the total affectedness” of a discourse participant, that is, the ba-NP, or the direct object of the main verb. The strength of this postulation is that it transcends the notion of transitivity and acknowledges the semantic richness of the ba-construction. In so doing, it takes us a step further towards a holistic understanding of the semantic peculiarity of the ba-construction. Unfortunately, because the notion of “total affectedness” is derived from “transitivity”, it is born as a child of sentence grammar. As such, it is confined to the description of the local relationships between the participants of the event and is blind to the discourse sensitivity of the ba-construction. Thus, despite its relative semantic vitality, the notion of “total affectedness” nevertheless fails to account for the pragmatic uniqueness of the ba-construction. Tsao (1987) adopts Hopper and Thompson’s idea of transitivity and sees this as one of two readings of the ba-construction. He treats the baconstruction from a topic-comment perspective. He considers the function of ba as marking the following NP as a special topic. The meaning of the construction is the transitivity relation between the primary topic and the secondary topic introduced by ba. According to Tsao, the ba-construction is used to bring into focus the result of action, as expressed by the verb and its complement. Tsao postulates a “rule for the interpretation of the ba clause” (1987: 41), which states that the ba-clause will be assigned the transitivity reading if the primary topic can be interpreted as the agent of the action denoted by the verb. If not, the clause will receive a causative reading. Thus, in essence, Tsao’s treatment is a restatement of the transitivity proposal offered by the other scholars discussed in the previous paragraphs. The rule that determines the causative interpretation of the ba-construction concerns the ba-S-VP construction. Apart from the usual problem posed by transitivity on which we have commented, the causative proposal for the intransitive sequence is questionable in and for it-

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self. Causality pertains to the emerging relationship between entities that are perceived as the cause and the effect of an action. It does not account for the actual uses such as (23), where the ba-construction clearly expresses the speaker’s concern that does not seem to have anything to do with cause and effect. Here, a stark discrepancy between two levels of observation suggests itself: The speaker’s concern is an emotive-evaluative matter. Its communication operates at the pragmatic level. The construction of causality, however, operates at the propositional level and is oblivious of the emotive-evaluative nature of the utterance formulated with the ba-construction. In 4.3 we shall further discuss the causativity postulation that underlies some of the most recent treatments of the ba-construction e.g. Campell (1991) and Sybesma (1999). .. What is transitivity? Whether or not the uses of the ba-construction can be fully explained in terms of transitivity depends on how the notion of transitivity is defined. Therefore, before we can judge the validity of the transitivity approach to the ba-construction, we need to ask the question: what is transitivity? In the part that follows, I shall examine three major proposals of transitivity in the literature of the past two decades or so with regard to their applicability in the matter of the ba-construction. These are: (1) Hopper and Thompson’s cardinal transitivity, (2) Cooreman et al. and Givón’s prototypical transitivity, and (3) Lazard’s prototypical action and major biactant construction. With each proposal, we shall perform two tests. First, we shall test whether or not the ba-construction matches the definition of transitivity, or, whether its uses in the data can be explained according to the transitivity parameters defined within each proposal. Second, we shall compare the ba-construction with the unmarked SVO construction with respect to the degree of their correlation with the parameters of transitivity. ... Cardinal transitivity Hopper and Thompson (1980) approach transitivity from a semantic perspective and in universal terms. They view transitivity “in the most conventional and traditional way possible – as a matter of carrying-over or transferring an action from one participant to the other” and their study seeks to break transitivity down “into its component parts” (1980: 253). They present the component parts of transitivity in a list of parameters of cardinal transitivity against which the degree of transitivity of a clause is judged, as shown in Table 4.1 (1980: 252).


Table 4.1 Parameters of cardinal transitivity

A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J.

PARTICIPANTS KINESIS ASPECT PUNCTUALITY VOLITIONALITY AFFIRMATION MODE AGENCY AFFECTEDNESS OF O INDIVIDUATION OF O

High transitivity

Low transitivity

two participants or more (A and O) action telic punctual volitional affirmative realis A high in potency O totally affected O highly individuated

one participant nonaction atelic nonpunctual nonvolitional negative irrealis A low in potency O not affected O nonindividuated

Let us begin by considering parameter A. If transitivity is defined as the carrying-over or transferring of an action from one participant to the other, as Hopper and Thompson propose, then biparticipancy is necessarily a defining feature of transitivity, or the “basic condition of transitivity”, to use Lazard’s words. Hopper and Thompson, in their 1982 introduction to Studies in Transitivity, further hint that the central aspect of transitivity concerns the presence or absence of the object, though their wording is cautiously vague. They state (1982: 4): Our research showed that in language the morphosyntactic structures used to signal a progression toward, or a recession away from, cardinal transitivity were similar to those signaling the presence or absence of a second participant, that is, an object.

This statement implies the convergence of Hopper and Thompson’s conception of transitivity and the conventional view of transitivity in the Western tradition of grammatical thinking. Given that the presence of an object is taken to be the defining feature of transitivity, the problem that plagues the disposal framework resurfaces here: The ba-construction is sometimes used to describe events of one-participancy. Recall the examples (7)–(8) offered by L. Wang in 4.1 and (32)–(34) by Chao in 4.2.1, all of which are in the syntactic form of baS-V. This peculiar usage of the ba-construction, albeit much less frequent than its bi- or multiparticipancy usage, indicates that the ba-construction does not always meet the basic condition of transitivity, as it is conceived of in Hopper and Thompson’s approach. As for parameter B, kinesis, there are ba-sentences with stative verbs that are nevertheless felicitous if proper modifiers singaling subjectivity and emotional intensity are present in the predication (recall our examples in 4.1, 4.2.1

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and see more in 6.1.2). Thus kinesis can neither account for nor predict all the uses of the ba-construction. As for parameter C, aspect, the atelic or durative aspect marker zhe is observed in use with the ba-construction while the telic or completive aspect marker wan is found to be much less compatible with the ba-construction (see Section 6.1.3). This controversy challenges the predictive power of aspect in the use of the ba-construction. While the ba-construction is observed in use with verbs of punctuality in conjunction with the preverbal action quantifier yi ‘one’ denoting the abruptness of the action, it may equally well be used with the tentative aspect in the form of verbal reduplication. Thus, as far as the inherent meaning of the verb is concerned, punctuality can hardly be taken as determinative of the wellformedness of the ba-construction. Not only can tentativeness be compatible with the ba-construction, verbs signaling habituality, the opposite of punctuality, form licit ba-sentences just as readily. Recall Chao’s examples (25)–(28), reproduced here as (49)–(52): (49) [Wo] ba yizi zuo ta-le. 1sg. ba chair sit collapse-pfv ‘I have collapsed the chair, sitting on it.’ (50) [Wo] ba lu zou cuo-le. 1sg. ba route walk wrong-pfv ‘I have taken the wrong road.’ (51) [Wo] ba difang pao shou-le. 1sg. ba place run familiar-pfv ‘I have familiarized myself with the place, running about in it.’ (52) [Wo] ba tui zhan lei-le. 1sg. ba leg stand tired-pfv ‘I have fatigued the legs, standing on them.’

Note that none of the verbs in the sentences above is used in the sense of punctuality. The verbs zuo ‘sit’ and zhan ‘stand’ can be considered lingering, if not downright stative. Neither indicates that the resulting state of the ba-NP is caused by one single instance of the action. The verb zou ‘walk’ is used in a conative sense except that the incorporated noun lu ‘way, road’ is separated by the morpheme ba, and the verb pao ‘run’ is definitely used in the sense of a


repetitive and accumulative activity, which incrementally leads to the resulting familiarity with the place. What possibly creates the illusion of transitivity in these sentences is the postverbal modification that denotes the change of reality as perceived by the speaker. In sentences (49)–(52), it is the post-verbal complements ta-le ‘collapse-PFV’, cuo-le ‘wrong-PFV’, shou-le ‘familiar-PFV’, lei-le ‘tired-PFV’ that signal the perceived affectedness and change of the baNPs. Though affectedness and change may easily be confused with transitivity, they are not the same thing. In these sentences, the affectedness and change are subjective and reflects the speaker’s perceptive bias rather than the objective reshaping of relationships between the entities in question. This is especially true given that none of these sentences describes volitional undertaking. Speaking of volition, in those ba-sentences that describe events of oneparticipancy, nonvolition and the lack of control form the main semantic scenario. This semantic aspect is interpreted as being associated with the “unhappy” happenings in L. Wang’s terms. In Section 6.1.1, we will demonstrate that this type of ba-sentences is a language-specific means of encoding gossipiness. As for parameter F, the ba-construction is not restricted to affirmative uses. Negation can be freely formed with the ba-construction in all moods to express negative messages such as perfective failure, predicted inability, unwillingness, and prohibitions (see Section 3.4). Regarding the matter of mood, non-indicative moods such as the subjunctive, the optative, and the interrogative, all indicating irrealis, are repeatedly observed in felicitous concurrence with the ba-construction in the service of the “affective” expression (see Section 3.2). As far as the affectedness of the object is concerned, the ba-NP, when being an object, cannot be considered one that undergoes total affectedness. The use of the ba-construction involving a partitive second object is a clear case where the direct object is not fully but only partially affected by the action (Section 3.1). So far the uses of the ba-construction exhibit violations of parameters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and I. The only parameters that hold would be H (agent high in potency) and J (high individuation of O) if and only if parameter A (two participants or more) were simultaneously met. In Sections 6.1.4.1 and 6.1.4.2, respectively, it will be demonstrated that high potency of the agent and high individuation of the object are the necessary, but in no way the sufficient conditions for the discourse function of the ba-construction proposed in the present study. The fulfillment of the discourse function requires a high degree

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of corroboration between a number of interdependent syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors. In fact, parameters H and J are not restricted to the ba-construction and there are cases where the ba-construction does not differ semantically from the unmarked construction SVO in these two aspects, but on pragmatic grounds. Let us consider the following two sentences spotted in two different conversation settings in the corpus S: (53)

‘Ruixuan went to see Fourth Uncle Li who was already asleep. Ruixuan woke him up, and Fourth Aunt Li got up too. She kept asking: Was Ruixuan’s wife having a baby? Or was someone suddenly falling ill and was looking for a doctor? After Ruixuan’s explanation, she figured out that he had come to discuss something with her husband. So she insisted on boiling a kettle of water for the guest to drink. . . . Fourth Aunt’s water wasn’t boiling before Ruixuan was about to leave. She felt very sorry saying that it was all because the firewood was wet from the rain: “It’s all this old man who takes care of nothing; he wouldn’t even bring in the firewood when it’s raining outside!” “Shut your mouth! What are you howling for in the dead of night!” growled the old man.’ Bi shang ni de zui! shut up 2sg. gen mouth (54)


“‘Humph! I just don’t understand why they want those l ions?” she still wonders. “Why else would they be called Small Japanese? They like whatever they see!” Old-Qi is quite proud of his knowledge of the Japanese psyche. “In the Year of Gengzi, the Japanese soldiers entered the town plundering houses after houses. At first they wanted jewels and watches; later, they even took bronze buttons!” “Perhaps they took the bronze buttons for gold, stupid things!” says Mother of Little Shun in dismay. She herself is a person who’d never pick up a straw for free. “Older sister-in-law!” cried Ruiquan all of a sudden as though from another world. “Yow!” jumped older sister-in-law in surprise. “Third brother! What is it?” “Would you shut your mouth for a moment? What you said got me on the nerve!”’ Ni ba zui bi shang yihuier xing bu xing? 2sg. ba mouth shut up one:moment okay not okay

Here the immediate comparability applies to the boldfaced sequence in (53) and (54). Both sequences exhibit high potency of the agent and high individuation of the object. Whereas (53) employs the possessive adjective ni-de ‘your’ to overtly specify the object, the object of (54) is specific by virtue of its position in the ba-construction. Thus, as far as parameters H and J are concerned, (53) and (54) are equally transitive. In addition, the two comparable clauses have the same verb with identical verbal modifiers in the form of the verbal suffix shang ‘up’, which signals telicity of the action. A discourse study of the two sentences as utterances reveals that the real difference is not the content of the proposition, but the manner of expression. That is, both sentences are uttered to issue a demand for the realization of an action. Yet how the demand is issued in the respective context is formally different. The formal difference in the choice of the syntactic structure corresponds to the pragmatic difference in the degree of politeness (or rudeness for that matter). Sentence (53) with the first utterance in the SVO structure is offensive to the extent that it verges on what is called verbal abuse. Note the abrupt and harsh imperative in the SVO structure takes the possessive pronoun ni-de ‘your’, which is otherwise unnecessary for a successful interpretation of the referent, as a deliberate means of making an insult. This imperative is fol-

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 Dramatized Discourse

lowed by a question meant for the ruthless damage of dignity, or “face” (cf. Brown & Levinson 1978), to which the depreciative use of both the verb hao ‘howl’ and the idiomatic phrase ban-ye-san-geng ‘in the dead of night’ makes lexical contributions. The offensiveness of the expression is in tune with the discourse context in which the utterances occur: a patriarchal husband is losing his temper with his annoyingly frantic wife. The imperative tone of sentence (54), on the other hand, is significantly softened by suitable linguistic means. First of all, the request is issued not in the imperative form, but in a question, which dilutes the intensity of the possible insulting effect. Second, the use of the ba-construction is less abrupt than the VO construction. Instead, it is more indirect yet persistent. The effect of indirectness and persistence is produced by virtue of the formal elaboration of the ba-construction. Instead of demanding the straightforward “pass-over” of action which is typical of the unmarked transitivity signaled by SVO, the ba-construction aptly directs the addressee’s attention to the desired change in the state of the object, i.e. the talking mouth, which the addressee is expected to bring about. Third, the time adverbial in the diminutive yi-hui-er ‘a moment’ and the sentence-final remedial hedge xing-bu-xing ‘okay or not okay’ are both signals employed for the reduction of face-threatening consequences. Considering that the request is being issued by a younger man to his older sister-in-law who is much respected in the family, the management that serves to lower the gravity of the offense is socioculturally understandable. This example is a demonstration that syntactic variations may not exhibit semantic difference in the degree of transitivity according to Hopper and Thompson’s parameters, yet they do contrast considerably in discourse pragmatics. To account for such a difference, the notion of cardinal transitivity in sentence grammar is insufficient. This very problem persists and will re-emerge when we use the notion of transitivity defined in other proposals to describe the ba-construction. ... Prototypical transitivity Cooreman, Fox and Givón introduce the notion of “prototypical transitivity” and define it in semantic terms. They claim (1984: 3): The core of the semantic phenomenon of transitivity may be summarized via three major properties of the clause, pertaining separately to the agent, patient, and the verb: a. Agent: A prototypical transitive clause has a visible, salient, intentional and controlling agent-cause;


b. Patient: A prototypical transitive clause has a visible, salient, nonintentional and non-controlling patient-result; c. Verb: A prototypical transitive clause has a compact, perfective, realis verb or verb modalities. [emphasis in the original]

Givón (1984b) elaborates on the idea of prototypical transitivity by introducing scales of transitivity, which he summarizes as follows (1984b: 153): a. b. c. d.

Degree of agent’s control or intent Degree of obviousness/affectedness of the patient Degree of perfectivity/completeness of the event Degree of referentiality/topicality of both agent and patient

Givón (1990) makes a further attempt to describe the semantic dimensions of prototypical transitivity. This time his descriptions still pertain to the agent, patient, and verb, though in more strict terms (1990: 565–566): a.

Agent: The prototypical transitive clause involves a volitional, controlling, initiating, active agent, one that is responsible for the event, i.e. its salient cause. b. Patient: The prototypical transitive event involves an inactive nonvolitional, non-controlling patient, one who registers the change-ofstate associated with the event, i.e. its salient effect. c. Verb: The prototypical transitive clause involves a compact (nondurative), bounded (non-lingering), realis (non-hypothetical) verb and tense-aspect-modality. It thus represents an event that is fastmoving, completed and real, i.e. perceptually and cognitively salient. [emphasis in the original]

These three ways of defining the notion of “prototypical transitivity” are roughly the same with only minor notational variations. The common defining aspects are the properties of the agent, the patient and the verb. These properties largely coincide with the parameters of cardinal transitivity proposed by Hopper and Thompson. Thus when we use this proposal to judge the baconstruction, the similar explanatory limitations surface. The biggest trouble here is posed by the verb because it can be used in the durative aspect and is therefore semantically non-compact, unbounded, and lingering. In addition, the ba-construction is very often used in hypothetical situations which calls into question the non-hypothetical parameter, or realis. What makes the prototypical transitivity proposal more interesting is Givón’s later emphasis on salience with regard to the conceptual and cognitive properties of the agent, the patient, and the verb. Givón’s description of

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 Dramatized Discourse

the prototypical transitivity in terms of the cognitive properties of the agent, patient and verb suggests the mapping of linguistic features into the cognitive process of conceptualization. We may say that the agent and the patient, when present, are largely salient, whereas the verb shows varying degrees of salience. Although the mixed properties of the verb that can be used in the ba-construction defy the qualification of this construction as one of prototypical transitivity, on the whole, the ba-construction is capable of conveying a gradient of transitivity ranging from low transitivity (when the verb is low in salience) to high, or prototypical transitivity (when the agent, the object and the verb are all salient). The claim of salience brings us one step further towards the contemplation of the ba-construction in terms of participant salience. Though the baconstruction does not always show salience features on the part of the verb, the ba-construction does consistently exhibit participant salience. Otherwise phrased, the referents of the NPs (subject NP and object NP) are consistently noteworthy (Section 6.1.4.1 and 6.1.4.2). Thus it might be sensible to suggest that at the cognitive and informational level, the ba-construction is a linguistic form that iconically signals salience, independent of the degree of the total transitivity of the event. This suggestion here is empirical and requires validation. In Chapter 5 we will address the issue of cognitive salience in greater detail and in Chapter 6 we will explore the linguistic mapping of cognitive salience on account of textual data. ... Prototypical action and major biactant construction Lazard (2002) proposes a form-content approach to scalar transitivity by pairing the semantic notion “prototypical action (symbol: PrA)” with the morphosyntactic notion “major biactant construction (symbol: MBC)”. He defines PrA as “an effective volitional discrete action performed by a controlling agent and actually affecting a well individuated patient” and defines the MBC as “the construction used to express a prototypical action” (2002: 152). Note that Lazard’s definition of PrA is largely a restatement of prototypical transitivity proposed by Givón and others and correlates with Hopper and Thompson’s parameters of cardinal transitivity. The thrust of his definition that distinguishes his proposal from the other two, however, is the morphosyntactic picture that he addresses. The question here, then, is whether Mandarin Chinese has a morphosyntactically distinct construction that specializes in expressing PrA and whether this distinct construction is the ba-construction. As I already point out in 4.2.1, the morphosyntax of Mandarin Chinese poses difficulty for the identification of transitivity (in traditional sense) because this

Chapter 4. Previous approaches 

language does not employ morphology for case marking and the accusative cannot be morphologically identified. Two concrete aspects of formal ambiguity are observable: (1) The direct object is not in strict formal opposition to the oblique object and (2) The ba-construction is not distinct from other constructions with a preverbal prepositional phrase denoting an oblique object. The difficulty is real for the identification of the MBC with the ba-construction. In addition, other constructional variations such as SVO and OSV may equally well be used to express PrA, e.g. sentence (53) does not semantically differ from (54) (Section 4.2.2.1) in the degree of PrA. This observation would not have been made if the ba-construction were indeed the MBC of Mandarin, as Lazard suggests. Clearly, the lack of distinction between (53) and (54) in terms of the PrA degree strongly contradicts Lazard’s result (22) that states: “Deviations from the PrA may be expressed by the MBC, but all constructions different from the MBC express deviations from the PrA” (2002: 163). The merit of Lazard’s proposal is that it directly exposes the problem with formally identifying MBC in Mandarin Chinese. If the ba-construction were the MBC, lots of its uses would have to be labeled as “deviant”. Our contemplation of these “deviant” uses, however, draws attention to the omnipresence of subjectivity and dramaticity associated with the ba-construction. Such a quality seems to result from the corroboration between the ba-construction and other discourse doings in the context. Considerations made at the discourse level make it possible for us to see that the structural and semantic peculiarities of the ba-construction transcend transitivity, a notion whose meaningfulness is, by definition, limited within the boundary of a single clause. The peculiarities of the ba-construction, as our initial peek into the problematic has revealed, seem to transcend clausal meanings based on sentential morphosyntactic features and spread over a larger stretch of discourse. This point will be made in 4.4 and detailed data-driven demonstration of it will be provided throughout Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. To sum up: The approaches based on the idea of transitivity, whichever version of definition being the theoretical keystone, show weakness in a number of aspects. First, the ba-construction tolerates various degrees of transitivity and does not rigidly encode cardinal transitivity, nor prototypical transitivity, nor prototypical action according to the standards set up within the respective frameworks. Second, we have observed that all the sentences with the ba-construction have something subjective and/or hyperbolic about them, which is the essential feature shared by both biparticipant and monoparticipant events expressed in the form of this construction. Third, much like the disposal approach, the transitivity postulation is fixated on the intra-clausal

 Dramatized Discourse

relations between individual constituents of the ba-construction without regarding it as a whole in the larger context of discourse. So far we have found that the previous treatments have, with varying emphasis, identified a number of variables that influence the grammaticality of the ba-construction, though none of them singularly predicts the use of the ba-construction. These are summarized in the following list: a. intrinsic meaning of the verb (disposal, action, non-existential, nonmental-act, non-possessive verbs) b. referentiality of the ba-NP c. high correlation with aspect markers d. high correlation with adverbials e. compatibility with modal verb neng vs incompatibility with potential complement f. functional contrast between ba-construction and non-ba-constructions. On the whole, the proposals so far available can be combed into two major semantic directions: disposal and transitivity. They converge to the extent that they both treat the syntactic structure at the propositional level by singularly focusing on the local relationships between individual components. Both fail to transcend the surface observations to reach the discourse pragmatic level. This problem is determined by the methodological limitation that the object of analysis is the clause and the clause only. This is reflected in two aspects concerning the data. First, the data of analysis are largely hypothesized single ba-clauses in contrast to their SVO counterparts that are also hypothesized. Second, when real sentences from literary texts are examined, the examination is done in isolation from the context of the coherent discourse. None of the analyses in the literature actually investigates the ba-construction in its textual environment in discourse. The analytic problem unsolved by the former remains so with the latter. What separates the transitivity approach from the disposal approach is that more attention is paid to the formal and functional nature of the morpheme ba. While the disposal framework treats ba as an auxiliary for the inversion of the direct object without any perceivable meaning, the transitivity approach acknowledges the morpheme ba as something of semantic import by assigning a function to it such as “(high)transitivity marker” or “topic marker”, though such a treatment is equally disabled by the total confinement to the surface proposition of the clause. The transitivity approach is largely confronted with the same problems the disposal approach fails to come to grips with.

Chapter 4. Previous approaches 

. The causativity approach In Sections 3.1 and 3.6 we have observed a semantic affinity between the baconstruction and causativity. This is reflected in the frequent concurrence of the ba-construction with resultative complements on the one hand and with analytic causative sentences on the other. However, the notion of causativity cannot be taken to account for the entire range of semantic-pragmatic richness inherent in the meaning of the ba-construction. We shall demonstrate the inadequacy of the causativity approach on account of two representative studies. Chappell’s (1991) causativity proposal, as has been mentioned in Section 3.1, is the first consciential treatment of the intransitive ba-construction and offers, for the first time in the literature, a largely unitary description of the uses of the ba-construction. However, as has been noted, causativity is though conceptually related to the meaning of the ba-construction, fails to explain its unique uses vis-à-vis its linguistic alternatives, i.e. other causative structures in Mandarin. The undiminished dramatic force associated with the baconstruction fails to feature in the semantic neutrality of the undistinguished causativity being postulated as the meaning of the ba-construction. In other words, mere causativity is too weak a notion to motivate the more dramatic messages conveyed by the ba-construction such as the emergence of new state of affairs, the extremety of emotional and sensational experience, the astonishment about sudden loss and dislodgement etc., much to the detriment of Chappell’s recognition of these messages. Sybesma (1999) proposes a causativity analysis of the ba-construction from a generative perspective. Because of the underlying minimalist ideology, this approach typically downplays the significance of discourse felicity and rejects the notion of non-arbitrary syntactic variations. Its attendant methodology engages syntactic transformation as the explanatory mechanism. Because such a framework defines grammar in terms of its distance from real life, the sentences discussed within this framework are devoid of contexts and communicative motivations. They are made up according to certain syntactic rules to evidence the magic of syntactic transformtion. Essentially, because context is ignored, the rule-generated seemingly grammatical sentences are characterized by semantic-pragmatic oddity. Linguistic analysis conducted in such a spirit traps a tenaciously living art – the human language – in a theme park of empty formulas. As can be seen in Sybesma’s analysis, the generative approach necessarily and easily projects a distorted picture of the way Mandarin Chinese operates as a language. In a well-intentioned effort to illustrate the genera-

 Dramatized Discourse

tive tour de force of deliberate indifference to discourse, consider Sybesma’s sentences (80) and (82) (1999: 164), here reproduced as (55) and (56) below: (55) a.

Zhei-jian shi ku-lei-le Zhang San. This-cl case cry-tired-pfv Z. ‘This thing got Z. tired from crying.’ b. Zhei-jian shi ku-de Zhang San lei-le. This-cl case cry-res Z. tired-pfv ‘This thing got Z. tired from crying.’

(56) a.

Zhei-jian shi ba Zhang San ku-lei-le. This-cl case ba Z. cry-tired-pfv ‘This thing got Z. tired from crying.’ b. Zhei-jian shi ba Zhang San ku-de-lei-le. This-cl case ba Z. cry-res-tired-pfv ‘This thing got Z. tired from crying.’

For Sybesma, the two sentences in (55) are semantically identical and both are semantically identical to the two sentences in (56) which are said to be semantically identical to each other. In short, everything here equals everything else, or, to use Sybesma’s words, “without there being any relevant difference of meaning”. Of course, in the face of the sweeping equation (55a) = (55b) = (56a) = (56b), it becomes compelling to reason, as Sybesma does, that the two ba-sentences in (56) have to mean causativity because that is the meaning of the two “causative” sentences in (56). There is, voila, a shared deep structure underlying all four sentences!26 The question arises naturally: Why should there be four ways of saying something while the whole time their meanings are completely identical? This common sense question is not justified within the generative framework, for there the existence of merely syntactic variations and the rule-governed transformation among these variations are taken for granted and not subject to questioning outside the logic of the generative approach. Accordingly, this approach cannot be falsified. Obviously, the insistence on semantic indifference rules out the possibility that speakers of Chinese, speakers of any language for that matter, can actually make a meaningful choice of some grammatical structure to best negotiate their messages in communication. Given the self-serving unfalsifiability of the generative approach, we will dismiss the analysis by Sybesma and similar analyses in the generative spirit (Hashimoto 1971; Koopman 1984; Cheng 1986; Huang 1982, 1990; A. Li 1985, 1990; etc.).

Chapter 4. Previous approaches 

. The problem Our discussions of the previous analyses demonstrate that the common problem with these approaches is their exclusive focus on the propositional level with regard to the semantics of the ba-construction and on the grammatical level with regard to the syntactic constraints on the distribution of the baconstruction. Yet propositional meaning does not offer a coherent explanation for the actual uses of the ba-construction. The lack of analytic coherence, in my opinion, is a methodological problem caused by the singular focus on sentence grammar based on isolated data. Let us take a closer look at these data. L. Wang based his disposal analysis on two kinds of data. On the one hand, he surveyed literary texts, mostly in vernacular language, for occurrences of the ba-construction and possessed a corpus of naturally occurring data. However, unfortunately, he failed to make the best use of this valuable source because he skimmed the ba-sentences and discarded the context in which they occurred and systematically treated all the ba- sentences he found in isolation. On the other hand, L. Wang used introspective data by contriving sentences purified of all possible real-life motivations and isolated from speech situations. This kind of data is particularly problematic because, as Stubbs (1983) and Crystal (1980) point out, when invented intuitive data are cited in sentence grammar, discourse elements such as adverbials and intensifiers are usually left out from clause structure unless they are being specifically discussed, although such elements are very common in real language use. For this reason, the second source of data is highly limited and untrustworthy, especially when adverbials and intensifiers are observed to be an important correlate of the ba-construction. Chao’s analysis was supported by this second kind of data only, and more frequently than not, he cited data that are even smaller units than the clause, that is, simple ba-phrases. Li and Thompson, too, are interested in contrived sentences. Though they claim that their analysis takes into consideration discourse aspect of the sentences, their consideration is only insofar discourse-relevant as it provides a functional view of language in general. In effect, they study isolated basentences and largely ignore the syntagmatic chaining of sentences in larger context and therefore have little to say about the discourse function of the ba-construction. The generatively oriented studies display a strong tendency to ignore the discourse felicity of the sentences they examine, as examplified by Sybesma (1999). Such a tendency is particularly self-destructive in the study of Mandarin Chinese, a language that is highly discourse sensitive. In this language,

 Dramatized Discourse

the grammaticality of a sentence is determined by its discourse felicity as an utterance more than anything else. Another noteworthy phenomenon concerning the previous uses of data is that linguists dealing with the ba-construction tend to cite each other’s introspective data to contradict each other’s analyses such that they share the same point of departure and the same empirical limitations. The analytic inbreeding is most frequently observed in the generative studies of the ba-construction where the findings turn out to be degenerative. Clearly, an ossified database has little to contribute to analytic productivity and new insights into the subject matter. The methodological limitation explains the whole theoretical stagnancy in the field. On the whole, the analytic restriction to sentence grammar of isolated and devitalized data is characteristic of most previous approaches. Because of this, they fail to recognize that extra-clausal phenomena are relevant to phenomena within the clause. Though they have been able to observe and describe the clausal peculiarities (a–f as listed in 4.2), they fail to come up with a unitary explanation for what they observe. Rather, they simplistically take their observations to be semantic or syntactic constraints and then appeal to these constraints in explaining what they observe. Yet observations are not explanations. Thus, because of the analytical tautology, they ultimately fail to answer the following questions in a unitary manner: 1. Why are verbal modifiers indispensable for the well-formedness of the baconstruction? 2. Under what circumstances are non-disposal and low-transitivity verbs compatible with the ba-construction? 3. Why is the ba-NP overwhelmingly definite? 4. Why does the ba-construction choose the modal verb neng and not the potential complement with de to express potentiality? 5. Why does the “deviant” construction ba-S-VP exist at all and what does it express when it is used? What lies at the root of this failure is that these scholars never asked the question: What discourse environments favor the ba-construction as opposed to non-ba-constructions? In other words, they never looked for linguistic organization beyond the clausal level. The answer to this question immediately concerns the function of the ba-construction in view of discourse coherence at large and is key to the other problems concerning the ba-construction. The importance of context in understanding the use of the ba-construction has been demonstrated throughout Chapter 3 where our discussions rest on considera-

Chapter 4. Previous approaches 

tions of the extensive contexts to be found in larger bodies of text excerpts. A brief glimpse back at the discourse properties of the ba-construction in our textual data presented in 3.1–3.7 will shed light on this issue. A few examples shall suffice, though they are presented here in their minimum discourse environment, that is, in extended sentences with textual cohesion marking. For convenience’ sake, I re-introduce them in the following with the textual cohesion markers signaling discourse coherence underlined:27 (57) Jiu shi tie-men, wo ye hui ba ta za kai. even be iron-door, 1sg. too would ba it crash open ‘Even if it were an iron door, I would crash it open!’ (58) Wei shuai si bieren, er ye ba ziji rao shang, cai bu for crash dead others, while also ba self add up, just not shangsuan! worth ‘It’s just not worth it if one has too die himself just to kill others.’ (59) Bu-dan yao tan Zhongshi xun guo, ye hai yao ba not-only want talk pn sacrifice country also still want ba erzi de yiqie ta youshi shi shenme yangzi, zenyang son gen everything 3sg. childhood be what look how shangxue, ai chi shenme. . . dou shuo gei Ruixuan ting. go:to:school like eat what all speak give pn listen ‘Not only does (he) want to talk about Zhongshi’s sacrifice for the country, he also wants to tell Ruixuan (who will listen and hear) everything about his son – how he looked when he was little, how he was at school, what he liked to eat. . .’ (60) Ta ba ge “aiyou” zhi tu chu banjie, keshi yi bei 3sg. ba cl ouch only spit out half:part but already pass wu zhong tingdao. deng like mie le. house inside hear light immediately out pfv ‘She only uttered a half of the word “ouch”, but was already heard by people inside the house. The light immediately went out.’

 Dramatized Discourse

(61) Ni kan zhe ba, ganminger dajieshang yao bu gongrande yaohe 2sg. look dur p tomorrow in:the:street if not openly shout yantu, ni ba zan de yanzhuzi wa le qu. opium 2sg. ba 1sg. gen eyeball dig pfv go ‘You watch out! In the days to come, if there’s no open shouts for opium sales in the streets, you go ahead dig out my eyeballs!’

Compared to the barren hypothetical or decontextualized sentences that constitute the subject of all previous analyses, these examples give us a sense of reality by showing how the ba-construction is actually used in discourse as part of utterances. Sentence (57) consists of two clauses, which are sequentially organized in the subjunctive mood, whereby the ba-construction is set in the center of gravity through the chaining carried out by the concessive adjuncts jiu ‘even’ in the first, and ye ‘too’ in the second clause. Note that the epistemic modal verb hui ‘would’ preceding the ba-construction qualifies the certainty of the speaker’s intention. The whole sentence as an utterance expresses unwavering determination on the speaker’s part and is therefore an action and the identification of it as an action is motivated by the structure of the sentence with all its lexical and syntactic cues. All these structural cues argue that the ba-construction is not used in neutral and impassive discourse environments. In sentence (58), the ba-construction does not occur in isolation either, nor is it used in neutral context. It is used contrastively. It coincides with the semantic focus ziji ‘self ’ in contrast to bieren ‘others’ in the previous segment. This semantic contrast is chained up by the adversative conjunctive er ‘while’ and the modal adjunct ye ‘too’ between the two segments. This textual organization in the face of the egocentricity signaled by the semantic contrast between ziji and bieren gives rise to our interpretation that the speaker is more concerned with his own interest in weighing two contradicting situations. It is in this kind of discourse asymmetry that the ba-construction occurs. Sentence (59) expresses the subject’s desire to share information with another participant. The desire reaches a crescendo in the ba-construction in the second clause. This crescendo is materialized by means of the contrastive and additive linking furnished by budan ‘not only’ in the first clause, ye ‘also’ and hai ‘still’ in the second. Also note the universal quantifiers yiqie ‘everything’ and dou ‘all’ within the ba-construction, both of which tend to maximize the emphatic effect. Once again, we observe that the ba-construction is intimately associated with discourse weightiness in a larger string of connected clauses.


If, however, we switch the sequential position of the ba-construction from the second clause to the first, we end up with ill-formed discourse, though each individual clause, when viewed in isolation, is syntactically grammatical and semantically well-formed: (62) Bu-dan yao ba erzi de yiqie ta youshi shi shenme not-only want ba son gen everything 3sg. childhood be what yangzi, zenyang shangxue, ai chi shenme. . . dou shuo gei look how go:to:school like eat what all speak give Ruixuan ting, ye hai yao tan Zhongshi xun guo. pn listen also still want talk pn sacrifice country

The ill-formedness of (62) lies in the clash between the discourse weightiness of the first clause on account of the emphatic elements within the ba-construction and the lesser discourse prominence assigned to it by the chaining elements budan ‘not only’ and its sequential partner ye hai ‘also still’, which specify the relative prominence of the individual clauses. The oddity of (62) versus the felicity of (59) argues that discourse is structured and that the ba-construction correlates to discourse prominence in the organization of text. The ba-construction is put in an adversative relation in sentence (60) where the semantic contrast between the two modal adjuncts zhi ‘only’ and yi ‘already’ is reinforced by the explicitly adversative conjunction keshi ‘but, nevertheless’. All these elements are not critical to the interpretation of the truth-condition of the proposition, but are important indications of the speaker’s expectations or attitude toward the proposition being conveyed. Sentence (61) is a conditional sentence containing a premise and a conclusion. It is used in the subjunctive mood, where the ba-construction denotes a hypothetical offer in the form of an imperative. Given the total subjectivity of the discourse, the denotation of the ba-construction cannot be taken at face value. It serves the purely emotive and performative function of exaggeration characteristic of oath, which is an act the sentence is used to perform. These examples forcefully impose upon us the impression of a high discourse prominence of the ba-construction in coherent strings of discourse. We have observed the pervasive use of chaining or linking elements between the individual segments or clauses, which put the ba-construction in the spotlight in discourse. While these chaining elements may not be important for the logico-semantic account of the truth-condition in clause-oriented sentence






grammar, they are crucial to understanding the distributional properties of the ba-construction in discourse sequences. The functions of the modal adjuncts, the conjunctions, the subjunctive mood and the modal verbs above can only be explained with reference to the discourse relationship between the two clauses involved. It is the examination of this kind of extra-clausal discourse properties that reveals the discourse function of the ba-construction. Unfortunately, these are elements systematically neglected by previous sentence grammar oriented approaches to the ba-construction. Observations made about the discourse environment of the ba-construction in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 naturally lead to the argument that discourse is a rank above the clause, and that discourse offers explanatory power to linguistic analysis of syntactic appearance. Syntax is a tool used for communication and different syntactic forms are used to perform different actions in verbal interaction. Any syntactic description of the ba-construction independent of its discourse context is unrevealing. It also follows that all utterances with the ba-construction are produced within special discourse frames as special speech acts, e.g. showing determination as performed in sentence (57) and swearing an oath as performed in sentence (61) are verbal actions.28 In order to recover this pragmatic aspect of the ba-construction, we need a framework that assigns an invariant discourse meaning to the ba-construction as a whole. We shall argue here that the fundamental function of the baconstruction is beyond disposal, transitivity and causativity, though disposal or transitivity or causativity may feature at the clausal level when microrelationships between the individual components are under investigation. Central to the function of the ba-construction, however, is its discourse import. Viewed as an integral whole, it exudes a special force with which the hearer is guided to pay attention to the speaker’s concern with the unfolding event within the larger discourse context for reasons at both the perceptual and the social level. It is this thesis that I shall defend in this work.

Chapter 5

The hypothesis of discourse dramaticity

In light of the communicative nature of language, it is clear that the sentencelevel treatments discussed in the previous chapter failed almost entirely to deal with the communicative intent encoded by the ba-construction in given discourse contexts. As an alternative, the present study postulates a pragmatic meaning for the ba-construction, which can be activated in different discourse contexts for the performance of different speech acts that share the same communicative quality at the pragmatic level. It is in this communicative quality that the ba-construction and its syntactic variations functionally diverge from each other. The use of the ba-construction as opposed to a VO construction, for instance, must be understood in terms of this communicative quality that determines the fine-tuned force of discourse intent contributed by each construction. DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY is the communicative quality we are referring to and proposing here. Before setting out to demonstrate how well our proposal handles the data introduced in this study and the empirical records in the literature, it is important to emphasize the basic controlling principles that shall guide our analysis. Contini-Morava (1995) suggests two such principles. She states (1995: 2): [A]ny account of the identity and distribution of linguistic forms must be answerable to one of two language-external controlling principles: (1) the theoretical units that are postulated must be consistent with the communicative goals that language is used to accomplish; and/or (2) the account must be consistent with independently motivated principles of human psychology.

With regard to the first principle, let us consider the postulation of the system of discourse dramaticity in terms of its ability to reflect speakers’ communicative goals in 5.1.




. The system of discourse dramaticity We hypothesize that the ba-construction and its syntactic variations form the cognitive basis of the semantic-pragmatic substance (cf. Diver 1969: 47) that we call DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY.29 The meanings of the ba-construction and its syntactic variants are organized into a grammatical system that exhaustively subcategorizes the semantic-pragmatic substance of DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY. The notion of “discourse” is defined as a linguistic unit larger than a sentence and “larger” is understood in terms of the inclusion of contexts rather than the mere size of the linguistic unit. Dramaticity is a concept that emerges from our perceptual as well as emotional experience basic to human interaction, physical and social, with the environment. The notion of “discourse dramaticity” is defined on the experiential basis as the effect produced by utterances that impresses the perception and/or activates the imagination and the emotion in communication (conversational or narrative). Thus defined, this notion can be understood in terms of cognitive salience or noteworthiness, emotive expressiveness and subjectivity without being identical to any one of these aspects individually. Within this grammatical system, the ba-construction has the meaning HIGH DRAMATICITY and its syntactic variations have the meaning LOW DRAMATICITY, as shown in (1) below: (1)

HIGH DRAMATICITY ba-construction discourse dramaticity LOW DRAMATICITY non-ba-construction

A non-ba-construction can be a regular SVO or any order-entailed contrastive constructions (OSV and SOV), where a certain focus of contrast is identifiable, one which may or may not be the topic in the sentence-initial position. In these three types, the relative position of the object with regard to the subject and the verb reflects the varying “background expectations” (Sasse 1987) in the speaker-hearer dynamic. On the other hand, because the ba-construction can be used intransitively, it contrasts to the regular SV or the fossilized VS thetic construction that is used by default for specialized situations (Section 6.1.1). Thus these are also considered non-ba-constructions. In actual language use, the distinction between the ba-construction and the non-ba-constructions must be understood as one of sentence type. This is defined as the “coincidence of grammatical structure and conventional conversational use” in Sadock and Zwicky’s (1985) terms. Thus, by definition, sentence type distinctions correspond to speech act distinctions. In light of our above stated dramaticity hypothesis, the syntactic distinctness of the ba-

Chapter 5. The hypothesis of discourse dramaticity

construction is a language-specific device reserved for accomplishing dramatic speech acts. Having settled on the ba-construction as a whole as the basic analytical unit, we are able to claim that our hypothesis is in accordance with the first controlling principle because, as noted hitherfore, sentence types correspond to speech acts performed for the purpose of reaching specific communicative goals.

. The human factor The second principle which concerns the relationship between a linguistic analysis and mechanisms of human psychology is much controversial. The controversy has to do with the unanswered question as to exactly to what extent human psychology motivates human verbal behavior on the one hand. On the other hand, the science known as psychology is controversial in itself. Kirsner (personal communication, 2003) points out, there are innumerable subdisciplines within scientific psychology which disagree with one another in theory and methodology. The diversity in psychology poses great difficulty for linguists in sorting out a set of principles that can be commonly accepted. As a matter of fact, even common sense resorted to in linguistic analyses is often recepted with distrust (cf. Kirsner 2002: 341–346). Despite the apparent disadvantage of the tie between psychology and linguistics at our current level of knowledge about what goes on in the human head, one cannot avoid the basic assumption that language is inseparable from the rest of human cognition or cognitive psychology (see Kirsner 1996). Cognitive sciences have been providing us with an ever growing body of knowledge in this respect (see Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1987, 1991, 2002; Edelman 1992; Fauconnier 1994; Tomlin 1997; Tomasello 2001; Givón 2002; Tucker 2002). Equally unavoidable is the fact that human cognition works in a nonarbitrary manner for adaptive reasons in evolutionary terms (see Anderson 1990). Thus, it is reasonable to say that the tie between psychology and linguistics is more than necessity, it is natural. Indeed, such a tie characterizes sign-based linguistics (cf. Tobin 1991 for a detailed discussion of different schools) and many other functionalist approaches. Accordingly, it would be in the linguist’s best interest not to ignore a generic psychology that is at work in linguistic communication if a deeper explanation of language use is desired than what a priori categories are able to offer.






The hypothesis of discourse dramaticity proposed in this study will be shown to be superior to other approaches exactly because it is empowered by considerations of the “human factor” in communication. Earlier scholars, as have been discussed in the previous chapter, have noticed a number of semantic constraints on the use of the ba-construction. However, there is a significant difference between their approaches and the current study. Concretely speaking, these scholars did not come up with a unified semantic hypothesis based on both the indexical meaning of the construction and general human psychology to explain their observations. Not only are the meanings they come up with limited by sentence grammar, more important is that they are completely out of touch with the principles of human psychology. The dramaticity hypothesis, on the other hand, will prove powerful in explaining the non-arbitrary correlations between the ba-construction and the observable constraints. The strength of the postulation lies exactly in the pragmatic orientation of the invariant meaning and the consideration of human psychology as motivation. In the following part, we will discuss the two major psychological principles underlying the way speakers manipulate the invariant meaning of the baconstruction in communication. These two principles are (i) cognitive salience and (ii) subjectivity and emotionality. How do we arrive at these two psychological principles? In order words, if we say the ba-construction is a device of dramatizing an event in discourse, what, then, motivates the speaker to dramatize the event? We argue that the speaker will dramatize the event most appropriately when he wants to draw the hearer’s attention to the situation being communicated – either because (a) the speaker perceives the situation as perceptually striking or at least noteworthy in the sense that it claims the speaker’s attention (in Tomlin’s terms, 1997, see 5.2.1); or because (b) the speaker wants to display his emotional investment in, or stance toward, the situation being communicated. (a) and (b) are two aspects of one and the same matter, which pertains to the way people perceive the world. The world as perceived by people, to use Church’s words, “includes not only objects and the space that encloses them but also numerous relationships that bind objects to space, to each other, to past and future, to the observer” (1961: 14) and as observers of the world, people are not detached bystanders, but, importantly, “participant observers” who exhibit “empathy” in what they perceive, as Church has pointed out.30 As empathetic observers people also evitably experience emotions that are evoked by what they observe. Thus, given (a) and (b), we arrive at the two motivating principles (i) cognitive salience and (ii) subjectivity and emotionality for the postulation of discourse dramaticity. Let us now discuss them in greater details.


.. Cognitive salience In the majority of linguistic literature, the term cognitive salience informally refers to experiential properties such as being perceptually striking, interesting, or noteworthy. This notion has been defined from the hearer-based perspective as the likelihood or ease of activation (cf. Langacker 1991: 3, 7). When viewed from the speaker-based perspective of production, it can be considered as the allocation of speaker’s attention at the moment of formulating an utterance (Tomlin 1997). Tomlin’s empirical data on the selection of subject in describing visually presented events involving two participants (“event parameters” in Tomlin’s terms) show that “subject selection is determined directly by the allocation of attention to conceptual representation at the moment an utterance is formulated” (1997: 185). On the cognitive basis of attention allocation, the selection of linguistic forms such as the system of deixis to mark salient referents or events is no longer introspective. The notion of attention is central to understanding of the nature of cognitive salience. Tomlin defines it in the following words (1997: 172): In general, attention has been conceived of as a limited-capacity resource which selects some component information from the general environment for further specialized processing [. . .] The facilitation of some information comes at the expense of, the inhibition of, competing information.

Cognitive salience has to do with both the properties of the observed situation and the individual relationships between the observer and the situation. As far as the properties of the object are concerned, nothing (I presume) is more perceptually salient than change, the dynamic process that brings about distinguishable difference in the total identity or even destroys the identity of objects. All the perceptible properties – including two-dimensional features such as shape, size, color, etc. and the three-dimensional spatial relation – of an object are subject to change. Change is brought about by interactions between entities that exchange energy. The most visible of all changes, both on a common sense basis and according to studies in evolutionary biology, developmental psychology and cognitive science, is three-dimensional change, that is, movement in space. Church observes that movement is “important in signaling the existence of an object: immobility is an excellent form of camouflage, as many animals ‘know’ and as soldiers must be taught” (Church 1961: 7). He further argues, “movement at a moderate rate of speed is important in making an object perceptually clear”. In fact, Riggs et al. (1953) have shown that a truly static object cannot be seen at all for more than a fraction of a sec-






ond. Given these observations, we are justified to believe that actions that cause the movement of objects, more than anything else, has the highest perceptual noteworthiness. G. Lackoff (1987) argues that our experience of bodily motor movement in space is one important perceptual source on which our concepts build. Tomlin points out that “in casting perception out over some visual field, it will be the changes occurring in that field that will be noticed and reacted to and ultimatedly reported if such a task is required” (1997: 171). As an illustration for cognitive salience, consider the sentences in (2), where the choice of the respective syntactic structures reflects the degrees of perceptual salience of the situation: (2) a. Dabao zai chi pingguo. pn at eat apple ‘Dabao is eating an apple.’ b. Dabao zai ba pingguo chi. pn at ba apple eat

The oddity of (2b) lies in that the obviously static quality of the situation conveyed by the momentary-stative aspect marker zai is incompatible with the use of the ba-construction that claims perceptual noteworthiness associated with change. The sentence (2a), on the other hand, is well formed because the SVO structure demands no more attention than the situation deserves. The contrast between (3a) and (3b) below illustrates that movement, or action-induced spatial change, almost exclusively favors the ba-construction.31 (3) a. Dabao reng pingguo dao-le di shang. pn throw apple to-pfv earth up ‘Dabao threw the apple onto the floor.’ b. Dabao ba pingguo reng dao-le di shang. pn ba apple throw to-pfv earth up ‘Dabao threw the apple onto the floor.’

Sometimes, the speaker may want to draw the hearer’s attention to a change that has not yet occurred but that the speaker desires and wants the hearer to bring about. This occurs when an imperative is used with the ba-construction. Recall that Li and Thompson (1981) have made the observation that the ba-construction is often used in the imperative mood, which, they argue, is


because of the disposal meaning ba has. If the imperative indeed favors the ba-construction, then it should be anticipated that imperative sentences are formed with the ba-construction more than any other syntactic structures. However, when we conduct textual frequency counts, it becomes clear that non-ba-sentences can be used just as frequently in the imperative (see Table 6.11). Now the question arises as to under what circumstances the speaker chooses the ba-construction over a syntactic alternative to form the imperative. I suggest that perceptual noteworthiness plays an important part in the choice. Consider (4) below: (4) a. Ma, gei wo dian qian! mom give 1sg. bit money ‘Mom, give me some money.’ b. Ma, ba qian gei wo! mom ba money give 1sg. ‘Mom, give me the money!’

Both sentences in (4) are imperatives. However, the contrast in sentence type has direct semantic-pragmatic consequences: (4a) suggests the demand of an unspecific entity which must be quantified, though only vaguely, by dian ‘a bit, some’ whereas (4b) makes a clear demand of a definite entity, one that is not only specific but also “within the hearer’s consciousness” (Chafe 1976). The mechanism underlying the choice here is that a demand can be made more efficiently when the hearer knows or is able to figure out exactly what is required of her. With the ba-construction, the speaker draws the hearer’s attention to the desired change (in the ownership of the money) by forcing the hearer to look for the referent that is referred to by the speaker as given. Contemplating this example, an important aspect of salience becomes evident, namely, that the command to pay attention to an interesting change favors the inference that the participants involved in the change are specific. In the case of the imperative, a function that especially requires the engagement of the hearer, specificity alone is not enough, the hearer’s consciousness, thus the definiteness of the referent of the ba-NP, is also required. Speaking of change as a defining feature of noteworthiness, an essential aspect of change must be considered, namely, the relational complexity of the situation in terms of the number of participants that are involved in the situation. The intuitive basis of this consideration is the epilinguistic (common sense) experience that the larger the number of participants is, the more com-



 Dramatized Discourse

plex and dynamic the interaction among the participants becomes. In other words, with the chance of interaction growing, the instability of the situation will increase such that the likelihood of change will grow. Therefore, we assume that, other things being equal, situations involving more than one participant are more likely to be judged noteworthy by the speaker than one-participant situations. It is true, though, that other things are not always equal in reality, which predicts the possibility that one-participant situations may be judged striking, interesting, and thus noteworthy if other things such as emotions and expectations so dictate. Changes occur constantly in the external world, yet a person still may not regard a change as noteworthy or salient if this does not concern him personally. In that case, it is all too obvious that the speaker will not want to dramatize or even draw attention to the change. Thus we arrive at the second psychological strategy that motivates the use of the ba-construction as a dramatizer, this being subjectivity and emotionality. .. Subjectivity and emotionality This is a principle that claims that involvement, or “empathy” on the observer’s part with the object being observed plays a crucial role in determining whether or not a dramatizing construction should be used. Consider (5) where perceptual salience is subjectively defined: (5) a. Dabao chi-le san ge pingguo. pn eat-pfv three cl apple ‘Dabao ate three apples.’ b. Pingguo Dabao chi-le san ge. Apple pn eat-pfv three cl ‘As for apple, Dabao ate three.’ c. Dabao ba pingguo chi-le sang ge. pn ba apple eat-pfv three cl ‘He ate three of the apples.’

The event in (5a–c) is associated with change, as the perfective suffix le indicates that the event as a whole has made a difference in the external reality with regard to, say, the disappearance of a certain number of apples and the fulfillment of the eater’s palatal desire. However, (5a) and (5b), being SVO and OSV,


respectively, do not make the claim that anything about the external change concerns the speaker. With (5c), on the other hand, the speaker shows personal interest in and concern with the change for reasons that are outside the context of this sentence. To show the difference in the degree of “concern” as expressed by the speaker, we can reconstruct the minimal contexts that are proper for the sentences in (5). Consider (6): (6) a. Dabao chi-le san ge pinguo, wo chi-le yi ge. pn eat-pfv three cl apple 1sg. eat-pfv one cl ‘Dabao ate three apples and I ate one.’ b. Pingguo Dabao chi-le san ge, wo chi-le yi ge. apple pn eat-pfv three cl 1sg. eat-pfv one cl ‘As for apple, Dabao ate three and I ate one.’ c. Dabao ba pingguo chi-le san ge, zhi sheng xia yi ge pn ba apple eat-pfv three cl only leave behind one cl gei wo. give 1sg. ‘Dabao ate three of the apples, leaving only one for me.’

Sentences (6a) and (6b) represent what may be called an objective or factual account of the situation while (6c) gives an subjective account of the same situation and overtly expresses the speaker’s feeling of dissatisfaction with Dabao’s behavior as well as the sense of disapproval. Sentence (6c) makes it obvious that the speaker has expectations with regard to the distribution of the apples and that these expectations are unmet in the current situation. However, just because the speaker of (6a) and (6b) describes the situation objectively, it does not mean that he has no expectations and that he endorses Dabao’s behavior. By saying (6a) or (6b), he merely avoids showing his expectations and feelings. Instead, he allows the fact to speak for itself. These examples demonstrate that the choice of sentence types is determined by the perceptual salience of the situation being communicated, and that perceptual salience may depend on the speaker’s personal relationship with the situation being communicated. This relational and personal dimension is captured in the principle of subjectivity and emotionality, where the speaker’s social investment in terms of attitude and emotion is at display. As have been noted in 4.4, sentences contrived by the linguist lack psychological and social reality, but ideas are always fleshed out with emotions and



 Dramatized Discourse

attitudes in their realistic forms, as sentences (57)–(61) in 4.4 show. This observation bespeaks a central element of human language, that is, subjectivity or emotionality. Sapir contends (1927: 425): The denotive function of speech is always compounded with certain expressive factors [. . .] which are always present in the actual life of language. It is impossible to pronounce even so indifferent a word as ‘horse’ without a lesser or greater show of interest, without some change of emotion. This expressiveness may relate to our general state of mind. [. . .] In the course of our speech activities we are really doing two rather distinct things, though these are never to be completely sundered except by a process of abstraction.

The psychological principle of subjectivity and emotionality, we shall argue, motivates the speaker to use the ba-construction instead of its syntactic variants for the purpose of discourse dramatization. In general, given our hypothesis, we shall be able to predict two strategies in making the choice between the ba-construction and its syntactic variants. These two strategies directly motivate the manipulation of the invariant meaning postulated for the ba-construction. They are: 1. COGNITIVE SALIENCE OF EVENT. Under cognitive salience of event, we differentiate between salient properties observable at the clause level and salient properties observable at the trans-clause level. At the clause level, the salience of an event can be recognized on account of a number of linguistic properties representing high interactivity, that is, properties that are conducive to change. The speaker will dramatize the discourse most appropriately when the situation being communicated involves great energy exchange, transfer, and transformation, perceptually and socially. At the trans-clause level, the speaker will dramatize an event by putting it in the spotlight in contrast to other, less interesting, events. 2. SUBJECTIVITY AND EMOTIONALITY. When the speaker dramatizes an event, he will necessarily invest subjective message in the proposition such that this is taken as indexical of his stance, prejudice, and emotional state, etc. The speaker will use more than one such subjective means of directing the hearer’s attention to discourse dramaticity, so that the ba-construction as a syntactic device of discourse dramatization will be coupled with intensifying devices.

Chapter 5. The hypothesis of discourse dramaticity 

. Redundancy In the beginning chapter of this study and in Section 4.4 where the problems with previous approaches are discussed, we noted the striking difference in the degree of linguistic elaboration between the introspective sentences and the real occurrences of the ba-construction in discourse contexts. The elaboration demonstrates itself in the clustering of a multitude of contextualization devices at both the clause and the trans-clause level. Such linguistic elaboration, we shall argue, reflects the psychological reality of linguistic redundancy in the service of communication. As our analysis in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 will show, redundancy underlies both the representation of cognitive salience of events and the representation of subjectivity and emotionality. In fact, the function of redundancy as a crucial communicational strategy has long been confirmed in linguistics. Stevens (1950) maintains that redundancy is relevant on all linguistic levels. He explains (1950: 690): The fact of redundancy increases the reliability of speech communication and makes it resistant to many types of distortion. By limiting the number of discriminations required of the listener and by assisting his choice through the redundant coding of information, we make talking to one another a reasonably satisfactory business.

Slobin (1975) suggests that the pervasiveness of redundant features in language may be understood as designed to aid the child’s comprehension in the process of communication. Diver (1975) points out that a man marooned on a desert island would both jump up and down and shout in order to attract the attention of boats or airplanes in the vicinity. The deserted man would not be satisfied with doing just one of these actions and considering the other one “redundant” and hence unnecessary. Clearly, given the hint-status of linguistic meanings, redundancy is a communicative nessisity in natural language. Returning now to our discussion of the correlating contextualization cues, we shall argue that when the speaker wishes to communicate high discourse dramaticity in terms of cognitive salience and/or subjectivtiy and emotionality, he is likely to be more successful by being redundant. He will give the hearer not one single cue but a collection of cues, all consonant with the same message. Thus in addition to the use of the ba-construction, which is a distinctive syntactic feature encoding the intended meaning, he will resort to supportive devices to reinforce the inference of the intended meaning lest his communicative intent should escape the hearer.

 Dramatized Discourse

In the forthcoming two chapters, we shall conduct analyses based on quantitative data to confirm the strategies predicted according to our hypothesis and in so doing verify the hypothesis that the ba-construction contrasts to a non-ba-construction in the representation of discourse dramaticity.

Chapter 6

Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity

With regard to the first strategy, COGNITIVE SALIENCE, we assume that the speaker will create discourse dramaticity most readily when the situation being communicated is what he is most interested in talking about. Cognitive salience of an event may be measured in many ways. We provide measurement at two levels. They are: (I) the clause level, (II) the trans-clause level. The two grammatical levels correspond to the intra-event level and the inter-event level in pragmatic terms. Speaking about the intra-event and the inter-event level, I am aware that the notion of event requires a definition.32 Tomlin (1997) takes a cognitively oriented definition of event and stresses the language-independent reality of event as the fundamental unit of perceptual analysis. He asserts that “events and their perception derive from the fundamental perception of change in the environment rather than of simple states” (1997: 171). Given that perception can be subjectively influenced by the perceiver’s interaction with the object of perception, the emphasis on the cognitive reality of events can be complemented by Lyons’ discussion of events from an interactional perspective, which I will quote in length (1995: 324): Events (in the ideal) are like mathematically defined points in that they have position, but (ideally) no magnitude: they occur (or take place) in time, but they are not temporally extended. It does not make sense to ask of an (ideal) event, defined in this way, as it makes sense to ask of a state or activity: “How long did it last?” or “How long did it take?” Of course, in the physical world, there are no ideal events: a flash of lightning or a rap on the door, and even the Big Bang itself, will have had, objectively, some extension in time (or space-time). But situations which, as a matter of fact, have temporal extension (i.e. duration) can be perceived, subjectively, as instantaneous (i.e. as events). Moreover (to come now to the heart of the matter), situations which are obviously and perceptibly durative can be represented as events: i.e., as situations whose temporal extension or internal temporal structure is irrelevant.

Though Lyons defines (ideal) events in terms of lack of temporal extension, he asserts subjectivity in perceptions of temporal extension. Thus the notion

 Dramatized Discourse

of events is practically defined in terms of the relational relevancy of temporal extension as perceived by humans and therefore pertains to interactional properties. According to this view, event qualities are not objective qualities and the presentation of events is inherently subjective. In the current work, I treat the notion of events as situations including both actions and activities but excluding states. In so doing I am actually suggesting that the ba-construction has nothing to do with states. This suggestion is intuitive and hypothetical at this point of the discussion. However, the use of the term “event” for the situations described by the ba-construction will be legitimated in the course of the analysis.

. Cognitive salience at the clause level With regard to cognitive salience at the clause or intra-event level, we suggest the following criteria for the linguistic representations of interactivity and change: (1) the greater number of participants shall be an indicator of higher interactivity conducive to change; (2) the dynamism of the verb shall be an indicator of the energy exchange in interaction and the occurrence of actual “world-changing” actions (R. Lackoff 2000); (3) the use of verbal modification shall signal interactivity and change by marking the direction, manner, extent, result, etc. of the dynamic interaction; (4) the salience of the participants including the subject and the object (whenever present) shall make a stronger claim for the cognitive salience of the entire event; (5) the general information structure in which a dramatic event is encoded shall allow an organization of the given-new distinction that maximally encourages the expansion of new information, which promotes dramaticity. .. Cognitive salience and the number of participants With regard to the first criterion which suggests that the number of participants correlates with the degree of intra-event interactivity, we can make the following prediction: Prediction (6.1): The ba-construction will be found to describe, more frequently than non-ba-constructions, events involving more than one participant.

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

Table 6.1 Choice of sentence type versus number of participants in corpus S Sentence type

PA = 1

PA ≥ 2

Sample size

Percentage (PA ≥ 2)

ba-clause non-ba-clause

0 125

304 179

304 304

100% 58.9%

We examined all the 304 ba-clauses and the first 304 non-ba-clauses in the corpus S with regard to the number of participants (hence PA). Consider Table 6.1. The prediction is confirmed. All (100%) of the ba-clauses in the corpus S encode situations involving two or more participants whereas 58.9% of the non-ba-clauses encode situations with two or more participants. We argue that one-participant events, like the clapping of one hand, are less subject to theatrical change as a result of the absent interaction between participants and are inherently less dramatic than events with two or more participants. For this reason, one-participant events are less compatible with the use of the dramatizing ba-construction. The fact that all the ba-clauses in S encode events with two or more participants does not automatically suggest that these clauses are transitive or causative, or that the “disposal” of an entity is at issue. In fact, some twoparticipant events do not fit into any of these frameworks and must be judged “exceptional” within the disposal, the transitivity, or the causativity mindset. However, they are nevertheless dramatizable situations according to the speaker’s communicative intention. Consider sentences (1)–(2) below: (1)

‘Old-Two was still listening to the radio – the Japanese Radio. Old-Three was in the yard, his feet jumping up very high (in anger): “OldTwo, if you don’t turn it off, I’ll crash it with a rock!” This scared Little-Shun who rushed into grandma’s room. Grandma called in a weak voice: “Old-Three! Old-Three!”’. Laosan zai yuanzhong ba jiao tiao qi duo gao. pn at yard inside ba feet hop up much high

 Dramatized Discourse

(2)

‘If Tongfang could go to school for a few years, she’d surely become a useful little woman on account of her heritage and cleverness. Even if she never went to school, she’d become a good housewife because of her social experience and her sufferings if she got married properly. She deeply knows that beautiful clothes, pleasant talks and laughters, and lavish banquets are all poison that makes her body and soul rot so that she gets dumped into the junkyard of rotten corpses. On the surface, she throws her charming gazes, she sings and tells jokes, but secretly she washes her face with tears.’

Ta shen zhidao huameide yifu, 3sg. deep know magnificent clothes, jiuxi, dou shi shi ta ba shen banquet, all be caus 3sg. ba body rengqi zai lansigangzi de duyao dump at junkyard rel poison

yueerde yan xiao, fengyude pleasant talk laugh, lavish xin fulan diao, er bei heart rot diss, and pass

The verbs in these two sentences tiao ‘hop’ and fulan ‘rot’ are intransitive in the sense that they do not normally control an NP. The ba-NPs that are inferably definite body-part nouns act as the logical subjects of the respective intransitive verbs. Thus both ba-clauses have the form S1-ba-S2-V. The NP before ba, that is, S1, is the topic setting the referential scope within which the event encoded by the ba-construction applies. In other words, that the feet jump up high applies to the person Old-Three in (1) and that the body and the soul rot applies to the person referred to with the third person pronoun ta in (2). Given that the meaning of the ba-construction is HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY, this meaning does not put semantic constraints on the transitivity of the event that is being communicated. In short, a dramatizable event can be as much intransitive as it can be transitive and it would seem strange if it turned out otherwise. Interestingly, however, the dramatization of the otherwise intransitive events of jumping and rotting is accompanied by the creation of a salient, non-oblique participant, S2 – ‘feet’ in (1) and ‘body and soul’ in

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

(2), respectively – in addition to the sentence topic S1. The unusualness of this maneuver becomes evident when we observe that the sequence S1-ba-S2-V indeed encodes one and the same event, as does a simple SV sequence. To be concrete, sentence (1) describes the way in which the person in the topic expresses his anger by jumping high on his feet. Since jumping entails the image of the participating feet, to specify the role of the feet in jumping is actually redundant. Therefore, the event can be reformulated simply as Lao-San tiao qi duo gao ‘Lao-San jumped up high’, whereby the image of the feet is left unaddressed. However, the fact that S2 is structurally materialized as part of the ba-construction in (1) communicates to us that the speaker/writer wishes to do more than just describing the event. He is making an attempt to draw our attention to the event by creating an extra discourse entity with which we must engage mental contact.33 By the same token, in sentence (2) the speaker/writer breaks apart the entity ‘her body and soul’ and creates two separate salient entities ‘she’ and ‘(her) body and soul’ to make the event more dramatic. Instead of saying ‘Her body and soul rot’ in a simple SV structure, ‘She ba body and soul rot’ is articulated in the more elaborated structure S1-ba-S2-V. The two-participant constellation is a mechanism by which the noteworthiness of the event is highlighted. Here the ba-construction is a part of the attributive clause used to specify and enrich the predicative NP duyao ‘poison’. The dramatizing effect of the baconstruction correlates with two other linguistics procedures: The metaphor brings out the speaker’s attitude toward the destructive and evil nature of the matter being communicated. The resultative verbal complement diao, literally ‘fall, drop’, not only signals that the event is bounded, but more importantly, accentuates the speaker’s feeling of disgust and contempt towards the event. The communicative import of verbal complements lies in their function of encoding change in the state of affairs and expressing the speaker’s attitudes. This will be further discussed in 6.1.3. The use of metaphors will be discussed in detail with regard to the strategy SUBJECTIVITY and EMOTIONALITY, in Chapter 7. Sentences (1) and (2), strange as they are, offer us a valuable insight into the correlation between the number of participants and the cognitive salience of the event described by the ba-construction. Cognitive salience and dramatizability are certainly not objective qualities. The speaker’s expectation and attitude towards the event determine what is noteworthy and therefore dramatizable. The use of the grammatical form observed in (1) and (2) is an intentional choice and can be understood only in relation to discourse pragmatics.

 Dramatized Discourse

Committed to this point of view, we can be serene in facing sentences like these, which do not represent typical cases of transitivity, causativity or disposal. As far as our statistics is concerned, one-participant events are not at all structured with the ba-construction, as Table 6.1 suggests. The explanation for this tendency, as I have argued, lies in the meaning of the ba-construction and its principled incompatibility with events of low-interactivity. However, this skewing that completely departs from one-participant events should not be interpreted as absolute. This is because cognitive salience or noteworthiness is not an objective matter of binary distinction, but rather a matter of degree and is subject-dependent, that is, subjective. One-participant sentences such as those found in L. Wang (1980) and Chao (1968, 1970) among others do have experiential reality in actual language use, especially in the spoken register because of their vernacular nature. In fact, the encoding of one-participant events by the ba-construction illustrates a functional re-adaptation of the prototypical ba-construction to the communicative need of discourse dramatization in conversation. A speaker may dramatize a perceptually less noteworthy event if he chooses to make a personal investment in the description of the event. In the following, we shall answer the question: To what extent does the oneparticipant ba-sentence differ from a regular intransitive non-ba-sentence? The following examples shall help us arrive at an answer. Sentences (3a) and (4a), Chao’s examples, were touched upon in Section 3.2, we offer (3b) and (4b–c) as the contrast sets. (3) a. Ba ge zei pao-le. ba cl thief run-pfv ‘The thief ran off.’ b. Zei pao-le. thief run-pfv ‘The thief ran off.’ (4) a. Ta ba ge fuqin si-le. 3sg. ba cl father die-pfv ‘(Guess what happened to him?) His father died.’ b. Ta fuqin si-le. 3sg. father die-pfv ‘His father died.’

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity

c. Ta si-le fuqin. 3sg. die-pfv father ‘His father died.’

The two sentences in (3) are both intransitive in the sense that there is only one participant. The truth-conditions of (3a) and (3b) are identical. The difference between them lies in the personal investment made with each sentence. Sentence (3b) is a neutral report with which the speaker makes the least effort in presenting the truth-condition and the speaker himself is unruffled by the event. Here the speaker’s personal investment is minimal. Compared to sentence (3b), sentence (3a) has a strong personal touch to it and reveals more of the speaker’s concern about and attitude towards the event. In other words, the event is something that evokes his or her resentful emotion and the utterance is an expression of that emotion by virtue of a dramatized presentation of the event. Here the speaker’s personal investment is significantly more impressive. Thus the interpretation of (3a) differs from that of (3b) only in pragmatic terms. On pragmatic grounds, we can assume that by uttering (3b) the speaker states a plain fact toward which he takes an I-couldn’t-care-less attitude, while with (3a) the speaker suggests something like ‘this happened and it has impact on me, which I want you to know’. Thus (3b) shows the speaker’s desire to communicate his interest in and concern with the fact. In terms of discourse frames, we can say that (3a) is a resentment frame with which the situation is defined as undesired and even upsetting, whereas (3b) is a report frame with which no special emotion is associated. The sentences in (4) are not representations of one-participant situations in the strictest sense because of the presence of the topic. However, what is said about the topic, that is, the event described by the ba-construction, is intransitive in the sense that the father’s dying is a one-participant event. The difference between (4a) and (4b), again, is to be understood in terms of discourse dramaticity. Sentence (4a) differs in dramatic force from both sentence (4b) and sentence (4c). Sentence (4a) expresses the speaker’s attitude towards the event that ‘his father died’ and thereby carries high emotive value on the subjective level that is not figured in either (4b) or (4c). On the other hand, sentence (4c) contrasts with (4b). Their difference, however, is at the propositional level with regard to the focus of information. Sentence (4b) is a statement about ta fuqin ‘his father’ about whom the information si-le ‘died’ is added.34 Sentence (4c) is contrastive with respect to the local prominence of the noun fuqin ‘father’ vis-à-vis the VP si-le ‘died’. In other words, when the speaker utters (4c), he



 Dramatized Discourse

conveys the knowledge that the noun fuqin ‘father’, as apposed to other possible entities the addressee might have had in mind, is correct for the proposition of si-le ‘died’. Besides, the initial position of (4c) is not occupied by the subject of the sentence fuqin ‘father’, but by the topic ta ‘he’ which “sets an individual framework within which the main predication holds” (Chafe 1976: 50–51). That is, the event that the father died applies within the domain of the third person referred to as ta ‘he’. The truth-condition being equal, (4b) and (4c) differ in the way the same proposition is presented, or in the manner of “packaging”, to put it in Chafe’s term. The contrastiveness of (4c), however, expresses no more emotion or attitude than (4b) does and in neither case is the event his father died dramatized by the speaker. Let us now examine the dramatic force encoded in (4a). Previous studies dealing with sentence (4a) translate it into English as ‘his father died on him’. The prepositional addition ‘on him’ suggests the father’s death has certain impact on the son. However, this suggestion is beside the point because the possible impact of the father’s dying on the son is an extralinguistic inference unwarranted by the proposition. The real impact that is actually inferable from the sentence is the impact of the event upon the speaker who utters this sentence. This inference is warranted by the use of the ba-construction that calls for the hearer’s attention to an event considered noteworthy and full of impact by the speaker. In this sense, the translation fails to bring to expression the dramatic feeling felt by the speaker uttering (4a). This semantic-pragmatic discrepancy originates from two structural sources. First, the initial position of the original is occupied by ta ‘he’ while that of the translation is ‘his father’. Thus the two have different entities as topic, although the answer to the question as to who died is the same. The difference in topic is a difference in perspective and discourse intention. By making ta a topic, the speaker empathizes with the topicalized entity and the dramatization of the event directly affects the nature of this empathy. Second, and more importantly, the dramatic force denoted by the baconstruction is language-specific, which makes it easy for the original meaning to get lost in the translation. What is lost in the translation is the speaker’s strong attitude conveyed by the dramatization of the event. That is, the speaker, by dramatizing the event, deliberately and outwardly expresses sympathy and sorrow towards ta ‘he’ with regard to the event. The explicit deliberateness and elaboration reduce the natural emotional tenderness characteristic of sympathy and practically transform sympathy into pity or commiseration, much in the way the intensifier bien in the utterance Je t’aime bien downgrades the intensity of commitment denoted by Je t’aime in French.35 Note that sentence (4a)


has a third person ta as topic, which means the object to which sympathy and sorrow should be directed is not present in the face-to-face interaction between the speaker and the addressee. Because of this absence of the person in concern, the speaker’s utterance has the quality of gossip in the sense that he is talking in the back of someone, a situation in which the speaker does not enter into the topicalized person’s emotional experience and share the pain with him. This grammatical composition involving the ba-construction and the third person topic yields a frame of pity in the given context of death. Because it is not as socially fatal to express pity when the object of pitying is absent as when the person is present and face work must be dealt with, sentence (4a) is not forbidden. However, it would be a terrible insult to speak in the form of the same ba-construction if the topic is the second person, that is, the addressee. The reason is probably that to gossip with the person who is the object of gossip is socioculturally weird, as in (4d) below: (4) d. Ni ba ge fuqin si-le. 2sg. ba cl father die-pfv (*‘How pitiful that, as for you, your father died.’)

Thus far, the reader must have noticed the peculiar use of the classifier ge immediately preceiding the ba-NP in the intransitive ba-construction, as in (3a) and (4a). Peculiar as it is, the use of this classifier can hardly be abandoned for the felicity of the sentences in question.36 What, then, does the classifier ge do here? The answer to this question requires a general knowledge of the function of Mandarin classifiers. According to Sun (1988), a classifier marks an NP as a referential-indefinite entity. That is, the speaker claims that the entity exists and that it is unknown to the hearer. The marking of an entity is largely determined by its discourse importance or thematic status. This pragmatic function of the classifiers is crucial to our understanding of the presence of ge marking the baNP in the intransitive ba-construction. Note that the entities denoted by the respective ba-NPs are definite, i.e. known or identifiable to the hearer. However, because of their relatively low discourse importance vis-à-vis the sentential topic, e.g. ta in (4a), with whom the speaker sympathizes, they are marked as referential-indefinite entities. Thus the ba-NP is detopicalized by virtue of the classifier ge. This detopicalizing manuveure prevents that the subject of the intransitive ba-sentence is taken as the topic and as such acquires thematic status that is not intended for by the speaker. As we know, in Mandarin the first NP in a sentence is by default the topic (Chafe 1976). Detopicalization is only part of the story. More is achieved by the indefinite marking. The definiteness



 Dramatized Discourse

of the referent of the ba-NP is undone by the use of the classifier ge and the referent is presented as if it were indefinite.37 What, the question arises, does the mock indefinite status of the ba-NP contribute to the dramaticity signaled by the ba-construction? We argue that by presenting the non-topic discourse entity as existent (referential) but unknown to the hearer (indefinite), the speaker creates suspension in his story-telling and suspension is the central component of drama. Thus, clearly, the use of the referential-indefinite marker ge is a purposeful device of creating dramatic effect. It correlates with the use of the intransitive ba-construction that is typically used to construct dramatic episodes in gossip. The examples discussed above show that grammatical choice is always sensitive to pragmatic considerations, since grammatical forms signal meanings and meanings, used by humans in interaction, are inevitably used in “pragmatic” ways. Whether a syntactic construction is useable on particular occasions has little to do with the “factual significance” of the statement, but the “emotive” significance of the utterance. Semantic representation is in service of the pragmatic goal to be achieved in communication and transcends the conceptual representation of facts. Semantic representation is independent of conceptual representation. On the other hand, as far as the use of the ba-construction is concerned, it is important to know where to draw the line of dramatizability. Not every happening in life can be put in the category of dramatizable events and there are social costs to pay for making the wrong choice. An event like the one in (4) is too sensitive and grievous for dramatization and had better be presented in a syntactic structure of low dramaticity in place of the ba-construction that exercises aggravating effect in this context. The asterisk I put before the translation of (4d) is not a grammatical conviction, but a social judgment. Something can be perfectly grammatical and yet decisively unutterable in a given sociocultural background. In the foregoing paragraphs, quantitative data have confirmed our prediction that, other things being equal, the number of participants correlates with the degree of intra-event interactivity or cognitive salience in a principled way, thus supporting our hypothesis that the ba-construction signals HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY and a non-ba-construction signals LOW DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY. We have also demonstrated that when speakers’ subjective view of what is salient does not coincide with but rather outweighs the perceptual fact of the number of participants, dramatization of a oneparticipant event will nevertheless occur in favor of the speakers’ personal investment.


.. Cognitive salience and verbal dynamism With regard to the dynamism of the verb, we assume that dynamic actions are more condusive to intra-event interactivity and thus constitute higher cognitive salience. The opposite is true of static situations. We thus make the following prediction: Prediction (6.2): The use of the ba-construction will correlate with verbal dynamism and depart from verbal statism. More ba-sentences than nonba-sentences will be found with dynamic verbs. More non-ba-sentences than ba-sentences will be found with static verbs.

We counted the number of action verbs, the number of activity verbs, and the number of static verbs in the 304 ba-clauses and the first 304 non-ba-clauses in the corpus S. Action verbs are defined as verbs that encode instantaneous and direct physical force such as movement or transfer of energy from one entity to another, for examples, tiao ‘jump’ and da ‘beat’. These verbs denote punctual and bounded actions. Activity verbs are those verbs that do not show direct physical force and comparatively lack punctuality and can be said to be “indeterminately bounded” (Sasse 2001: 38). However, they too may be instantaneous, as for examples: yong ‘use’, qing ‘invite’, xiyin ‘attract’, bi ‘compare’, tang ‘perm’, zhizao ‘manufacture’, baifang ‘visit’, mai ‘buy’, mai ‘sell’, hua ‘spend’, dangzuo ‘regard as, treat as’, biancheng ‘turn into’, nong ‘make’, etc. Static verbs, to the contrary, signal plain statements of facts, e.g. whether something exists or not, what quality something exhibits, whether a mental act is factual or not, whether something is perceived or not, and whether someone possesses something or not. Existential verbs such as you ‘there is’, zai ‘exist’, and shi ‘be’, attitude verbs such as xihuan ‘like’ and taoyan ‘dislike’, verbs of receptive perception such as kanjian ‘see’ and tingjian ‘hear’, and verbs denoting possession such as you ‘have’, are all static verbs. Table 6.2 provides data on the distributions of verbs with regard to their dynamism in the ba-clauses versus the non-ba-clauses in the corpus S: Table 6.2 Choice of sentence type versus verbal dynamism in corpus S Sentence type

Action verb

Activity verb

Static verb

Sample size

ba-clause

284 93.4% 45 14.8%

20 6.6% 71 23.4%

0 0% 188 61.8%

304 100% 304 100%

non-ba-clause



 Dramatized Discourse

As predicted, the verbs of the ba-clauses fall overwhelmingly into what we call action verbs. None of the ba-clauses consists of a static verb. To the contrary, up to two thirds of the verbs of the non-ba-clauses are static while action verbs make up only a small percentage of 14.8%. We argue that the high correlation between action verbs that encode direct physical force and the use of the ba-construction is motivated by the meaning of the ba-construction and the interactive potential of dynamic actions. Given that the speaker will dramatize the discourse more readily when the situation being communicated is dynamic and therefore cognitively salient, we can say that the favoring of the ba-construction over non-ba-constructions supports our hypothesis that the ba-construction denotes HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY whereas the non-ba-constructions denote LOW DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY. Now we will take a closer look at some of the ba-clauses in the corpus S where the verb is not highly dynamic in terms of the instantaneous exercising of physical force. When we only consider the external property of dynamism of the events, these events are indeed less salient than events involving dynamic actions. However, the consideration of the speaker’s subjective investment in the representation of the events will enable us to understand why such events may still be compatible with the use of the ba-construction. Consider (5) below: (5) (Ta) yuan lian, da yanjing, chang hao ba yan bi shang xiang 3sg. round face, big eyes, often like ba eyes shut up think shier. thing ‘He is round-faced, big-eyed, and often likes to shut his eyes to ponder over things.’

We know that this sentence conveys a habitual activity because of the adverb of frequency chang ‘often’ and the activity verb hao ‘like’ before the baconstruction. Both lexical items signal that the action of shutting eyes happens on a regular basis. By virtue of the ba-construction, however, this habitual action can no longer be taken for granted as an automatic behavior that arbitrarily or naturally accompanies the activity of thinking. Instead, it must be interpreted as an elaborated action, a peculiar ritual precluding the activity of thinking. The sense of elaboration and peculiarity attached to the activity cannot be brought about by the canonical non-dramatic SVO structure. Given that the ba-construction draws attention to the activity of shutting the eyes such that this activity is understood as something peculiar and noteworthy, we ar-

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

gue that the meaning of the ba-construction, namely, HIGH DRAMATICITY, is confirmed. Consider another example: (6)

‘He looks upon the Guans and the Guans can appreciate his foreign air, which lays the foundation of their friendship. In addition, the bit butter, coffee or authentic Oxford marmelade that he gets from the English Embassy are not desired by anyone except the Guans who understand the originality of these things. Therefore they have developed more connection to each other – He always sells this kind of Western goodies to the Guans fairly.’ Ta yongyuan ba zhe lei de yang huo gongdaode mai 3sg. always ba this kind assoc western stuff fairly sell gei Guan jia. to pn family

The ba-clause within the text above, too, has an adverb signaling the habitualness that is characteristic of an activity. The extremity word yongyuan ‘always’ is subjective and emotive. It intensively expresses the speaker’s assertion that the claim that ‘he sells the stuff fairly to the Guans’ holds unexceptionally and absolutely. The dramatizing ba-construction in conjunction with this emotive assertion of absoluteness constructs an irony frame in the given context: to ridicule the person’s contemptible behavior by praising it in an exaggerating manner. This is a typical case where the speaker makes the investment of an evaluative message in the proposition by using the ba-construction. The two sentences discussed above demonstrate that it is not only possible, but also creative, to use the ba-construction to dramatize habitual and non-dynamic events under favorable circumstances. That which determines the favorability of the discourse environment is the communicative intention of the speaker. In both sentences (5) and (6), the discourse environment selects the ba-construction to support the speaker’s subjective evaluation. This strategy applies even to situations where the verbs are categorized as static verbs. Recall the examples (12)–(22) in 4.1, which we have touched upon with respect to the notion of “disposal”. In these sentences, the so-called “verbs of mental act” such as ai ‘love’ and hen ‘hate’ can be used in dramatizable events if the

 Dramatized Discourse

verbs are modified by attitudinal elements such as hyperbolic adverbials, modal particles, etc. Thus it is inappropriate to use the neutral term “mental act” for these verbs in the first place because they have the semantic potential to be used in a significantly emotional manner and do convey dramatic forces under given discourse circumstances. The term “attitude verbs” seems to be a better choice because it indicates the subjective aspect in the meaning of these verbs. The observation of these attitude verbs in relation to the ba-construction suggests that the intrinsic semantics of the matrix verb is not an absolute condition for the use of the ba-construction, rather a high-frequency correlate. Obviously, not all action verbs are equally dynamic just as not all static verbs are equally inert. Static verbs may be devoid of physical dynamism, but they can undoubtedly be assigned emotive dynamism in order to convey emotional interactivity. In real effect, the high correlation between verbal dynamism and the use of the ba-construction is motivated by what I call discourse selection: The invariant meaning of the ba-construction HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY favors dynamic verbs that denote physical force. It may also select static verbs on the basis of their emotive dynamism. .. Cognitive salience and verbal modification The obligatory tie between the use of the ba-construction and verbal modifiers has been mentioned by a number of Chinese grammarians (L. Wang 1980; Lü 1955; Mei 1989). However, the reason why the ba-construction shows such a strong tie to verbal modifiers remains unexplained in the literature. Verbal modifiers (hence VM) are defined here as those grammatically obligatory elements that are used as part of the predicate to specify aspect values such as the direction, result, punctuality, beginning, completion,termination etc. of the events. Aspect values are not truth-conditional values, but rather, more often than not, subjective values in terms of the speaker’s perspective. We take the use of VMs as an indicator of the intra-event interactivity of events on the basis of the following assumption: By specifying the aspect values of the action or activity denoted by the core verb of the predicate, a VM not only signals that a change of state is at issue, but also contributes subjectivity to the depiction of the change. Thus the density of verbal modification is expected to reflect the degree of cognitive salience of an event. The density of verbal modification is measured in terms of the number of VM units. The following prediction can be made:

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

Table 6.3 Choice of sentence type versus number of VM units in corpus S Sentence type

Number of VM units

Sample size

VM percentage


487 62

304 304

160.1% 20.4%

Prediction (6.3): More VM units will be found in the vicinity of the baconstruction than around the non-ba-constructions.

Note that here we are speaking of VM units rather than simply VMs. This is because all VMs are not of equal morphological and semantic complexity and counts of undifferentiated VMs would conceal the true number of information units that are present in a sentence. This is particularly true of the directives whose semantic complexity can be directly measured in terms of the number of morphemes or syllables. In dealing with directives, we differentiate between single directives and compound directives on account of the assumption that the latter provide more information about the spatial and directional relationships involved in events than the former. Thus a simple directive such as chu ‘out’ and shang ‘up’ counts as one VM unit while a compound directive such as chu-lai ‘out-come’ and shang-qu ‘up-go’ counts as two and dao. . .li-qu ‘to. . .inside-go’ as three.38 No measurable simple-compound distinctions are identified with other types of verbal modifiers. We counted the total number of VM units including post-verbal directives, resultatives (extentatives), recipients, aspect markers and preverbal dynamic modifiers in the 304 ba-clauses and in the first 304 non-ba-clauses, respectively, in the corpus S. Table 6.3 shows the choice of sentence types in relation to the number of VM units used. The results shown in Table 6.3 strongly confirm our prediction. VM units occur almost eight times as frequently in a ba-clause as in a non-ba-clause. Moreover, the percentage of VM units in ba-clauses exceeds 100 and goes up to 160. The figures reveal that not only is there always some kind of VM in a ba-clause, but very often there is more than one. This result is not surprising in light of the respective meanings of the ba-construction and the non-baconstructions. Speakers will specify more details about events in which they are interested. In addition, not only should there be fewer VW units in nonba-clauses (as is shown in Table 6.3) but the number of multiple VMs per clause (ranging from 2 to ≥ 4) should be less as well. Thus we have a further prediction: Prediction (6.4): More multiple VM units will be found in ba-clauses than in non-ba-clauses.

 Dramatized Discourse

Table 6.4 Number of VM units per clause across sentence type in corpus S Sentence type ba-clause non-ba-clause

VM unit per sentence percentage 0 0 0% 242 80%

1 141 46.4% 48 16%

2 143 47% 14 4.6%

Total 3 20 9.9% 0 0%

≥4 0 0% 0 0%

304 100% 304 100%

Table 6.5 Types of VM in use with the ba-construction in corpus S Type of VMs Postverbal VM

Preverbal VM Total

Directives Resultatives Recipients Aspect markers Other

Number of VM units

Percentage

249 125 36 61 11 5 487

51.1% 25.7% 7.4% 12.5% 2.4%

99%

1% 100%

We counted the number of VM units per clause as function of presence or absence of ba. Table 6.4 shows the results. Our prediction is confirmed by the observation that more than 50% of the 304 ba-clauses take two or more VM units and the rest take one VM unit. In stark contrast, the majority of the non-ba-clauses do not have any VM units. The overwhelmingly dense concentration of VMs in the ba-clauses thus supports our hypothesis that the ba-construction signals HIGH DRAMATICITY and that non-ba-constructions signal LOW DRAMATICITY. On the other hand, predictions can be made about correlations between the ba-construction and types of VMs. Given the hypothesis that the baconstruction, in comparison to non-ba-constructions, signals that the event being described involves higher interactivity and is therefore of higher cognitive salience, we can predict the following skewing: Prediction (6.5): VMs that explicitly signal change of state will profile more strongly in ba-clauses than VMs signaling statism.

Table 6.5 provides data on the concrete distributions of different types of VM units in the ba-clauses in the corpus S. The data in Table 6.5 show that the overwhelming majority of all VM units found in the ba-clauses are postverbal and only 1% are preverbal. We argue that the formal and functional differences between the two types of VMs ex-


plain the difference in their distributions in the ba-clauses. Formally, preverbal VMs possess minimal linguistic substance while postverbal VMs are substantially more sizable and more free to expand. The formal limitations typical of preverbal VMs determine their relatively low descriptiveness in comparison to postverbal VMs that allow maximal complementing information about the events. As the terms for the respective VMs suggest, the hearer is offered precise information on the directions of movements and results of actions etc. Such information pertains to the change of state in events and not inertia. The 99 to 1 ratio offers a solid proof of prediction (6.5). Furthermore, out of the postverbal VM units, more than 50% are directives. More than a quarter are resultatives. Given that directives and resultatives are linguistic elements that signal directions of movements and results of world-changing actions, prediction (6.5) is confirmed. On the other hand, since the recipient of an object can be considered either as the final location of the transferred object or as the result of the action imposed upon the object, it follows that sentences with a recipient complement count as directive or resultative sentences, thus increasing the total number of VMs that denote motion or change by 7.4%, which further strengthens the evidence of prediction (6.5). In the following part, we shall discuss in detail the functions of VMs in order to understand the special relationship between them and the baconstruction. Let us begin by looking at the postverbal modifiers.

i. Postverbal modifiers. The postverbal modifiers of a ba-construction come in three major forms. They are: directives, resultatives, and aspect markers. Directives are those VMs that signal the direction in which an action goes and are thus directly related to movement in space. Historically, directives are grammaticalized from lexical items. There are several lexical sources of grammaticalization. First, motion verbs with specified direction relative to the speaker’s perspective such as lai ‘come’ and qu ‘go’ become grammaticalized deictic suffixes such as lai in jin-lai ‘enter come’ and qu in chu-qu ‘exit go’. Here the verbs jin ‘enter’ and chu ‘exit’ already contain the directive meanings ‘in’ and ‘out’, respectively. The grammaticalized suffixes lai and qu serve to denote the speaker’s point of view. These two suffixes can be attached to locative adverbs shang ‘up’ and xia ‘down’ to form compound directives such as shanglai ‘up-come’ and xia-qu ‘down-go’ in duan shang-lai ‘carry up here’ and tun xia-qu ‘gobble down’. Compound directives provide more information about the action being described than simple directives because they signal not only the direction of the action but also the speaker’s perspective. The fact that the speaker’s perspective is involved in the description bespeaks the speaker’s spe-



 Dramatized Discourse

cial attention to the event in which the speaker is interested and which the speaker intends to dramatize. This explains the findings with regard to the number of VM units displayed in Table 6.4. A second source of directives is motion verbs without specified direction such as zou ‘walk’ and pao ‘run’. Though both are non-directional as full verbs, they acquire directionality as grammaticalized suffixes and denote that the action in question takes a direction away from the speaker, e.g. chui-zou, literally ‘blow-walk’ meaning ‘blow away’ and xia-pao literally ‘scare run’ meaning ‘scare away’. A third type of grammaticalized directives takes a motion verb signaling positional change such as guo ‘cross, pass’ or qi ‘rise’ with a grammaticalized deictic suffix lai ‘come’ or qu ‘go’ attached to it. For examples, guo-lai ‘over here’, guo-qu ‘over there’, and qi-lai ‘up’ specify both the process of locative change and the direction in which the change occurs. On account of our data in Table 6.5, the uses of directives make up a percentage of 51.1%. Apparently, directives signaling movement are the most frequently used verbal modifiers in a ba-sentence. This finding further confirms our prediction that change in the form of movement in space assumes high cognitive salience and is therefore likely to be dramatized. Directives not only signal directionality of physical movement and therefore serve to signal change in the state of affairs as a result of the action communicated by the main verb. They also signal the speaker’s expectation of the completion of the action or the boundedness of the event. For instance, the compound directives xia-lai ‘down-come’ and xia-qu ‘down go’ in sentences (7a) and (7b), respectively, indicate that the action of undressing is expected by the speaker to be completed and the completion fulfilled. Note that the verb tuo already has the inherent meaning of ‘taking off or causing something to come off ’ and the suffix xia-lai ‘down-come, off ’ would be redundant if its only function were to add to the same sense of directional physical move. The expectation of fulfillment and boundedness, like any other expectations, is subjective. Exactly this subjectivity is favored by the dramatization of the event the ba-construction is in charge of. This favored pragmatic match between the subjective directive and the high dramaticity of the ba-construction predicts that sentences like (8a) and (8b) are less than perfect or even odd because the grammatical lack of dramaticity of the non-ba-construction clashes with the subjectivity inherent in the speaker’s expectation. Sentence (8b) is worse than (8a), as the asterisk serves to indicate. Its deeper oddity will find an explanation when we have examined the deictic suffixes -lai ‘come’ and -qu ‘go’ in the next two paragraphs.

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

(7) a. Ni ba dayi tuo-xia-lai! 2sg. ba coat remove-down-come ‘Take off the coat.’ b. Ni ba dayi tuo-xia-qu! 2sg. ba coat remove-down-go ‘Take off the coat!’ (8) a. Ni tuo-xia-lai dayi! 2sg. remove-down-come coat b. Ni tuo-xia-qu dayi! 2sg. remove-down-go coat

Sentences (7a) and (7b) refer to the same truth-conditional situation, that is, the speaker asks the addressee to take off his coat. The truth-condition is reflected in one and the same English translation to which both sentences correspond. Yet sentence (7a) conveys a completely different message than sentence (7b). It is the speaker’s attitude that is at play here: sentence (7a) is inviting and comfortably matches an imaginary hospitable gesture of accommodation while (7b) is distancing and rejecting and can be easily pictured to go with an undisguised frown indicating a well-meant criticism towards an unflattering coat, prototypically exercised by an omnipresent controlling mother. This contrast in attitude can be illuminated in the light of the following verbalization of the imaginary contexts. Compare sentences (9a) and (9b): (9) a. ‘Take off the coat, I’ll hang it up for you./*It’s too ugly!’ Ni ba dayi tuo-xia-lai 2sg. ba coat remove-down-come b. ‘Take off the coat! It’s too ugly!/*I’ll hang it up for you.’ Ni ba dayi tuo-xia-qu 2sg. ba coat remove-down-go

From these examples we can see that the difference between the deictic directives lai and qu is beyond the cognitive domain and pertains to the speaker’s

 Dramatized Discourse

emotional and social orientation, though the emotional and social function directly derives from the cognitive content of the lexical meaning. E.g. the particle lai ‘come’ denotes the direction towards the speaker and this physical approach is taken to suggest emotional welcome and social alignment; in contrast, qu ‘go’ signals the direction away from the speaker, thus physical departure being transferred to the emotional and social domain to signal alienation and rejection. Whereas hospitability is a sign of politeness, criticism is one of impoliteness and intrusion. How does the expression of politeness versus impoliteness influence the choice of sentence types? The influence is straightforward: In terms of symbolic interaction, politeness is socially desirable and expected and thus less marked in comparison to impoliteness and intrusion. Because of this, the hospitability conveyed by (7a) is rather socially normal and less emotive than the critical message spelt out by (7b). The strong emotive coloration of (7b) tightens up its pragmatic tie to the use of the dramatizing ba-construction. This explains why (8b), in the form of the grammatically non-dramatic VO construction, fails to accommodate the emotive load of the message and sounds odd to the native ear. Following from this, we can conclude that the subjective aspect and emotive quality about the directives make them highly prone to concurrence with the ba-construction. Let us look at examples (10) and (11): (10) ‘Changshun likes this business very much because he likes to sing himself. He can sing all the words and melodies on all of his discs.’ Ta ba ziji suoyou de changpian shang de xici yu 3sg. ba own all assoc disc on assoc words and qiangdiao dou neng chang shang lai. melody all can sing up come (11)

‘Now they really sense the relationship between the nation, the war and themselves. They have to leave aside all the feelings between father and son, between brothers and friends. Only when they get rid of these

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

most indispensable relations could they shoulder greater responsibilities. Since they are not allowed to know what tomorrow would be like, they remember everything of the past, for they are going to separate and perhaps the separation is going to be forever.’ Ta men ba guoqu de yiqie dou xiang qi lai. 3sg.pl. ba past assoc all completely think rise come

In sentence (10), the directive particle shang-lai ‘up-come’ has little to do with directionality rather, it offers the speaker’s positive evaluation of the person’s strong ability to sing (cf. Lakoff & Johnson 1980 on the English up signaling positive feelings and evaluations). The modal verb neng ‘can’ plays a crucial part in the interpretation of this subjective evaluation, for its meaning is inherently emotive and non-factual. In this sense, the directive conveys a subjective message of admiration and praise. This positive evaluation corroborates with the double universal quantifier suoyou-de ‘all that is owned’ + dou ‘all’ that conveys high intensity to create a sense of exaggeration. This sense of exaggeration justifies the use of the ba-construction, the structure for dramatization. If any one of the three subjective components (the modal verb neng, the directive particle shang-lai, and the universal intensifiers suoyou-de and dou) were removed, the ba-construction would be ungrammatical. Sentence (11) operates in the same way as sentence (10). Here the deictic particle lai ‘come’ expresses the speaker’s awareness that what is being remembered and recalled is close to the here and now of the utterance and in the speaker’s immediate consciousness. The second type of postverbal modifiers, the resultative, signals the result of the action being communicated by the matrix verb. Naturally, by the time an action has produced a result, a change of state should be readily expected. In this sense, resultatives signal change and make the events being communicated visible and noteworthy, which explains the favoring of this type of postverbal modifiers by the ba-construction. More often than not, the result of an action does not present any objective truth-condition, but mainly the speaker’s evaluation of the final state of the event as caused by the action. There are two subtypes of resultative complements. The first one consists of simple adjectives (sometimes verbs) denoting the ending state of the event as a result of the action. These are hao ‘good, well’ in guan-hao ‘close up well’, shang ‘up’ in bi-shang ‘shut up’, jin ‘to the end’ in fang-jin ‘release up’, guang ‘glossy’ in chi-guang ‘eat up’, jing ‘clean’ in he-jing ‘drink up’, cheng ‘fulfill’ in zuo-cheng ‘achieve’, zhu ‘fast’ in jie-zhu ‘stop’, and diao ‘to fall, to drop’ in lan-diao ‘rot away’ and wang-diao ‘forget’. All these re-

 Dramatized Discourse

sultative markers serve the pragmatic function of indicating change by bringing out the result of the action. Again, the corpus S offers us a wealth of examples and here is one: (12) ‘Upon Big-Red-Pepper’s command, the male and female servants rushed in and set the mahjong table ready in the time of a wink, their action quite as rapid and precise as that of a mechanized troop.’ Yi zha yan ba pai zhuo bai hao one blink eye ba mahjong table set well

In this sentence, the resultative marker hao ‘good, well’, apart from denoting the completion of the action bai ‘set’, conveys the message that the speaker is impressed by the result of the action and considers the task well done. We can tell that this evaluation is subjective by noting the subjective temporal concept of yi zha-yan ‘one blink-eye, the time of a wink’ preceding the ba-construction, which is a hyperbolic expression with which the speaker attempts to do justice to the perceived rapidity that he considers impressive. Another example is the ba-sentence in (13) below: (13)

‘Her pieces match very well and promise another win. But just as she is planning to add some more points, the two women in the west yard start to weep. The weeping is like many little steel needles piercing her ears. She wants to pretend calm and continue her gamble, but these little needles are like bombs that penetrate her brain and explode. She tries to control her muscles and her nerves, forbidding them to reveal the explosions inside of her. But she cannot control her sweat. Her armpits are getting moist and most terrible is the sweat on her forehead and her nose. Her eyes stop gazing and instead she stares at her pieces. Only in this way can she leash

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

her heart (control her emotion), but she knows that in so doing she’ll surely lose her easy-going flair and reveal the nervosity inside of her.’ Zhiyou zhe yang, ta cai neng ba xin shuan-zhu. nly this manner, 3sg. not-until can ba heart leash-fast

Before discussing the function of the resultative particle zhu ‘fast’, I shall draw the reader’s attention to a few interesting discourse points in this sentence. First of all, the sentence is cut up by an intermediate pause into two prosodic units in a relationship of necessary condition, which is strengthened by the intensifying adverbs zhiyou ‘only’ and cai ‘not until’. Second, the ba-construction is preceded by a modal verb neng ‘can’ denoting that the event encoded by the ba-construction is a conditional probability. Third, the verb-object relation between shuan-zhu ‘tie-fast’ and xin ‘heart’ is not literally, but metaphorically formulated. That is, the action of tying the heart is in reality impossible.39 If both the word shuan-zhu ‘leash-fast’ and the word xin ‘heart’ were literally interpreted, the phrase would obviously be nonsensical. However, by treating the abstract notion of emotional self-control with the help of metaphor, the abstract event becomes both graspable and emotional. Given the conditional adverbs and the modal auxiliary, the metaphorical event is cast in a hypothetical frame. The dramatic force of the ba-construction recasts the metaphorical hypothesis in a surreal frame. As a matter of fact, this metaphor cannot be used in a non-ba-construction, like (14), which necessarily encourages a literal interpretation, which then naturally yields a false message: (14) Zhiyou zhe yang, ta cai neng shuan-zhu xin. only this manner, 3sg. not-until can leash-fast heart

The oddity of sentence (14) is that the SVO construction seems to lack the dramatic capacity to embrace the surreal power of the metaphor. Instead, it tends to indicate a literal relationship between the verb and the object NP. Yet a literal relationship between the verb and the object NP does not hold because the indefinite and non-referential quality of the object NP fails to provide information required for the sentential position of new information, in which the object NP is located. A simple SVO construction with such an object usually denotes an unbounded situation. An unbounded situation fails to meet the discourse expectation of fulfillment suggested by the previous stretch of utterance zhiyou zhe yang ‘only in this way’ and the strong modality in the form of the modal verb neng ‘can’ preceded by the modal particle cai ‘not until’ within

 Dramatized Discourse

the same stretch of utterance. The resultative particle zhu ‘fast’ renders the metaphorical event encoded by the ba-construction bounded. This bounded event, viewed in light of the compelling condition encoded by the previous phrase zhiyou zhe yang ‘only in this manner’, yields a frame that defines the discourse situation as overwhelming pressure and necessity. Another resultative suffix that is frequently used with the ba-construction is diao.40 It has two messages in complementary distributions. The first one which I dub “dissipative” (hence DISS) occurs in intransitive, or oneparticipant, situations. Here it denotes the irreversible vanishing of something (subject) as a result of the action or activity being communicated, as in: bingxiang li de cai dou lan-diao le. ‘The vegetables in the refrigerator have all rotten away.’ Ta de menya huai-diao le. ‘His front teeth have decayed.’ In both examples, the suffix diao also indicates a trace of emotion on the speaker’s part regarding the helplessness that is characteristic of the situation. Note that diao is followed by the perfective le, which means the process of spoiling or destruction is viewed in its entirety, that is, bounded. When the situation is transitive, diao signals the dismissal of something (object) as the goal of the action and activity, which features the second message which I call “dismissive” (hence DISM), as in: ta jiran bu ai ni, ni hai bu wang-diao ta! ‘Given that he doesn’t love you, why don’t you forget him!’ Here the speaker’s advice to ‘forget him’ calls for determination on the addressee’s part and urges the addressee to consciously engage some action that will produce the result that the third person being discoursed upon is dismissed from the addressee’s memory. Consider the ba-sentence in (15): (15) ‘It takes her quite some effort to turn around. Having turned around, her hands clutch the top of the wall and her feet hang in mid air. She was so busy breathing that she completely forgot about all other things.’ Ta zhi gu le chuanqi, ba yiqie bie de shi dou 3sg. only care pfv breathe ba all other assoc thing all wang-diao. forget-dism

This example shows that the resultative suffix diao describes the intense effect of the action signaled by wang ‘forget’. Here again, the universal quantifier yiqie ‘all, everything’ and the adverb dou ‘all, completely’ are semantic correlates of

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

diao and contribute to the achievement of high intensity demanded by the baconstruction. The second subtype of resultative markers takes the morpheme de followed by an elaborated evaluative remark denoting the extent to which the action or activity is carried out. The morpheme de is usually viewed as an extentative marker (hence EXT), a subtype of the resultative, expressing the extent to which an action is conducted. For examples, consider the ba-sentences in (16) and (17): (16)

‘Meanwhile, the well-cultured Pekingers start to shop for gifts for family and friends as soon as the eighth month has begun. The shops in the street have decorated themselves with all kinds of wine bottles and moon-cakes of all kinds of fillings so that they look like gorgeous brides. Even those shops that don’t sell gifts share the fun by hanging out large gauze bands that read “automn sale” to welcome the automn of Peking.’

Jie shang de dianpu yong street up assoc shop use zhong xianzi de yuebing, kind filling assoc moon:cake, xinniangzi xianyan de colorful assoc bride

ge all ba ba

shi de jiuping, ge fashion assoc wine:bottle, all ziji daban de xiang self plume ext resemble

(17)

‘Little-Shun was throwing bricks at the half red jujubes in the tree. Ruixuan walked by and stopped, saying to Little-Shun: “You won’t hit the jujubes and when you hit Grandma’s window pane, you’ll have a good time!”

 Dramatized Discourse

“There’s no candy-peddler at the gate, and you won’t let me eat a couple of jujubes?” said Little-Shun resentfully. Grandma spoke in her room: “Let him hit the jujubes! The child’s got nothing to eat these days!” Little-Shun was very pleased and fearlessly he threw the brick even higher.’ xiaoshun pn gao-le high pfv

hen deyi, fangdande ba zhuantou reng de geng very pleased, bravely ba brick throw ext more xie some

The resultative or extentative in sentence (16) consists of a metaphor involving personification: The decoration is done to the extent that the speaker is touched by the sensation such that the inanimate objects appear as though they were vivid gorgeous brides. Such a resultative is subjectively provided to serve the dramatic function of affectionate evaluation as though the objects described were humans capable of evoking such tender emotions. The metaphor serves to intensify the subjective perception of and feelings about the situation. The presentation of such a dramatic emotion requires the cooperation of the ba-construction with the meaning HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY purported for pragmatic functions. Thus the entire discourse can be framed as deep fondness and affection. The resultative of sentence (17) contains a comparative in the form of the increase marker geng ‘more’. This resultative suggests the increasing extent to which the whole event of throwing the brick is carried out. The ba-construction dramatizes the whole event by putting the extent of enhancement in highlight in reply to the dynamism of the manner adverbial fangdande ‘with the bile (courage) set-forth, bravely’. The discourse frame of this sentence must be viewed against the background of the previous discourse. In the larger context of the given textual discourse, sentence (17) constitutes the narrative peak of a series of events in which expectation, counter-expectation, and the alignment between two of the three participants against one are in interplay with one another. Sentence (17) forms a frame of justified indulgence as a reply to all of the previous frames. A third type of postverbal modifiers features lexico-grammatical aspect particles. The juxtaposition of lexicon and grammar in the attributive here suggests the intertwinement of the two linguistic levels in the representation of aspect marking in Mandarin Chinese. In Mandarin Chinese, lexicon and grammar do not represent two distinct categories, but a scalar transition. In


other words, the aspect system is not a morphological system of inflection, but consists of different lexical items that have undergone grammaticalization to become overt aspect markers. Any functional analysis of aspect markers must be conducted with respect to the conception of situation types (henceforth ST), as aspect markers are used to signal the distinctive features of different types of situations. I adopt Herweg’s (1990) idea of distinguishing between two basic types of situations, that is, between events on the one hand and processes/states on the other on account of the occurrence or non-occurrence of change. The criterion Herweg uses in making the distinction is the “homogeneity” of the situation. He defines the notion of homogeneity as follows (1990: 12): Eine Situation vom Typ S ist genau dann homogen, wenn ihre Teile ebenfalls vom Typ S sind und auch alle Zusammenfassungen von Situationen des Typs S dem selben Typ angehören. A situation of type S is homogeneous if and only if its components, too, are of type S and all combinations of situations that are of type S also belong to this same type. [translation is mine, Z.J.S.]

Instead of using the term homogeneity (vs. heterogeneity) which, it seems to me, emphasizes the static nature and compositional quality of a situation, I prefer to use the term “constant situations” versus “changing situations” to describe the contrast between the two basic situation types. In many (if not all) languages of the world, the grammatical correlate of the cognitive distinction between constant situations and changing situations is the fundamental distinction made between perfective and imperfective aspects (Comrie 1976). This distinction is expressed by lexico-grammatical means in Mandarin Chinese. There are nine aspect markers in Mandarin Chinese: the only perfective marker is le, which is used to describe changing situations, or events. Those aspect markers that are used to describe constant situations (processes and states) are imperfective. The inchoative qi-lai, the successive xia-qu, the durative zhe, and the tentative aspect in the form of verbal reduplication, are used to describe the beginning, progression, succession, and the tentative operation of a process, respectively. The momentary zai, the completive wan, and the experiential guo are stative aspect markers used to mark states. Table 6.6 shows the organization of the aspect markers into the system of aspect according to the situation type (ST) each marker describes.41 In the foregoing paragraph, we have established the correspondence between perfectivity and change, between imperfectivity and constancy. Yet we must bear in mind that the distinction made between perfectivity and imper-






Table 6.6 The Mandarin aspect system Constant S

ST

process

state

Changing S

event

qi-lai zhe xia-qu Reduplication zai wan guo le

INCHOATIVE DURATIVE SUCCESSIVE TENTATIVE MOMENTARY COMPLETIVE EXPERIENTIAL PERFECTIVE

fectivity concerns solely the linguistic representation of situations and not the actual qualities of real-world situations, as Herweg (1990: 14) points out. That is, the linguistic representation of situation types reveals the speaker’s viewpoint vis-à-vis the real-world situations being observed and described, and in no way the truth-conditions of the real-world situations. With respect to the speaker’s viewpoint, perfectivity is taken to signal that the speaker views the situation as an unanalyzed whole from without whereas imperfectivity is taken to signal that the speaker concentrates on the internal construction of the situation (Comrie 1976; Lyons 1977; Li & Thompson 1981; Herweg 1990). I borrowed Herweg’s diagrams (1990: 15), which are reproduced in English here as Figure 6.1, to illustrate this distinction in the speaker’s viewpoint. Within the changing or perfective type and the constant or imperfective type, each individual marker has its own fine-grained specific semantics. Let us begin by looking at the perfective marking. The perfective suffix le signals that an event is viewed as a whole as in: wo da le ge duner ‘I took a nap’. More importantly, it indicates a changing situation, e.g. napping constitutes a situation that is different from the speech situation where the speaker is awake. Li and Thompson (1981) observe: Many perfective events reported in speech are events that occurred prior to the time of speaking. This means that there is a correlation between events in the past and the appearance of le: ordinarily, unless the context makes it clear that a different time is being referred to, a perfective sentence with le will be understood to refer to past time. On the other hand, it does not follow from this that past-time events must be perfective; only those past-time events that are bounded will occur with le. (1981: 215)

Apparently, the perfective aspect has the function of temporal reference: It refers to past tense by default because change is a function of the passage of time. For non-past temporal reference, contextual cues are needed, e.g. gan kuai chi-le zhe wan yao, ranhou qu shui yi jiao! ‘Take this pill quickly and then go

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity the perfective constellation

the imperfective constellation

begin progression end

begin progression end

Figure 6.1 Perfective versus imperfective constellation from speaker’s perspective

sleep!’ Here the imperative mood helps us to make out the non-past reference in this sentence. The four imperfective process markers each emphasize a specific aspect of a constant process. The verbal suffixes qi-lai, literally ‘rise-come’, and xia-qu, literally ‘down-go’, have directive functions, which I discussed in the previous section. They also signal the inchoative aspect in the sense of ‘start to’, and the successive aspect in the sense of ‘continue doing something despite known difficulty’, respectively, as in: Hai zi ku qi-lai le. ‘The kid started to cry’. Buguan kunnan duoda, ye de shenghuo xia-qu. ‘No matter how hard it is, we must go on with our lives’. This aspectual function represents a further stage of grammaticalization from lexical items denoting directional action to aspect markers. Yet there are also pure lexical items in Mandarin Chinese that mark the inchoative and successive aspects. The full verb kaishi ‘begin’ semantically contrasts to the suffix qi-lai in that it signals the planned or controlled beginning of an event, as in mingtian wo yao kaishi duanlian shenti ‘Tomorrow I’ll begin to work out’, while qi-lai refers to the start of an unpredicted, unplanned happening from the speaker’s perspective, as in: Yu xia qi-lai le ‘It started to rain’. When qi-lai is used in a transitive event, it can be put neither behind the VO (hence *VO qilai), nor between the V and the O (hence *V qi-lai O); rather, the grammatical convention requires that the direct object of the transitive verb is inserted between the two syllables qi and lai, (hence V qi O lai), as in: Haohaode, ni zenme turan fa qi feng lai le? ‘How come you suddenly started to throw a tantrum when everything seemed okay?’ This split does not apply for the successive



 Dramatized Discourse

aspect marker xia-qu under like circumstances. In fact, the direct object of a transitive verb of a successive event is either left out because of its high inferability, or preposed before the verb as a topic because of its low inferability. For example, Naodai luan de hen, wo xie bu xia-qu le. ‘My head is quite muddled, I can’t go on writing anymore’. Zhe ge gushi wo yao zhen jiang xia-qu, nimen dou de xiazhao. ‘This story, if I really go on with (telling) it, you’ll all be scared’. As for alternative successive aspect marking, we have two lexical verbs jie-zhe ‘resume after an interruption’ and jixu ‘going on without ending’ to mark the succession of an action or activity. The suffix zhe signals the continuous progression of an action or activity over a stretch of time, as in the second clause of the example: Ni shuo xiaqu, wo ting zhe ne. ‘Go on talking, I’m listening.’ The durative aspect is often used in the subordinate position to serve as manner adverbial accompanying an action or activity, as Chao points out with the following examples: ci-zhe ya xiao ‘laugh with teeth showing’, qi-zhe ma zhao ma ‘look for a horse while riding a horse’ (1970: 249–250). When the durative zhe is used in imperatives, it signals that a continuation of the desired state is requested, as in: Zhuo-zhe! ‘Remain seated!’ Dai-zhe maozi! ‘Keep the hat on!’. The durative zhe has another function, which is to turn a transitive action verb of sensation e.g. wo wen yan luobo ‘I smell the pickled turnips’, into an intransitive static verb whereby the otherwise direct object of the transitive verb becomes the subject of the intransitive without overt passivization, e.g. the verbs wen ‘smell’, chi ‘eat, taste’ in: Yan luobo wen-zhe chou, chi-zhe xiang. ‘The pickled turnips smell stinky, but taste good’. The intransitives here no longer signal the action of smelling and tasting, but rather the static sensational features characteristic of the objects being talked about (Chao 1970, ibid.). Given that zhe is concerned with the continuous progression of situations, it brings out the imagic and graphic quality in a descriptive manner. Reduplication of the verb with the optional numeral yi ‘one’ between the verb and its reduplication marks the tentative aspect in the sense that the action or activity may not be fully worked out or developed and that no result is expected, as in: Zou lei le, xie-(yi)-xie ba. ‘We’re tired from walking, let’s rest a bit.’ Bie zhaoji, xiang-xiang kan. ‘Don’t worry, think about it’. Wo neng jie nide biji kan-kan ma? ‘Can I borrow your notes for a look?’ Ni chang-chang wo chao de cai! ‘Taste the stir-fry that I prepared!’ Here, though the end point of the action or activity is not specified, the action or activity is nevertheless viewed in its entirety and is referred to tentatively in a proposal, suggestion, request, or offer.42, 43


Given that verbal reduplication (hence VR) signals bounded tentative action or activity, it cannot be done with static verbs, as in: *Wo zai(-yi)-zai jia. ‘I exist-exist (be-be) home’, *Wo you(-yi)-you qian. ‘I have-have money’, *Wo hen(-yi)-hen ta. ‘I hate-hate him’, *Ta dong-dong de-yu. ‘S/he understandsunderstands German’. Likewise the tentative aspect does not occur in combination with the stative aspect markers zai and guo, e.g. *Wo zai he-he shui. ‘I be drink-drink water’, *Ni shuo ni chi-(yi)-chi-guo yuchi? ‘Did you say you had eaten-eaten shark’s fins?’ By the same token, verbs that inherently have an end point or result are not candidates for aspectual reduplication either, because the accomplishment of an action with a resulting new state disallows tentativeness, e.g. *Tamen sha-(yi)-sha diren. ‘They kill-kill the enemy’, *Zhe xiao-zi tou-(yi)tou dongxi. ‘This guy steals-steals stuff ’. All these verbs have an inherent end point: sha ‘kill’ implies death as the result; tou ‘steal’ indicates the resulting disappearance of something from its legitimate owner and the unauthorized ownership gained by the thief. On the other hand, the tentative aspect can be used with the perfective suffix le as in: Wo kan-le-kan biao, san dian zheng. ‘I took a look at the watch, it was three o’clock’. Here the action of looking at the watch is viewed as a whole, but it need not be conducted to completion, which allows the tentative reading. This also explains why verbal reduplication is incompatible with the completive aspect suffix wan, as this requires the end point of the action, e.g. *Zanmen du-wan-(yi)-du zhe ben shu ba. ‘Let’s finish read-one-read this book’. As for the stative aspect markers, they all signal a factual state at a given temporal-spatial point. The momentary-stative zai, unlike most of the other aspect markers, is not a verbal suffix, it is used preverbally, as in: Ta jin-lai de shihou, wo hai zai shuijiao. ‘I was still asleep when he came in’. Note here the when-clause serves as a time adverbial which specifies the temporal point at which the state of being asleep applies. I call zai momentary-stative instead of progressive because it pins down a state of being at the distinct moment spoken of. Since this distinct moment represents a definite point in the continuance of the event, it captures only a frozen state and not the entire progression of the event which takes place over a stretch of time in real-world. In this sense it resembles the German stative aspect in the form of a prepositional phrase, as in: Ich bin am Lesen. ‘I am reading’.44 Note that the momentary-stative zai, much like the German preposition an, has developed from the locative sense ‘be at’ of the lexeme zai ‘exist’. This locative sense is still traceable in the further grammaticalized aspectual sense of zai, for it indicates the more abstract location (a state of doing something) at which the subject is said to be momentarily. The momentary-stative zai customarily combines with incorporation



 Dramatized Discourse

constructions with non-referential objects, as in Wo zai zuo-fan ‘I am cooking’, where the object fan ‘rice’ is incorporated into the verb zuo ‘make’ and has thereby lost its individuated meaning. That is, zuo-fan is synchronically not analyzable into its parts and thus does not yield the specific meaning ‘cooking rice’ but the generic meaning ‘cooking’. For this reason, the item zai does not have the descriptive effect the durative zhe assumes and merely reports of a state matter-of-factly. The completive wan signals that an action or activity is conducted to completion as a task or routine. The completion of a task or routine implies that the event being communicated has to be intentional. Inherent in intentionality is human volition. Thus the use of wan requires a volitional verb with a primarily human agent, as in: Xie-wan zuoye, ni cai neng kan dianshi. ‘Only when you are finished with your homework, can you watch TV’. Since the actual completion of task and routine is the central concern, this suffix cannot be employed in situations that do not warrant the fulfillment of this requirement, e.g. when the subject is non-human or when the verb is non-volitional, as in: *Taoshu kai-wan-le hua to mean that the peach tree had blossomed and now the peach blossoms have faded, for which we must use the non-intentional experiential suffix guo, as in: Taoshu kai-guo-le hua. This sentence presents two semantic violations inhibiting the use of wan, one being the non-human subject taoshu ‘peach tree’, the other being the non-volitional verb kai ‘open (bloom)’. Intention or volition as a semantic constraint also explains why wan cannot be used in *Wo ganmao-wan, hen kuai you hao le. ‘I finished catching a cold, then I recovered very soon.’ Here the verb ganmao ‘catch a cold’ describes an unexpected event, which violates the semantic constraint of intentionality. The aspect suffix guo presents a state as involving a simple genuine fact where intentionality is not at issue, as in: Ta cengjing qu-guo feizhou. ‘He has been to Africa’.45 Here the current state is presented as related to the factuality of an event and the process of the event per se is irrelevant to the current state. Since a de facto experience is likely to occur prior to the time of the speech referring to it, the aspect marker guo naturally and predominantly refers to past events. This, however, does not mean that guo cannot refer to non-past situations that are considered as facts hypothetically, e.g. Deng wo chi-guo fan, wo jiu gei ta da dianhua. ‘When I’m done with eating, I’ll call him’. Here the first clause with guo is a hypothetical situation which offers a condition for the action proposed in the second clause. That is, the action of calling him will not happen until the event of eating has become a fact.


Table 6.7 Frequency of aspect markers in ba-clauses in corpus S AM

le

zhe

VR

guo

wan

qi-lai

xia-qu

zai

Total

Counts Percentage

57 93.4%

2 3.3%

1 1.6%

1 1.6%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

61 100%

Our textual counts of aspect markers in Table 6.7 show the varying degrees of compatibility of the ba-construction with the aspect markers (hence AM) described above. Table 6.7 shows that the perfective aspect marker le has the highest frequency and is thus most favored by the ba-construction. The durative zhe, the verbal reduplication (VR) as tentative aspect, and the experiential guo are compatible with the ba-construction, but much less favored. Four aspect markers are not selected by the ba-construction. They are the inchoative qi-lai, the successive xia-qu, the momentary-stative zai and the completive wan. Let us first examine the reasons why the ba-construction is less compatible with the inchoative, the successive, the momentary-stative, and the completivestative aspect markers, respectively. First, the inchoative suffix qi-lai, as discussed previously, signals the start of an unplanned, unpredicted event such as unexpected and undesired crying of the baby or raining. This is to say, the suffix is concerned with the initial point of the event and makes no reference to the intra-event interactivity. For the same reason, this suffix is used in single-participant sentences where interaction between entities is rendered irrelevant. The discrepancy in semantic focus determines a low degree of compatibility between the inchoative suffix and the ba-construction. The successive xia-qu focuses on the continuation of a process without specification of change, though such a focus does not contradict intra-event interactivity. A more general prediction of the compatibility between xia-qu and the ba-construction therefore does not exclude possible felicitous matches in appropriate contexts. The momentary-stative aspect marker zai offers non-descript plain report of momentary states. The fact that zai is attracted to incorporation constructions is an indicator that this aspect marker does not specialize in describing individuated actions by which specific participants are affected and changes occur as a result of intra-event interactivity. This tendency is definitely at odds with the semantic-pragmatic specialty of the ba-construction, which is the dramatization of events involving individuated, specific participants and their interaction. The lack of interest in change, graphic vividness and theatrical-



 Dramatized Discourse

ity exhibited by zai is an absolute inhibitor for it to be employed for dramatic discourse. Frequency counts show that no single ba-clause contains this aspect marker. Diachronically, as has been mentioned before, the momentary-stative aspect marker zai goes back to the full verb zai ‘exist’ which describes the state of being in space and time. This lexico-semantic origin determines that statism in terms of locativity and temporality as the conceptual basis of the sign remains salient in the meaning of the grammaticalized aspect marker. Synchronically, zai is still found in use in its locative sense, as in (18): (18) Li-Siye zai men nei zuo-zhe wang waitou kan ne. pn on door inside sit-dur toward outside look p ‘Fourth Uncle Li is sitting inside behind the gate peeping out.’

The word zai forms a prepositional phrase with the noun men ‘door’ and the locative noun nei ‘inside’. The whole phrase means ‘inside behind the gate’. Note that the use of the locative zai coincides with the durative aspect marked by zhe in this case. Such coincidence, we shall argue, allows and may trigger the syntactic reanalysis of zai as pertaining to aspect in favorable contexts (cf. Langacker 1977 on syntactic reanalysis). The following sentence presents such a context in which zai is ambiguous between the temporal sense and the aspectual sense: (19) Keshi, zheng zai jihua-zhe zenyang duo tian yi fan de but right at plan-dur how more add one turn assoc shijie, xi yuan de liang wei furen ku hao qi-lai. time, west yard assoc two cl woman weep howl inch ‘However, right at the moment when (she) was planning how to win one more turn, the two women in the west yard started to weep and howl.’

To illustrate that zai is subject to two potential interpretations, we may assign a structure to each interpretation by means of Immediate Constituents for the sake of visual clarity.46 Thus the adverbial clause containing zai in (19) can be syntactically segmented in two different ways: a.

{zheng zai [[jihua-zhe zenyang duo tian yi fan]-de shijie]} {right at [[planning. . .] moment]} b. {[zheng zai jihua-zhe zenyang duo tian yi fan]-de shijie} {[right ASP planning. . .] moment}

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

The reading (a) is a PP with the preposition zai as head; the reading (b) is an NP with the noun shijie ‘moment, time’ as head modified by the clause containing zai as a momentary-stative aspect marker. The ambiguity in segmentation allows the aspectual reading which represents a further stage of grammaticalization down the “verb-gram cline” (Bybee et al. 1994). The meaning of zai as an aspect marker (in line with its locative and temporal sense) signals rather generic states that are independent of individual thoughts and are objectively perceptible. This characteristic makes it unusable for dramatic situations. This explains its incompatibility with the ba-construction. The completive marker wan indicates the actual objective state of completion of an action or activity. We observe that the state-relevant objectivity inherent in the fact whether something is finished or not makes this suffix unattractive to the ba-construction. In fact we found that the suffix wan is primarily used in non-ba-sentences, as in (20) below: (20)

“‘No. My husband hasn’t asked anyone for help in his whole life. I can’t, in his absence. . . . . .” She couldn’t finish this sentence; she wanted to be tough, yet she knew how costly it is to be tough.’ Ta meiyou neng shuo-wan zhe ju hua. 3sg. neg can speak-compl this cl sentence

The direct speech in this exerpt is incomplete and the sentence that follows it makes the objective observation of this obvious incompletion with the suffix wan in a matter-of-fact way. It does not seem pragmatically necessary or appropriate to dramatize this observation, although a ba-construction would have been grammatical. The next example shows the rather complementary distributions of the completive aspect marker wan and the ba-construction: (21)

‘The whole family was surrounding Grandpa Chang-Er, watching him drink tea, eat noodles and talk about this year’s harvest. Everyone was fascinated. What most excited them was that he ate up four large bowls of

 Dramatized Discourse

noodles, one medium bowl of fried sauce, and two garlic bulbs. Having finished eating, he asked for a big bowl of noodle soup and drained it within a few mouthfuls. After that, he straightened his back saying “The noodle soup helps the noodles go down!”’ a. Zui shi tamen xingfen de, shi ta ba si da wan most let 3pl. excite nom be 3sg. ba four large bowl miantiao, yi zhong wan zha jiang, he liang tou dasuan, noodle one medium bowl fried sauce, and two cl garlic dou chi-le-ge ganjing. all eat-pfv-cl clean b. Chi-wan, eat-compl kou ba mouth ba

ta 3sg. ta 3sg.

yao-le yi da wan mian tang, ji ask-pfv one large bowl noodle soup several he gan. drink dry

The contrast in distribution here is formidable. The two ba-clauses are dramatized depictions of two vivid scenes: how much and how furiously the person ate and drank. The phrase with the suffix wan, however, merely offers the objective temporal transition from eating to drinking and does not take part in the actual dramatization of the graphic happenings. Even though both baclauses simultaneously denote that the actions of eating and drinking were completed, they did not select the completive aspect marker wan to fulfill this semantic task; each of them has chosen an adjective as complement, e.g. ganjing ‘clean’ in the first and gan ‘dry’ in the second ba-clause, respectively. These are no arbitrary choices. Both adjectives express a meaning which surpasses “simple” completion to express thoroughness, which can be interpreted further as heartiness or even fierceness in the given contexts of the ba-clauses. Note also the universal quantifier dou ‘all, completely’ is a further booster that intensifies the dramatic force of the first ba-clause, and the quantifier ji-kou ‘a few mouthfuls’ emphasizes the speediness and heartiness of the eating denoted by the second ba-clause.47 Note also that the two ba-clauses are embedded in a cleft-like sentence that begins with zui shi tamen xing fen de shi ‘what most excited them was’, which marks the forthcoming ba-clauses as discourse focus. This arrangement is no accident either: The objective completion denoted by wan comes after the discourse focus. Because of the objectivity associated with


the suffix wan, it does not match the discourse frame of fierceness described by the ba-clauses. Given the meaning DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY of the ba-construction and the meaning of each aspect marker, we have been able to predict and then prove that the ba-construction does not select those aspect markers that concentrate on static simple facts and therefore discourage the dramatization of discourse. Let us now look at the opposite situation where the ba-construction correlates with the more excitable aspect markers and define the conditions under which the compatibility holds. Given that the perfective aspect marker le signals the change of situations, it should be no wonder that this aspect marker is the most frequently used with the ba-construction. Consider (22): (22)

“‘The Japanese devils are making trouble? Humph! Let them do it! In theYear of Gengzi, the Allied Troops of eight countries beat their way into Beijing, even the Emperor ran off, still they didn’t break off my head! Even eight countries wouldn’t do, what are a few Japanese dwarves capable of? Our place is blessed and no trouble will ever last any longer than three months!”’ Lian huangshang dou pao le, ye mei ba wo de naodai even emperor all run pfv still neg ba 1sg. gen head qu a. bai-le break-pfv go p

The ba-clause in this sentence is negation of a changing situation, indicating that the change of state, which could have happened, did not happen, where the perfective le implies the anticipation of the bounded event, or change. Thus the negation of this change stands out in contradiction to the change reported in the previous clause. That is, the emperor was scared away by the invading foreigners, which is also bounded by a perfective le. The contrast between the two events comes across by virtue of the focus particles lian. . . dou ‘even’ and ye ‘yet’ connecting the clauses. Such a glaring contrast and the dramatization created by the ba-construction jointly shape a discourse frame of braggart.



 Dramatized Discourse

(23)

“‘Why! You see, every time there is war, thieves, drug-dealers, and other tramps chin up. I know it clearly because I’m policeman. There’s nothing we can do about them although we know it all, for we don’t even know what tomorrow will be like for ourselves. This time, it’s even worse. Those who broke in were the Japanese. Of course they’ll let the hell break loose! You watch out! In the days to come, if there’s no open shouts for opium sales in the streets, you go ahead and dig out my eye-ball!’ Ganminger dajie shang yao bu gongrande yaohe yantu, ni ba tomorrow street up if neg openly shout opium, 2sg. ba zan de yanzhuzi wa-le qu. 1sg. gen eyeball dig-pfv go

This ba-sentence makes a dramatically assertive prediction of horror. The baconstruction in the form of imperative cannot be taken as a literal permission for the addressee to commit violence to the speaker. Rather, the speaker asserts his prediction as true under oath: he promises his eyeball to the addressee if his prediction is untrue. The dramatizing ba-construction serves as an exaggeration for the purpose of convincing the addressee of the inviolability of the speaker’s prediction. Here the perfective le intensifies the resoluteness with which the oath is uttered by offering boundary for the sworn action, i.e. the prospect of a change (as when the eyeballs are dug out). Since a predictably bounded action is presumably more readily conceivable and more conductible to the addressee, the speaker strengthens the convincing power of the oath by verbalizing his hypothetical promise in the perfective aspect. As has been pointed out previously, the durative aspect describes the continuation of an activity or state that is not dynamic. Consider the following example in which the durative zhe occurs in a ba-clause: (24)

“‘Well, that –” said Mr. Guan, dropping his eyelids and opening his mouth a little in order to put up a very opinionated look. “That is – hard to say.

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

After all it’s the government that doesn’t know how to deal with it. If they had dealt with it properly, the situation wouldn’t have become so bad!”’ Guan-xiansheng pn zuo chu hen make out very

ba yanpi chui-zhe, zui zhang-zhe yidian, ba eyelid drop-dur, mouth open-dur a:bit you jianjie de yangzi. have opinion assoc appearance

This sentence shows that static situations can be dramatized by the baconstruction to create graphic details in narration. Here the dramatizer ba controls two static situations, both being marked by the durative zhe such that a caricature of the person being depicted appears in front of the reader. The tentative aspect marked by verbal reduplication is frequently observed in ba-sentences in the colloquial language. Not surprisingly, in our corpus S, this combination occurs predominantly in constructed conversations that reflect the characteristics of the colloquial language. Let us first consider the following sentence for an example: (25) “‘Fourth-Uncle, later you go to the Qi’s and the Qian’s to give them a word. Ask them to burn their books and the like. The Japanese soldiers hate people who read books!”’ Jiao tamen ba shu shenme de shao-yi-shao. ask 3pl. ba book what assoc burn-one-burn

Here the amount of books to be burnt is of no importance, for the speaker does not intend to convey that only a small amount of books should be burnt. The intention is rather that the action of burning is tentatively suggested in a well-meant advice. With the tentativeness, the speaker saves himself any accusation of being intrusive and politely leaves the choice to the addressee who decides whether or not to take the advice. Therefore, the tentative aspect is not related to the propositional meaning of the sentence, but rather directly reveals the speaker’s communicative intention with the utterance on the interpersonal level. On the other hand, the bounding effect of the reduplication claims that the action in question is to be viewed in its entirety, thus reassuring that the hearer regards the suggested action as an integral objective, the tentativeness of the utterance notwithstanding.

 Dramatized Discourse

The following excerpt illustrates the context in which the experiential marker guo occurs in a ba-sentence: (26)

‘Having given them the assignment, Big Red Pepper walked out grumbling. With the name list and a few bills in her hand, Zhaodi put her tongue out, saying to Gaodi: “That’s it! The first thing is to get a few bucks. Big sister, let’s go out and have some fun, okay? When mother comes back, let’s just say that we’ve already visited all these families, but no one was home. And that’s it.”’ Deng mama hui lai, wait mother return come, dou baifang guo-le, keshi all visit exp-pfv, but

zanmen jiu shuo 1pl. incl just say dou mei you ren all neg have people

ba ji jia ba several family zai jia. at home

Here the experiential aspect marker guo is followed by the perfective aspect marker le. Thus both the boundary and the factuality of the activity of visiting are confirmed to create the effect that there has been a change and fulfillment and it should be undisputed as a fact. By using both guo and le, the speaker refuses to relate to details of the activity and rather treats it as a fact in its entirety. The discourse frame here can be identified as undisputable factuality. As already discussed in 3.1, this unquestionable factuality is presented as a means of deceit in a plotted conspiracy. As far as aspect is concerned, it is no longer novelty that the grammatical system of aspect constitutes a pragmatic category. Labov (1984) explains the difficulty in finding a “conjunctive definition” for the aspect category. The first reason, according to him, is that aspect is “a ‘way of looking’ at events” and that “ways of looking at things are closer to associations than concepts, and there is no clear route to agreement about how such ways of looking at things are to be described.” The second reason is that “certain aspect categories tend to acquire the feature of intensity”, intensity being defined as “the emotional expression of social orientation”. Labov discussed the use of the aspect marker done in African American Vernacular English, as an intensity marker expressing “emotional meanings like ‘intensive’ or social meanings like ‘moral indignation”’ (1984: 46).48 So far, it is clear that the use of aspect markers with

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

the ba-construction reflects the mechanism of discourse selection. That is, high dramaticity selects those aspect markers that signal higher cognitive salience of events. This can be said with regard to postverbal modifiers in general, as our analyses in the foregoing sections demonstrate. Let us now take a look at preverbal modifiers.

ii. Preverbal modifiers. In our overview of the syntactic composition of the ba-construction (3.1), we have considered the structure ba-O-ADV-V, where the adverbial is inserted between the ba-NP and the main verb such that the main verb itself is pushed to the very end of the ba-clause. We have also noticed that such a structure puts the action per se in an emphatic position and that a directive adverbial or the action quantifier yi ‘one’ plays a crucial role in justifying the use of such a structure. As will be shown later in the analysis (Section 6.1.5), the postposed VP of the ba-construction is offered the privileged sentence-final position where it is allowed to expand in informativeness. Since the amount of informativeness of the main verb remains constant, the expansion in total informational novelty essentially depends on the added verbal modifiers, postverbal or preverbal. When the VP takes a postverbal modifier, the modifier expresses change in direction, state, and ownership, etc. When the VP takes a preverbal modifier, this provides information regarding the manner in which the action is performed. The distinction between the preverbal and the postverbal position corresponds to the different degree of informativeness each type of modifier contributes to the description of events. This is evidenced by frequency counts. Recall that Table 6.5 shows that preverbal modifiers are much less frequently used with the ba-construction than postverbal modifiers, with a weighted ratio of 1:99.49 This discrepancy in frequency can be explained in terms of the information status of the respective modifier. A postverbal modifier possesses the sentence final slot, where expansion is more freely achieved without heed paid to what comes next. Such luxury of freedom is unavailable to a preverbal modifier with something constantly in its way, namely the main verb that comes after it. The positional restraint limits the volume of new information and thus the degree of discourse dramaticity a preverbal modifier can present. Within this limitation, therefore, only those preverbal modifiers that have the capacity to represent maximal dynamism with a minimum of form are justified. Directives and the kinetic action quantifier yi ‘one’ are apparently suitable candidates. Consider the following two ba-sentences in (27) and (28):

 Dramatized Discourse

(27)

“‘Where to have fun? Are we in the mood for fun?” said Gaodi with a frown. “That’s true, there’s no place to have fun! It’s all because of the Japanese devils!” said Zhaodi with her lips tightened. “And we have no idea when it’s peaceful again?” “Who knows! Zhaodi, if we don’t defeat the Japanese soldiers and our father goes to work for the devils, what are we going to do?” “You and me?” Zhaodi blinked her eyes and thought a moment. “I can’t figure it out! What about you?” “Well, I’d refuse to be fed by the parents!” “Wow!” Zhaodi jerked her neck (in dismay), “You just talk nicely, have you got any skill to earn your bread?”’ Zhaodi ba boer yi suo pn ba neck one shrink (28)

‘His heart is racing but his face is forced to appear calm and his eyes are rolling in search of a way out, like eyes of a fox that is being circled in by hounds. He’s a fraid that the neighbors would see him. He’s forcefully pulling his hat forward so that people won’t easily recognize him.’ Ta ba maozi yongli wang qian che. he ba hat forcely toward front pull

The ba-clause in (27) is sandwiched between two utterances in direct speech. The first utterance is an exclamation expressing mock disbelief and ridicule. This exclamatory sentence at the level of constructed conversation is matched with the depiction of the speaker’s exaggerated gesture, the jerk of head, at

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

the narrative level. With the scene well set, the verbal content of dismay is introduced in the form of the criticism and questioning. The ba-clause here serves to dramatize the gesture with which the direct speech is uttered. In this function, it is taken to accompany the direct speech such that what is verbally uttered is coupled with symbolic physical expression, or body language. The preverbal yi, punctual and succinct, brings out the abruptness of the action, which completes the predication. With the postverbal slot unoccupied, the baconstruction focuses on the verb itself. Such an organization creates enormous dramaticity with minimal formal input. The ba-sentence in (28) contains two preverbal adverbs yongli ‘use force, forcefully’ and wangqian ‘toward front, forward’. The two elements are not of equal weight in terms of cognitive salience and informativeness. As already mentioned in 3.1, the directive wangqian is indispensable for the grammaticality of the ba-clause, whereas the preceding adverb yongli is of secondary import and can be omitted without leaving the clause ungrammatical. Given that directionality of action, introduced preverbally, predicts change in the unfolding event as a result of the action, a preverbal directive is an essential component of novel information. In this sense it is viewed as a verbal modifier, a part of the predication core. Furthermore, the relative positions the two adverbs occupy in the ba-clause of (28), too, suggest the higher informativeness of the directive modifier relative to the preceding adverb yongli. Note that the adverb yongli represents a case of lexicalization from the instrumental phrase yong li ‘with force’, whereby the preposition yong is grammaticalized from the full verb ‘use’ in the same form. Instrumentals like this are not known as a part of the predication core, but rather as providers of optional information (Section 3.1). The diachronic background further hints at the secondary position of the adverb in relation to the preverbal modifier. .. Cognitive salience of event and salient participants Given our hypothesis of dramaticity and given the strategy of cognitive salience as motivation of discourse dramatization, we predict that an event is salient and noteworthy and therefore dramatizable when (a) the topic, or “the Chinese style subject”, in Chafe’s words, is salient and when (b) the object is specific and when (c) the information structure of the whole ba-clause facilitates the maximal inclusion of new information.

 Dramatized Discourse

... Salience of the subject (or topic) Chafe (1976: 46) defines subject as “the particular about which knowledge is being added”, or “the hitching post for the new knowledge”. He rightly observes that in Chinese “the first word of the sentence is subject, which is also topic, unless contrastive topic exists”. Li and Thompson (1976) make the typological claim that Mandarin Chinese is a topic-prominent language as opposed to a subject-prominent language. That is, the first NP of the sentence is not confined to the grammatical case of nominative, which is normally identified as the agent of the event. As far as a ba-clause is concerned, the NP on the left side of the ba-construction is the subject of the ba-clause. Normally this subject is indeed the agent that performs the action denoted by the verb. However, this is not absolute. Sometimes the subject does not coincide with the agent role, that is, for example, when the subject is the experiencer of the event. In this latter case, we prefer to speak of the topic of the ba-clause, lest a confusion of terminology should occur. The notion of salience is defined as ease of access (Langacker 1987). Chafe observes, “knowledge directly attached to the subject may be the most immediately accessible” (Chafe 1976: 44). Following Langacker and Chafe, we can say that the subject with immediate accessibility is a salient participant. Given that cognitive salience is a discourse strategy motivated by the meaning of the ba-construction, we are able to predict a non-arbitrary correlation between the use of the ba-construction and a subject of high accessibility. Prediction (6.6): ba-clauses will more frequently have an accessible subject than non-ba-clauses.

To measure salience of the subject, we conducted frequency counts with regard to the discourse familiarity of the entity in question. An entity is considered discourse familiar if it has been already mentioned in previous discourse and an entity is considered discourse new if it appears for the first time in the discourse. The counts are carried out with the 304 ba-clauses and the first 304 non-ba-clauses in the corpus S. Table 6.8 provides data on the familiarity of the subjects in the ba-clauses and in the non-ba-clauses, respectively. The data in Table 6.8 confirm our prediction. The subjects of the ba-clauses are predominantly (nearly 100%!) discourse familiar. The data on the familiarity of the subjects of the non-ba-clauses, on the other hand, show a skewing toward a roughly even distribution of familiar and new subjects. It may seem counter-intuitive that the speaker will draw attention to an entity that is already familiar, and not one that is new in the discourse. However, given that the speaker wants to dramatize an event, he will fulfill this goal more easily

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

Table 6.8 Choice of sentence type versus discourse familiarity of subject in corpus S Sentence type

Discourse familiar

Discourse new

Sample size

Ratio

ba-clause

302 99.3% 164 53.8%

2 0.7% 140 46.2%

304 100% 304 100%

151:1

non-ba-clause

1.16:1

if the hearer has been familiarized with the referent and no longer needs to seek the referent. The extra attention paid to seeking the referent would naturally dilute the attention required for the action and the change it brings about. As soon as we examine the information packaging of a ba-clause, it will be further clear how such an arrangement of information structure actually encourages the conveying of new information and therefore facilitates discourse dramatization. We will get back to the issue of subject familiarity in 6.1.5. ... Salience of the ba-NP It has been recognized in the literature on the ba-construction that the ba-NP normally refers to a specific entity (cf. Lü 1955; Sun 1997; Mei 1990; Huang 1978; Sybesma 1999). The explanations found in the literature are based either on one of the parameters of cardinal transitivity, namely, the strong individuation of the object, as offered by Hopper and Thompson (1982) or on the notion of “disposal” (Li & Thompson 1981). The prediction of the specificity of the ba-NP within the current framework is enabled by our hypothesis that the ba-construction signals HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY: We assume that when the speaker wants to draw attention to an event he considers dramatic, he must have in mind a particular entity as a participant of the event described by the verb. One cannot possibly draw attention from people to something that one cannot differentiate from a possible set of entities (cf. Hawkins 1978). Thus we are able to make the following prediction: Prediction (6.7): The ba-NP will be overwhelmingly specific than nonspecific.

Before testing this prediction, we shall first clarify the notion of specificity in relation to non-specificity and definiteness lest a confusion of terminology should arise. For Langacker, “the proper definition of specificity pertains to whether the speaker (S) or some surrogate speaker (S’) whose conscious awareness is being described, has some pre-existing or independent mental contact with” the designated instance (1991: 104). In plain words, the designated instance is specific if the speaker has a particular entity in mind at the time of

 Dramatized Discourse

the utterance. On the other hand, the designated instance is non-specific or arbitrary when such mental contact is not established and the speaker has no particular entity in mind. Specificity, therefore, is a speaker-oriented notion. The term definiteness, to the contrary, is hearer-oriented. According to Chafe, definiteness pertains to the speaker’s assumption of the identifiability of the referent on the hearer’s part. A referent is categorized as definite when the speaker assumes that the hearer already knows and is able to identify the referent the speaker is talking about. The status of definiteness is established either through prior mention in the discourse or through context entailments without antecedent in the discourse (Chafe 1976: 39–41). Kirsner (1972) accounts for the difference between specific and definite as “differentiation required but unmade” versus “differentiation required and made”. In Mandarin Chinese, like in English, the encoding of specificity does not iconically correspond to the encoding of definiteness. In other words, while the lexico-grammatical representations of definiteness always indicate the specificity of the referent, an indefinite representation may have either a specific or a non-specific reading. Mandarin Chinese conventionally uses the numeral yi ‘one’ in conjunction with a proper classifier to mark the indefiniteness of a referent. The numeralclassifier combination functions like the indefinite article a(n) in English and can yield either a specific or a non-specific interpretation of the referent (cf. Sun 1988). Consider the indefinite NPs in the following ba-sentences: (29)

‘He has seen clearly, the Japanese need not massacre the people with real dagars and guns, they can easily exterminate tens of thousand people merely by permanently occupying Peking! He wants to talk about this with his family, but today is Greatgrandpa’s birthday and so he can’t open his mouth. He has to hide grievance in his bowel and exhibit his love for the elders on the outside like a new coat.’

Ta xu ba 3sg. must ba xiang yi-jian like one-cl

weiqu fang zai duzi li, er ba xiaoxin, grievance put at belly inside and ba filial:heart xin paozi shide, lou zai waimian. new coat as:if show at outside


(30) ‘The granddaughter-in-law never went to school and has no school name. Only then when she was married, was she given a name – Yunmei, by her husband in the manner of awarding a Ph.D. degree.’

Chujia yihou, cai you ta-de zhangfu xiang zengsong boshi married later just by 3sg.gen husband like award doctor xuwei shide song gei ta yi-ge mingzi – Yunmei. degree as:if give to 3sg. one-cl name pn (31) “It’s all your mother-in-law who’s spoiled her! I’ve never seen anything like this: a young woman is all day long planted in the Beihai Park, the Dong-an Market, and – what is it? – the movie theater?”’

Yi-ge nianqingqing-de fudao yitian lao zhang zai beihai, one-cl young-assoc woman one:day always grown at B. dong-an shichang he – shenme dianyingyuan lai-zhe. pn market and what movie:theater come-dur

In the sense that a new entity, e.g. yi jian xin paozi ‘a new coat’ in (29), yi ge mingzi ‘a name’ in (30), and yi ge nianqingqing de fudao ‘a young woman’ in (31), is introduced for the first time into discourse and that the speaker considers it unknown and unidentifiable to the hearer, the NPs here in question represent indefinite referents and the numeral-classifier unit yi jian or yi ge is used in the same way as the English indefinite article a(n), which is “a grammatical marker the prime function of which is to indicate absence of anaphora, that is, absence of cohesiveness with a preceding text” (Traugott 1982: 252). However, the three NPs differ in terms of their specificity. The entity ‘a new coat’ in (29) is non-specific because the speaker does not have a certain item in mind and any new coat might fulfill the need of the general simile being made here in the expression. In Langacker’s words, the entity is not “part of the present reality” represented by the on-going discourse. The entity ‘a name’ in (30) has a specific reading because the speaker is introducing a particular name, one which is part of the present reality and with which the speaker has



 Dramatized Discourse

Table 6.9 Specificity of the ba-NP in corpus S ba-NP Specific

Definite Indefinite

Non-specific Sample size

Frequency

Percentage

286 18 0 304

94% 6% 0%

mental contact, although this entity is not yet identifiable to the hearer. In sentence (31), the indefinite NP occurs in a context where it is used to reintroduce an established, known and therefore identifiable entity. The speaker has the referent of the entity in mind and the hearer is able to infer that the speaker is talking about the same entity as in the previous utterance, that is, the referent of the personal pronoun ta in the previous sentence. Yet the indefinite NP is used as though its referent were all-new to the hearer. The use of the indefinite unit yi-ge in this situation seems to “create a distancing effect” on purpose, as Traugott puts it in her description of the use of the English indefinite article in similar discourse situations, where the referent is treated “as though it were not in the addressee’s consciousness” (1982: 253). To measure specificity of the ba-NP, we set the following criteria: a ba-NP is considered specific when it is or contains (a) a deixis in the form of demonstratives zhe or na in conjunction with proper classifiers; (b) an anaphora in the form of a pronoun or a pronominal adjective; (c) a determiner specifying and modifying the NP; (d) a generic term referring to an identifiable or inferable particular; (e) a proper name; (f) an abstract noun; (g) an indefinite NP with a specific reading. Actually all but (g) are features that also characterize a definite NP. For the criterion (g), it is necessary that the discourse context at large is consulted. Consider Table 6.9. Our prediction is confirmed: the ba-NPs in the corpus S are hundredpercent specific. For a detailed analysis, consider the following examples with the respective ba-NPs in boldface: (32)

‘Ruixuan didn’t want to tell the family what he’d done in the school. He planned to tell them about it later when he has found another job and has compensated the deficit. Yet Old-Two’s comment makes his anger explode. Though still smiling, his smile is not nice to look at; in a low but very clear

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

voice, he says: “I already quit that four hours of teaching!”’ Wo yijing ba na si-ge zhongtou ci diao-le. 1sg. already ba that four-cl hours quit dism-pfv (33)

‘Having listened to Zhaodi’s report, Xiaohe feels no particular emotions in his heart except that he finds the second son of the Qian’s a bit stupid: One person has just one life, it’s not worth it if one also kills himself just to crash dead others.’ Yi-ge ren zhi you yi-tiao ming, one-cl person only has one-cl life, er ye ba ziji rao shang, cai bu while also ba self add up just not

wei shuai si bieren, for crash dead others, shangsuan. worthy

(34)

“‘The situation doesn’t look good!” “Will there really be a war?” Mother of Little Shun raises a question on account of her status as wife of the oldest grandson. “All are very anxious!” The Old-Qi rises slowly and said: “Mother of Little Shun, get the broken jar ready to block the gate!”’ Ba ding da-men-de po gang yubei hao! ba push big-door-assoc broken jar prepare well

 Dramatized Discourse

(35)

“‘Humph! I just don’t understand why they want those lions?” she still wonders. “Why else would they be called Small Japanese? They like whatever they see!” Old-Qi is quite proud of his knowledge of the Japanese psyche. “In the Year of Gengzi, the Japanese soldiers entered the town plundering houses after houses. At first they wanted jewels and watches; later, they even took bronze buttons!” “Perhaps they took the bronze buttons for gold, stupid things!” says Mother of Little Shun in dismay. She herself is a person who’d never pick up a straw for free. “Older sister-in-law!” cried Ruiquan all of a sudden as though from another world. “Yow!” jumped older sister-in-law in surprise. “Third brother! What is it?” “Would you shut your mouth for a moment? What you said gets me on the nerve!”’ bi-shang yihuier xing bu xing? Ni ba zui 2sg. ba mouth shut-up one:moment okay not okay (36) ‘She held her husband on the arm and wanted to ask about every detail. Before she spoke, the Japanese soldier came out of the house and threw a leather belt to Sheriff Bai.’ Di bing yi you wu-zhong chu-lai, ba yi-gen enemy:soldier already from house-in exit-come ba one-cl pidaizi reng gei-le Bai xunzhang. leather:belt throw to-pfv pn sheriff


(37)

‘Most worried is Mother of Little Shun. The banquet is well prepared, but no one has come! The labor is hers which is worth little. But the money belongs to the family, if the food is all left over, others may be fine with her, but Old-Two Ruifeng will blame on her first! Even if Ruifeng would keep his mouth shut, she could’t throw out the food with a clear conscience, for everything has cost money! She really wants to steal out to invite Uncle Li, but would he come with his hands empty (bearing no gifts)?’ Ta hen xiang liu-chu-qu, ba Li-siye qing-lai. 3sg. very think slip-out-go ba pn invite-come

The ba-NP in sentence (32) contains the demonstrative na ‘that/those’ which refers to an entity that has been discussed in the immediately preceding discourse and represents a specific and definite entity. The pronoun ziji ‘oneself ’ in (33) is an indefinite pronoun referring generally to anyone. However, like the German generic pronoun man and the English generic pronouns one, you, and they, it may always be taken for granted (cf. Lambrecht 1994: 95) and can be seen as representing a “Situationally Evoked” specific entity. In sentence (34), the ba-NP is not only specific, it is inferable and definite by virtue of the two modifiers ding da-men-de ‘gate-supporting’ and po ‘broken’. The unmodified, formally generic entity zui ‘mouth’ in (35) is specific and definite because both the speaker and the hearer know which particular mouth it refers to. In sentence (36), yi-gen pi dai-zi ‘a leather belt’ is indefinite but specific in that it is introduced to the current discourse for the first time and therefore unidentifiable to the hearer, yet the speaker has its particular referent in mind. The proper name in (37) is unused in the current discourse but specific and definite through previous discourse and shared knowledge. In the section that follows, we shall focus on the relationship between the specificity of the ba-NP and the invariant meaning of the ba-construction and explain the reason why they correlate the way they do. In our data, the ba-NP may or may not always be definite; but it is in any case specific. The absolute specificity of the discourse participant represented by the ba-NP, we shall argue, is a necessary condition for the pragmatic function of the ba-construction – discourse dramatization. The speaker must have in mind a particular discourse



 Dramatized Discourse

participant in order to dramatize the event in which this participant is involved. If, however, the speaker is indifferent to the individuality of the discourse participant, then, he is presumably also indifferent to the event itself. The speaker would not be motivated to dramatize an event towards which his attitude is indifference. It is important to note here that both the specificity of the discourse participant and the dramaticity of the event are speaker-oriented and the coherence of speaker orientation in these two aspects is indispensable and obligatory for the proper use of the ba-construction. The necessity of semanticpragmatic coherence on the speaker’s part explains the absolute specificity of the ba-NP. On the other hand, since definiteness pertains to the hearer’s orientation as judged by the speaker, it is not a prerequisite for the dramatization of an event by the speaker. In other words, the speaker can dramatize an event even though the hearer may not yet be able to identify the discourse participant of the event. In fact, sometimes the speaker will want to do so in order to achieve a special effect – narrative suspense. Consider the following examples: (38)

‘Just as he sat down, the weeping from the west yard resumed like a downpour of rain after a moment of pause, with ever greater vehemence. Big-Red-Pepper smashed a “one-pie” suddenly upon the table, looking to the west, full of anger, saying, “This is too much! These two witches! Right in the middle of the festival, whose death are they howling for!”’ Dachibao ba yi-zhang yaobing mengde pai zai zhuo-shang. pn ba one-cl one:pie suddenly smash at table-up (39)

‘To hide her uneasiness, she called Little Shun: “Come quickly, Greatgrandpa bought clay bunnies for you!” Little Shun and Little Niuzi dashed over like two arrowheads. Little Shun snatched a clay bunny and Little Niuzi put a forefinger on the lips, looking at the bunny, panting for breath, her face all blushed in excitement.’

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

Xiao-niuzi ba yi-ge shizhi fang-zai zuichun shang. little pn ba one-cl forefinger put-at lip up

In both sentences (38) and (39) above, the specific but indefinite referents contribute to the depiction of theatrical scenes with graphic details. Both baclauses are used as a zoom-in device to initiate such a depiction by approaching the whole scene through a tiny unassuming detail which is new to the reader. This zoom-in device primarily serves to weave the theatrical components into a tight, coherent tapestry of narration and in so doing engages the reader to conjure up images of the on-going story. In (40) below, the indefinite ba-NP is used to create suspense about the event being communicated: (40)

‘Meanwhile, real news and rumor-like news stormed into Peking like bouts of wind from different directions and of different temperature. . . . . . What especially excited people in Little Lamb Barn was that a young automobile driver drove a truck into the ravine near South Mouth. The young man and more than thirty Japanese soldiers on the truck were all crashed into jam. Who that young man was, no one knew.’

Tebie shi Xiaoyangjuan de renmen xingfen-de shi yi-ge especially caus pn assoc people excite-nom be one-cl qingnian qichefu zai nankou fujin, ba yi-bu kache kai dao young driver at pn near ba one-cl truck drive to shanjian li-qu. ravine in-go

Within this piece of discourse, the indefiniteness of the ba-NP is coupled with the indefiniteness of the ba-subject NP which is also presented with the numeral-classifier unit yi-ge ‘one’. With this arrangement, the speaker creates a sense of mental uncertainty for the hearer – the speaker has both the particular person and the particular truck in mind when dramatizing the event and the hearer is left with the task to imagine the unknown. Note that the sense of

 Dramatized Discourse

uncertainty and suspense continues in the following discourse that confirms the unknown identity of the agent of the event. Note also that the ba-clause is here embedded in an inverted sentence that is functionally equivalent to what is called a wh-cleft sentence in English. The purpose of using such a structure, too, is to create suspense. These examples demonstrate that the definiteness of the discourse participant represented by the ba-NP is not required of the ba-construction. Meanwhile, the figures in Table 6.9 do exhibit that the definiteness of the ba-NP is preponderate with a percentage of 94%. This is to say, definiteness, though not obligatory, is an intimate correlate of the ba-construction. To explain this intimate correlation between the definiteness of the ba-NP and the function of the ba-construction, we need to take into consideration the speaker-hearer relationship in communication. Given that language is used to perform social acts, the speaker of a language will construct his discourse in a way such that his message is most easy for the hearer to infer for the intended social acts to be accomplished. In our case, when the speaker intends to dramatize an event, he naturally expects the hearer to pick out the participant of the event. This expectation gives rise to the speaker’s effort to invite or even force the hearer to figure out the referent. One obvious strategy the speaker employs to invite the hearer to discourse is to begin with something that the hearer can already take for granted, hence the use of a definite NP. In exploiting this strategy, the speaker may even go so far as to force the hearer to identify the referent by introducing it as a definite entity even if it may not be in the hearer’s consciousness at the moment of the utterance. In this situation, the difficulty in making out the referent on the hearer’s part is likely to produce the kind of psychological tension that adds to the dramatic force the speaker desires in the dramatization of the event. Let us consider the following discourse practice for an example: (41)

‘Old-Two is still listening to the radio in his room – the Japanese radio. Old-Three jumped to his feet in the yard, shouting: “Old-Two, if you don’t turn it off, I’ll smash it with a rock!”’

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

Ni yao bu ba ta guan shang wo jiu yong shitou zasui-le 2sg. if not ba 3sg. shut up 1sg. then use rock smash-pfv ta! 3sg.

On the narrative level, the pronoun ta ‘it’ after ba is anaphoric, referring to an entity in the previous narrative text, the radio. We can identify this referent with ease, for the textual antecedent is only one sentence back. However, on the level of the constructed direct speech, the referent is not immediately identifiable to the intended addressee. Let us consider the setting in which the direct speech takes place: The direct speech is addressed to a person who is not in immediate face-to-face interaction with the speaker – he is not only out of sight (in his room) from the speaker’s point of view (in the yard), but also unaware of his own role in the situation in which he is passively involved. Under this circumstance, the entity ta ‘it’ lacks a prior referent in discourse. Nevertheless, it is presented as definite and anaphoric. This referential incongruence forces the hearer to seek the missing link between the imposed givenness and the absent referent. Psychologically, such a forceful behavior both perplexes and provokes the addressee, the effect of which is that the addressee feels attacked out of the blue. This effect is in accordance with the angered speaker’s menacing declaration expressed in the dramatized hypothetical situation. That is, the addressee’s failure to turn off the Japanese radio would cause the speaker’s destructive action. This is an example of how the definiteness of the ba-NP creates a theatrical effect in tune with the dramaticity encoded by the ba-construction. We have mentioned in Chapter 5 that the ba-NPs of imperatives formed in the ba-construction are predictably definite by necessity. That is, the speaker will be more effective in making a command such that the hearer carries out a change desired by the speaker when the hearer can identify the referent named in the command. Table 6.10 confirms this prediction by showing that all the imperatives formed with the ba-construction take definite ba-NPs. On the other hand, imperatives can be formed freely without the help of the baconstruction. Table 6.11 shows that the total number of imperatives formed with the ba-construction is significantly smaller than the number of imperatives that are formed with a non-ba-construction in our corpus. Given the data in Table 6.10 and Table 6.11, it is obvious that Li and Thompson’s claim that the ba-construction is favored by imperative is less than accurate. A more accurate formulation would be that the ba-construction is favored by those imperatives that have a definite object. Because the imperative

 Dramatized Discourse

Table 6.10 Definiteness of ba-NP in imperatives in corpus S Definite

Indefinite

Total number of imperatives

11 100%

0 0%

11 100%

Table 6.11 Frequency of ba-imperatives versus non-ba-imperatives in corpus S ba-imperative

non-ba-imperative

Total number of imperatives

11 13.3%

72 86.7%

83 100%

mood directly expresses commanding, which is “one of the most intrinsically face-threatening speech acts” (Brown & Levinson 1987: 191), the use of imperatives is socially sensitive and is subject to social factors. When we look at the 11 ba-imperatives in their respective discourse contexts, we realize that all of them are issued by a superior to an inferior in terms of age or status (age entails status in the Chinese culture!), whereas the non-ba-imperatives in general are comparatively less face-threatening. Thus far, I have discussed the necessary link between the specificity of the ba-NP and the pragmatic function of the ba-construction. I considered the function of specific reference in both definite and indefinite cases in relation to the pragmatic goal of discourse dramatization. As Givón (1982b, 1984a) and Hopper and Thompson (1980, 1982) have noted, entities that tend to individuate strongly and have readily recognizable semantic referential identity tend to be more important perceptually – and recurrent – in discourse. Those events that involve what seem to be particulars to the speaker are psychologically more interesting to the speaker and therefore more worthy of amplification and dramatization than those that involve something the speaker has no interest to specify. .. Cognitive salience and information structure Language is used to communicate information. How information is communicated depends on the speaker’s communicative intention and his calculation of the communicability of the intended information. The notion of information structure is connected with the idea that all the elements in a sentence are not equally old/given or new and that the way they are structured into a proposition reflects the speaker’s pragmatic calculation of the communicability of the intended information. Given our hypothesis that the ba-construction signals


HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY, we predict that a clause formed with the ba-construction will have an information structure that maximally eases the expansion of new information. It is known that the speaker tends to use older information as a bridge to the intended new information. What is old versus what is new is a decision the speaker makes on account of his “hypotheses about the receiver’s assumptions and beliefs and strategies”, as Prince (1981) puts it. Lambrecht (1994) points out that successful communication of information relies on “constantly changing hypotheses on the part of the speaker about the hearer’s state of knowledge” with the progression of speech. These hypotheses provide the speaker with the only clues as to how to structure his propositions in an informative way. Lambrecht stresses that conveying information requires relating something new to something that is less so, because, as he puts it, “there is normally no ‘new information’ without already existing ‘old information”’ (1994: 46). The dichotomy given/new is defined by Halliday (1967b) in terms of intonation. What is new is an intonationally marked or unmarked focus, while what is given is the complement of a marked focus. Halliday maintains that “information focus reflects the speaker’s decision as to where the main burden of the message lies” and that “information focus is one kind of emphasis, that whereby the speaker marks out a part (which maybe the whole) of a message block as that which he wishes to be interpreted as informative” (1967b: 204). The speaker sets this informative piece of message in intonational focus and leaves what he deems less informative intonationally unmarked. Furthermore, Halliday specifies that new information versus given information is a matter of recoverability from the preceding discourse – textual or situational. Look at Halliday’s famous example: (42) a. John called Mary a Republican and then SHE insulted HIM. b. John called Mary a Republican and then she insulted him.

According to Halliday, sentence (42a) differs from (42b) in the givenness of the unit insulted. In (42a), SHE and HIM are intonationally marked foci and are identified as new, which forces the interpretation of the remaining unit insulted as given, hence recoverable from the previous discourse, which produces the inference that called a Republican is an insult. Sentence (42b) has no such intonational focus and thus the distribution of given/new is inverted: she and him are given by virtue of their recoverability in the previous text while insulted is new, which does not yield the same inference as (42a). Chafe (1976) explicitly regards the distinction between given and new as a function of limited consciousness on the hearer’s part, or salience. Salience



 Dramatized Discourse

pertains to the speaker’s judgment of the temporary states of the addressee’s mind as against long-term knowledge of the addressee. He defines given as “that knowledge which the speaker assumes to be in the consciousness of the addressee at the time of the utterance” while new as “what the speaker assumes he is introducing into the addressee’s consciousness by what he says (1976: 30).” Thus for Chafe, items that are introduced into the discourse for the first time, known or unknown to the hearer, are equally new, as the NPs in boldface in the following examples: (43) a. I saw your father yesterday. b. I saw a two-headed man yesterday. c. We got some picnic supplies out of the trunk. The beer was warm.

Clark and Haviland (1977) view given/new in the sense of “shared knowledge”. They consider given as information the speaker “believes the listener already knows and accepts as true” and new as information the speaker “believes the listener does not yet know” (1977: 4). Thus following Clark and Haviland, the bold NPs in (43a) and (43c) are given and the bold NP in (43b) is new. Prince (1981) claims that the speaker’s hypotheses about the hearer’s beliefstate are relevant to linguistic analyses only insofar “as that knowledge and those hypotheses affect the forms and understanding of LINGUISTIC productions” (1981: 233, emphasis in the original). She proposes an account of the correlation between linguistic forms and the values of “assumed familiarity”, a term she coined to subsume different aspects covered by “predictability/recoverability”, “salience”, and “shared knowledge”.50 Prince’ contribution is that she abandons the dichotomous view of given/new represented by previous treatments and emphasizes the scalar or hierarchical arrangement of assumed familiarity. She introduced the Familiarity Scale E/ES > U > I > IC >BNA > BN to show that there is a ranking from most to least familiar such that the information status of entities is relative, rather than absolute. To illustrate the notions on the scale, Prince offers the following examples (1981: 233, 22a–e): (44) a. b. c. d. e.

Pardon, would you have change for a quarter? Noam Chomsky went to Penn. I got on a bus yesterday and the driver was drunk. A guy I work with says he knows your sister. Hey, one of these eggs is broken!

On the Familiarity Scale, E stands for Evoked. An evoked entity is one which is already in the discourse-model on textual grounds, as is he in (44d). ES stands for Situationally Evoked. Situationally evoked entities “represent discourse par-

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

Table 6.12 Familiarity degree of NPs in ba-clause in corpus S Familiarity degree Evoked Unused Inferable BN A BN Sample size

NP1 297 2 3 1 1 304

NP2 (ba-NP) 97.7% 0.7% 1.0% 0.3% 0.3% 100%

233 5 48 12 6 304

76.6% 1.6% 15.8% 3.9% 2.0% 100%

ticipants and salient features of the extratextual context, which includes the text itself ”, e.g. when the speaker refers to himself or the addressee, as is you in (44a). U stands for Unused. Unused entities refer to proper names that are assumed to be known to the hearer, e.g. Noam Chomsky in (44b). I stands for Inferable. A discourse entity is inferable if the speaker assumes the hearer can infer it via knowledge and reasoning on account of what is already given, as the driver in (44c) can be inferred from a bus. IC stands for Containing Inferable, a subtype of Inferable, as one of these eggs in (44e) is inferable by a set-member inference from these eggs, which is Situationally Evoked. BNA stands for Brand-new Anchored, referring to an entity that is brand-new but linked to another discourse entity that is not itself brand-new, e.g. A guy I work with in (44d). BN stands for Brand-new Unanchored, as is a bus in (44c). The scalar approach to the information structure described above allows us to uncover the relative information status of the referents of the NPs in the ba-construction. In the following, we will examine the way information is structured in a ba-clause and explain how such an information structure is in the best interest of the speaker who intends to draw attention to and dramatize an event. Table 6.12 suggests that familiarity of the participants correlates with the relative sentence position they occupy: the more to the left an entity is, the higher familiarity it assumes. The first NP, which is the subject, or topic, of the ba-clause, correlates with absolute high familiarity. The ba-NP is comparatively low in familiarity, though it, too, is by and large familiar. Speaking of the relative familiarity of the individual sentence constituents, it is important to bear in mind that these individual constituents should not be directly matched with “old information” or “new information”. Instead, they should be viewed as “elements of information” that contribute to the total propositional information expressed by a sentence. This view is strongly advocated by Lambrecht (1994) who insists that propositional information is unsegmentable. He states (1994: 49):

 Dramatized Discourse

It is the establishment of the pragmatic relations between the denotata (referents) of individual sentence constituents and the propositions in which they function as predicates or arguments that makes information possible.

Knowing now the relative familiarity of the NPs in a ba-clause, we are still faced with the task to describe the general information structure that is characteristic of the ba-construction. We know from Section 3.1 that the ba-construction has two formally similar uses. That is, the same sequence ba-NP-VP can have two readings, the transitive reading ba-O-VP on the one hand, and the intransitive reading ba-S-VP on the other. An adequate analysis of the information structure of a ba-clause must presumably capture the formal similarity between the two readings. In the present study, I argue that the ba-construction as a whole occupies the broad focus domain of a ba-clause. Here we distinguish between two cases. First, when a non-subordinate ba-clause has a sentence-initial NP, which by virtue of its high degree of familiarity assumes the topic role of the proposition, we are dealing with a case of the categorical sentence (see Sasse 1987 on categorical versus thetic sentences) where the ba-construction, including the morpheme ba, the ba-NP, and the verb phrase, is identified with the predicate focus (PF). In this case, the primary accent (in spoken form) would be assigned to a subconstituent of the ba-construction, that is, the ba-NP. This is what Lambrecht and Michaelis (1998), following Höhle (1982, quoted in Lambrecht & Michaelis 1998), calls “focus projection” in the sense that the focus status of a larger constituent is projected onto an accented subconstituent. The ability of the ba-NP to receive focal accent depends on the speaker’s pragmatic presupposition about the referent of the ba-NP. The notion of pragmatic presupposition is defined in Lambrecht (1994) as “the set of propositions lexico-grammatically evoked in a sentence which the speaker assumes the hearer already knows or believes or is ready to take for granted at the time the sentence is uttered.” If the ba-NP is anaphoric or otherwise pragmatically presupposed, it is unaccentable. In this case, the primary accent falls by default on the next available subconstituent. This would be the following verb. If, however, the verb takes a further argument, NP2, as in ba-NP1-V-NP2, then this extra argument carries the primary accent, which, again, shows the integration of the verb and its argument within the broad focus domain. In reality, as Table 6.12 shows, the preposed ba-NP is pragmatically presupposed more often than not, which has the effect that a subsequent constituent usually gets the primary accent. This is to say that the verbal phrase, more often than not, shoulders the weight of pragmatic assertion, or information activation within the predicate domain.

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

The pragmatic significance of this arrangement is that the verbal phrase, being in the sentence-final position, is allowed to expand to contain more pragmatic assertion and thereby ensures the maximal enrichment of the predicate focus in its informativeness. Consider the following sentences: (45)

‘He hasn’t been able to decide how to leave and where to go, but his heart seems to have flown out of his body; standing in the house and on the yard, he sees high mountains and big rivers, bright flags, somber scenery and the sky and the earth in the color of scarlet. He wants to go to the battle field to fight. There, he should kick the red-sun flag away with one kick and set up the blue-sky-white-sun flag, letting it fly against the wind.’ ta yinggai ba TAIYANGQI yijiao ti-kai, er ba 3sg. should ba sun:flag once kick-away while ba QINGTIANBAIRIQI cha-shang. blue:sky:white:sun:flag plant-up (46) ‘Right. Those in the front call me and those in the back urge me. Why not chop me in HALF?’ (walking offstage in anger) Ba wo pi cheng LIANG-BAN hao bu hao? ba 1sg. chop into two half good neg good (47) ‘Tong-fang gave her right to ZHAODI, to show her modesty, in fact she is afraid of another fight with Big Red Pepper because of a piece in the mahjong game.’ Tongfang ba quanli rang-gei-le ZHAODI. pn ba right offer-give-pfv pn

 Dramatized Discourse

(48) ‘We are friends. Every spring and every fall, I always pat the top of the grave perfectly round and add some dirt. What I’m saying is we’re friends.’ Wo lao ba fen tou pai-de YUANYUAN de. 1sg. always ba grave top pat-res very:round crs

Sentence (45) contains two ba-clauses in semantic contrast. Both ba-NPs carry the primary accent, for their referents are not pragmatically presupposed. In sentence (46), the ba-NP wo ‘I’ is a personal pronoun and cannot be accented because it is situationally evoked and refers anaphorically to the speaker himself. Under this circumstance, the primary accent would fall on the next available NP liang-ban ‘two half ’ which is a further argument of the verb pi ‘chop’. In sentence (47) the referent of the ba-NP is knowledge-presupposed and therefore unaccentable. The primary accent falls also on the next available NP, the recipient in this case. The ba-NP in sentence (48) is discourse presupposed in that it is the topic of the previous discourse and is unaccented here by virtue of its discourse familiarity. The postverbal complement yuan-yuan ‘perfectly round’ as an extended argument of the verb receives the primary accent. Second, when a ba-clause takes no sentence-initial NP that turns up in a topic-comment, or presupposition-assertion, relation to the ba-construction, the ba-construction, which is otherwise the predicate, covers the entire range of the assertion. This peculiar situation presents a case of the thetic or eventcentral sentence (Sasse 1987, 1995, and 1996), also known as the “eventreporting” or the “all-new” sentence. In this case, the ba-NP acts as the subject of the proposition and is uniformly assigned the primary accent. Here the broad focus domain of the proposition spreads over the entire clause or sentence and we speak of sentence focus (SF). It is important, however, to bear in mind that in both the ba-clause with a PF and the ba-clause with an SF, the behavior of the ba-construction itself is constant. It consistently occupies the broad focus domain of both sentence types. In other words, the ba-construction constitutes the unpredictable element, or new information, of a proposition in both sentence types. The only difference is that, in the PF sentence, it serves to “augment the hearer’s knowledge of the given sentence topic”, to use Lambrecht and Michaelis’ (1998: 479) words, whereas it is presented as an augmentation of the hearer’s knowledge in its own right in the SF sentence. Let us consider Chao’s example, reproduced here for convenience, as (49), where the primary accent is marked by capitals:

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

(49) Ba ge ZEI pao-le. ba cl burglar run-pfv ‘The BURGLAR escaped!’

Note that in sentence (49) the classifier ge, which, much like the numeralclassifier combination yi-ge, serves the function of an indefinite article, is a grammatical strategy corroborating with the pragmatic choice of accentuating the NP zei ‘thief ’ to mark the referent of zei as discourse-new. Not only the subject is new, the entire event that the thief escaped is presented as something new. How, then, does the thetic ba-sentence differ from a simple thetic sentence that does not involve the ba-construction? Let us consider (50) as a variant of (49): (50) ZEI pao-le. burglar run-pfv ‘The BURGLAR escaped!’

Here the sentence takes a simple SV form where the subject is given the primary accent and the focus domain is coextensive with the whole sentence. This is the unmarked thetic sentence used as an unbiased event-reporting mechanism. In comparison to sentence (50), sentence (49) must be interpreted as biased in the sense that the speaker makes an investment of his own attitude in the proposition. I call this peculiar sentence type “attitudinal thetic sentence”. In other words, sentence (49) not only reports that something has happened, but also expresses the reporter’s emotion and attitude in response to the happening being reported. In colloquial register, attitudinal thetic sentences are used to express an interest in the rich particularity of people’s lives, which can be summed up in a word: gossip (see Tannen 1990: Chapter 4 on gossip). Gossip is both story-telling and active involvement and often serves to create rapport between the conversation partners. Consider another example by Chao, reintroduced here as (51): (51) Ta ba ge ZHANGFU si-le, keshi bujiu YOU jia-le ge zhangfu 3sg. ba cl husband die-pfv but soon again marry-pfv cl husband ‘(Speaking of her, you know what,) her HUSBAND died on her, but before long she got married AGAIN.’

 Dramatized Discourse

Here we are dealing with a categorical sentence in which an attitudinal thetic clause is embedded. The ba-clause simultaneously encodes the news ‘her husband died and she soon got remarried’ and the gossipy speaker’s attitude towards the news – an event that is perceived as inappropriate and regrettable judged against the ethical norms with which the speaker is identified. The dramatic way of making the report indicates that the speaker is making a fuss about and drawing attention to the event. Another type of thetic sentence in Mandarin Chinese may be mentioned in passing here. This is the thetic sentence in the VS order. This kind of thetic sentence, very much like the VS thetic sentences in Modern Greek, as described by Sasse (1995d), is restricted to specific semantic types of situations and is employed as what Sasse calls the “sudden event strategy”. Consider the following examples: (52) Gua feng le, xia yu le Blow wind crs fall rain crs ‘The wind is blowing, the rain is coming down!’ (53) Si ren le die person crs ‘There is dying! (Dying is happening!)’ (54) Xiang ling le ring bell crs ‘The bell is ringing.’ (55) Lai ren le! Kuai cang qi-lai Come person crs quick hide up-come ‘Someone is coming! Hide quickly!’

Sentences (52)–(55) report sudden events including sudden meteorological happenings. In these sentences, the subject and the verb are “in very close semantic agreement” to represent some “prototypical activity” (Sasse 1995: 159). The VS thetic sentence is actually the default way of encoding such sudden meteorological happenings in Mandarin Chinese. The suddenness of the events per se is too overwhelming for individual entities involved in them to be noticed. Note that all these sentences end with the sentence-final particle le indicating “currently relevant state”, the pragmatic function of which is to mark “imminent states to which some reaction is expected” (Li & Thompson

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

1981: 296).51 Because of the current relevancy of the ongoing events, all these sentences translate into English in the present progressive tense. These sentences, however, express little of the speaker’s subjective opinions of or attitudes toward the states being reported, but rather iconically represent the panicky mental reactions in the unconsciousness. In this sense, they stand in opposition to the ba-construction that purposefully dramatizes the events being described. Our discussion of the information structure of a ba-clause in the foregoing paragraphs reveals that the relationship between sentence stress and sentence focus is not one of iconicity. The primary accent falls on a subconstituent of the ba-construction, though the entire ba-construction is the focal unity. In the case of the thetic sentence, the primary accent always falls on the ba-NP as the subject. In the case of the PF sentence, the primary accent may or may not fall on the ba-NP, depending on its activation status in discourse. On the other hand, a topical ba-sentence can be intonationally marked when the usual sentence-final stress yields to the intended contrastiveness of a non-sentence-final constituent in a given discourse environment. Any constituent other than the sentence-final VP can bear contrastive stress. It can be the subject NP, when, for instance, this is uttered as a contrastive topic, which receives marked stress. Here “marked” means strongly emphatic in prosodic terms by virtue of deliberate pause that breaks the smooth flow of utterance, pitch movement, duration, and intensity (cf. Chao 1968: 35; Halliday 1967b: 203). Consider sentence (56) for an example: (56)

“‘Big sister-in-law, you’re always like that! No matter who’s right and who’s wrong, and no matter how serious the matter is, you always ask people to stop arguing!” “You don’t want me to be like this, what else am I supposed to be like?” Mother of Little Shun has no intention to quarrel with Old-Three, but she wants to talk some more so that Great-grandpa gets no chance to open fire at Old-Three. “You all come to me asking for food when you’re hungry and asking for clothes when you’re cold. With these things on top of me, how can I take care of big issues under the sky?” THIS question (more than anything else) got at Old-Three.’

 Dramatized Discourse

ZHE, ba Laosan wen zhu-le. this, ba pn question struck-pfv

Here a noticeable pause is created after the utterance of the deictic subject NP zhe ‘this’ before the following sequence of constituents is uttered, as the comma suggests. Meanwhile, the syllable zhe is prolonged and its falling syllabic tone falls even lower. Under this circumstance, the sentence-final VP resigns from its privilege to receive sentence stress. All these efforts amount to one effect, that is, zhe is made the contrastive topic of the utterance. Usually a ba-NP that is anaphoric, e.g. a pronoun, does not receive primary accent.52 However, it is assigned primary accent when it is meant to express a contrastive message. Consider the following sentence: (57) “‘I’m the director’s daughter, what dare the detective do with ME?”’ Zhen tan gan ba WO zenyang-le? detective dare ba 1sg. how-pfv

In the ba-clause of this sentence, the ba-NP wo ‘me’ receives a contrastive stress, which indicates the extraordinariness of the entity being referred to, in contrast to whatever is ordinary. Note that the contrastiveness of the ba-NP owes to the proposition denoted by the first clause of the sentence. Therefore, contrastive stress is discourse-relevant and appreciable trans-clausally. With the information structure of a ba-sentence briefly sketched out, now the question naturally arises: How does the observation of the information structure mesh with our prediction of the strategy of COGNITIVE SALIENCE, and thus supporting the hypothesis of HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY of the ba-construction? The answer is already implicit in the observation itself, that is, the predicate, especially the VP, is set in the canonically privileged focus position. Such a position allows the VP to contribute maximal new information to the proposition. Naturally, the speaker has a great lot to utter about an event he deems worthy of dramatization. To add dramatic fire into the arsenal of speech, strategically it is in the speaker’s best interest to dramatize precisely there where the center of information is located and where attention can be most generously granted. This is the sentence-final position. To maximize the novelty the VP contributes to the proposition, any number of modification is allowed to this entity as long as conversational principles such as Grice’s Maxim of Quantity, for instance, are not impinged upon. The VP, at the end of the sen-


tence, can expand with enormous freedom if the speaker’s discourse intention so requires. It is this privileged freedom in information expansion on the part of the VP that not only allows but also encourages dramaticity in discourse. On the other hand, if the VP of a ba-construction contains only minimal new information, e.g. when it contains a single unmodified verb, it fails to live up to the privilege assigned to the sentence position it occupies. In this case, the use of the ba-construction is unlikely to be justified. Conceivably, with little new information the speaker has hardly any chance to dramatize the event being communicated. Conversely, if the speaker does not wish to dramatize an event, he is unlikely to pick the ba-construction, but rather an SVO structure or an OSV, or something else, depending on the specific “background of expectation” (Sasse 1987) relevant in individual situations. This correlation between the information status of the postposed VP and the discourse function of dramatization explains why the acceptability of a basentence is intimately related to the presence of sufficient verbal modification, which has been verified on account of quantitative data in Section 6.1.3. On the textual level, the new information introduced by the postposed VP of a ba-construction is observed to extend to the subsequent clause(s). This extension is usually represented by the fact that the subject of the subsequent clause(s) is the same as the subject of the ba-clause and is omittable and usually omitted by virtue of coreference. This, too, speaks for the creation of dramaticity by means of the ba-construction, for, when the on-going of an event is dramatized, it is more likely than not that the dramatic force created within the utterance involving the ba-construction spills over, as it were, into the utterance that follows it. Consider sentences (58)–(60) in our corpus: (58)

“‘Old-Three just talked with me for quite a while, he said that if we don’t resist the Japanese, we can’t even keep Peking!” Mother of Little Shun spoke fast and clear. “As he spoke, he got so upset that his face all reddened. And (he) kept rubbing his fists and scratching his palms! So I kept comforting him. I said our Qi family had never offended the Japanese and they wouldn’t come to bully us anyway! I said this out of my best in-



 Dramatized Discourse

tention to get him calm down; but I’d never expected that he’d round his eyes at me, as if I took side with the Japanese!”’ Ta ba lian dou qi hong-le, you shi cuo quan, you shi 3sg. ba face all anger red-pfv plus be rub fist again be mo zhang-de! scratch palm-csc (59)

‘In the eyes of the common people, the Qians are all somewhat odd. To people, whoever it is, they are extremely polite while keeping a certain distance. So it appears that they respect and contempt everyone all at once. The whole family wear clothes that are ten or twenty years behind the fashion. Today, Old Mr. Qian still wears a big red felt wind cap. It seems that their women never step out of the gate; even at times of necessity when they have to buy some needles and threads at the gate, they only open the gate a tiny bit, as if they were afraid to let any indoor secret leak out.’

Yu biyao-de shihou, ta-men bixu zai men-kou mai meet necessary-assoc time 3sg.-pl. must at door-mouth buy dian zhen xian shenmede, ye zhi ba men kai-kai bit needle thread and:the:like, also only ba door open-open yi-dian fengzi, fangfu pa zoulou-le men-zhong shenme mimi one-bit crack as:if fear leak-pfv door-inside some secret shide. as:if (60) “‘The day before yesterday, we summoned the Buddhist Goddess, and even took a picture of her. Wonderful, unspeakably wonderful!”’

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

Women ba Xiwangmu qing xia lai-le, hai gei ta 1pl. ba goddess summon down come-pfv even give 3sg. ge xiang. zhao-le shoot-pfv cl picture

Here we observe that the two subjectless clauses following the ba-clause of sentence (58) are the discourse continuation of the dramatized event ‘he got angry’. They add to the bulk of the depiction of getting angry started by the ba-clause and in so doing complement and enhance the degree of the desired dramaticity. The repetition of the modal adjunct you ‘again, plus’ and the evidential marker shi ‘be’ is an explicit representation of the spillover effect. Likewise, the subjectless clause following the ba-clause of (59) serves to complement and further intensify the dramatic force expressed by the ba-clause. The subjunctive marked by fangfu. . . side ‘as though’ creates a surreal sense that fulfills the task of intensification. In sentence (60), the additive adjunct hai ‘even, moreover’ markedly signals the extension of the dramaticity denoted by the preceding ba-clause. These sentences illustrate the discourse connection between the dramaticity denoted by the ba-construction and the semantics of the succeeding clause(s). This phenomenon is further evidence of the hypothesis that the baconstruction is a structure that conveys the invariant discourse meaning of high dramaticity. In this section, I have surveyed the information structure typical of the ba-construction and discussed the essential pragmatic contributions such an information structure makes to the dramatization of events. We have demonstrated that at the information level, the salient properties, i.e. accessibility of the subject-NP, specificity and familiarity of the ba-NP, and the general fashion of information packaging in a ba-clause, work together to insure that maximal attention is directed onto the verb phrase that occupies the sentence-final position. By means of these arrangements, the pragmatic assertion is maximally focused on the unfolding of the event described by the VP. Thus the event itself is assigned maximal noteworthiness. These observations made of the information structure mesh with our hypothesis that the ba-construction is a sign that signals HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY. Up to this point, our prediction of cognitive salience has been confirmed at the clause level on account of quantitative evidence with regard to the number of participants, the dynamism of the event as represented by the verb, the use of verbal modifiers that specify aspectual values of primarily changing situa-

 Dramatized Discourse

tions, the salience of the participants and the information structure that allows maximal dramaticity. The meaning that we postulated for the ba-construction, namely HIGH DRAMATICITY, has proved viable. In the section that follows, we will proceed to investigate the way cognitive salience is represented at the trans-clause at inter-event level.

. Cognitive salience at the trans-clause level At the trans-clause level, when a sequence of events is introduced, all the events are not equally important. The event of noteworthiness and thus dramatizability is likely to be foregrounded. The notion of foregrounding is derived from Hopper who states (1979: 213): It is evidently a universal of narrative discourse that in any extended text an overt distinction is made between the language of the actual story line and the language of supportive material which does not itself narrate the main events. I refer to the former – the parts of the narrative which relate events belonging to the skeletal structure of the discourse – as FOREGROUND and the latter as BACKGROUND. [emphasis in the original]

In order to study the foregrounding of dramatic events, we examine the basentences in the text against the semantic and pragmatic “foregrounding properties” proposed by Hopper (1979). On the other hand, we examine the larger semantic-pragmatic relationships underlying the text in which a ba-sentence occurs by looking at cohesive markers used in linking one event to another. The examination of discourse cohesion markers (in Halliday & Hasan’s sense, 1976) is important because the interpretation of a ba-sentence presupposes the established connection it assumes with an adjacent sentence or clause. With regard to cognitive salience at this level, we predict that within a larger stretch of discourse (conversation or text), the event that is regarded as most salient or noteworthy and thus dramatizable will be foregrounded by linguistic means. Prediction (6.8): Cognitive salience is likely to be marked by linguistic signs that signal the foreground-background distinction.

In the following section, we shall first examine statistic facts concerning the foregrounding properties in Hopper’s terms.

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

.. Foregrounding properties Hopper (1979) studied a number of languages in the world with respect to the way main line events are foregrounded in narratives. He summarized common grammatical properties of foreground versus background events. Consider the general foreground-background properties suggested by Hopper (1979: 216), which is adapted into Table 6.13. The properties listed in Table 6.13 are not surprisingly new to us. In fact, five out of the seven properties, namely, b, c, d, e, and f are already confirmed by our data-driven analyses to be characteristic of an event encoded by the ba-construction. Two properties (a) chronological sequencing and (g) realis still demand investigation. To do so, we examined all the 304 ba-clauses and the first 304 non-ba-clauses in the corpus S with regard to chronological sequencing. An event is considered chronological in sequentiality if it is part of the narrator’s assertion of main line events rather than the narrator’s commentary (Hopper 1979: 215). The data in Table 6.14 show that roughly two thirds of the events encoded with the ba-construction are in chronological sequence whereas more than two thirds of the events described by non-ba-constructions are achronological. This result confirms that events encoded by the ba-construction are more often in the foreground in terms of chronological sequentiality than events described by non-ba-constructions. Table 6.13 Properties of foreground-background distinction

a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

Foreground

Background

Chronological sequencing Perfective (bounded) Subject presupposed Predicate new Unmarked distribution of focus in clause Dynamic, kinetic events Realis

Simultaneity or overlapping Imperfective (unbounded) Subject new Predicate known Marked distribution of focus in clause Statis, descriptive situations Irrealis

Table 6.14 Choice of sentence type versus sequentiality of event in corpus S Sentence type

Chronological

Achronological

Sample size

ba-construction non-ba-construction

198 86

106 218

304 304

65.1% 28.3%

34.9% 71.7%

100% 100%

 Dramatized Discourse

Table 6.15 Choice of sentence type versus realness of event in corpus S Sentence type

Realis


207 160

Irrealis 68.1% 52.6%

97 144

Sample size 31.9% 47.4%

304 304

100% 100%

As for the property (g) realis, we counted all the cases that involve conditional, hypothetical propositions represented by subjunctives, modals, interrogatives, and imperatives. These cases belong to the category irrealis and the rest are considered as representing the category realis. Consider Table 6.15. Table 6.15 provides evidence that the ba-construction is more than twice as frequently used to describe events that fall into the realis category as it is used to encode events that belong to the irrealis. By contrast, events described by non-ba-constructions are nearly evenly distributed between the realis and the irrealis category. Thus, the predominant foreground status of events encoded by the ba-construction is confirmed. Judged against the parameters of the foreground-background distinction, the events encoded by the ba-construction uniformly exhibit conformity with the foreground status in discourse. It shall be mentioned that Hopper and Thompson (1980) consider the foregrounding-backgrounding distinction proposed by Hopper as correlating to the grammatical distinction between transitive and intransitive clause. The inadequacy of this putative correlation is discussed by Croft (1990: 163) who notes that “there appears to be no reason to posit the foreground-background distinction as causally prior to the other properties that make up the transitivity prototype”. DeLancey (1987) argues that the correlation between foreground with high transitivity and background with low transitivity is not complete. He proposes cognitive salience as an explanation for the apparent correlation between foreground and high transitivity. He states (1987: 55): Transitivity in morphosyntax is associated with foregrounding in discourse because events which approximate the transitive prototype are more likely to be of interest, and thus inherently more likely to constitute foregrounded information.

As already noted in 4.2, the notion of transitivity is inadequate in explaining the discourse function of the ba-construction. The notion of cognitive salience in terms of interestingness transcends transitivity and thus not merely restates the appearance of correlation. Instead, it offers a more basic explanation as to why the semantic pattern of transitivity appears to correlate with the discourse pattern of foregrounding. In the same spirit, the foregrounding properties

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

represented by the ba-construction are be better understood in terms of cognitive salience, which we specify as the noteworthiness of the event. In light of this argument, the correlation between the ba-construction and foregrounding supports our prediction that an event encoded by the ba-construction is noteworthy and is therefore likely to be dramatized. However, we are fully aware that the discourse distinction between foreground and background is mainly concerned with narration and leaves the more subjective assertions made by the narrator unaddressed. The concentration on narration naturally determines that the given properties reveal little of the narrator’s emotional and attitudinal investment in the ba-clauses, which, according to the present study, is an important aspect of the meaning of the ba-construction. Therefore, in the following part, we will examine another mechanism, namely, textual cohesion linking, which will shed light on the noteworthiness of the dramatizable events from a different perspective. .. Textual linking Conjunctive relations can be described as the kind of textual linking in discourse that is formally marked by conjunctive markers (conjunctions and discourse adjuncts) that indicate the cohesive relations between the sentences (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 244). It is important to note that “conjunctive relations are not logical but textual”. That is, conjunctive relations have their linguistic representations, or markers. Conjunctive markers, as I shall demonstrate in the following part, simultaneously connect and contrast a ba-clause with its neighboring clauses in a cohesive piece of discourse. The connection and contrast, Halliday and Hasan point out, can be both “external” and “internal”, whereby external refers to ideational, or propositional relations “interpreted in terms of the EXPERIENTIAL function of language” to represent “our experience of external reality” while internal refers to social or interpersonal relations in terms of “the speaker’s own ‘stamp’ on the situation – his choice of speech role and rhetorical channel, his attitudes, his judgments and the like” (1976: 240). We assume that a clause encoding a noteworthy event, which is meant for dramatization, is likely to be foregrounded by cohesion markers that contrast this clause with its neighboring clauses. Thus we can make our prediction: Prediction (6.9): A ba-clause will be foregrounded by cohesion markers more frequently than a non-ba-clause.

 Dramatized Discourse

Table 6.16 Frequency of ba-clause versus non-ba-clause in CR in corpus S Sentence type

In CR


212 88

Sample size 69.7% 28.9%

304 304

100% 100%

Table 6.17 Distribution of CR in ba-clause in corpus S Causal

Adversative

Additive

Temporal

Total

58 27.4%

102 48.1%

37 17.5%

34 16%

212 100%

Table 6.16 shows the overall tendency of a ba-clause to be embedded in a conjunctive relation (hence CR) and Table 6.17 provides data on the distributions of four types of CR in the corpus S. Table 6.16 reveals that up to seventy percent of all the 304 ba-clauses in the corpus S are embedded in a conjunctive network whereas only less than one third of the non-ba-clauses are found in a conjunctive relation. Prediction (6.9) is thus confirmed. Table 6.17 shows that all the four conjunctive relations are found in the context of the ba-construction and that the adversative relation, which expresses contrast and contradiction, makes up the highest percentage, followed by the conditional (causal) connections. In the following, we shall examine how the ba-clause interacts with the four types of conjunctive connection: additive, conditional (causal), adversative, and temporal connections, which are described by Halliday and Hasan in their analysis of conjunctive cohesion (1976: 238–267). The causal relation pertains to a special sequential relationship between two situations that can be perceived as cause and effect. Consider (61)–(65): (61)

‘In the beginning when he just bought the house, he had to rent out the east room and the south room, just so the yard could appear not too empty; today, his own children and grandchildren hardly fit into the house.’

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

Ta xu ba dongwu he nanwu dou zu chu-qu, cai 3sg. must ba east:room and south:room all rent out-go, conj neng xian zhe yuan nei bu tai kongxu. can appear dur yard inside not too empty (62)

‘In the year of the Resistence War against the Japanese, Great-grandpa Qi is seventy-five. The household no longer concerns him, currently his important job is to water the flower pots in the yard, to tell stories about the past, to feed the little yellow bird in the cage, and to take his greatgrandchildren for a leisurely stroll in the streets and to the Huguo Temple. However, ever since the loud bombing over the Lugou Bridge, he has to be a little bit concerned. Why, he is the great-grandfather of a four-generation family. His son is already more than fifty years old, while his daughter-in-law is permanently ill, therefore old great-grandfather Qi summons his eldest granddaughter-in-law.’

Erzi yijing shi guo-le wushi sui-de ren, er son already be pass-pfv fifty year-assoc person and er-xi-de shenti you lao shi name bingbingwaiwai-de, son-wife-assoc body again always be that ill:and:listless-csc, suoyi Qi lao taiye ba zhang sun xifu therefore pn old great-grandfather ba eldest grandson wife jiao guo-lai. summon over-come

 Dramatized Discourse

(63)

‘Old Qi both envies the house of Number Three and contempts all the men and women who live there. What makes him particularly unhappy is that his second granddaughter-in-law always tries to compete with the Guans’ women in clothes and make-ups and that his third grandson Ruiquan often has contact with Miss Guan Zhaodi. So, whenever he gets angry, he’ll point to southwest, saying to his children and grandchildren: “Don’t learn from them! You’ll have no good result!” This implies: If Little-Three mixes with the Zhaodi girl again, he’ll throw him out of the door’. Jiaruo Xiaosan if pn ta gan chu 3sg. drive out

zai he Zhaodi guniang lai-wang, ta hui ba again with pn girl come-go, 3sg. will ba men qu de. door go csc

(64)

‘Old-Two was still listening to the radio – the Japanese Radio. Old-Three was in the yard, his feet jumping up very high (in anger): “OldTwo, if you don’t turn it off, I’ll crash it with a rock!” This scared Little-Shun who rushed into grandma’s room. Grandma called in a weak voice: “Old-Three! Old-Three!”’. Ni yao bu ba ta guan-shang, wo jiu yong shitou zasui-le 2sg. if not ba it. shut-up, 1sg. then use rock smash-pfv ta! 3sg. (65) “‘You think the Japanese, holding Peking in their mouth, will then spit it out?”

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

“Unless (we) give him all the interest of North China!”’ liyi quan gei-le ta. Chufei ba huabei-de unless ba north:China-assoc interest complete give-pfv 3sg.

Sentence (61) contains a specific causal relation, that is, the conditional. Note that the first clause in the form of the ba-construction is not a hypothetical event, but a specific possibility that entails the situation expressed by the second sentence. The sense of necessity is conveyed by the epistemic modal verb xu ‘must, need’ before the ba-construction, which intensifies the causal relation between the two sentences. In this causal relation, the ba-clause is foregrounded. (62) can be understood as a causal relation in the form of ‘a, therefore b’, whereby a entails b without being its cause. The situations described in the first two sentences are not the cause of the content of the third sentence, but rather rationales leading to the conclusion denoted by the ba-construction. Excerpt (63) has two sentences conditionally related to each other: the first sentence is a possible circumstance, under which the content of the second sentence holds. The same cohesion is observed with the example (64), though this one contains a negative polarity ‘if not a, then b’. Example (65) of the causal relation takes the form ‘no a, unless b’: the utterance of the first speaker suggests the impossibility of a, that is, the Japanese’ giving up Peking; the utterance of the second speaker judges that a is only possible under the circumstance of b, that is, giving the Japanese north China. Thus the ba-sentence conveying b is put in the spotlight by virtue of its judged uniqueness as a singular valid cause of a. A second kind of discourse relation is the adversative relation which signals the contrast that holds between propositions. Consider the following sentences: (66)

‘In the eyes of the common people, the Qians are all somewhat odd. To people, whoever it is, they are extremely polite while keeping a certain distance. So it appears that they respect and contempt everyone all at once. The whole family wear clothes that are ten or twenty years behind the fashion. Today, Old Mr. Qian still wears a big red felt wind cap. It seems

 Dramatized Discourse

that their women never step out of the gate; even at times of necessity when they have to buy some needles and threads at the gate, they only open the gate a tiny bit, as if they were afraid to let any indoor secret leak out.’

Yu biyao-de shihou, ta-men bixu zai men-kou mai meet necessary-assoc time 3sg.-pl. must at door-mouth buy dian zhen xian shenmede, ye zhi ba men kai-kai bit eedle thread and:the:like, also only ba door open-open yi-dian fengzi, fangfu pa zoulou-le men-zhong shenme mimi one-bit crack as:if fear leak-pfv door-inside what secret shide. like (67)

‘The daughter-in-law is sick and hearing about the trouble caused by the Japanese, she gives a long sigh, fearing that she might die in one of these days and perhaps the coffin couldn’t get out of town! The worry makes her even sicker. Ruixuan frowns his eyebrows tightly, but doesn’t utter a word; he’s head of the house and can’t keep sighing when danger emerges.’ yi sheng bu Ruixuan ba meimao zhou-de henjin, er pn ba eyebrow wrinkle-res tight while one sound not chu. emit (68) ‘Of course, if he’s willing to spend money on antiques, there’re “Glaze Factories” everywhere. However, he doesn’t want to spend money on these things.’

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

Bu-guo, ta bu xiang ba qian hua zai zhe-zhong but 3sg. not want ba money spend at this-kind dongxi-shang. things-up (69)

“‘(They) are still in the mood to sing!” says Ruixuan, frowning. “They depend on it for bread!” says Tianyou who dislikes opera himself but cannot deny the fact. Unintentionally, his words catch people’s heart – whoever the ruler is, one has to eat! Ruixuan steals out of the room, he feels it hard to breathe in there. This one utterance of Father’s makes him see Dante’s inferno. Though it is inferno, those ghosts can make it quite eventful.’ Suiran shi diyu, nei-xie guihunmen hai neng ba ta nong-de though be inferno that-pl. ghosts still can ba 3sg. make-res shifen renao. quite eventful (70) ba xiao-in, ta xu ba weiqu fang zai duzi li, er 3sg. must ba grievance put exit bowel in, conj ba filial-heart, xiang yi-jian xin paozi si-de, lou-zai wai-mian. resemble one-cl new coat like, expose-at out-side ‘He has to hide grievance in his bowel whereas expose his filial heart on the outside like a new coat.’

All the sentences here express a kind of contradiction by means of the adversative conjunctions. In (66), the first adjunct ye ‘too’ refers to the previous utterance which provides a special circumstance under which an according behavior is expected. The second adjunct zhi ‘only’ expresses a relation that is contrary to that expectation. This adjunct expresses a subjective sense of quantitative evaluation by stating that the degree or amount in concern is

 Dramatized Discourse

judged minimal by the speaker. It precludes the subsequent lexical specification of the minimal degree the action of opening reaches, as expressed by the ba-construction. In sentence (67), the adversative er ‘but’ introduces a contrastive observation: the fact that he did not even utter a sound is against the dramatic previous impression that he showed his deep concern by intense frowning. Note that this adversative relation can be interpreted on the internal, or interpersonal, plane, for it is the speaker (the writer, for that matter) who, in the communication process, has the specific expectation that dramatic facial expression be accompanied by vocal utterance. Sentence (68), too, features the contrast between the sentences. However, it differs from (67) in that the conjunction bu-guo ‘however’ is a “specific adversative” (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 255), which puts emphasis on the event that follows it, i.e. the ba-sentence. It is no accident that the dramatic syntactic structure is the carrier of this conjunctive weight. Such a match in emphasis is required by the semantic coherence of the text. In sentence (69), the conjunction suiran ‘although’ marks what is known as the concessive relation between two propositions. The proposition introduced in the ba-construction is a denial of the importance of the point admitted in the previous claim. In this relation, the proposition expressed by the ba-clause takes the spotlight. Sentence (70) contains two ba-clauses that semantically correlate with each other: Both dramatize the elaboration involved in the action. However, they also contrast with each other by virtue of the adversative conjunction er ‘whereas, on the other hand’, around which three pairs of lexical counterparts are juxtaposed: ‘grievance’ versus ‘filialness’, ‘hide’ versus ‘expose’, and ‘in the bowel’ versus ‘on the outside’. This double conjunctive relation reveals the psychological dilemma besetting the subject’s inner world. A third type of discourse relation, the temporal relation, concerns the sequentiality of the events in terms of time. Consider (71)–(74): (71)

‘The two brothers stared at each other for quite a while. They both wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say. Old-Three broke the silence first: “Older brother!” he cried. Ruixuan couldn’t give an answer, as if his throat were choked by a jujube pit. Old-Three then forgot the words he had remembered.’

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

Laosan ba xiang-qi-lai-de hua you wang-le. pn ba think-up-come-assoc words again forget-pfv (72)

“‘Isn’t it just this year?” after just having said this, she immediately canceled the question word: “It is this year! Isn’t this year the year of the bull?”’ “Yeah, it is the year of the bull! Did he say that this was my year of luck?” “Absolutely, I remember it so well!”’ Ta gang shuo-wan, mashang you ba ne-ge “ba” zi 3sg. just say-compl immediately again ba that-cl p word quti-le. cancel-pfv (73)

‘Her voice was not bad, but short of strength, often she’d be out of breath in the middle of singing. Her eyes made up for her throat. In order to make a living, she couldn’t help letting her eyes help her sing. As soon as she appeared on the stage, she’d sweep her eyes from right to left in a circle, which made every spectator think that she was looking at him personally. Therefore, she was very popular for a while.’ chu tai, bian ba yan cong you zhi zuo da ge Ta yi 3sg. once exit stage then ba eyes from right to left beat cl yuanquan. circle (74) Tou-yi-yan, ta kanjian-le Guan Xiaohe, ta mang ba yanpi at:first:sight 3sg. see-pfv pn 3sg. quick ba eyelid

 Dramatized Discourse

chui-xia-qu di-er yan, ta kandao Bai xunzhang; Bai sink-down-go second sight 3sg. see pn sheriff pn xunzhang ba tou niu-guo-qu. sheriff ba head twist-over-go ‘At first sight, he saw Guan Xiaohe, he quickly dropped his eyelids. At second sight, he saw Sheriff Bai; Sheriff Bai turned his head away.’

These four examples above show that two events are related to each other by means of temporal cohesion. Sentence (71) embodies two semantically contrasting events, i.e. remembering something and forgetting what had been remembered, which are connected to each other by the temporal adjunct you ‘again, then’ and the ba-construction that dramatizes this semantic contrast. In this instance, the two contrasting events are compressed into one single sentence whereby the syntactic order in which they appear corresponds to the real-world time sequence in which they are perceived. Sentence (72) illustrates that the successivity of the two events is given a sequential tension by the pairing of two sets of conjunctives: the first adjunct gang ‘just’ is cataphoric and anticipates the following event, which is introduced by the temporal adjunct mashang ‘immediately’ and the discourse adjunct you ‘again’ to echo the anticipation. This temporal cohesion creates the impression of great haste associated with the unfolding of the second event. The ba-construction all the more contributes to the effect that the second event stands out with its dramatic force. Sentence (73) shows the simultaneity cohesion between the first event and the second event expressed by means of the anticipative adjunct yi ‘once’ and the simultaneity adjunct bian ‘just then’, which emphasizes the deliberated immediacy of the second event encoded by the ba-clause. Such a deliberation is intensified by the dramatic ba-construction. Sentence (74) offers us a text with sequential and correlative cohesion marked by the lexical sequential adjuncts tou yi yan ‘at first sight’ and di er yan ‘at second sight’. The events led by these cohesive markers are introduced in tight succession, and the two ba-clauses form contrast between the events, which brings out the complex interactions between the three participants within a short time span. The temporal cohesion has a special function in narrative, which is to sequentially arrange graphic depictions of close-up details, usually accompanying direct speech. This function is frequently observed to involve the baconstruction that is used as a zoom-in device to set a scenic background and invite the speech into spotlight, as in the following examples:

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

(75) ‘Ruiquan ran into that room, first he opened all the windows, then he told his mother: “Ma! The war broke out in Shanghai too!”’ Ruiquan pao-dao nanwu, xian ba chuangzi dou dakai, pn run-arrive south:room, first ba windows all open, erhou gaosu mama. then tell mother (76) ‘Old Mr. Qi combed his white beard enough, then he wiped it twice softly with his palm, after that he said to Little-Shuner’s mother: “How much grain do we still have?”’ Qi laoren ba baixu shu gou, you yong shouzhang pn old:man ba white:beard comb enough, again use palm qing-qing ca-le liang ba, cai dui Xiaoshuner-de light-light wipe-pfv two cl, not:until towards pn-gen ma shuo mother say

As a zoom-in device, however, the ba-construction mostly does not necessarily need explicit temporal conjunctives as sequencing tools, as in sentence (77) below: (77) ‘Ruiquan jumped up, putting his hands on Ruixuan’s shoulders: “Oldest brother! Oldest brother!” His face is all red and after calling the oldest brother two more times, his words failed him.’ Ruiquan tiao-le-qi-lai, ba shuang shou fang-zai Ruixuan pn jump-pfv-rise-come, ba pair hand put-at pn de shuang jian shang. assoc pair shoulder up

Sentences (75) and (76) contain overt marking of temporal sequentiality: xian ba ‘first’. . .erhou ‘then’ and ba. . .you ‘again’ . . .cai ‘finally’, respectively. Sentence

 Dramatized Discourse

(77), however, exhibits a tighter succession of sequential actions without overt marking. In fact, any sequencing cohesive marker would have broken the dramatic energy flow along the tight chain of sequentiality. Whether overtly or covertly represented, temporal sequentiality is a property characteristic of the main line events in the foreground of a narrative discourse, which has been discussed by Hopper (1979) and in the previous section of the present study. Indeed, more than a third of all the ba-clauses in the corpus S are used as the first of a series of links in a narrative chain, with or without overt temporal cohesion marking. Being in such a position, it acts as a zoom-in device to direct or redirect the reader’s attention to the main line events in the forthcoming text. Often, it introduces or concludes a direct first-person speech with dramatic force and offers physical details of dramatic gesture that accompanies emotive speech. Such correlation in dramaticity between direct speech and depicted gesture is evident in (76)–(77) above. The additive relation pertains to the extra weightiness generated from a subsequent assertion made in addition to a previous assertion. Consider (78)– (79): (78)

‘Gaodi has had quite a few boyfriends, but every time they saw Zhaodi, they abandoned her like bees that see another, more fragrant flower. She quarrels with her sister because of this and her sister fights back: “I don’t want to rob you of your friends, but they want to be my friends, what can I do? Perhaps your nose is not so very lovely?” This kind of ruthless attack is already enough to make Gao-di weep so much that her eyes get puffy, and her mother, to make things worse, reminds her: “That’s right. If you were finer and people liked you, you could’ve married someone earlier, which would save me a bit worries!”’ Zhe-zhong this-kind yan ku eye weep

wuqing-de gongji, ruthless-assoc attack zhong, er mama swollen while mother

yi zu jiao Gaodi ba already enough caus pn ba you zai yi-pang qiaoda-zhe again at one-side knock-dur

Chapter 6. Cognitive salience as discourse dramaticity 

(79) ‘How should he go out? Should he walk on foot? Or should he ask Xiaocui to come over to be his temporary rickshaw driver?’ Shi bu xing ne haishi ba Xiaocui jiao guo-lai? be foot walk q or ba pn summon over-come

In the text (78), the conjunctive er ‘and’ is used not only for the purpose of juxtaposing two constituents or clauses of equal status in a complex sentence, it also contributes meaning to the whole unit of the juxtaposed clauses.53 It is additive in the sense that it adds weight to what is asserted in the foregoing clause by introducing a correlative assertion in the clause that follows. As an additive conjunction, it is not omissible because it contains “components of emphasis which are absent from the elementary ‘and’ relation” (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 238). Note that despite the total shift of topic from the ba-sentence to the sentence that follows it, the two sentences are semantically intimate. Moreover, the conjunction er ‘and’, together with the adjunct you ‘again’, which does not mean ‘once again’ in “ideational” terms but rather expresses the speaker’s attitude toward the situation, contributes to the textual cohesion at the pragmatic level, or, in Halliday and Hasan’s terms, “internally”, in the sense that they convey the social, interpersonal message that “there is something more to be said” (1976: 245). Therefore, to translate them as ‘and, to make things worse’ best renders the emphatic additionalness of the intended conjunctive relation. In the discourse (79), the conjunction hai-shi ‘or otherwise’ offers an alternative to the first possibility, whereby the speaker stresses the alternativeness. This stress correlates with the use of the dramatizing ba-construction. To sum up the interaction between cohesive textual linking and discourse dramaticity, we recognize that the ba-construction shows an overwhelming tendency to appear in the spotlight within a cohesive text with the help of conjunctive markers that create emphasis or contrast or both. This tendency is a demonstration of the noteworthiness of the event encoded by the ba-construction in both perceptual and social terms. In view of this systematic corroboration between the conjunctive emphasis and the use of the ba-construction, we are justified to argue that the hypothesis of the semantic-pragmatic nature of the ba-construction, namely, HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY, is confirmed. The meaning of the ba-construction motivates the way it is used and such a motivation can only be understood on the semantic-pragmatic plane.

 Dramatized Discourse

In the foregoing section, we have confirmed the first strategy, that is, COGNITIVE SALIENCE, predicted on the basis of our hypothesis that the ba-construction denotes HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY. The verification of this strategy rests on data-driven analyses on the intra-event level and the inter-event level. In the following part, we will turn our attention to the second strategy in our prediction, namely, the subjectivity and emotionality expressed by the speaker when he verbally reinforces the dramatizability of the salient events.

Chapter 7

Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity

. The nature of linguistic subjectivity and emotionality The notion of subjectivity pertains to the non-propositional aspect of language as a function of communication. Many linguists have dealt with the linguistic manifestation of subjectivity from different perspectives. Lyons (1995) forcefully argues for what he calls “locutionary subjectivity”, that is, “self-expression in the use of language” in his definition, as one of the most prominent traits of natural language. Traugott (1982, 1989, 2003) has repeatedly claimed that language changes from propositional meaning toward subjective meaning. Langacker (1990) explains how linguistically represented subjectivity is cognitively real. In the present study, we adopt Traugott’s (2003: 126) definition of subjectivity as the expression of the speaker/writer’s “perspectives and attitudes as constrained by the communicative world of the speech event, rather than by the so-called ‘real-world’ characteristics of the event or situation referred to”. With regard to the strategy, SUBJECTIVITY and EMOTIONALITY, we anticipate that the speaker will use linguistic devices for subjectivity and emotionality when he dramatizes an event he deems salient. We shall consider three mechanisms that suggest themselves in the corpus S. These are: (1) the use of conceptual metaphors, (2) the use of intensifiers and (3) the manipulation of mood and modality.

. Conceptual metaphors Recently, especially thanks to cognitive science, the study of figurative language has invalidated the traditional view of metaphor as a fancy stylistic tool that is linguistically and cognitively marginal. Metaphor has been increasingly acknowledged as central to human thought and language in its conceptual and communicative functions (see Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987; Ortony

 Dramatized Discourse

1980, 1993; Cacciari 1998 and the references there). From a social perspective, J. D. Sapir (1977) has confirmed the pragmatic functions of verbal metaphors. Labov argues for the intensifying force of metaphors (1984a: 40). Despite the difference in perspectives, metaphor is commonly viewed as “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (Hopper & Traugott 1993: 77), whereby a transgression of conceptual boundaries occurs. Before launching our analysis of the correlation between metaphor and discourse dramatization, we will survey the following insights into the nature and function of verbal metaphor because of their immediate relevancy to the current study: 1. Verbal metaphors are expressive: They are used for bridging abstract domains to perceptual experiences and making expressible relevant parts of our inner life and everyday cognitive activity. They make use of the expressive properties of events and things that are familiar to us for naming mental, emotional, or social contents that are otherwise difficult to shape verbally (Ortony 1980; Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987; Besnier 1990; Sweetser 1990; Cacciari 1998). 2. Verbal metaphors are suggestive: they are indeterminate and ambiguous and the message they convey must be negotiated in interaction. They do not designate, they hint. They do so in a given context of interaction to which the participants contribute their own cultural knowledge and personal experience. Therefore, metaphors pertain to the social aspect of language (Ferrara 1990). The two aspects are interrelated and both reflect the subjective nature of metaphor and its pragmatic power. In our textual survey of the ba-construction with respect to its correlation with metaphorical expressions, one observation struck me, namely that it is the type of metaphor that matters in the semanticpragmatic interplay between syntactic structure and the use of metaphor. There are two types of metaphor in the text. One is called simile, which takes the form of “X is like Y” with an explicit lexical item xiang ‘resemble’, haoxiang ‘like’, fangfu ‘as if ’ or the suffix -shide denoting similarity or resemblance between the base and the target entity; the other is called conceptual metaphor, which is re-categorizing one entity with the name of another by treating X as though it were Y in the sense that “X is a Y” (cf. Glucksberg & Keysar 1990; Cacciari 1998) or simply speak of Y in absence of X while the topic is X. This latter type is the one to which most scholars (Lakoff 1987; Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Sweetser 1990) restrict the term metaphor.54 Now the question must be answered: What makes conceptual metaphors different from similes?

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

Ullmann (1964: 180–181) states that the difference between metaphor and simile is “one between explicit and implicit imagery”. He acknowledges that such a difference corresponds to “the difference in density and concentration between the two figures”, though he chooses to view them as “springing from the same intuition”. Ullmann’s view of imagery, metaphor, and simile primarily emphasizes the poetic and stylistic dimension of these figures. J. D. Sapir talks about “a continuum of explicitness in the representation of metaphor” (1977: 7) whereby what has come to be known as conceptual metaphor is considered different from simile in its degree of representational explicitness. However, he does not specify the social intention and effect the varying degree of explicitness might have. Glucksberg and Keysar (1990) argue that people use the “is a” form “to alert a listener that a specific relation is intended, not simply a general assertion of similarity (p. 15)”. Cacciari contends that the difference between the two types of metaphor “reflects the difference between a comparison and a categorization act” (1998: 135; emphasis there). She points out, that the “X is like Y” type calls for “the reader’s attention to potential similarities between the subject and the metaphorical vehicle that are marked as indirect by the linguistic operator ‘like”’ whereas the “X is a Y” type of metaphor serves the function of “setting and changing the conceptual perspective” for the reader by suggesting that the two entities “have in common more than mere resemblances in that they belong to the same category sharing relevant features” (1998: 135–136). My contention is that to say “X is a Y” or to speak of Y in lieu of X is to express a radically subjective opinion towards X by virtue of one particular feature of Y that conceptually triggers the speaker’s emotions based on his personal experience, irrespective of the potential truth-conditional similarities or dissimilarities between X and Y, in other words, the categorization act is not objective, but interactional (cf. Lakoff 1987). Metaphor is judged subjective precisely because of this forceful identification of two entities despite the fact that they are non-identical in reality. As Sweetser puts it, conceptual metaphor “allows people to understand one thing as another, without thinking the two things are objectively the same” (1990: 8). Clearly, conceptual metaphors are subjective. J. D. Sapir speaks of “coloration” as against “specificity” of shared features (1977: 9). Crocker (1977) follows Burke with the notion of symbolic “entitlement” as “equipment for living” in the sense that “symbolic activity does more than merely express reality: it actively structures experience” and argues that this subjective experiential aspect is all the more salient in metaphor. In accordance with Burke, he suggests that the act of defining something through labeling “implies certain attitudes and behaviors

 Dramatized Discourse

appropriate to that definition, all the more so when the designation involves the felt, expressive, connotative elements inherent in all tropes” (1977: 34). He argues that metaphor “forces the recognition of some nonliteral aspect of the situation” by incongruous entitling. The semantic incongruity generated in the shifting of domains associated with (conceptual) metaphor forces the hearer to view the situation in a startling new way. On the other hand, we say “X is like Y” to acknowledge the comparability between the two entities, whereby our own emotional involvement is not as acute as when we willfully speak of Y to mean X or when we make the claim that “X is a Y”, which must be judged logically false and is only socially interpretable. The word ‘like’ and its Chinese counterparts are signals that explicitly bridge the conceptual gap between the source domain and the target domain. These bridging elements are cues that prepare the hearer to see the resemblance between the entities in the comparison. Hereby conceptual shift does not occur all of a sudden and semantic-pragmatic incongruity is not likely to arise. If conceptual shift and semantic-pragmatic incongruity are meant to strike the unprepared hearer and forcefully require the hearer’s active attention and emotional responses, the designation associated with simile remains within the same conceptual domain and receives local intensification and vividification through imagic comparison. Following from this, similes operate on the more concrete level of semantic representation and contribute less subjectivity or emotionality to the interactional situation than conceptual metaphors. Their function is more semantically oriented than socially and emotionally. Wheelwright’s (1968: 71) view that the grammatical distinction between (conceptual) metaphor and simile is to be largely ignored because the two could be equally poetic can be refuted for the cognitive-semantic reason discussed above. In view of the different degrees of subjectivity and emotionality involved in the two types of verbal metaphor, and in view of the postulated meaning of the ba-construction in our hypothesis, we are able to predict that conceptual metaphor (hence CM) rather than simile (hence SI) is more likely to co-occur with the dramatizing ba-construction as a mechanism of expressing subjectivity and emotionality. Thus: Prediction (7.1): CM will co-occur more frequently with a ba-clause than with a non-ba-clause. The opposite will be expected for SI.

We counted the number of conceptual metaphors and similes in the 304 baclauses and in the first 304 non-ba-clauses, respectively, in the corpus S. Table 7.1 shows the distributions of the two metaphor types across the two sentence

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

Table 7.1 Choice of sentence type versus metaphor type in corpus S Sentence type

CM

SI

Total per sentence type

ba-clause non-ba-clause Total per metaphor type

52 5 57

14 72 86

66 77

Table 7.2 Percentage of each metaphor type within each sentence type Sentence type

CM

SI

Total


79% 6%

21% 94%

100% 100%

types and Table 7.2 provides the figures of percentage of each metaphor type within each sentence type. Our anticipation is met. The number of conceptual metaphors used with a ba-construction makes up 79 percent of all metaphors involved with a ba-construction. In stark contrast to this figure, the number of conceptual metaphors makes up only six percent of the total metaphors observed in nonba-constructions in the same corpus investigated. Given the figures, we argue that the correlation between conceptual metaphor and the ba-construction is not arbitrary. To the contrary, it is semantic-pragmatically motivated by the meaning of the ba-construction and the matching function of conceptual metaphor. The high degree of subjectivity and emotiveness associated with conceptual metaphor is in tune with the high discourse dramaticity encoded by the ba-construction. By the same token, the lower subjectivity and emotiveness associated with simile makes this type of metaphor relatively favorable to non-dramatic syntactic structures. To illustrate the way conceptual metaphor is coupled with the ba-construction in reinforcing the dramaticity of the event being communicated, consider the following sentences: (1)

‘Ruixuan has no words to say. He hates those people who govern North China. In peaceful days, they put the people in the jar; once danger comes, they swing their arms and walk away, leaving to the enemy that tightly sealed jar!’

 Dramatized Discourse

Pingri li ba baixing dou zhuang-zai in:normal:day ba the:people all put-at yudao weixian, tamen shuai shou yi zou, meet danger 3pl. swing hand one go, yanyan de guanzi liu-gei diren. tight assoc jar leave-to enemy

guanzi-li, yi-dan jar-inside one:day ba na feng-de ba that seal-res

Sentence (1) contains a conceptual metaphor because the metaphorical vehicle guanzi ‘jar’ is simply and directly taken to stand for something else that is unspoken: a shut-in state devoid of freedom, transparency and information, etc. The same metaphor is used twice in combination with two ba-sentences. Note how many words I needed to paraphrase the content of the metaphor, plus the ‘etc.’ which helplessly stands for the unspeakable emotive force with which the metaphor is heavily charged. As Cacciari (1998: 143) argues, “paraphrases are, at best, possible substitutes for a small subset of properties”, for “metaphors serve to predicate a complex bundle of properties as a whole that often cannot be synthetically specified”. Consider the metaphor in (2): (2)

‘Willful massacre is naturally the most straightforward solution. However, given the overall resistance by the Nanking government, they begin to feel that slaughter may be a risky business, and they had better yet pull out a few of the Chinese dogs they are keeping to watch Peking and Tianjin for them.’ Hai bu-ru ba tamen still not-as ba 3pl. tiao-lai, gei ji several cl-come, give

suo huan-yang-de zhongguo gou la-chu rel feed-keep-assoc Chinese dog pull-out tamen kanshou-zhe Ping Jin 3pl. watch-dur pn pn

The ba-clause of sentence (2) contains a conceptual metaphor in that the dramatizer ba directly introduces the metaphorical vehicle zhongguo gou ‘Chinese dog’ and the main verb la-chu ‘pull out’ introduces a second NP ji-tiao ‘a few’ which specifies the quantity of the ba-NP. Here the metaphor ‘pull out some of the Chinese dogs’ expresses the writer’s strong emotion of contempt and disdain towards the group of people he labels as Chinese dogs in the sense that these people are unashamed national traitors. This metaphor is highly emotional and is meant to spell out the loathsomeness the writer feels towards

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

the entity being talked about. This emotionality represented by the metaphor matches the dramaticity represented by the ba-construction. Consider another example: (3)

“‘What? It was you, Oldest Brother, who let him go?” Ruifeng’s little dry face tightened like a drum. “He was determined to go and I couldn’t stop him; a passionate young man ought to go out!” “Oldest Brother, how nicely you put it! But you don’t think about it: he’ll graduate soon. After graduation he can grab some money to help the family make a living! Really, how could you let a hen go when it’s about to lay eggs?”’ Ni zenme ba zhi kuai yao xia-dan-de ji fang-le zou ne 2sg. how ba cl soon will lay-egg-assoc hen let-pfv go p

The ba-sentence in (3) is a conceptual metaphor with kuai yao xiadan-de ji ‘a hen that is going to lay eggs soon’ as the metaphorical vehicle in place of the actual topic, that is, the person who is going to graduate and earn money soon, as the coherent context of the previous sentence suggests. It is difficult here to talk about objectively shared features between the person and the hen. The relevance of this conceptual metaphor is interactional: it is the kind of utilitarian loss subjectively felt by the speaker on the grounds of his personal perspective, belief and rationalization that justifies his association of the egg-laying hen with the money-earning person. The stark semantic incongruity points up the speaker’s concern with material loss and his complete lack of consideration of family relationships. Yet by using the metaphor, the speaker, although avoids talking directly about the matter of money, thereby communicating his emotionally-charged message to the addressee even more effectively and in an even more colorful manner. In contrast to conceptual metaphors that directly send out the speaker’s emotional vibrations to evoke the reader’s immediate reactions on the interactional level, similes function primarily on the semantic level. Let us look at the following two ba-sentences involving similes:

 Dramatized Discourse

(4)

‘They all feel that it isn’t the best time to shop for wood-ears and wish to criticize her a bit. But everyone knows that her behavior is out of a good heart, so no one says a word. Seeing that no one responds to her, she gives a sigh and shrinks her head back like a snail.’ Ta tan-le kou qi, xiang woniu shide ba tou suo hui-qu. 3sg. sigh-pfv cl air, like snail as:if ba head shrink back-go (5)

“‘What is it that you’re carrying?” asked Big Red Pepper. “Whisky! A gift for you, Mrs. Guan!” “A gift?” her heart throbbed in pleasure. She likes to take little advantages. Taking it over, she held the whisky bottle in front of her chest as if she were holding a nursing baby.’ Xiang bao chi-nai-de yinghai shide, ta ba jiu-ping like hold eat-milk-assoc infant as:if 3sg. ba alcohol-bottle lou zai xiong-qian. hug at chest-front

Both sentences (4) and (5) contain the overt bridging element xiang. . . shide ‘like’ and represent typical similes. Both similes function as manner adverbial, offering vivid graphic description of the way the physical withdrawal occurs, and the way the action of holding the wine bottle is performed, respectively. Naturally, these descriptions just as well express the writer’s attitudes towards the subjects. However, they do so not in a provocative manner as conceptual metaphors do, but rather indirectly through the concrete depictions that compose the subtle characteristics of the subjects. In other words, the writer withdraws his own emotion and instead concentrates on the concrete physical portraying of the subjects. The similes lend the portraits vivid details such that the subjects are activated to act and speak for themselves in front of the reader.

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

Table 7.3 Choice of sentence type versus use of intensifiers in corpus S Sentence type

Total number of intensifiers

Sample size

ba-clause

171 56.3% 42 13.8%

304 100% 304 100%

non-ba-clause

. Intensifiers Bolinger (1972: 17) uses “intensifier” in a fairly broad sense for “any device that scales a quality, whether up or down or somewhere between the two” and he differentiates four classes of intensifiers according to their scalar distribution: boosters, compromisers, diminishers, and minimizers occupy the upper part, middle, lower part, and lower end of scale, respectively. Holmes (1995: 77) uses the term “booster” and suggests that the function of boosters is to “intensify the illocutionary force of the utterance in which they are used”. In the current study, we use the term intensifier for what is defined as linguistic forms that are used to increase the expressive force of the utterance. Edwards (2000) examines the uses of English intensifiers (“extreme case formulations” being the notational equivalent in his discussion) across a variety of data corpora and arrives at the conclusion that intensifiers are used in “unsoftened and unqualified” ways because they are meant to be “nonliteral, performative, or indexical of investment – that is, offered and received as something other than accountably accurate proposals about the world” (2000: 369). Like English, most intensifiers in Chinese are lexical items, though grammatical means such as interrogatives intended to elicit emotion instead of information can also serve to increase the illocutionary force. In the present study, we are concerned with lexical intensifiers including adverbs such as zong ‘always’, zhi ‘only’, jihu ‘almost’ and quantifiers such as suoyou ‘all’, and the comparative marker geng ‘more’ and the superlative marker zui ‘most’. We assume that intensifiers are likely to be used as a mechanism of expressing subjectivity and emotionality in discourse dramatization and anticipate a higher frequency of intensifiers in ba-clauses than in non-ba-clauses. Thus: Prediction (7.2): Intensifiers are used more frequently with a ba-clause than with a non-ba-clause.

Table 7.3 provides frequency counts and a percentage calculation of the number of occurrences of intensifiers in the 304 ba-clauses and the first 304 nonba-clauses in the corpus S.

 Dramatized Discourse

The above data on the number of occurrences of intensifiers across sentence types confirm our prediction of a higher likelihood of correlation between the use of intensifiers and the ba-construction. Thus our hypothesis that the ba-construction signals HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY is supported. In the following, we will discuss in detail how different intensifiers are coupled with the ba-construction in dramatizing the discourse. .. Intensifying adverbs The most frequently used intensifying adverbs are lao, zong ‘always’, zhi ‘only’, jiu ‘just’, you ‘again’, hen ‘very’, ji ‘extremely’, yongyuan ‘forever’, yijing ‘already’, jihu ‘almost’, shifen ‘very much’, wanquan ‘completely’, jimang/mang ‘hastily’, mashang, like ‘immediately’, turan, huran ‘suddenly’, among other items. Many of them engage non-literal interpretations, e.g. yongyuan ‘forever’, zong and lao ‘always’ are time adverbials that are inherently biasing in that either a strict interpretation of the statement made by the adverbial is untenable or the statement is unobservable from the immediate context. In fact, they can be viewed as universal time quantifiers expressing the speaker’s subjective experience and impression of the temporal dimension of events, as illustrated by sentence (6) in the following: (6)

‘He looks upon the Guans and the Guans can appreciate his foreign air, which lays the foundation of their friendship. In addition, the bit butter, coffee or authentic Oxford marmelade that he gets from the English Embassy are not desired by anyone except the Guans who understand the originality of these things. Therefore they have developed more connection to each other – He is always selling this kind of Western stuff to the Guans fairly.’ Ta yongyuan ba zhe-lei-de yang huo gongdaode mai gei 3sg. forever ba this-kind-assoc western stuff fairly sell to Guan jia. pn family

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

The word yongyuan ‘forever, always’ has the literal meaning of ‘for a limitless time’ or ‘at all times’, as the Xinhua Chinese Dictionary and the Webster’s Third New International Dictionary recognize with the Chinese item and the English translation, respectively. As far as the use of this word in sentence (6) is concerned, I will argue that it expresses a matter of opinion rather than verifiable fact. The unverifiability lies in the fact that only the person directly involved can judge if it is true or not in reality and the writer, though being omniscient in narration, is not necessarily involved. As an omniscient narrator, he creates reality by expressing his opinion. Another problem with a literal interpretation is that the ba-NP involves a demonstrative determiner zhe ‘this’ plus a classifier lei ‘kind’, which indicates that the individual members of the group being categorized as ‘this kind’ are non-specific. How could each and every occasion be proved true in order to substantiate the literal content of ‘forever’ in the sense of ‘at all times’ (not to mention the surreal sense of ‘for a limitless time’) if all occasions are not individually specifiable? It is obvious that strict quantification of temporality and frequency does not make sense in this case and the adverb yongyuan is used to mark the intensity the writer decides to assign the statement he makes. Cognitive contradictions necessarily beset any strictly literal interpretations of this adverb. Yet its use in spite of such contradictions shows “how the apparent illogic usage is the result of interaction with a larger context”, as Labov (1984a: 48) insightfully puts it. Indeed this non-literal interpretation brings out the irony intended by the writer with this sentence. The adverb ji ‘extremely’ is another highly subjective lexeme. It is subjective because it signals the degree that is judged as exceeding what is expected to be ordinary. And whenever expectations are at issue, the decision is up to the person who judges. Consider the following sentence: (7)

“‘Where is Second Brother? I’ve come to see him!” “He left again, left again!” Mr. Qian’s voice seemed to be harboring some secret. “What did he say?” “He?” Qian Moyin dropped his voice so much that he seemed to be whispering to Ruiquan. “He came to say goodbye to me!”’

 Dramatized Discourse

Qian Moyin ba shengyin fang-de ji di. pn ba voice put-ext extremely low

There is no objective evaluation to make here as to how low is ‘extremely’ low. It is fully at the writer’s disposal to exaggerate the degree to which the action of lowering the voice reaches vis-à-vis the writer’s own assumption of what is normal. In the second clause of this sentence, the equally subjective adverb jihu ‘almost’ echoes the exaggerated degree encoded by the first clause. The adverb zhi ‘only’, known as a “focus particle”, is another subjective modal particle expressing counterexpectation. By employing this particle, the speaker conveys the message that he has expected significantly more than what the reality being communicated actually offers. We have the following examples: (8)

‘Having listened for a while, she could tell that the yonger man had no Peking accent, but spoke more like someone from Jiaodong. This aroused her curiosity and she decided to stand up to see if there was a crack in the curtain to peep through. Because she was eager to rise, she forgot about the window sill and bumped her head against it. She uttered only half of the word ‘ouch’, but was already heard by people inside the house. The light went out immediately.’ Ta ba ge “aiyou” zhi tu-chu ban-jie 3sg. ba cl ‘ouch’ only spit-out half-part (9)

‘He takes family, which has been viewed for thousands of years by China as the most sacred of all, only as a relationship in life. When his country is calling for help, no obstacle can keep him from coming to the rescue. Like a bird with full-fledged feather, he will fly away from the nest without hesitation.’

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

Ta ba zhongguo ji qian nian lai shi wei zui 3sg. ba China several thousand year come view as most shensheng-de jiating, zhi dang zuo yi zhong shenghuo-de sacred-assoc family only regard as one kind life-assoc guanxi. relationship

In (8) the adverb zhi ‘only’ in the ba-clause is used emphatically to downplay the scope of the action of uttering the exclamation. In this function it presupposes a contradiction to the speaker’s expectation regarding the circumstance being communicated. That is, the scope is thought of as limited and is not expected to cause the events denoted by the following clause and the next sentence, which nevertheless occur against the prior expectation. Sentence (9) features counterexpectation by contrasting the adverb zhi ‘only’ to the superlative zui shensheng ‘most sacred’ in the relative clause preceding the noun jiating ‘family’ as part of the ba-NP to create high emotive tension. .. Intensifying quantifiers E. Sapir (1930: 6) discusses quantifiers in terms of what he calls a “quantifiable” defined as “anything concerning which quantity may be predicated”. Intensifying quantifiers are those quantifiers that do not concern the objective and concrete counting of existents, but the subjective assertion of the abstract scope and degree of situations. Semantically, they are indefinite, e.g. all in ‘I left all my clothes down there’, uttered by Labov’s (1984a: 51) informant is indifferent to the concrete number and individual members of the set. In the sense that such a quantifier expresses inclusiveness by rejecting limit and exception, it is called a universal quantifier. Labov makes a distinction between loose interpretation and strict interpretation of universal quantifiers. He uses the term loose interpretation “to mean a sense of a universal quantifier that focuses only on the whole and makes no division among the members of the class, with no attention to possible exceptions” and the term strict interpretation to mean “a sense of universal quantifiers that conforms to logical practice and specifically rules out exceptions” (1984a: 51). When interpreted strictly, the sentence above means that ‘There are not any clothes that I haven’t left down there’; in the loose interpretation, however, the sentence brings out the intensity with which the actual meaning ‘most of my clothes’ is expressed. Labov argues, on account of his em-

 Dramatized Discourse

pirical study of speech data from everyday English, that universal quantifiers such as all, any, every, ever are more likely than not to be interpreted loosely as intensifiers. To quote his wording, they are “used in a hyperbolic manner, to indicate degrees of activity that were implausible” (1984a: 48). Universal quantification is a means of intensification in Mandarin Chinese. We have the following universal quantifiers: yi-qie ‘all’ which can be used either as a pronoun or an adjective determiner of non-count or abstract NPs, suo-you ‘all’, adjective determiner of count NPs, adverb dou ‘all’, renhe ‘any’, mei ‘every’. Another kind of intensifying quantifiers is the Chinese-style hyperbolic quantifier qian-wan ‘thousand-myriad’ in its varying configurations. The numerals qian ‘thousand’ and wan ‘myriad’ are not used in their literal and definite sense, but as a means of exaggeration. In Chinese, the highest concentration of intensification is represented by the heavy concurrence of one universal quantifier with another from a different word class, as in sentences (10) and (11): (10)

‘Zhaodi’s language and attitude extremely disappointed him. He’d never thought that she’d be in the mood to play mahjong when the entire town is lost to the Japanese. Upon second thought, he forgave Zhaodi, but attributed all sins and faults completely to her parents. He couldn’t believe that her nature cannot be improved.’ Er ba yiqie zuiguo dou jia dao ta-de fumu sheng-shang-qu but ba all fault all add arrive 3sg-gen parents body up go (11) Ta-de yan ba ta suoyou-de quedian dou zhe-shi guo-qu. 3sg-gen eye ba 3sg. all-assoc blemish all hide-adorn- over-go ‘Her eyes cover up and beautify all her blemishes.’

Note that in sentence (10) the adjective yiqie ‘all’ and the adverb dou ‘all, completely’, both in boldface, are universal quantifiers. Since the amount of sins and faults being communicated is unknown and unobservable, a strict interpretation of the statement is unlikely. What is interpretable is an abstract quantitative exhaustiveness that amounts to rhetoric intensity. The two universal quantifiers co-occur to maximize the intensity of the utterance, which

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

harmonizes with the dramatic force denoted by the ba-construction. The same is true of sentence (11) where the quantifying adjective suoyou ‘all’ and adverb dou ‘all, completely’ corroborate to serve the pragmatic function of intensification in symphony with the dramatizing ba-construction. The example that follows shows that a universal quantifier can co-occur with the conventionalized hyperbolic quantifiers: (12)

‘He starts to think for her. If she stays in Peking, what will become of her? Her father will possibly give her to the Japanese in exchange of a wellpaid position! This thought made him suddenly sit up. Let her go serve the Japanese? Let her give all her beauty, tenderness, and a thousand and a myriad kinds of wonderful voice, gaze, and movement to the beasts?’

Jiao ta ba meili, wenrou, yu yi qian zhong yi caus 3sg. ba beauty tenderness and one thousand kind one wan zhong meimiao-de shengyin, yanshen, dongzuo, dou myriad kind wonderful-assoc voice gaze movement all song-gei yeshou? give-to beast

The hyperbolic quantifiers yi-qian ‘one-thousand’ and yi-wan ‘one-myriad’ do not signal the quantity they literally denote. It is in terms of intensification as a pragmatic function that we can comprehend the discourse significance of what Labov calls “pardonable exaggeration”. The pragmatic function of these nonliteral quantifiers is to signal the non-denumerability of the subject and thereby express the intense emotion the speaker (writer) feels about the situation. In sentence (12), the hyperbolic quantifiers co-occur with the universal quantifier dou ‘all’ to maximize the emotional intensity. Again, this dramatic effect that spreads all over the long object NP is rounded up by the ba-construction on the syntactic level to create a gigantic dramatic force. In this part of the study, we have validated the hypothesis that the baconstruction is a sign with the instructional meaning HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY in contrast to non-ba-constructions denoting LOW DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY by showing that intensifiers that are used to make

 Dramatized Discourse

subjective and mostly emotive claims about the world are frequently correlated with the use of the former rather than the latter.

. Mood and modality .. Mood On contemplating our corpus S, we notice that the ba-construction in the marked moods – subjunctive, imperative, and interrogative – occurs overwhelmingly in constructed first-person dialogues. This indicates that these moods are expressions of individual emotional states and are dramatically, or even theatrically, used. Such an indication, however, cannot be taken for granted and a word on the remarkable nature of constructed first-person dialogue is required. Precisely, we need to answer the question: within one and the same narrative text, other things being equal, in what way do constructed first-person dialogues differ from the writer’s narration? We argue that constructed conversations are verbal exchanges in mockedup interactions and therefore show the interactive quality and illocutionary force of real face-to-face speech communications (see Searle 1969). In Tannen’s (1988) words, constructed dialogue is about “the creation of voices”, which “fires the individual imagination” that relates one speaker to another in interaction. Tannen argues (1988: 91): [T]he activation of the individual imagination is what makes it possible to understand another’s speech. This understanding – communication – simultaneously establishes the sense of rapport, of individual involvement with other individuals, that makes communication a social activity. As a culturally familiar figure, constructed dialogue in conversation and in fiction is a means by which experience surpasses story to become drama – a drama staged in the speech of one individual and enacted in the mind of another. The creation of drama from personal experience and hearsay contributes to the emotional involvement that is crucial for understanding and becomes the basis of human interaction.

Bearing in mind that constructed dialogues represent a particularly subjective discourse environment, we will focus on the use of the moods that strongly profile in such an environment and how they correlate with the use of the baconstruction there. The subjunctive is used in counterfactual speech events. It is defined by the Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1993: 2276) as representing “an

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

attitude toward or concern with a denoted act or state not as fact but as something entertained in thought as contingent or possible or viewed emotionally (as with doubt, desire, will).” The total number of occurrences of the subjunctive in the corpus S is 13, out of which eleven are used with the ba-construction, making up a percentage of 84.6%. Given the function of the subjunctive described above, and given the meaning of the ba-construction in our hypothesis, it should be no wonder that the two linguistic features that share the commonality of subjectivity are drawn to each other. On an intuitive basis, a wild thought beyond fact can be upgraded in its wildness by further dramatization and yet it is not subject to challenge despite its unaccountability – because in the non-factual domain any fantasy is possible. The interrogative, when used with the ba-construction, does not serve the purpose of information seeking. Rather, it performs a speech act of provocation whereby the hearer is forced to react emotionally, as we have discussed in 3.2.3. There are seven interrogative sentences with the ba-construction in the corpus S and all of them are indeed provocative speech acts intended to challenge, accuse or insult the addressee. In comparison, there are up to 92 interrogations formed with a non-ba-construction and only five (5.4%) are used in ways other than seeking information. Moreover, instead of being used provocatively, they serve mainly to create conversational alignment by repeating what the conversation partner just says in a tentative and thoughtful tone. They are not meant to threaten the face, as are the ba-interrogations. On a common sense account, it is probably more than reasonable that normal people do not walk around challenging, accusing, and insulting other people under normal circumstances. This explains the much lower total frequency of the ba-interrogatives in comparison with the nonprovocative (non-ba) information questions in our corpus. The pragmatic specialty of the ba-interrogative, namely, emotional provocation, points to the fact that the ba-construction and the rhetoric question are conjoined by mutual selection in the linguistic undertaking of a highly emotional and subjective speech act. As far as the imperative is concerned, we have shown in Chapter 5 and in Section 6.1.4.2 that ba-imperatives make clear and definite commands by insisting the indentifiability of the object about which certain change is desired by the speaker. Making commands and requests is subjective par excellence because it is an act of imposing one’s own will or one’s self on others. Yet there is a difference between the imperative act of inviting a person to take seat and the imperative act of asking a person to part with his money in favor of the asker. The difference is one between positive politeness and potentially facethreatening intrusion (cf. Brown & Levinson 1987 on politeness and face) and

 Dramatized Discourse

reflects discourse dominance. In our survey, the ba-imperatives are exclusively used as acts of the face-threatening kind. All the eleven (100%) ba-imperatives in the corpus S are issued by a speaker who assumes discourse dominance to a hearer who does not, e.g. by a superior to an inferior, though they may not be received as such according to cultural tradition. No such correspondence between discourse dominance and the non-ba-imperatives in the same corpus is found. Only 5% of the non-ba-imperatives are identified as being issued by a discourse-dominant speaker. This particular utilization of the ba-construction does not surprise us; quite to the contrary, it is revealing of the semantic nature of the ba-construction. It suggests that the subjective act of exercising power over others can be done effectively with the help of the dramatizing sentence type when the speaker so wishes. The correlation between discourse dominance and the use of the ba-construction as opposed to its syntactic variants offers further support for our hypothesis. .. Modality As far as linguistic modality is concerned, it is common knowledge that modality, like mood, is primarily a semantic matter. Most importantly, modality has been recognized as a linguistic means of encoding subjectivity. Before analyzing the relationship between modal verbs and the ba-construction, a glimpse at the semantic nature of modal verbs as it is conceived of in terms of subjectivity and emotionality is in order. Halliday (1973) elucidates the non-factual and subjective quality of modal verbs, as he argues (1973: 349): Modality, then, is the speaker’s assessment of probability and predictability. It is external to the content, being a part of the attitude taken by the speaker: his attitude, in this case, towards his own speech role as ‘declarer’.

Following Halliday, modal verbs are used subjectively and do not concern the truth-conditional content of the propositions. Sweetser (1990) discusses the relation between deontic (root modality) and epistemic modal verbs from a cognitive view. Her emphasis is the metaphorical mapping from deontic to epistemic modality, which constitutes a conceptual transfer from the basic “sociophysical” or “real-world” domain to the abstract domain of “reasoning”. Sweetser takes the unitary view that modality in general is best understood in terms of a force-dynamic structure. She argues that deontic modality imposes forces and barriers on the imposee in real-world physical

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

and social interactions, while epistemic modality is a metaphorical extension from the real-world situations to the logical domain. She explains (1990: 64): In the real world, the must in a sentence like such as “John must go to all the department parties” is taken as indicating a real-world force imposed by the speaker (and/or by some other agent) which compels the subject of the sentence (or someone else) to do the action (or bring about its doing) expressed in the sentence. In the epistemic world the same sentence could be read as meaning “I must conclude that it is John’s habit to go to the department parties (because I see his name on the sign-up sheet every time, and he’s always out on these nights).” Here must is taken as indicating an epistemic force applied by some body of premises (the only thing that can apply epistemic force), which compels the speaker (or people in general) to reach the conclusion embodied in the sentence. [emphasis there]

Sweetser further observes that deontic modality can be used either to impose or to describe real-world forces or barriers while epistemic modality can be only descriptive. When deontic modal verbs are used to impose forces and barriers, they are used performatively in the sense that they are intended to influence others. While this performative use is natural and characteristic of deontic modalities, it is impossible for the epistemic modalities because “epistemic obligations and forces cannot be imposed by anything but premises.” When deontic modalities are used to describe forces and barriers, they tend “to be taken as sympathetic to the imposer” (see R. Lakoff 1972a) and therefore function performatively nevertheless. Langacker, another cognitively oriented linguist, suggests that the development from deontic to epistemic modal verbs is a process of subjectification (see also Traugott 1982, 1989, 2003). He argues that deontic modal verbs denote “reality itself ” and are objective while epistemic modal verbs denote “knowledge of reality” and are therefore subjective (2002: 337). Langacker does not seem to take into consideration the interactional function of modal verbs. His discussion is therefore rather confined to the more abstract relation between semantics and cognition dissociated from the active role played by the speaker as a social being. The semantic distinction between deontic and epistemic modality is cognitively real. However, we must bear in mind that such a distinction tends to be neutralized by the specific pragmatic functions to be fulfilled in given interaction situations where speakers express themselves by means of modality, both deontic and epistemic. The problem with emphasizing the strict dichotomy of deontic and epistemic modality is that such an emphasis conceals the interactive and subjective significance that is common to both kinds of modality.

 Dramatized Discourse

Table 7.4 Modal verbs in ba-clauses in corpus S Type of modality

Deontic

Epistemic

Counts Total modal verbs used in ba-clauses Sample size Percentage

33 50 304 16%

17

Lyons (1995) insists on the commonality – the subjective core – of both kinds of modal verbs in actual language use. He forcefully argues that both deontic and epistemic modal verbs are more likely to be used subjectively than objectively: Speakers (more generally, locutionary agents) may be expressing either their own beliefs, and attitudes or their own will and authority, rather than reporting, as neutral observers, the existence of this and that state of affairs. Subjective modality is much more common than objective modality in most everyday uses of language; and objective epistemic modality, in particular, is very rare. (1995: 330)

It is this subjectivity associated with the use of both deontic and epistemic modal verbs that concerns the current work with regard to the pragmatic intensification of subjectivity and emotionality. Whaley, too, suggests that both deontic and epistemic modality “express speakers’ attitudes about the propositions they are relaying” (1997: 231). This argument for the prevalent subjectivity of modal verbs explains why the baconstruction is not used with the objective hui ‘have the learned ability to do something’, which denotes a plain fact. In fact, in all the ba-sentences with modal verbs in our data, all the modal verbs are used subjectively. Given the recognition that modal verbs are primarily expressions of subjectivity, we assume that they will be readily tolerated by the ba-construction. In the part that follows, we shall examine the compatibility between different modal verbs and the ba-construction and see how subjective modality in combination with the ba-construction contributes to discourse dramaticity. In the corpus S, both deontic and epistemic modal verbs are observed to precede the ba-construction.55, 56 The total number of modal verbs used in consort with the ba-construction is not terribly large, as Table 7.4 shows. However, our analyses of these occurrences show that the ba-construction is compatible with most modal verbs relating to desire, obligation, possibility, probability, certainty, and necessity. The most frequently used are xiang ‘would like’, xu ‘must, need’, hui ‘will’, yao ‘want’, and neng ‘can’, all of which

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

express emotionally triggered hypotheses. The only modal verb that is incompatible with the ba-construction is hui in its deontic reading, which signals a rather objective judgment as to whether or not a learned ability, or know-how, is possessed. However, its epistemic reading which expresses subjectively felt probability is found to co-occur with the ba-construction on seven occasions. For an illustration of the use of modal verbs with the ba-construction, consider sentence (13). (13)

‘He seems to be a bit feminine, for he seeks comprehensive understanding in his actions. For instance, when he was old enough to get married, he’d learned things like the sacredness of love and freedom of marriage. But he married ‘Yunmei’ whom his father chose for him. He knows that he oughtn’t to tie his whole life onto a woman he doesn’t love, but he can’t stand to see the tearful eyes and worried faces of his grandfather and parents.’ Ta zhidao bu gai ba yibeizi shuan zai ge ta suo bu ai 3sg. know not ought ba one:life tie at cl he rel not love de nüren shen shang. assoc woman body up

The modal verb gai ‘ought to’ in sentence (13) is deontic in that it expresses obligation, or, as Sweetser puts it, indicates “that the obligation is one socially agreed upon between the imposer and the doer” (Sweetser 1990: 53). In our context, it is the exposure to modern education and unconventional ideas of individuality that imposes upon the subject the obligation to disobey parental dictation in the matter of marriage. However, such an obligation cannot be an obligation unless the subject judges it meaningful as such and feels subject to it. In other words, the perception and reception of obligations are not objective matters. By saying bu gai ‘oughtn’t to’, the writer expresses the emotional contradiction felt by the subject in view of his own position between two worlds that are incompatible with each other: his individual ideal that recognizes the inappropriateness of marrying a stranger versus his expected role in the family that demands his marriage to a stranger. This strongly felt inner conflict is dra-

 Dramatized Discourse

matized by the ba-construction plus the adversative linking danshi ‘but’, which, in due course, yields a discourse frame of dilemma. Consider another example: (14)

‘Coming into the house, Mr. Qian held Ruixuan’s hand tightly, crying: “Ruixuan!” He wanted to talk to him about Zhongshi. Not only did he want to talk about Zhongshi’s sacrifice for the country, he also wanted to tell Ruixuan everything about his son – what he was like in childhood, how he was at school, what he liked to eat. . .. . .’

Bu-dan yao tan Zhongshi xun guo, ye hai yao ba not-only want talk pn sacrifice country, also still want ba erzi de yiqie ta you-shi shi shenme yangzi, zenyang son gen everything 3sg. young-time be what look how shang xue, ai chi shenme. . . dou shuo-gei Ruixuan ting. go school love eat what all speak-give pn listen

The modal verb yao ‘will’ in (14) conveys a wish or a desire which is subjective par excellence and is more often than not emotionally triggered. Here the inherent subjectivity of the modal verb yao is manifest: Wishes and desires are inner states that are subjectively experienced. The ba-construction, immediately following the modal verb, is intended to encode the emotional force with which the content of the desire is expressed. Note that here the universal quantifiers yiqie ‘everything’ and dou ‘all’ are used to further increase the intensity of the desire. Apart from modality, intensifying quantification, and the syntactic choice of the dramatizing ba-construction, we observe the textual element of additive cohesion signaled by bu-dan ‘not only’ leading the first clause and yehai ‘also’ leading the second clause. This textual linking sets in spotlight the ba-clause that dramatizes the strong desire being communicated. All these elements amount to a discourse frame of enormous desire. Sentence (15) below illustrates subjectively felt necessity: (15) ‘You have to put caution into bravery and switch between fighting and marching. You have to take grievance as part of life so as to taste a bit of sweetness out of it so that you still want to go on living.’

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

a. Ni xu ba xixin fang zai dadan li 2sg. must ba caution put at courage inside b. ba shou weiqu dang zuo shenghou Ni xu 2sg. must ba suffer injustice regard as life

Both sentences in (15) contain the modal verb xu ‘must’ preceding the baconstruction. The meaning of the modal verb is subjectively felt necessity. It is another deontic modal verb with which the locutionary agent expresses his personal understanding of the necessity to do the two things encoded by the two ba-clauses. The word xu is translated here into ‘have to’ to suggest that the subjectively perceived necessity applies under the given circumstances with “extrinsically imposed authority”. .. The potential construction versus the modal verb neng In this section, we take on the potential construction and the modal verb neng ‘can’ that have been habitually treated as semantic equals. We do so because the two forms display a stark contrast in their compatibility with the baconstruction. In our survey of the corpus S, no textual combination of the potential construction and the ba-construction was found. However, there were 8 occasions on which the modal neng is concurrent with the ba-construction and on none of the occasions is it possible to replace neng with the potential construction. Such a contrast would not have been expected if the two were indeed semantically identical. Thus we intend here to explain semantically why the two forms are not equally compatible with the ba-construction. A potential construction is one in which a potentiality infix -de-, or its negative counterpart -bu-, is inserted between the verb and its complement: gan-de-shang ‘catch-de-up’, meaning ‘have the potential to catch up’; gan-bushang ‘catch-bu-up’, meaning ‘have no potential to catch up’. Chao translates the two examples into English as ‘can catch up’ and ‘cannot catch up’, respectively (1970: 452). Li and Thompson consider the complement following -deor -bu- a resultative complement and offer the following pair for an example: xi-de-ganjing ‘wash-de-clean’ and xi-bu-ganjing ‘wash-bu-clean’, which they translate as ‘can wash clean’ and ‘cannot wash clean’, respectively (1981: 477). The translations create the illusion that the potential construction does not semantically differ from the modal verb. However, despite the translation, Li and Thompson state that the modal neng ‘can’ and the potential construction “do

 Dramatized Discourse

not convey the same messages” (1981: 478). Obviously, we are confronted with a controversy here. To solve the problem, we must be aware that we are dealing with two different morphemes, each of which corresponds iconically to a distinctive meaning. We shall argue that it is the semantic distinction between the two forms that motivates the difference in the message they each convey. And it is the same semantic distinction that explains their unequal compatibility with the ba-construction. To be clear, they are different signs with different meanings. The question here is: what are the different meanings? With regard to this question, Li and Thompson argue (1981: 478): Neng ‘can’ refers to the overall possibility of an event’s taking place with respect to the subject’s capabilities, but the potential form of a resultative verb compound refers to the success or failure of an action in achieving the result.

They offer the following sentences to illustrate the semantic contrast in an attempt to explain the incompatibility between the ba-construction and the potential construction: (16) a. Ta bu neng ba nei-ge xiangzi xi ganjing. 3sg. not can ba that cl chest wash clean ‘S/he can’t clean that chest.’ b. Ta textbfxi-bu-ganjing nei-ge xiangzi. 3sg. wash-can’t-clean that cl chest ‘S/he can’t clean that chest.’ c. Ta xi-de-ganjing nei-ge xiangzi. 3sg. wash-can-clean that cl chest ‘S/he can wash that chest clean.’ d. Ta ba nei-ge xiangzi xi-de-ganjing. 3sg. ba that cl chest wash-can-clean ‘S/he can wash that chest clean.’ e. Ta ba nei-ge xiangzi xi-bu-ganjing. 3sg. ba that cl chest wash-can’t-clean ‘S/he can’t wash that chest clean.’ [(59 a–e) in Li & Thompson 1981: 477–478; glosses and translations there, their tone-marking has been omitted here; emphasis is mine, Z.J.S.]

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

Let us consider Li and Thompson’s explanation. They say (1981: 478): In the case of (59a) [(16a)], s/he may or may not have tried to wash the chest, but it is the speaker’s judgment that s/he does not have the know-how to wash it clean. In such a case there is no problem in using ba, since (59a) [(16a)] claims that with respect to disposing of the box by washing it clean, s/he can’t do it. In the case of (59b) [(16b)], on the other hand, the information being conveyed is that s/he cannot clean that box by washing it – in other words, that the action of washing fails to achieve the result, which is ‘clean’. Similarly, (59c) [(16c)] conveys the message that the action of ‘washing’ can achieve the result ‘clean’. Thus in both b and c, where the potential form of the resultative compound is used, the focus of the sentence is on the success or failure of achieving a result through an action, not on the action itself, which must bear the disposal meaning with respect to its object. This renders the meaning of the potential forms of resultative verbs incompatible with the meaning of the ba-construction, which focuses on the disposal nature of the action verb.

There are a few problems with Li and Thompson’s explanation. First of all, the unclarified meaning of the English word can stands in the way of the explanation. As we already pointed out, the authors use the English word can to translate both neng and the potential form and try to explain the semantic difference between the two in terms of can without specifying the meaning of this modal verb. Thus on one occasion it seems to mean speaker’s judgment of subject’s know-how and on another it seems to mean speaker’s judgment of success, as the wording “cannot clean that box by washing it” suggests. The analytic flaw is obvious. If can has two meanings, the distinction must be specified before it can be taken to explain the Chinese items. If can has but one meaning, what semantic difference can be extracted and explained by it if both Chinese items are equated to one and the same meaning? Second, saying that “s/he may or may not have tried to wash” in the case of (16a) implies that (16b), by contrast, suggests an actual trial and failure. Such a contrast, however, is non-existent. That is, (16b) can be used just as well to predict something that has not yet taken place as to report some actual experience. Third, to convey the message ‘s/he cannot wash it clean’, (16b) is more felicitous than (16a). (16a) as a sentence is not ungrammatical, but is odd as an utterance. The disposal argument, however, judges both grammatical and fails to make a distinction between them in terms of felicity, which is pragmatically compelling. The reason why (16a) makes an odd utterance is that bu neng ‘not can’ does not express a judgment with regard to the subject’s factual inability to accomplish a task. Rather, it is used subjectively to suggest that an event is

 Dramatized Discourse

impossible because of internally felt inhibition associated with feelings of duty, conscience, and moral principle, as in: wo bu neng ba haizi yi-ge ren diu zai jia li. ‘I can’t leave my child home alone’. Such an inner inhibition is not conceivable in the semantics of ‘wash it clean’, which is emotionally neutral. The sense of non-emotional inability or impossibility is more naturally expressed by the negative form of the potential construction. This observation is relevant to the explanation of the ill-formedness of (16e), where the ba-construction clashes with the negative potential construction. The discourse dramaticity brought about by the ba-construction is unmet by the plain potentiality reading that is nearly devoid of emotion. Fourth, at the propositional level, (16a) focuses no less on the result of ‘cleanness’ than (16b), if not more so. In other words, the ba-construction does not necessarily focus on the action itself, or “the disposal nature of the action verb”. Quite to the contrary, the ba-construction necessarily focuses on the resultative complement that is attached to the action verb. For instance, consider sentence (17), which results from a slight modification of (16d), which is odd. Compared to (16d), (17) is perfectly well-formed: (17) Ta ba nei-ge xiangzi xi de gan-gan-jing-jing. 3sg. ba that cl chest wash res very:clean ‘S/he washed that chest so that it’s spotless.’

The emphatic reduplication of the resultative complement gan-jing ‘clean’ has the interesting impact that the construction with the infix -de- does not yield a potentiality reading, but an extentative reading. That is to say, the reduplication gan-gan-jing-jing refers to the extent to which the action of washing is performed. This extentative complement is the necessary focus of the baconstruction. Note that the same resultative structure marked by -de- can produce two semantic variations, namely the potential complement and the extentative complement, depending on the intensity of the adjective serving as the complement. When the level of intensity indicated by the complement is high, it is easier for the hearer to infer an extentative message, one which specifies precisely how the greater intensity is achieved, rather than a potentiality message. The emergence of the extentative reading favors the use of the baconstruction whereas the potentiality reading is too humble in intensity to cooccur with the ba-construction. This example shows that the ba-construction is sensitive to the degree of intensity inherent in the complement adjective. We shall argue that the modal verb neng ‘can’ as such expresses subjectivity inherent in the expression of emotions and attitudes. In fact, Geis (1984)

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

suggests that the English modal verb can is actually used as a kind of intensifier with which strong subjective claims are construed. The potential construction, by contrast, signals factual judgment of ability and potentiality. It is therefore improper to use can to explain the difference between the two. We may however find a closer match in the semantic scope between the Chinese neng and the English can, as both are modal verbs expressing subjective evaluation, as well as between the Chinese potential construction and the English predicative form be able to, as both stress factuality. It follows that the compatibility between the modal verb neng ‘can’ and the ba-construction as against the clash between the potential construction ‘be able to’ and the ba-construction is a semantic-pragmatic matter. The big picture is the mutual selection among the forms involved according to the degree of subjectivity inherent in the semantics of the forms. This insight is consistent with our corpus investigation described at the beginning of this section. In this section, we have discussed the pervasive subjectivity in the use of marked moods and modal verbs and thereby explained that the baconstruction is more likely to be drawn to these grammatical structures than is a non-ba-construction because of this subjective nature. This finding, again, supports our hypothesis that the ba-construction denotes HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY and a non-ba-construction signals LOW DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY.

. Frequency variation across discourse types as additional evidence Additional evidence for our analysis is provided by the difference between corpus S (Lao-She [1945]1999) and corpus M (Yang & Gan 2000) in the total number of occurrences of the ba-construction, shown in Table 7.5. Table 7.5 shows that the ba-construction is more than twice (ratio = 2.28) as frequent in S than in M. Why? Let us begin by comparing the two corpora in terms of discourse types. S is a narrative whereas M is an introductive textbook of philosophy, specifically aesthetics. Given the difference in their function, or, discourse intention, they Table 7.5 Total number of ba-clauses in corpora S and M Corpus

ba-construction: Total number of occurrences

S M

304 133

 Dramatized Discourse

exhibit different forms of discourse: S is not only graphically descriptive, but also highly emotional; M is analytic and instructive. In view of the two contrasting discourse types, we argue that the far greater utilization of the ba-construction in S reflects the greater dramaticity of messages in S in comparison to M. Certainly, nowhere in M does one encounter examples of theatrical descriptions such as (18), or examples of emotional outburst such as (19), both found in S. (18)

‘Xiaohe’s smile expanded to stiff lines all over his laughing face. Seeing that Ruifeng’s wife had won the game, he wanted to applause. But before his two hands met, he realized that his palms were full of cold sweat. Having failed to clap his hands, he stealthily smeared the sweat in his palms onto his trousers. This little move nearly enraged him. He hadn’t done anything so low in at least thirty years – to smear the sweat onto the trousers! The shame of losing control outweighs the evil of doing harm to people, because all his life his greatest pursuit and his highest accomplishment are the beauty and properness in the movement of his hands and feet.’ a. Ta ba shouxin shang-de han toutoude mo zai kuzi sg. ba palm up-assoc sweat stealthily rub at trousers shang. up b. Ba han ca zai huzi shang. ba sweat wipe at trousers up (19)

‘Xiaocui, whose pumpkin face turned alternately blue and red in anger, is speaking to Lisiye with exaggerating gestures: “Don’t you see? As soon as I pulled out the rickshaw, they cleared the street! How can you make a living

Chapter 7. Subjectivity and emotionality as discourse dramaticity 

this way? Kill me with one stab of a dagger! That’s rather neat! Slashing me like this is utterly unbearable.”’ Yi dao ba wo zai-le one dagger ba 1sg. slay-pfv

Accordingly, the relatively high correlation of the use of the ba-construction with the dramaticity of the information supports our analysis. On the other hand, the fact that the ba-construction is found in 133 uses in the corpus M requires an explanation. To explain this, we examined the individual discourse contexts in which the ba-sentences occur. We have found that apart from cases in which prototypical changes (location, recipient, and identity) are encoded, many ba-sentences are used in contexts where the author is engaged in a critique of a specific philosophical thesis or theory. The critiques are mostly not unbiased. The bias generates from the ideological stance (the socalled dialectic materialism) from which the author’s leitmotiv and values are derived. Consider the following example with two ba-clauses: (20)

‘However, Plato reverses the relation between material and idea, absolutivizing and objectivizing the concepts within people’s idea. However, he calls this the source of concrete aesthetic things.’ a. Ba renmen yishi zhong de gainian jueduihua shitihua ba people idea inside assoc concept absolutivize objectivize b. Ba ta shuo cheng shi juti de meide shiwu de ba it speak as be concrete assoc aesthetic thing gen genyuan source

The two uses of the ba-construction are intended to express the author’s judgmental attitude towards Plato’s philosophy. The critical comment is highly subjective, evaluative, and discriminative. The weightiness of subjectivity constitutes a dramatic sub-discourse within the large analytic discourse of technical discussions in M. Such a sub-discourse gives rise to and justifies the uses of the ba-construction, which, again, supports our analysis.

 Dramatized Discourse

To sum up: The relative frequencies of the ba-construction in different types of discourse reflect the relative compatibility between its meaning HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY and the respective type of discourse. The meaning we have postulated for the ba-construction successfully accounts for the quantitative tendency that analytic philosophy (e.g. corpus M) makes less frequent use of the ba-construction than does narrative discourse, especially narrative discourse with vivid first-person dialogues (e.g. corpus S).

Chapter 8

An interim conclusion

So far, we have analyzed textual data of the ba-construction with regard to the two strategies, namely, COGNITIVE SALIENCE and SUBJECTIVITY AND EMOTIONALITY, predicted on the basis of our hypothesis of the invariant meaning of the ba-construction. The two strategies concern both the clausal and the trans-clausal dimension of the linguistic phenomenon under investigation. We have demonstrated that these two dimensions interact with each other in a systematic fashion and that their interaction is motivated by the invariant meaning of the ba-construction, that is, HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY. We first considered cognitive salience at the intra-event level and demonstrated that transitivity in terms of the number of participants, the dynamism of the verb, the pervasive use of verbal modifiers, the familiarity of the subject/topic, the accessibility of the ba-NP and the special information structure of the ba-clause are coherent representations of salience or noteworthiness of the events pregnant with change. The demonstration of cognitive salience at the inter-event level is accomplished on account of the foregrounding mechanisms. These mechanisms are, on the one hand, clausal in terms of subject presupposition, verbal dynamism, location of focus, boundedness, and realness. On the other hand, they are trans-clausal in terms of chronological sequentiality and textual cohesion linking. The salience or noteworthiness of dramatic events displayed at the inter-event level further confirms the view that the ba-construction functions beyond the clausal level. We confirmed the second strategy, SUBJECTIVITY and EMOTIONALITY, by arguing that conceptual metaphors and intensifiers are linguistic devices of expressing subjectivity and emotionality and by showing that metaphors and intensifiers occur more frequently with the ba-construction than with the nonba-constructions. In light of the invariant meaning of the ba-construction, we are able to explain the natural use of conceptual metaphors in combination with the ba-construction and particularly the interesting preference for subjective and emotive metaphors over more objective similes in the data. The discovery of the special attraction between metaphorical language and the ba-

 Dramatized Discourse

construction throws extra light on the pragmatic force of the ba-construction. In this section, we further elucidated the subjective and emotive nature of expressions with the ba-construcion on account of two more linguistic mechanisms, namely, mood and modality. We have made it clear that the use of the ba-construction is subjectively oriented, which also resolves the traditional controversy in explaining the difference between the modal verb neng and the potential structure in Mandarin Chinese. With the two experientially motivated strategies confirmed, what otherwise seem to be unrelated phenomena, namely, (1) the high probability that the event being dramatized involves multiple participants, (2) the unusual but real occurrences of the form ba-SV, which I call “the attitudinal thetic sentence”, (3) the dynamism of the verb, (4) the pervasive use of verbal modifiers including directives, resultatives, hyperbolic extentatives, and non-factual aspect markers, (5) the predominant salience of the subject/topic NP and the ba-NP, (6) the unique information structure that allows the maximal expansion of the verbal phrase (7) the zoom-in on graphical details of theatrical events, (8) the use of cohesion markers linking events and highlighting the baclause, (9) the preference of conceptual metaphors over similes, (10) the highly frequent occurrences of lexical intensifiers, (11) the wide scope of compatibility between the ba-construction and subjective moods and modal verbs, and (12) the inadequacy of the potentiality construction versus the modal verb neng in combining with the ba-construction, are no isolated accidents. They are collectively motivated by the meaning of the ba-construction – HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY either at the clause level or at the trans-clause level. The validation of our hypothesis, namely that the ba-construction and its syntactic variations (SVO, SOV and OSV) are structured into the system of speaker’s instruction to discourse dramaticity where the former denotes HIGH DRAMATICITY and the latter LOW DRAMATICITY, confirms the comparisons we made between the ba-construction and its order-related contrastive variations SOV and OSV with respect to their individual functions in Section 3.8. It has become further evident that Mandarin Chinese is not reluctant to tolerate a violation of its canonical order SVO and that each violation occurs for a good reason. SOV and OSV are designed to create contrastive focus and contrastive topic, respectively. In both cases the object NP is the contrastive constituent, the center of informativeness, whereas the verb, though in sentence-final position, is non-constrastive and less informative. Therefore, although these two contrastive orders are apt in claiming focus status of local constituents, they are just as unsuitable for discourse dramaticity as the canonical SVO. The VS thetic sentences, on the other hand, are largely fossilized

Chapter 8. An interim conclusion 

and encode sudden events only. This is the reason why the four orders (SOV, OSV, SVO, and VS) are subsumed under the notion of non-ba-construction that contrasts to the ba-construction in representing the semantic-pragmatic substance DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY. On another note, however, the existence of the contrastive SOV and OSV shows that object inversion can be independent of case marking in Mandarin Chinese. The logical object of either SOV or OSV is readily recognizable by virtue of context without resorting to overt case marking. The fact that case marking is unnecessary in Mandarin Chinese further repudiates the claim that the sole function of the morpheme ba is to mark the accusative. Besides, from a typological perspective, case marking is atypical of Mandarin Chinese. If the ba-construction were used for object inversion only, it would be superfluous because there are the SOV and OSV that are sufficient for the fulfillment of the task. It follows that the morpheme ba is unlikely to be a mere object marker as many assume. Our data-driven analyses at both clause (intra-event) and trans-clause (inter-event) level indeed lead to the insight that the ba-construction is designed for a different purpose, that is, the dramatization of event in discourse. Compared to SOV and OSV, a ba-sentence makes no commitment to contrastiveness that highlights individual participants of the event. The baconstruction acts as a whole to create dramatic effect that extends throughout the entire proposition. Individual constituents make relative contributions to that effect. Concretely speaking, a ba-sentence requires relative taken-forgranted-ness of the subject NP and the ba-NP and preserves information focus for the predicate by default. Such a negotiation of relative information status assures that the VP contributes maximal informativeness to the proposition by means of free expansion on the part of the verbal modification. This preference to focus on the predicate is canonical and remains intact unless contrastive intonation steps in and redirects the emphasis. The message denoted by a ba-sentence involving contrastive topic or contrastive focus is by no means weakened in dramaticity. To the contrary, it is all the more emphatic in addition to the dramaticity created by the ba-construction as a whole. This is why we say that the ba-construction and the two contrastive orders violate the canonical SVO order of Mandarin for different purposes. In short, the ba-construction is a different sign with a different invariant meaning. Because the ba-construction is not concerned with local relationships between individual constituents, its meaning necessarily transcends sentencelevel semantics. Disposal and transitivity both indicate local relationships between individual constituents, especially between the verb and the object, and

 Dramatized Discourse

make no reference to the pragmatic effect as a result of the formal organization of the whole. Causativity, on the other hand, fails to differentiate the ba-construction from other causative constructions in terms of the functions they serve. Thus all the three frameworks are inadequate for explaining the use of the ba-construction. To sum up: The ba-construction as a whole is a syntactic means the speaker adopts to instruct the addressee towards HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY. This new insight successfully challenge the disposalist view and the transitivity view based on sentence grammar as well as the causativity analysis. More importantly, it unambiguously points to the nature of human language, that is, the selection of conceptual resources in the form of linguistic structures according to communicative needs.

Chapter 9

The pragmatization of the ba-construction An adaptive change

In the previous eight chapters, I have validated the Dramaticity Hypothesis using empirical data provided by Chinese corpora. The present chapter will concern itself with the diachronic side of the problem and address the question of how the ba-construction came to serve such a discourse function. Historical data support the thesis that the change cannot be accounted for in only formal or functional terms. Both formal and functional factors contribute to the change on its varying stages.

. Evolution and a functional view of syntactic change In contemporary grammaticalizationist literature, the notion of evolution has been ritualized. Many linguists tend to ceremonially mention it without specifying what it really means and how it is reflected in concrete analyses of linguistic material. The term evolution has become a rhetorical way of saying change. I wish to de-ritualize the use of the notion of evolution in the onset of my analysis. The problem with the confusion of the two concepts is the deception that evolution and change are two things of the same nature and are interchangeable terminologically. Yet they are not. Though evolution is a kind of change, change is not always evolutionary. Evolution is adaptive change. Such a change is illustrated by Darwin (1859: 190) in his On the Origin of Species. Darwin explains how the swim bladder in some fish, an organ originally constructed for the purpose of floatation, was adapted into one for an entirely different function, namely respiration (see Lieberman 1975). This kind of biological adaptive change is instructive in the context of language change. If we can show that a particular linguistic construction changes to better fulfill a particular communicative need, then we talk about linguistic evolution in a meaningful way.

 Dramatized Discourse

Much that has been written about language change is controversial and many of the factors involved in it are still unknown. Nevertheless, significant knowledge and insights have been acquired through studies over generations. Here I shall mention the seminal contribution made by Philip Lieberman to the enduring body of knowledge about language evolution in general and the function of syntax in particular, which sheds significant light on my understanding of the development of the ba-construction. Lieberman’s work makes it possible for us to understand language and its evolution in the larger framework of human life. Built on his early work on quantitative phonetics in relation to the production and perception of human speech, studies of cognitive behavior in non-human primates, the neural bases of auditory perception in humans and other animals, play activity in rhesus monkeys, and stone-tool-making techniques, Lieberman arrived at a unified view of the evolution of language within the Darwinian framework of natural selection and pre-adaptation. Lieberman’s theory is based on comparative, ontogenetic, and evolutionary studies and explains phenomena that are seemingly disparate. In his work On The Origins of Language, Lieberman stresses the importance to view language in the broad context of human existence. He states (1975: 1): Human language is not a phenomenon that can be completely divorced from other aspects of human behaviors and human life[. . .]Human language could have evolved only in relation to the total human condition. There would have been no selective advantage for retention of the mutations that gradually resulted in the evolution of human language if language had not been of use in what Darwin in 1859 termed the ‘struggle for existence’.

Lieberman further argues that syntax is not autonomous and asserts that the very raison d’être of syntax lies in its communicative function. He explains that language is inherently ambiguous and uncertain, which is the problem and the power of language. The ambiguity lies in the fact that the basic communicative element words are not tokens for things; they convey concepts. The context of a word always plays a part in specifying its meaning. But context is not enough and it is precisely here that syntax is needed. The neural structures which first evolved to facilitate the automatized motor control of speech were pre-adapted for rule-governed syntax, which serves as a device to supplement context in inferring the meaning of an utterance. In Lieberman’s words, syntax “limits the possible range of conceptual referents that a word can be transmitting in a particular utterance” (1984: 79–97). That is to say, syntax is a pre-adapted disambiguating device in verbal communication. Lieberman concludes, “the

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

process of syntax is an inherent, functional part of human language, since it allows us to attach families of semantic referents to particular words and facilitates the recovery of a particular referent”. In light of Lieberman’s functional view of syntax, it would seem obvious to conclude that just as there is an essential link between syntax and communication, there should be such a link between syntactic change and communication. If syntax does and has always been serving the function of symbolic interaction and particularly verbal communication, which empowers our species in the evolution process towards sociocultural sophistication, then syntactic change, too, must also relate to pragmatic considerations. The acknowledgement of pragmatic factors is a necessary condition for the establishment of a plausible explanation of change; however, it is not sufficient. Change is always subject to the structural constraints of synchronic grammar at any given point of development of the language. As we will see in this chapter, it is the form-function interactions within the entire system that shapes the path of evolution. Labov (1982) acknowledges the Darwinian insight about the similarity between biological and linguistic evolution. He points out that the most important homologue for Darwin was the existence of natural selection in both biological and linguistic evolution. Most linguists, unfortunately, fail to follow Darwin in this sense, as Labov suggests (1982: 23): The consensus among linguists is that there is evolution in language in the sense of development and diversification, but not in the sense of progressive or adaptive evolution (Greenberg 1959). If one could find evidence for adaptive developments in language change, the search for the causes of change would be advanced.

My analysis in this chapter will demonstrate that the development of the baconstruction is one representative instance of evolutionary adaptive change in the history of Mandarin Chinese. With this case we will observe how formal pressure causes syntactic reanalysis in the incipience of the change and how a subsequent minor change in structure leads to a drastic functional readaptation of the ba-construction. That is, the eventual pragmatization of the ba-construction as speakers’ instruction to HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY. Thus both internal (or formal) explanations and external (or functional) explanations are crucial to a plausible theory about the particular change of the ba-construction. This argument will allow us to present formidable objections to either exclusively formal or exclusively functional views of the change. In 9.2.1 we will discuss the formal pressure that triggers the initial reanalysis and in 9.2.2 we will demonstrate the mechanism underlying the functional change.

 Dramatized Discourse

. Serial verb construction as source of change All linguists dealing with the history of the ba-construction seem to agree that the modern ba-construction originates from serial-verb-constructions such as V1-O-V2, where V1 = ba. However, many linguists focus their attention on the grammaticalization of the morpheme ba without noting that the semantic change of the morpheme ba follows from the change in the entire construction that has become the ba-construction, and not vice versa. Those who take this morpheme-centered view tend to compare the meaning of the modern ba with that of the historical ba. Since such an isolating comparison only shows the superficial semantic reduction of the morpheme ba, that is, from a full verb to an object marker or transitive marker, the true motivation of change associated with the entire construction remains uncovered. The effect is that the word ba is seen as another morpheme having a life of its own and as such undergoes grammaticalization. This general tendency has found objections in the “antigrammaticalization” literature (see Lightfoot 1979, 2003; Joseph 2001; Janda 2001, etc.). In contrast to the morpheme-centered approach, I shall examine the structural properties of the serial verb construction from which the ba-construction as a whole has developed. Zhu (1957) and Peyraube (1989) differentiate between two lines of development. The modern ba-construction, according to them as well as Hé (2002), originates from the serial verb construction V1-O1-V2-O2 where O1 = O2, that is, the object of V1 (ba) is coreferential with the object of V2. The other line leads from V1-O1-V2-O2, where O1 = O2, to the prepositional use of the ba-phrase as instrumental in verbal constructions that follow the pattern PPV-O, in Middle and Early Mandarin Chinese, which then was replaced by the instrumental use of ba in the 18th century. I agree with these scholars on the differentiation of the two channels of development. However, I do not agree with them on the exact origin of the first line of development, which has led to the modern ba-construction. It is true that the ba-construction comes from a serial verb construction, the question is, which one? A related question is how to explain the development of the ba-construction with and without locative or recipient phrases in a unitary manner. Both Zhu and L. Wang (1980) consider the origin of the ba-construction as the serial verb construction V1-O1-V2 (V1 = ba), where O1 is the logical object of both V1 and V2. Peyraube claims that the ba-construction comes from V1-O1-V2-O2 (V1 = ba, O1 = O2), where O2 is a pronoun coreferential

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

with O1. All three scholars agree that the earliest version of the ba-construction largely lacks postverbal modification or attachment. Though Peyraube and Zhu acknowledge instances of the ba-construction with postverbal locative or recipient phrases, both seem to consider this a secondary development that presumably occurs later than the ba-construction without such attachments. Hé considers the development of the ba-construction with postverbal locative or recipient phrases a separate story, parallel to the development of the ba-construction. His view is shared by Mei (1990) and Ye (1988), both suggesting two separate ba-constructions. According to them, there was on the one hand the simple ba-O-V, which they call the “pure ba-construction”, and on the other hand the more complex ba-construction with locative, recipient or an argument denoting the transformation of identity. The complex one is said to have developed earlier than the pure one. The modern ba-construction is a conglomeration of both. The difficulty of this separationist treatment is obvious: If a structure already exists in the grammar and serves the speakers well, what would have stopped the speakers from making use of it in pursuing a similar communicative goal? What would have jump-started a completely new function without a single structural thread attached to a familiar form? What we will discover in this chapter is that there was a developmental continuity from one form to the other and that such a continuity is formally, functionally, cognitively and pragmatically evident. My contention is that the modern ba-construction first derives from the “complex” serial verb construction V1 (ba)-O1-V2-L, where L stands for a locative NP indicating the location or destination of the action denoted by V2. The putative route from V1-O1-V2-O2 (V1 = ba, O1 = O2) to ba-O-V cannot be obtained without a serious violation of the grammar. The alleged change from V1-O1-V2 to ba-O-V, on the other hand, postdates the onset of the development. I shall validate my claim on account of available historical data. Before starting the analysis, we shall mention the historical sister and rival of ba, that is, the morpheme jiang. I use the capitalized BA to represent both. The scenario is that jiang occurred slightly earlier than ba in both the BA-construction and the instrumental use. The use of ba was modeled on the use of jiang by analogy on the basis of their shared semantic and cognitive properties. For centuries ba competed with jiang until it eventually took the floor as a fully developed dramatizer in Modern Standard Mandarin, where jiang is only marginally used as the formal, written, and somewhat antiquated counterpart of ba (cf. L. Wang 1980; Zhu 1957; Peyraube 1989). Furthermore, jiang has developed other uses such as the temporal adverb indicating future

 Dramatized Discourse

which is still active today, and verbal suffix indicating process which is out of use in Modern Mandarin. This scenario suggests a kind of lexical replacement of jiang through ba; however, there are problems with this assumption. As far as history is concerned, it is hard to tell whether or not ba was already a stylistic alternative to jiang in the early history of the development. Though the historical data available to us are colloquial literary texts and mirror the language of the respective historical phases, they are nevertheless written on the page and cannot be fully relied upon for the total recovery and reconstruction of the real colloquial tongue of the people who lived in those times. For this reason, though jiang and ba seem synonymous with each other in the data, especially in the earlier texts, it is hard to tell whether or not they were equally so in the casual language use of real life. The “perpetual chasm of time” that separates us from the ancient speakers is envisaged by Virginia Woolf in her critical essay On Not Knowing Greek (2003). There she argues that the secrets of the ancient language are lost with the people who spoke it. Given the historical descriptive dilemma, the issue must still remain open to further investigations. Despite the controversy mentioned above, ba and jiang show the same developmental pattern in many aspects. Therefore, following L. Wang (1980), Zhu (1957), Peyraube (1989), and Sun (1997), I feel justified to use BA for both ba and jiang when discussing the common pattern of development. However, in describing the competition between the two in the more recent history of development, we will contrast between the ba-construction and the jiangconstruction. .. Formal pressure towards change The earliest available examples of the serial verb construction involving BA are found to be of the format V1-O1-V2-L (V1 = BA). Here a postverbal locative NP follows V2 and O1 is the common object of V1 and V2. This locative construction is traced back to as far as the second century B.C. by Ji (1998: 129– 130) who studied the inscriptions on bamboo slips unearthed from the Qin tombs and attested sentences (1) and (2) below: (1) ‘What is called “to defame someone”? It is when X carries his own dresses and money and hides (them) (in) Y’s room, and then reports of the loss, trying to make Y responsible while Y cannot in fact be called a thief.’

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction

Jia ba qi yi qian nicang yi shi. pn hold 3gen dress money hide pn chamber (2) Ling litu jiang zhuanji heng shu yi feng yi Ling-Shi. order aid take tally regular letter one cl arrive official ‘(He) ordered his aid to take the tally and a letter and go to the official.’

Another early example is from the 1st–2nd century A.D., consider (3): (3) Ba li shi ti tao jian hu? carry plum fruit lift peach between q ‘(Isn’t it like) carrying plums and hanging them up between the peaches?’

Note that sentence (2) differs from (1) in that the second verb yi ‘arrive, visit’ does not take O1 ‘the tally and a letter’ as its object, the way the verb nicang ‘hide’ does ‘his own dresses and money’. Instead, yi takes the NP ‘official’ as its object. Thus sentence (2) is of the format V1-O1-V2-O2 (V1 = BA, O1 = O2), which is the origin of the instrumental use and cannot be taken as the origin of the ba-construction. During the time of the 6th–7th century, following the locative model, the BA-construction with recipient and transformation started to occur. Here are two examples taken from Hé (2002): (4) Shi yuanfang ren, jiang yi da niu, feisheng youli, mai-yu then far-away person ba one big bull fat strong sell-ive ci cheng zhong ren. this town inside person ‘At this time, a person from far away sold a big fat bull to someone in this town.’ (5) jiang jian lai bi su ba fine-silk come compare raw-silk ‘compare fine silk to raw silk’

It is important to note that sentences (1), (3), (4) and (5) in the serial verb construction reveal the real-world sequential iconic relations between the object and its changing location, transferring ownership, and transformable identity. In this sense, they possess the inherent cognitive basis to encode prototypical



 Dramatized Discourse

change – movement. Syntactically, the special constituent order observed with (1), (3), (4) and (5) provides formal pressure for contextual reanalysis of the entire BA-construction. The formal pressure generates from the following syntactic features. First, Ancient Chinese is more succinct in that locatives can be bare NPs without a preceding preposition. Thus nicang yi shi ‘hide Y’s chamber’ is actually ‘hide in Y’s chamber’ in Modern Mandarin. Second, this bare locative NP immediately follows V2 and occupies the spot where the direct object of V2, O2, which is coreferential with O1, should otherwise have occurred. In this situation, it is improbable that V2 takes its own object NP before the locative NP, for reasons related to both economy and transparency. In a construction like this, V2 and the following locative NP are likely to be reinterpreted as one entity, that is, the core predicate, whereas O1 is likely to be reinterpreted as a preposed object of the core predicate. As a result, V1 becomes a cognitive zero that ritually occupies the slot before the object. The reanalysis of the entire construction can be illustrated as V1-O-V2-L > AUX-O-PRD (AUX = auxiliary and PRD = predicate). The same scenario is not imaginable with serial verb constructions that do not involve locatives. In a non-locative serial verb construction, V2 routinely takes a pronominal object O2 that is coreferential with O1, as observed in the sentences of the 3rd century: (6) Sui jiang hou sha zhi. then take queen kill 3sg. ‘Then (he) took the queen and killed her.’ (7) Jiang wo er sha zhi, dou bu fu nian. take 1sg. son kill 3sg. all not again think ‘(You) took my son and killed him, not even thinking twice!’ [Hé 2002: 98; glosses and translations are mine, Z.J.S.]

Here both sentences contain two verbs jiang ‘take’ and sha ‘kill’. The two objects are coreferential. O2 zhi is a third person pronoun, anaphorically referring back to O1 hou ‘queen’, and wo er ‘my son’, in (6) and (7), respectively. The pronoun zhi, though readily inferable as coreferential with O1, is grammatically undeletable, at least not at that historical point where these sentences were produced. Besides, in contrast to the locative serial verb construction where the postverbal L occupies the slot of O2 and thus causes the deletion of O2, no structural pressure would have required the deletion of O2 in sentences like (6) and (7). Thus (6a) and (7a) each would be assigned an asterisk:

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

(6) a. Sui jiang hou sha then take queen kill (7) a. Jiang wo er sha take my son kill

Hé (2002: 99) argues that in both sentences, the second verb sha ‘kill’ has a stronger sense of action than the first verb jiang ‘take’ and the second NP is referentially redundant. Thus when the second NP is omitted, the weight of the sentence completely shifts onto V2, which would agree with its semantic weightiness in comparison with V1. The problem here, however, is that a grammatical constituent does not disappear in the absence of any triggering force. The second NP cannot be dropped just because it is semantically coreferential with O1. Its existence is governed by the convention of the grammar. In fact, the omission of O2 at this stage would be a grave violation of the grammar that requires the transitive verb to take an object, one whose referent is previously mentioned (O1). The unmotivated omission apparently did not occur in the first place, as these two sentences obviously suggest. Now, if O2 was never dropped, nothing would have triggered the reinterpretation of the whole construction and the interpretation of the individual role played by each constituent. What may seem logical or even natural to today’s speakers is only so in retrospect. It does not hold under the grammatical circumstances of the third century. The structural constraint that disallows the deletion of the pronominal O2 poses serious problems for the argumentation that the ba-construction originates from the V1-O1-V2-O2 (V1 = BA, O1 = O2) construction. Given that both semantic and syntactic conditions for reanalysis are readily available in the locative serial verb construction, it is likely that the reanalysis occurs suddenly in contexts like those of (1) and (3) and the analogous environments of (4) and (5). Statistically, however, it seems that the morpheme ba had not become productive in forming ba-constructions until much later. The bulk of early sentences attested in the format BA-O-V-L contains jiang instead of ba. This can be explained in semantic terms. The verb jiang and the verb ba both denote physical manipulation of an object. Yet jiang differs from ba in that it has the semantic aspect of causing locational transfer of the controlled object, that is ‘hold O and move O away’, whereas ba denotes static physical control only, that is ‘hold O’. This dimension of motion makes jiang more amenable than ba to contexts involving change of location, which is the gist expressed by the serial verb construction V1-O1-V2-L. For

 Dramatized Discourse

this reason, the jiang-construction is more productive in the early phase of the development. This phenomenon provides extra evidence that the origin of the BA-construction involves location change. Consider sentence (8) from the 1st–2nd century and sentences (9)–(11) from the 5th–6th century: (8) Jin jiang Fu song yu. now ba pn send prison ‘Now (they) sent Fu into prison.’ (9) Sui jiang hou xia bao shi. thereafter ba queen put-down cruel chamber ‘Thereafter (he) put the queen into prison.’ (10) Ji jiang shi Fanzhishi zhu chu wo guo jie qu. quick ba this Buddhist drive out 1sg. land boundary go ‘Quickly (they) expelled this Buddhist from our land.’ (11) Hu jiang er bai qian zhi qi qian. suddenly ba two hundred coin place wife front ‘(He) suddenly puts two hundred coins in front of his wife.’ [Hé 2002: 100; glosses and translations are mine, Z.J.S.]

All sentences here share the same structure of great syntactic opacity although the word jiang seems to act more like a verb in (8) and (9) than it does in (10) and (11). We shall see that, syntactically, there is no transitional construction between the earlier sentences in which the word jiang is more verbal and the later sentences where jiang is more like an auxiliary. All sentences are structurally identical. This observation has one important indication. That is, the V1-O1-V2-L sequence has the immediate structural condition for reanalysis to occur readily without violating any grammatical constraints. When syntactic reanalysis occurs, it is likely that the newly assigned syntactic relationship is promoted by frequent repetition and spreads into other contexts. In fact, because of the opacity in the surface structure, the reanalysis, by which the morpheme jiang has become an auxiliary, may not be detectable in the grammar until it spreads into contexts where the structural opacity is lifted. This happens when the core predicate contains no locative argument, in which case the verb alone is left in the sentence-final position. This does not mean that the speaker consciously drops the locative to obtain the new structure BA-O-V. The new use could have taken place by analogy. That is, the later

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

simple BA-construction is modeled on the earlier locative BA-construction as a whole. Chronological evidence seems to support this scenario. The earliest locative BA-constructions predate the earliest BA-O-V constructions by ca. seven hundred years. The “pure” BA-O-V represents the intermediate stage between the complex locative BA-construction and the modern ba-construction. Though the path of development is windy, the development is continuous. The earliest example of simple BA-O-V is found in the 6th–7th century translations of the Buddhist scriptures Zhuan Ji Bai Yuan Jing (see Hé 2002: 98). Let us consider it: (12) Jiang zhu biqu chuchu gongyang. ba these Buddhists everywhere supply ‘(He) supplied these Buddhists wherever possible.’ [Hé 2002: 98; glosses and translation are mine, Z.J.S.]

This is the emergence of the simple BA-construction. Here the entire construction is no longer a serial verb construction with the action verb now being the singular endocentric focus of the whole sentence. The word jiang, as a result, is no longer an action verb in the sense of ‘take’ and is used as an auxiliary. This change whereby the predicate has come to receive the sentence focus is pragmatically important. The new information structure gives speakers the possibility to emphasize the action described by the verb. A change in the information structure as the cause of word order change is not unfamiliar when we consider other languages of the world. Faarlund (1985) shows that the word order change from SOV to SVO in the Germanic languages has been the result of the development of the sentence-final focus pattern and the overwhelming likelihood of focusing the object. In our case, the change in the information structure that has occurred by way of reanalysis and analogy has the effect that the verb gets the focus status. The possibility toward higher expressiveness enabled by the new information structure renders the BA-construction particularly favorable to the poetic language. Following the emergence of this simple BA-construction, the Tang dynasty (618–960 A.D.) observed a rash of further occurrences of this new construction in the colloquial verse. It is at this stage of development that a drastic functional change started to emerge that eventually led to the use of the modern ba-construction as a sign of HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY.

 Dramatized Discourse

.. Functional re-adaptation and its formal repercussions The functional change of the BA-construction displays a sociolinguistic dimension in that the imitation and repetition of the simple BA-construction as a new type of poetic expression contribute enormously to the spread of this construction in the speech community and over generations. This sociolinguistic factor is intimately related to the flourish of the colloquial verse in the larger sociocultural context of the zeitgeist of the Tang dynasty. The Tang dynasty is the most celebrated dynasty in the history of China because of its prosperity and vigor in all aspects. The Tang poems, on the one hand, are the out-flowing of the exuberant, youthful and dynamic spirit of this golden age and on the other hand reflect the sorrows and uncertainties behind the glory (cf. Watson 1982: 20). Scholars of the Chinese language as well as scholars of Chinese literature agree that the Tang poems mirror the colloquial language use of the time (see L. Wang 1980). This is probably true of Chinese poetry in general, as through the entire history of Chinese culture, “the sense of poetry as a natural and solaceful part of life has lasted among the Chinese people” (Bynner 1982: 39). Bynner captured the continuance of poetry as a life factor among the Chinese when he said (1982: 40): Whether or not the individual may form or enjoy his poetry in metrical shape, he is constantly aware of the kinship between the beauty of the world and the beauty of imaginative phrase. On any Chinese mountain-climb toward a temple, rock after rock with its terse and suggestive inscription will bear witness to his temper. So will the street cries of the peddlers, or the names of the teahouses, and on many hilltops and lakesides the casual but reverent jottings of this or that anonymous appreciator of natural beauty.

Poetry was not a lofty art beyond common life but always accessible to everyone and played an important part in social life. A man who was able to express emotions and thoughts in symbolic verse enjoyed respect from his fellow men. Everyone strived to perfect their own poetic creations by following formal standards and regulations in the maintenance of rhymes, parallelism of characters, and the balance of tones and by emulating the celebrated masters. In the Tang dynasty, poetry became a requisite in examinations for degrees and an important cause leading to official promotion (see Kiang 1982: 46). The status of poetry in social life is a crucial point in understanding the culture-specific fashion in which poetry immediately influences language use. In this context, the spread of the simple BA-construction instantiates change as a result of sociocultural dynamics.

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

In the Tang poems, the simple BA-construction is repeatedly used. Consider the following examples: (13)

(Du Fu) zixi kan Zui ba zhuye drunk ba dogwood careful look ‘Drunk, (he) held the dogwood and examined (it) carefully.’

(14)

(Ren Hua) Xian chang ba qin nong free often ba string-instrument play ‘In leisure I often play the string instrument.’

(15)

(Du Xuan He) Dan yuan Chunguan ba juan kan ba roll look only wish pn ‘I only hope that Chunguan will read the book(s).’

(16)

(Guan Xiu) Yue xia ba shu kan moon under ba book read ‘Under the moon I read the book.’

(17)

(Bai Ju Yi) Mo ba Hangzhuo cishi qi neg ba pn magistrate deceive ‘Don’t deceive the magistrate of Hangzhuo.’

(18)

(Du Fu) Shui jiang ci yi chen this meaning explain who ba ‘Who will explain this meaning?’

(19)

(Pi Ri Xiu) Yu ba qing tian mo desire ba blue sky touch ‘I desire to touch the blue sky.’

(20)

(Meng Jiao) Xu ba huang jin lian need ba yellow gold shape ‘(one) needs to smelt the gold.’

 Dramatized Discourse

(21)

(Song Zhi Wen) Tu ba liang quan ju vainly ba cool spring cup ‘(I) vainly cup my hands to catch the cool spring water.’ [Peyraube 1989: 2–3; glosses and translations are mine, Z.J.S.]

Viewed as a morpheme in isolation, the word ba in sentences (13)–(16) can be said to have an ambiguous semantic content, for it can be interpreted either as an action verb in the sense of ‘hold’ or as an auxiliary in more abstract use. By contrast, the same word ba in sentences (17), (19), (20) and (21) and jiang in (18) can be said to be semantically bleached or fully grammaticalized. It is thus tempting to claim a linear evolution of the morpheme ba/jiang in the manner of sliding down a “cline” of ever decreasing semantic fullness. However, we must refrain from this kind of impulse that has been dominating the contemporary grammaticalization literature. The problem with this desire to draw general rules from superficial comparisons of diachronic semantic correspondents is that it leaves the historical twists and turns in the use of the construction un-consulted. As will be made explicit later, the abstract meaning of the morpheme ba/jiang has arisen from very specialized forms in very specialized contexts. It is the BA-construction as a whole that has been assigned different functions over time, not the word ba/jiang. The varying assignments are intimately related to the formal particularity and diverse dimensions of the culture-specific literary history and social, economical, and political transformations. The development of the BA-construction shows that constructions instead of morphemes are the basic units of language (cf. Goldberg 1995; Fillmore 1988; Kay 1995 and Croft 2001 etc. on Construction Grammar). The influence of the Tang poems was such that even non-poetic prose tended to imitate the style of the Tang poetry. This is observed with the Buddhist translations of the Tang dynasty. Numerous examples of the simple BA-construction are found in poetic expressions. Let us look at the following sentences: (22)

(Dun Huang Bian Wen) Bu ba ting-qian zhu-ma qi neg ba house-front bamboo-horse ride ‘(He) does not ride the bamboo-horse in front of the house.’

(23)

(Dun Huang Bian Wen) Qiankun si ba hong luo zhan universe seem ba red gauze spread ‘The universe seems to be spreading red gauze.’

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

(24)

(Dun Huang Bian Wen) Zao wan ceng jiang zhihui kai morn eve ever ba wisdom open ‘In the morn or on the eve (he) opened his wisdom.’ [Peyraube 1989: 2–3; glosses and translations are mine, Z.J.S.]

The use of the simple BA-construction in sentences (13)–(24) is associated with poetic expressiveness characteristic of the poetic genre. Through frequent imitation, this expressiveness is then interpreted as central to the function of the construction itself. Thus what was at one time an analogous configuration is functionally re-adapted to denote expressive force. It is here that a new formcontent iconicity is established. Once this new pragmatic coloration is assigned to the simple BA-construction, it is likely to be used even more frequently. The effect is twofold. The simple BA-construction thrives in its expressive function. Meanwhile, its increased frequency makes its expressiveness entrenched and resistant to change, what Bybee and Thompson call the “conserving effect of token frequency” (1997: 380). This conserving effect reflects the language users’ need to maintain a form-content iconicity, which is responsible for the fact that the simple syntactic form remained unchanged for about five centuries. The lack of postverbal modification (except complex postverbal complements representing changing location, recipient, and transformation of identity, which continue to exist in parallel to the simple BA-construction) is characteristic of the BA-construction at this stage of development. This single-verb situation lasted over centuries and is still observable in colloquial dramas and stories of the 13th–14th century. Consider sentences (25)–(26) from the 8th–9th century, (27)–(28) from the 10th–12th century, and (29)–(31) from the 13th–14th century below: (25)

(Song Qi) Zun qian ni ba gui-qi shuo. goblet front plan ba return-date speak ‘In front of the goblets, (I) plan to speak about the date of my return.’

(26)

(Liu Yong) Zao zhi nenme, hui dangchu, bu ba diao-an suo. early know that, regret past neg ba carved-saddle lock ‘(I) should’ve known that earlier, (now I) regret that (I) didn’t lock (his) carved-saddle back then.’

 Dramatized Discourse

(27)

(Yao Bu Zhi) Ru-guan ceng ba shen wu. scholar-crown once ba life mislead ‘The scholarly career has once led my life astray.’

(28)

(Guan Han Qing) Zhi he ba qing-zhuo fenbian. Only ought ba clear-turbid differentiate ‘(Heaven and Earth) ought to tell the good from the bad.’

(29)

(Bai Ren Pu) Ta yi nian yi ri jian ba jia qi deng. 3pl. one year one day meet ba merry date wait ‘They meet on one day out of a year and wait for the merry date.’

(30)

(Meng Han Qing) Jiao ta zao xie lai ba wo zhe bing ren fu. let 3sg. early some come ba 1sg. this sick person hold ‘Ask her to come earlier and hold me, this sick person.’

(31)

(Zhang Guo Bin) Shui jiang an fuqin ming-xing jiao? who ba 1sg. father name-surname call ‘Who is calling my father’s name?’ [Sentences (25)–(27) from Zhang 2000 and (28)–(31) are from the corpus Y; glosses and translations are mine, Z.J.S.]

Yet, the new pragmatics of the simple BA-construction has its inherent semantic potential such that it is likely to be used in contexts where different lexical and grammatical means corroborate to enhance the total expressiveness of the proposition. Because of this, the configuration of the simple BA-construction with the single verb at the end of the string is too limited to formally allow the maximal expansion of expressiveness. Functional necessity has formal repercussions, which, in due course, are realized in the obligatorization of verbal modifiers in the BA-construction. This formal change is concomitant with a series of other morphosyntactic changes in the grammar. The common formal representation of these changes is the grammaticalization of boundedness, which serves the pragmatic function of overtly marking changing situations and maximally expressing subjectivity in communication. One important concomitant change is the development of complex (bisyllabic or polysyllabic) verbal compounds where the second lexeme indicates the result of the action denoted by the first lexeme. These are also called resultative verbal-compounds or “causative constructions” in L. Wang’s terms. I

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

adopt the term “resultative” instead of “causative” because the latter has other structural referents and may cause notational confusion. According to L. Wang, the emergence of the resultative verbal-compounds already started in the third century, expanded in the fourth and the fifth century, but did not prevail until the Tang dynasty, where the simple BA-construction also flourished. The resultative verbal compounds fall into two basic types: (1) VERB1-VERB2, and (2) VERB-ADJECTIVE. For a detailed account of the history of the resultative verbal compounds, see L. Wang (1980: 401–407) and Shi (2003). Here I will concentrate my primary focus on aspects of this change that are relevant to the development of the BA-construction. In Archaic Chinese, there is a phenomenon known as “conversion” whereby an adjective is used as a transitive verb to indicate the process whereby the subject causes the object to change, the resulting state of which being the content of the adjective. For example, the adjective jie ‘clean’ is used in the sense of ‘make clean’ in jie mian ‘make the face clean’. The use of conversion, though apt to make clear the result of change, is, however, unable to indicate the explicit means by which the change is made. In other words, whether the face is ‘washed clean’, ‘scrubbed clean’, or ‘wiped clean’ is not specified by it and all we know from it is the result of ‘being clean’. In view of this semantic limitation, it is understandable that this construction increasingly gives way to the more detailed expressions with which both the action and its result are indicated, as in xi-ganjing ‘wash clean’, ca-ganjing ‘wipe clean’ in Modern Mandarin. Clearly, this development is a functional progression towards more accuracy and descriptiveness, which contributes to the total upgrading in speakers’ linguistic capacity to convey information and to express themselves. Through this change, the speakers’ perception of immediate causations in the world finds expression in the grammar. Moreover, the perceived boundedness of events becomes definite and manifest by virtue of the resultative complement that serves to denote change. In terms of both perception of immediate causation and perception of boundedness, the development of resultative verbal compounds can be viewed as a pragmatically motivated process of subjectification as discussed by Traugott (1989). Intimately related to the development of the resultative verbal compound is the emergence of the perfective marker le. This aspect marker results from the further grammaticalization of the resultative verbal compound V-liao ‘Vfinish’ whereby the second verb liao no longer indicates the concrete sense of ‘finishing’, but marks the speaker’s view of the event as bounded, or perfective. In Archaic Chinese, perfectivity has no explicit grammatical representation on

 Dramatized Discourse

the part of the verb; it is merely implied in appropriate contexts. Witness the following example (Bian & Zhou 1999: 45): (32) Sui qu yu Zhang-shi, wang. You qu Han-shi. Shu yue, Han-shi you wang. ‘Then (he) married Zhang. (She) died. Again, (he) married Han. After a few months, she died too.’

The events described here are bounded or perfective in the sense that they are viewed and reported of as wholes. The boundedness, or perfectivity, of the events, however, has no iconic grammatical marking. This formal indifference with regard to boundedness is characteristic of Archaic Chinese. In Middle and Modern Mandarin, however, the same events are encoded differently in that the verbs qu ‘marry’ and wang ‘die’ can no longer denote perfective events on their own in spite of proper contexts. To convey perfectivity, verbs must take the verbal suffix le, which developed from the full verb liao ‘end, finish’ with obvious phonological reduction. The morpheme le has come to be an obligatory marker of perfectivity. Sentence (32), therefore, must be reformulated with the verbal suffix le attached to the verbs, as in sentence (33) below: (33) Yushi qu-le Zhang-shi. Si-le. You qu-le Han-shi. Shu yue hou, Han-shi you si-le. ‘Then (he) married Zhang. (She) died. Again, (he) married Han. After a few months, she died too.’

This change constitutes a significant innovation of Mandarin grammar: Grammatically, the form-meaning iconicity is established with regard to perfectivity. Pragmatically, the fact that the subjective contrast between perfectivity and imperfectivity is now grammatically distinct indicates that the speaker’s very own perspective of the described event is now grammaticalized. In the sense that aspect does not signal truth-conditional features inherent in the event structure, but is rather a representation of the speaker’s own perception of the event, the development of the perfective suffix le is a clear case of pragmatic change which Traugott calls subjectification. With this change, subjectivity is incorporated directly into the meanings signalled by grammatical structures. Subjectification, by definition, is a step towards higher expressiveness in communication. Thus, here again, we are faced with yet another instance of subjectification that serves the enhancement of linguistic expressiveness.

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

In the colloquial poems of the Song dynasty (960–1279), the use of the BAconstruction with postverbal complement is already sporadically observed, as in the following verse in (34) (Zhang 2000). However, the combination of the BA-construction with the aspect marker le is not yet observed at this stage. In (34), the status of the word liao is still far from being a fully grammaticalized perfective marker, but rather a verbal complement: (34)

(Xin Qi Ji) Ba Wugou kan-liao, langan pai-bian ba moon watch-finish railing touch-fully ‘(I) have finished watching the moon and have touched all the railings.’

In this sentence, the morpheme liao is parallel to the morpheme bian and both are verbal complements indicating the extent of the actions denoted by the respective verbs kan ‘look’ and pai ‘touch, stroke’. This example illustrates the bounding of the ba-predicate through postverbal complementation. It is in the colloquial plays of the next dynasty, the Yuan dynasty (1279– 1368), that the use of the BA-construction with the perfective aspect marker le is observed in ascendancy. The Yuan plays demonstrate a wild propagation of the resultative verbal compounds and the perfective marker le. The propagation of both changes in the historical period subsequent to the Song dynasty can be viewed in the light of the cultural and literary history of China. The poetic literature of the Tang dynasty and the Song dynasty, though colloquial and down-to-earth, is ultimately limited by its genre in its ability to tell stories, or, in linguistic terms, to describe the evolvement of events. This is the task of the narrative genre. Narratives do exist in the Tang and the Song dynasty (cf. Bian & Zhou 1999). However, they are strictly confined to the Archaic, non-colloquial linguistic tradition and are not meant to entertain the common people. With the rapid urbanization that takes place in the Song dynasty, however, archaic narratives no longer meet the literary desire of the urban communities. The restructuring and development of society give rise to the emergence of new ways of narration. It is at this point that colloquial narratives with natural fluidity kick in and become popular, which, in turn, is catalytic to the linguistic development of Mandarin Chinese. A closer look at the Yuan plays suggests that the subjectivity and expressiveness of the BA-construction are still strongly associated with the influential poetic force characteristic of the previous dynasties, which initially encouraged the functional re-adaptation of the simple BA-construction. Concretely speaking, apart from the prototypical BA-construction with locative, recipient, and

 Dramatized Discourse

transformation complements, the simple BA-construction with an unmodified verb is still productive. It coexists with the BA-construction with verbal modification including the perfective aspect marker le. Consider the following ba-sentences in the corpus Y: (35) Pie-de an po fu-men dou ba kong fang shou leave-res 1pl. mother wife pl. all ba empty house keep ‘(He) abandoned (his) mother and wife (me) so that both of us are left with an empty chamber.’ (36) Xiao-de-men, ba zhe liwu bai-de hao-kan xie little-nom-pl. ba this gift arrange-res good-look some ‘Boys, arrange this gift so that it looks nicer.’ (37) Ni ba wo laozi yao si-le 2sg. ba 1sg. father poison die-pfv ‘You poisoned my father to death!’

By now, the reader must have noticed that the use of ba tends to outweigh the use of jiang in the expressive utterances of colloquial nature such as (35)–(37). This is indeed true of the narrative corpora in our investigation. A quantitative figure in Section 9.3 will detail the tendency. Given this tendency of a functional split between ba and jiang, it is now more appropriate to speak of the expressive ba-construction instead of the more inclusive BA-construction. Sentence (35) is a simple ba-construction with unadorned monosyllabic verb shou ‘keep, watch’, which is unacceptable in Modern Mandarin. Sentence (36) is in the imperative mood and contains a more complex ba-construction with a postverbal resultative complement linked to the action verb bai ‘arrange, display’ by the resultative marker de. Sentence (37) illustrates a bounded bapredicate containing the resultative verbal compound yao-si ‘poison to death’ and the perfective marker le. Judged against Modern Mandarin, both (36) and (37) are perfectly felicitous. The coexistence of the simple ba-construction and the modified baconstruction as illustrated by the examples (35)–(37) is an indicator that the functional re-adaptation of the ba-construction as an expressive construction does not have with it the immediate formal consequence of obligatorily engaging verbal modifiers. It took several hundred years for systematic formal rules to establish in the grammar by which the simple BA-construction was finally discarded. In fact, the general obligatorization of verbal modifiers in the ba-

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

construction as we know it today is not observed until as late as the dawn of the 17th century, in the colloquial novel Jin Ping Mei Cihua (corpus J) of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). In this text, traces of the simple BA-construction are hardly found except for a few instances in the poems cited by the characters, which indicates a more archaic form of discourse that is separate from the narrative whole. Let us look at two sentences from the corpus J: (38) Shuo bu-de de ku! wo fu xin teng zhenghou, ji speak neg-pot assoc bitter 1sg. man heart pain symptom several ge rizi bian ba ming diu le. cl day just ba life lose pfv ‘It’s unspeakably bitter! My husband was ill with heartache and just within a few days he lost his life.’ (39) Na laohu ba keren yi-ge-ge dou lu-shang chi le. that tiger ba guest one-cl-cl all way-on devour-pfv ‘On the way, that tiger devoured all the guests one after another.’

Interestingly, both sentences (38) and (39), like the majority of ba-constructions located in this corpus, are uttered in elaborately contrived speech acts. With utterance (38) the speaker (an adulterous wife who conspires with her lover to murder her husband) tells a mocked-up sad story meant to deceive the hearer and utterance (39) is another piece of fiction, which is not only made up, but also told in a dramatizing manner to provoke the hearer’s non-literal, but metaphorical, association. Considering the particularly dramatic nature of the discourse contexts discussed above, in which the ba-construction is used, we can easily discern the pragmatic direction of its development. Moreover, both sentences point to the correlation of the ba-construction with the use of attitudinal particles such as the modal adjunct bian ‘just’ in (38) and the intensifying adverb dou ‘completely, all’ combined with the theatrical element ye-ge-ge ‘one after another’ in (39). As our modern data in 7.3 have demonstrated, modal adjuncts and intensifiers are high-frequency correlates of the ba-construction selected by the function of discourse dramatization. Let us now turn to a special type of the ba-construction, namely the intransitive type, that emerged for the first time in the history of Mandarin grammar no later than the 14th century. The earliest example in our database is found in the corpus Y. This is the type which I term “the attitudinal thetic sentence”. This kind of sentences is used to encode one-participant events whereby the speaker’s personal attitude towards the events is externalized. These sentences

 Dramatized Discourse

typically contain the morpheme ba and never jiang. Witness the following sentences: (40) Kexi ba yi-duo haitanghua lingluo-le. regrettable ba one-cl wild:apple:blossom fall:apart-pfv ‘How regrettable that an apple blossom fell apart just like that!’ (41) Hua Zixu da-le yi-chang guansi chu-lai, mei fen de pn beat-pfv one-cl lawsuit come-out neg share get a sihao, ba yinliang, fangshe, zhuangtian you mei-le. bit ba silver house farmland in-addition disappear-pfv ‘Hua Zixu went through a lawsuit. When he came back, he didn’t get a share of anything. In addition, his silver, his house and his farmland all disappeared.’ (42) Ba zhong-ren dou xiao-le. ba multitude-people all laugh-pfv ‘All laughed.’ (43) Na pozi zai jieshang yujian zhe da-yu, huangmang duo zai that woman on street meet dur big-rain hurriedly hide at renjia fangyan xia, ba yifu dou lin shi-le people eave beneath ba clothes all sprinkle wet-pfv ‘The old woman was caught in a heavy rain in the street. She hurriedly scurried under the eave of someone’s house. Her clothes were all sprinkled wet.’ (44) Yin chi jiu zui le, die xia ma lai, ba maozi because eat wine drunk pfv fall down horse come ba hat luo-le tou-fa sanai. drop-pfv head-hair untie ‘Because I was drunk from wine, I fell off the horse. My hat dropped and my hair untied.’

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

(45) Rujin ba anmen ye chi ta huo mai-le. now ba 1pl.incl too eat 3sg. alive bury-pfv ‘Now we too end up being buried alive by her.’

Sentence (40) clearly demonstrates the speaker’s expression of his personal attitude towards the event metaphorically encoded as the falling apart of an apple blossom.57 Note that the use of the stance adverb kexi ‘regrettably’ with which the ba-sentence is begun pronouncedly speaks for the subjective nature of the whole thetic sentence. The ba-clause in sentence (41) encodes the event that the person’s property disappeared, a happening that was out of the person’s control. No possible influence by the person is extractable which can serve as the cause of the disappearance of his property. The person is inferably the experiencer of the event, although a formal subject ellipsis is on display. Sentence (42) is very curious because it begins immediately with ba, which is followed by an SV sequence zhong-ren dou xiao-le ‘all laughed’. Such a construction implies a certain causal link between the proposition in question and the previous proposition as perceived subjectively by the narrator. Without the ba-construction the SV sequence on its own would be no less felicitous; yet the subjectivity would be missing. Sentence (43) contains three clauses, the last of which is a ba-clause. It is obvious that the first two clauses share one and the same subject (or topic) na pozi ‘the woman’ because the two predicates encode actions conducted by the same subject. However, it is not so obvious as to whether the ba-clause also shares the same subject. The uncertainty lies in the clash between the nature of the verb phrase lin-shi ‘sprinkle wet’ and the agent-patient relationship: If na pozi ‘the woman’ were the subject of the ba-clause, the inference would be that ‘the woman sprinkled the clothes wet’, which does not make sense. The only logical subject if any has to be the rain, which is however not formally featured in the ba-clause. All that the ba-construction does here is to externalize the narrator’s concern with the event being described and draw the hearer’s attention to it. Sentence (44) too involves zero anaphora and the interpretation of the subject is context-dependent. From the discourse context, it can be inferred that the speaker is talking about himself. The two ba-clauses here, ba maozi luo-le and (ba) toufa san-kai, are both in the form of ba-SV. They encode oneparticipant events, namely ‘my hat dropped’ and ‘my hair untied’. Note that it is semantically incongruent to suppose that the zero anaphora in the ba-clauses

 Dramatized Discourse

indicates a shared subject (or topic) with the previous clauses, which would indicate that the subject plays an active role in the happenings, which is the opposite of the reality being described. The only active role is not played by the “syntactic subject”, but rather by the “speaking subject”, to use Langacker’s words (see Langacker 1990, 1995). The use of the ba-construction is to externalize this active role of the “speaking subject” who expresses his own helplessness by dramatizing the single-participant events of which he himself is a victim. Sentence (45) breaks down to the basic composition ba-SV where SV is a passive construction: anmen ye chi ta huo mai-le ‘we too get buried alive by her’. Thus, again, the ba-construction functions as a dramatizer to bring out the speaker’s highly subjective belief and opinion. Note that the proposition denoted by the passive construction is not a realistic situation, but more an exaggeration than anything else. These examples show clearly that, at this stage of development, the baconstruction is more liberally used as a dramatizing tool and the original grammatical environment out of which it has arisen is no longer applicable to the new function. These examples illustrate however only one of the many facets of the developmental traits of the ba-construction. In both the corpus Y and the corpus J, the scenario of usage is far more complicated. First of all, there is the jiangconstruction besides the ba-construction. Second, there is a seemingly split phenomenon whereby an instrumental use of the ba/jiang-construction is active in certain contexts. Other semantically similar instrumental constructions (prepositions), however, have also come into the scene and are observed to interact with both ba and jiang in this particular usage. Meanwhile, the morpheme jiang has developed uses as verbal suffix on the one hand and as adverb on the other. There is apparent overlapping of uses on the one hand, and significant functional complementation on the other. Yet the exact specialty of each construction seems all but clear-cut. The corpora leave us with the overall impression of simultaneous change and maintenance of constructions, of which the observable effect is the pervasion of polysemous as well as synonymous uses. The only consistency is found in the tendency that the ba-construction is used in more expressive contexts such as emotionally charged frist-person speech acts. The seemingly ambiguous situation, however, is in no way an indicator of a dysfunctional language. The popularisation of the plays and the novel suggests that the opposite might be true. The corpus H, in its turn, shows that the apparent confusion observed with the earlier corpora is largely clarified, which points to a process of reg-

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

ulation and systemization though at the given stage the systemization process is necessarily incomplete due to creative accidents of varying sorts. With regard to regulation and systemization, linguists have been asking the question as to whether it is the speaker or the language that conducts the regulation and systemization (cf. Milroy 2003: 152–153). To my mind, one can never talk about language without the recognition that social and other factors about its speakers have direct and heavy bearings on the shape of language and the way it changes. Accordingly, when I argue that the grammar of Mandarin Chinese as an integral system underwent regulation and systemization throughout its development, I am fully aware of the necessary role played by its speakers. That is: Although the systemization of the grammar is about internal and formal facts, it does not happen independently of external forces, for language has a life only when it is used by speakers who are members of society. The fruit of regulation and systemization is readily observed in the 18th century (the corpus H), where functional specializations of the constructions involved can be pinned down in a more rigorous manner: The instrumental use of ba/jiang is eliminated from the grammatical system; systematic replacement of ba/jiang with the prepositions na and yong is established. The ba-construction specializes in the function of discourse dramatization; the jiang-construction is not embedded in the grammatical system of discourse dramaticity, but remains a synchronic stylistic variant the use of which is limited to specific written registers of prosaic nature. Whereas ba is still observed in its full-verb usage, the same does not hold with jiang, which, in its own vicissitude of change, ends up as a future marker. From the corpus H to the modern corpus S, functional continuity and stability associated with the constructions in question point to an increasingly settled iconicity. In the following part, I shall strive to comb out the tangled strands of the systemic development involving the ba-construction and its structural as well as semantic rivals on account of historical data. Both formal and sociolinguistic considerations are taken to shed light on the change and maintenance of the constructions under discussion. The goal of such a collective investigation is to provide a historical-pragmatic orientation for the conception of the development of the ba-construction, for the active developing pattern of the ba-construction is not a mysterious diachronic drift in isolation.

 Dramatized Discourse

. Regulation and systemization .. Data To examine the regulation and systemization of the uses of the ba-construction and its rivals as part of the diachronic development of these constructions within an integral grammatical system, I conducted the following frequency counts with four corpora of four consecutive historical periods: the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Qing dynasty (1644– 1911), and the modern age. The four corpora are: (1) ten Yuan dynasty vernacular plays (Gu 2000) produced by nine authors (henceforth Y); (2) the first 16 chapters of Tao (2000), the vernacular novel Jin Ping Mei Cihua (henceforth J) which first appeared in the 17th century in the late Ming dynasty; (3) the first 16 chapters of Cao and Gao ([18th century] 1999), the Qing dynasty vernacular novel Hong Lou Meng (henceforth H); (4) the first 16 chapters of Lao She ([1945] 1999), Si Shi Tong Tang (henceforth S), a modern Mandarin novel, which also serves as the main corpus of the synchronic analysis conducted in the previous parts of the present study. The corpus Y is a conglomeration of ten plays by nine different authors. For this reason, the difference in style characteristic of individual authors may interfere as an extra variable. However, the use of this corpus in the database is justified by two considerations. First, frequency counts of the ba-construction relative to its earlier alternative the jiang-construction in the corpus Y, despite stylistic variations from author to author, reveal the general tendencies of the uses of both constructions in that period compared to the competition between them in the next dynasty where the corpus J appeared. Second, counts of the instrumental uses in proportion to the dramatizing uses of the ba-construction in the corpus Y can be compared with the same counts conducted with the corpus J. By means of the comparisons, the tendency of change can be largely worked out at the quantitative level. The frequency counts concern the following aspects: (1) the total instances of ba in each text; (2) the number of occurrences of ba used as an instrumental preposition in each text; (3) the number of occurrences of ba used as a full verb in each text; (4) the number of occurrences of ba used in a ba-construction irrespective of the number of participants; (5) the number of occurrences of ba used in the attitudinal thetic construction. The same frequency counts are conducted with respect to jiang. In the process of counting aimed at these three functions (instrumental, full verb, and the jiang-construction), I have identified that while the word jiang had declined in all these three uses, it

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

developed two other functions. They are the inchoative verbal suffix and an adverb lexically denoting future. Therefore I will present this developmental aspect of jiang, as it may shed light on the causes of the final loss of jiang in all the other three uses and eventually contributes to explaining the soar of the ba-construction as a discourse dramatizer. Meanwhile it must be mentioned that the status of two other instrumental prepositions yong and na is crucial to the explanation of the loss of instrumentality of ba in modern Mandarin. For this consideration, I counted the frequency of these two words as full verb and as preposition, respectively, in all the four corpora. All counts are accompanied by qualitative studies of the items and constructions in concern. All textual counts are done manually. As for any statistics, the quantitative figure reveals as much as it conceals. The limitations of the data shall be clearly recognized. First, despite the fact that the four texts were produced in four consecutive dynasties and each is representative of the language use in the respective dynasty, the intervals between the individual corpora range from one to three centuries, which leaves room for speculations as to what might have happened in between. Second, each text differs from another in the writing style that is both typical of the author and of the historical period of time in which the text was produced. This is an extra variable in the evaluation of the present data, which features strongly especially in our investigation of the stylistic variation from the corpus J to the corpus H. On the other hand, although all the corpora are narrative texts written in Mandarin, regional variation in language use may still be a variable. The reason is that the northern dialects that are subsumed under the notion of Mandarin are after all individual dialects and each has its idiosyncrasies. For these reasons, the authority of the data should not be considered absolute.

 Dramatized Discourse

.. Results Table 9.1 Total number of occurrences of ba versus jiang Total

Y

J

H

S

ba jiang

182 380

304 100

59 113

306 18

400

Total Frequency

300

200

100

0

Y

J

H S Corpus ba jiang

Figure 9.1 Change in total frequency of ba versus jiang

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

Table 9.2 Total number of occurrences of ba versus jiang as full verb Full verb

Y

J

H

S

ba jiang

21 69

18 10

3 0

2 0

70 60

Frequency

50 40 30 20 10 0

Y

J

H Corpus ba

S jiang

Figure 9.2 Change in frequency of ba versus jiang as full verb

 Dramatized Discourse

Table 9.3 Total number of occurrences of ba versus jiang as instrumental Instrumental

Y

J

H

S

ba jiang

10 19

29 4

0 0

0 0

30 25

Frequency

20 15 10 5 0

Y

J

H S Corpus ba jiang

Figure 9.3 Change in frequency of ba versus jiang as instrumental

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

Table 9.4 Total number of occurrences of ba versus jiang as in the BA-construction BA-construction

Y

J

H

S

ba jiang

151 237

256 51

56 92

304 3

400

Frequency

300

200

100

0

Y

J

H S Corpus ba jiang

Figure 9.4 Change in frequency of ba versus jiang as in the BA-construction

 Dramatized Discourse

Table 9.5 Total number of occurrences of ba versus jiang as in the attitudinal thetic sentence Theticity

Y

J

H

S

ba jiang

1 0

18 0

3 0

2 0

18 16

Frequency

14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Y

J

H S Corpus ba jiang

Figure 9.5 Development of the attitudinal thetic use

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

Table 9.6 Total number of occurrences of jiang as verbal suffix and adverb jiang

Y

J

H

S

Verbal suffix Adverb

53 2

42 8

3 18

0 15

60

Frequency

50 40 30 20 10 0

Y

J

H Corpus verbal suffix

S adverb

Figure 9.6 Development of other uses (verbal suffix and adverb) of jiang

 Dramatized Discourse

Table 9.7 Total occurrences of na as verb and as preposition na

Y

J

H

S

Verb Preposition

48 1

128 10

31 7

55 8

140 120

Frequency

100 80 60 40 20 0

Y

J

H S Corpus verb preposition

Figure 9.7 Change in frequency of na as verb and as preposition

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

Table 9.8 Total occurrences of yong as verb and as preposition yong

Y

J

H

S

Verb Preposition

1 6

15 26

10 3

15 65

70 60

Frequency

50 40 30 20 10 0

Y

J

H S Corpus verb preposition

Figure 9.8 Change in frequency of yong as verb and as preposition

 Dramatized Discourse

.. Discussion Let us begin by looking at Figure 9.1 to obtain an overview of the changing distributions of the two morphemes ba and jiang. Moving from the corpus Y to the corpus S on the x-axle, we notice a converse relation between ba and jiang with regard to the changing total number of their occurrences: Wherever ba shows a high frequency, jiang shows a low frequency, and vice versa. In Y, jiang occurs more than twice as frequently as ba; in J, ba occurs three times as frequently as jiang; in H, jiang is almost twice as frequent as ba; finally, in S, ba occurs more than sixteen times as frequently as jiang whose total occurrences are now absolutely low. With regard to each individual items, we can describe Figure 9.1 as follows: As for jiang, we observe a general decline in frequency, whereby a drastic fall can be seen from Y to J, as the temporal gap between the two texts is also the biggest (ca. 300 years). As far as ba is concerned, we observe an unexpected low in H between the two highs in J and S. A generalization can be made only insofar as ba shows a steadier rise from Y to J and that its frequency rapidly recovered in S after the low in the corpus H. To examine and interpret the exact manner in which the ba-construction and its rivals are involved in the process of regulation and systemization of the grammar, we have to direct our attention to the quantitative figures of different uses of the constructions. Figure 9.2 shows a frequency decline in the full-verb uses of both ba and jiang. Taken individually, jiang, compared to ba, exhibits not only a far more drastic drop from the corpus Y to the corpus J, but also a total extinction of the full-verb use in the corpus H and, subsequently, in the corpus S. The decline of frequency is relatively steady with ba as a full verb, which is still present in Modern Mandarin (corpus S). Figure 9.3 visualizes the drastic reversal in frequency of ba and jiang as instrumentals in the corpora Y and J: jiang occurs almost twice as frequently as ba in Y while ba occurs in this use roughly seven times as frequently as jiang in J. Both ba and jiang completely vanish in H and in S in their instrumental usage. Figure 9.4 shows the varying frequencies of ba and jiang used for discourse dramatization. The general quantitative tendency with both ba and jiang can be described as wavy, only that the two waves move slightly inversely: when ba is relatively low, jiang is relatively high, and vice versa. Viewed individually, jiang’s frequency plunges generally, except for a moderate rebound in H, and ends up in a ratio of 1:101 to ba in S. The situation with ba is less straightforward. As far

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

as the corpora are concerned, its tendency is non-linear: the low in the corpus H interrupts what would have been a desirable linear ascendance. Figure 9.5 offers an illustration of the most asymmetrical development of the ba-construction in the attitudinal thetic use: it is the ba-construction that is consistently used in the attitudinal thetic sentences; the jiang-construction is never involved in such a usage. Figure 9.6 shows the decline of frequency in jiang’s use as a verbal suffix and a quasi-simultaneous emergence and rise in the new use as an adverb, or a lexical future marker. Combining Figure 9.6 with Figures 9.2, 9.3, and 9.4 with respect to jiang’s development, we recognize that jiang has given way to ba in the dramatization use; its full-verb usage, instrumental usage, and verbal suffix usage are abandoned over time; meanwhile, it has come to specialize in a new use, that is, as an adverb for future. As has been observed in Figure 9.3, both ba and jiang experience a declination in frequency in their instrumental usage and finally stop being used that way. Two other items na ‘get, take’ and yong ‘use’ actually replace ba and jiang as instrumentals, whereby na and yong differ slightly in their semantics: na is a more general instrumental while yong emphasizes the following NP’s nature of being a tool. Figure 9.7 shows that while na is continually used as a full verb, it has developed a prepositional usage as an instrumental. The item yong, apart from being a full verb, is used as an instrumental, and very much so in Modern Mandarin (corpus S). It must be added here, however, that neither na nor yong can be treated as a case of grammaticalization, an allegedly unidirectional process whereby full verbs change into prepositions. The problem with such a treatment in this concern is that the interpretation of individual uses is highly context sensitive in the absence of any morphosyntactic cues. So far as the frequency counts (Table 9.7 and Table 9.8) are concerned, nothing whatsoever suggests that the full-verb usage has yielded to the prepositional usage. This might still happen, but so far it has not, at least not over the period of more than six hundred years under our investigation. Therefore, I view na and yong as multi-functional. Having described the multiple products of change involving the baconstruction and its rivals as shown in the individual diagrams Figure 9.1– Figure 9.8, we can sum up the general impression: Both ba and jiang have become specialized in their functions. The item ba has maintained its dramatization function in the form of the ba-construction as its central function while its full-verb use has declined and its instrumental use is eliminated through lexical replacement. The item jiang has developed the new use as an adverb while it has lost presence in all other uses except for its marginal and infre-

 Dramatized Discourse

quent usage as something like a lexical variant of the ba-construction.58 The number of occurrences of the ba-construction is significantly lower in H than in the other corpora. Let us now proceed to explain the tendencies we detect by comparing the states of the constructions at the different historical points as represented by the corpora. We assume that the developmental tendencies as illustrated by the diagrams are nonrandom phenomena. We view them as interrelated and regard them as interactive factors of the process of regulation and systemization. We also consider it important to take into account social and cultural influences in understanding why certain things happen at particular times and places when they could just as readily have happened sometime and somewhere else.59 Social input into language as triggers of change has, fortunately, been appreciated since Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard study (1972). Following Labov, socially triggered phonemic variables are the direct cause of internal regulation and systemization, or chain shift. He states: “the movement of the linguistic variable within the linguistic system always led to readjustments of other elements within phonological space” (1972: 179). In the following part, I shall demonstrate that social factors are also crucial to regulation and systemization at other linguistic levels such as syntax and semantics. We have detected that the ba-construction has come to focus its function on discourse dramatization over time whereas the jiang-construction has not. Why? It has been agreed among Chinese grammarians (see L. Wang 1980: 410– 411) that ba and jiang are synonymous in their use as the ba/jiang-construction and are largely interchangeable up to the 18th century and that they split in Early Modern Mandarin such that the ba-construction is primarily used in colloquial and the jiang-construction in written registers. Here we have two issues with regard to the accountability of this common belief. First, to what extent are the two interchangeable? Second, how and why might the split have occurred? The answer to the first question is that the ba-construction and the jiangconstruction are interchangeable at the morphosyntactic and the semantic level, but not at the discourse level. This argument rests on the following evidence: First, despite the fact that the two are interchangeable in many contexts, it is always ba and never jiang that is found in the attitudinal thetic sentences such as sentences (40)–(45) in Section 9.2.2. Examples of the interchangeability of the ba-construction and the jiang-construction are observable in the Tang and the Song poems and in the narrative corpora Y and J. Usually the two are

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

used alternately, e.g. in a poetic duplet or in two clauses of one sentence, as in (46)–(49) below: (46)

(Pi Ri Xiu) Xin jiang tandi ce, shou ba bowen luo. heart ba pond:bottom measure hand ba wave stroke ‘(I) measure the depth of the pond with my heart, (I) stroke the waves with my hand.’

(47)

(Pi Ri Xiu) Ru jiang yueku xie, si ba tianhe pu. like ba moon:hole pour like ba sky:river dive ‘(It is like) emptying the moon-cave, (it is like) diving into the sky-river.’ [L. Wang (1958: 411), translations are mine, Z.J.S.]

(48) Ba jinpaishijian congtou bai, jiang languanwuli dou sha huai ba gold:sign anew display ba corrupt:official all kill bad ‘(I) display the imperial edict anew, (I) punish the corrupted officials with death.’ (49) Ba lian ge yatou dafa shui-le, jiang Qintong jiao jin fang ba two-cl maid send sleep-pfv ba pn call enter room ‘(She) sent the two maids to sleep and asked Qintong to enter her room.’

Examples (46)–(49) illustrate that the alternations of the ba-construction and the jiang-construction are arbitrary to the extent that no significant change in meaning would generate from a switch of the two, though metrical preference might have played a role in each specific case. However, we cannot take the liberty to replace ba with jiang in any of the attitudinal thetic sentences discussed in 9.2.2 without causing infelicity. If we replace ba with jiang in sentence (40), for instance, the resulting sentence (50) below must be judged odd. The oddity is a statistical fact. (50) Kexi jiang yi-duo haitanghua lingluo-le. regrettably ba one-cl wild:apple:blossom fall:apart-pfv

Second, a closer look at the contextual distributions of the ba-construction and the jiang-construction in narratives (corpora J and H) reveals that the former is overwhelmingly more frequently used in constructed conversations than the latter. This variation across discourse type has indications beyond the superficial difference between the colloquial and the written registers. It

 Dramatized Discourse

Table 9.9 Frequency of ba versus jiang in CC in the corpus J and H Corpus

J

Frequency in CC ba jiang

Counts 72 2

H Percentage 29% 4%

Counts 20 9

Percentage 38% 9%

points to the more substantial difference between the two items in their ability to be used subjectively and expressively. In J, the ba-construction is used in constructed conversations on 72 occasions whereas the jiang-construction on only two occasions. In H, the figure is 20 for the ba-construction and 9 for the jiang-construction. The point of interest is that the latter’s occurrences in constructed conversations (hence CC) in both J (4%) and H (9%) are less than 10% of its total occurrences, as illustrated in Table 9.9. Table 9.9 shows that the ba-construction assumes a constantly higher frequency in constructed first-person dialogues than the jiang-construction in the corpora J and H. Moreover, in both corpora, the few occurrences of the jiang-construction in constructed conversations are limited to propositions uttered by authoritarian characters with higher status either in terms of age or in terms of social standing. On a purely common sense basis, propositions in constructed conversations are presumably used to perform immediately faceto-face, albeit pretended, social acts (cf. Searle 1969: 74 on illocutionary acts of fictional discourse) and are therefore more personal, more subjective, more expressive, and more dramatizable than propositions in non-conversational discourses. In other words, constructed conversations are designed to create “voices” (Tannen 1988) and to express the “speaking subject” instead of the “syntactic subject” (Langacker 1995, 1999), and are more subjective and expressive for this very reason (see 7.4.1). With regard to the correlation between the calm use of the jiangconstruction and authoritarian speeches, a sociolinguistic perspective is helpful: The choice of linguistic codes is constrained by expectations associated with different social identities (see Bernstein 1996; Gumperz 1982b). Propositions uttered by authoritarian characters are normally more restrained, more impersonal, and less subject to dramatization than those uttered by socially less marked characters because authority can be brittle and needs to be guarded by linguistic elaborations that hearably insulate its power, which is likely to be undermined by subjective and dramatic language. The particularity of the two discourse forms – attitudinal theticity and conversational expressiveness, to which the use of the ba-construction is con-

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

sistently tied, can be described as high discourse dramaticity. The fact that the jiang-construction is used outside these discourse contexts speaks for our argument that the two constructions are not interchangeable at the discourse level. Our analysis thus far demonstrates that the interchangeability of the baconstruction and the jiang-construction is limited and that the limitations are detectable and explainable at the discourse level. It can be agreed that more dramatic discourse environments favor the ba-construction instead of the jiangconstruction. This preference for the ba-construction in dramatic discourse explains the ultimate predomination of the ba-construction as a discourse dramatizing strategy and the elimination of the jiang-construction in this function. As far as we can tell on account of the data, the fixation on discourse dramatization that is observed with the ba-construction, which has led to the ultimate elimination of the jiang-construction from the expressive use, started somewhere between the Song dynasty and the Yuan dynasty. In the following section, I shall resort to socio-economic factors that support my argument. Before the Song dynasty, literature had been a privilege of the social elites including mainly the aristocrats and the scholars. As I have mentioned in 9.2.2, the Song dynasty witnessed the explosive urbanization and the emergence of a new social class – the urban middle-class residents including mainly manufacturers, merchants, and craftsmen, etc. It is around this time that literature underwent an enormous transformation such that it stopped being a luxurious object of aesthetic worship beyond the common people. Instead, it began to cater to the popular taste of the growing urban population. In other words, it became a means of mass entertainment. According to Z. H. Li (2000: 254–258), the colloquial urban literature differs from literary products of all previous times in that it takes, for the first time in the literary history of China, the mundane details of common human existence as its central subject matter. This was the beginning of the Chinese novel. As such it features the varying forms of human existence and human relationship in richest details. Characteristic of this new literary genre is that, to use Z. H. Li’s words, “formal artistic beauty is overshadowed by the appreciation of the content of everyday life and elegant taste gives way to the mundane reality of banal lives” (2000: 256, translation is mine, Z.J.S.). From a linguistic perspective, the descriptions of detailed events, the enrichments of the plots and the depictions of characters are the predominant functions of the language. In short, story telling constitutes the new use of the language. This new, socially driven literary development meshes with the propagation of a series of linguistic forms that have to do with the explicit encoding of boundedness including the resultative verbal complements, the aspect

 Dramatized Discourse

marker, the movement of some prepositional phrases towards the preverbal position, the classifiers and the division between discrete and continual forms of negation (cf. Shi & Li 2000), the emergence of the adversative passive construction marked by bei, and, importantly, the combination of the dramatizing ba-construction with verbal modifiers. All these formal mechanisms serve to create narrative tension and accuracy and are (cf. Z. H. Li 2000 on the oral origin of Chinese urban literature) desirable and necessary for heavy-duty popular entertainment: story-telling performed live in front of the gathered audience. The attention to mundane details which, to use Tannen’s words, give the audience/reader “a pleasurable sense of involvement, of being part of something” (1990: 113), certainly pushed the development and propagation of a cluster of linguistic forms that conspire to enhance the power of details in story-telling. The clustering development of new forms entailed a series of loss of old forms. This can be readily observed when one compares the 10th–11th century “legendary” narratives with the 13th–14th century plays (e.g. corpus Y). The two have little commonality in terms of syntax. What seems to have happened is not a series of gradual and linear changes, but rather abrupt innovations and replacements whereby old constructions suddenly dropped out from the system (see Lightfoot 1997 on catastrophic change) and a collection of new uses took over. The old system and the new system seem to be subject to two different, mutually independent sets of synchronic grammatical constraints. Apart from the rapidly growing appreciation of mundane details of everyday life, the manner of narration changed as well because of the oral origin of the popular narrative. While the narrators of the legendary tales were detached editors of events, apparently indifferent to the fate of their heroes, the new play writers of the corpus Y showed passionate involvement with the destinies of the characters and the unfolding of events. Their sympathy and disdain, their praise and despise, were all expressed between the lines. The commitment to subjectivity marks the new face of popular narratives. In view of the socio-economic phenomenon of urbanization as the direct triggering experience of the literary revolution, the linguistic fact that a simultaneous rise of all the new forms is observed in the corpus Y (chronologically immediately subsequent to the Song dynasty) is not historically arbitrary. On another note, it is also in this corpus that the first attitudinal thetic sentence of our data appears. The presence of such a sentence indicates that although the jiang-construction is used more frequently than the ba-construction as an expressive strategy at this stage, the functional fixation of the ba-construction on discourse dramatization already started.

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

In the Ming dynasty, popular realistic literature reached a climax in the novel Jin Ping Mei Cihua (corpus J).60 Linguistically, the ba-construction is used five times as frequently as the jiang-construction. Furthermore, the use of the ba-construction is pronouncedly more subjective and more dramatic than that of the jiang-construction. This is evidenced by the predominance of the ba-construction in constructed conversations and in attitudinal thetic sentences. The tendency toward dramatization was so overwhelming that it even had an impact on the instrumental use of ba, perhaps by analogy, such that not only is ba used seven and a quarter times as frequently as jiang in the form of an instrumental preposition, but ba-instrumentals are found in visibly more dramatic contexts than jiang-instrumentals. Compare the following uses: (51) Jiang yi-ge doujiao tai-le Wusong. ins one-cl sedan carry-pfv pn ‘(They) carried Wusong with a sedan.’ (52) Ta jian qian-hou mei ren, bian ba yanyu lai tiaoxi wo. 3sg. see front-back neg people just ins words to tease 1sg. ‘He saw that no one was around, so he started to tease me with words.’

In sentence (51), the prepositional phrase jiang yige doujiao ‘with a sedan’ denotes the factual physical instrument or tool used in the act of carrying. In sentence (52), by contrast, the prepositional phrase ba yan yu ‘with words’ signals rather the personal perception and interpretation of the situation by the speaker as a participant involved in the event. Note that the verb tiaoxi ‘tease, seduce’ is also subjectively colored. It signals the speaker’s account of the situation as her being assailed by the participant in the role of the syntactic subject. In the light of our knowledge of the plot and the characters, the proposition made in (52) is a false charge made by the speaker against her innocent brother-in-law after he had rejected her and revealed her promiscuous tendency. Obviously, the choice of ba over jiang as an instrumental is discourse sensitive and depends on the dramaticity of the event, as it is perceived by the speaker. From the corpus H we can see that the instrumental uses of both ba and jiang are entirely eliminated and the items na and yong have come to be systematically used in their stead, whereby na replaced ba and yong replaced jiang. The verbal suffix use and the adverb use of jiang are each worthy of a dissertation-size investigation, which is beyond the scope of the present study. The two changes are relevant to our discussions insofar as they are likely to be

 Dramatized Discourse

part of a chain shift in which jiang is involved: the maintenance of jiang as a future adverb is enabled through the largely simultaneous disuse of jiang in other functions (full-verb, instrumental, verbal suffix, and the jiang-construction). Our quantitative survey supports the probability of this scenario, though further finer-grained analyses are needed to confirm the claim. As far as corpus J is concerned, we can agree that the use of the ba-construction exhibits a definite fixation on discourse dramatization, although the exuberant coexistence of polysemous uses seems to stand in the way of strict form-function iconicity. Compared to the popular realistic literature of the Ming dynasty, the literature of the following Qing dynasty is a rebound to the classic tradition in that it is concerned with the more abstract contemplations of human existence by the elites: high-minded philosophy of the dialectics of flourishing and decay, of success and failure, and the helplessness over unmet desires, lost hopes and the uncanny mandate of fate are characteristic of aristocratic sentimentalism and nihilism (cf. Z. H. Li 2000: 271). The novel Hong Long Meng (Corpus H) is a sublime literary creation which reflects the decline of the last dynasty of imperial China. Linguistically, the jiang-construction is used almost twice as frequently as the ba-construction in this corpus. Now the question arises: If the ba-construction had indeed come to be used exclusively for discourse dramatization at least a century before, how should we understand the big fall of its number of occurrences in H? An examination of the discourse contexts shows that the ba-construction is continually used as a dramatization mechanism in constructed conversations in the corpus H, as indicated by the data in Table 9.9. Moreover, it is still the baconstruction and not the jiang-construction that is used in attitudinal thetic sentences. These two findings show that the function of the ba-construction remains that of discourse dramatization. The setback of the uses of the baconstruction is observed in non-conversational contexts. Here again, social factors immediately affected language use in literature: The social trend that favors the classic literary tradition is responsible for the false imitations of the classic and the aristocratic linguistic style (L. Wang 1947: 174). This reveals the setback of the ba-construction in the non-conversational contexts in H as an indicator of the author’s conscious choice of a writing style in accordance with the literary zeitgeist at large. As a matter of fact, it is not until the first quarter of the twentieth century that revolutionary social movements under the influence of Western democracy pushed towards linguistic reform in literature such that colloquial uses were re-introduced into literature. This is evidenced by the re-propagation of the ba-construction and the disuse of the jiang-construction in corpus S.

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

In the foregoing section, I have discussed the process of regulation and systemization in relation to the further development of the ba-construction after the Tang dynasty. To sum up: The ba-construction has undergone a functional fixation on discourse dramatization, which started between the Song dynasty and the Yuan dynasty, flourished in the Ming dynasty, matured with a strict form-function iconicity in Modern Mandarin. The reinforcement of this pragmatic aspect by each generation in both informal oral uses and literature has sustained the functional vitality of the linguistic sign.

. Inadequacies of the OM postulation In a series of studies (1973, 1974b, 1975), Li and Thompson have proposed a typological shift of Mandarin word order from SVO to SOV as a result of grammaticalization of serial verb constructions, of which the ba-construction was considered symptomatic.61 Li and Thompson claim that Mandarin is currently in the middle of this drift, which has been going on for a number of centuries. According to Li and Thompson, the unit ba is an object marker (henceforth OM), or even an accusative marker, which has become one such by way of grammaticalization. Critical reactions directed at the proposals put forth by Li and Thompson are found in Huang (1978), Light (1979), Erbaugh (1982), and Sun and Givón (1985), among others. These linguists aim to rebuff the sweeping assertion of a typological drift from SVO to SOV on various grounds: Huang investigates the positional change of prepositional phrases from Archaic Chinese through Mandarin and argues that preverbal prepositions were already common in Archaic Chinese and modern preverbal prepositions are simple lexical replacements of the archaic ones and have never taken the detour of grammaticalization from the serial verb constructions. Light argues that Chinese is fundamentally an SVO language. In contrast to the fundamental SVO order, the SOV word order is a marked construction in both Archaic Chinese and Mandarin and that no drift from one to the other has occurred. Sun and Givón, with their quantitative study of both written and oral texts of Mandarin, confirm Light’s suggestions about the SVO fundamental word order of Mandarin and the marked status of the SOV order. They suggest that OV constructions (including the ba-construction) tend to be used in a contrastive manner. Erbaugh, who studied the acquisition of Mandarin by native speakers in Taiwan, discovered the following aspects with regard to the ba-construction (the “OM construction” in her terms): (a) Young children, up to and beyond

 Dramatized Discourse

the age five years, have difficulty manipulating the use of the ba-construction. (b) The frequency of this construction is extremely low in the linguistic output of these children. (c) Adult caretakers use the ba-construction less frequently in addressing children than when they address adults. Sun and Givón interpreted Erbaugh’s findings on the typological level. They argued: “This profile is not consistent with a drift from SVO to SOV; if anything, it is consistent with continued and vigorous preservation of Mandarin as a rigid SVO language” (1985: 348). To my mind, however, Erbaugh’s findings can be interpreted in another way that immediately suggests the pragmatic unusualness of the baconstruction. Given that the findings offer local and specific information about the level of ease of acquisition and the distributional and frequency patterns of the ba-construction, the questions as to why the acquisition of the baconstruction poses difficulty for the young learners and why this construction is infrequently used by youngsters and by caretakers in addressing youngsters naturally arise and require an explanation. My contention is that children’s difficulty in manipulating the use of the ba-construction mirrors the difficulty in manipulating and working out the proper discourse contexts in which the ba-construction is used. This latter kind of difficulty is associated with two factors. First, the meaning of the ba-construction, namely, HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY, determines that the use of this construction is limited to dramatic discourses only, which, in turn, predicts that the overall chance of exposure to such discourses and thus to the use of this construction will be limited under normal circumstances. Second, withholding the use of the baconstruction by the adults in their speech to children (Erbaugh’s finding c) further lowers the chance of exposure. Understandably, insufficient input offers limited opportunities for the recognition of meaningful contextualization cues for the uses of the construction, which disallows confident generalizations about the pragmatics of the construction and accordingly discourages frequent output. The reasons for the adults to withhold the use of the ba-construction in their speeches addressed to children and not in adult-to-adult communications can be various depending on the discourse forms shaped by varying communicative intentions, caretaker-to-child relationships, and cultural constraints on adult-child communication, et cetera. One possible explanation is that adults, recognizing themselves as authority in front of children (e.g. in the Confucian tradition), tend to withdraw from dramatic gossiping, overtly revelatory comments and other linguistic extravagances in which they would more freely indulge when situated in adult-to-adult settings. Authority, as we have already witnessed in the use of the jiang-construction vs. the ba-construction

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

in authoritarian speeches in the corpora J and H, seems to be an inhibitor of dramatic linguistic performance. Though this explanation does not constitute a direct proof that the ba-construction is a special grammatical means that serves discourse dramatization, it is compatible with the line of argument that has been established in the present study. On a typological account, the structural elaboration (the ba-construction involves one more morpheme, that is ba, than a simple VO construction), the low frequency of occurrences, and the limited distributional environments (e.g. more in adult-to-adult than in adult-to-child discourses) all point to the synchronic markedness (cf. Croft 1990: 70–94 on criteria for markedness) of the ba-construction as a paradigmatic variation of the OV sequence within the grammatical category of word order. This, again, supports our synchronic analysis of the ba-construction as a marked construction serving a special pragmatic function (Chapter 2–8). Just as there is a link between syntactic forms and pragmatic functions, there should be a link between syntactic change and pragmatics. The diachronic question as to whether the syntactic change in which the ba-construction is involved is part of a larger typological drift must also be examined in a pragmatic light. My diachronic analysis of the ba-construction offers a microscopic view of the historical development by which the ba-construction has come to be used exclusively for signaling a meaning of discourse dramatization, a meaning whose effects in communication are best seen at the pragmatic level of discourse rather than the semantic level, taken strictly, let alone the syntactic level. The idiosyncrasy of such a development is that formal pressure, functional necessity, cognitive motivation, and social influence have all contributed to the particularities of the developmental pathway. Yet none of these local triggering forces can be sounded out by the sweeping conclusion that the morpheme ba has been grammaticalized into an object marker in the typological drift from SVO to SOV. Nor are the particularities of the synchronic discourse contexts in which the ba-construction is more likely than not to occur, as our analysis has shown, possibly predicted by the mystical notion of “drift”. To be precise, the claim that ba is an OM is inadequate in the following concerns: First, it fragments the ba-construction as a linguistic sign. The pragmatic potentiality of the ba-construction can only be appreciated when the construction is viewed as an integral unit. Failure to view the ba-construction as a linguistic sign in its entirety leads to blind obsessions with detached constituents and their local morphosyntactic relations at the expenses of the consideration of discourse relations in which the ba-construction is involved.

 Dramatized Discourse

Second, to single out ba as an OM or an accusative marker is a fruitless activity. It is fruitless because it is entirely out of touch with the nature of Mandarin grammar where morphological case marking has neither presence nor relevance. This approach engenders the mindless self-deception that the typological claim of a grammaticalized OM can pass for an explanation for syntactic change. Neither a drift nor an OM can be taken as an explanatory force before its own “enabling causes” (Kiparsky 1996) are explained in the first place. Third, the claim of an OM creates the illusion of an isolated and independent pathway of semantic reduction or grammaticalization, which allegedly transforms a full verb into a semantically empty case marker. Such an illusion is one of the results of the atomistic morpheme-oriented approach to change (cf. Janda 2001 on morpheme-oriented grammaticalizationist approaches and Fischer 1997 on the implausibility of an independent process of grammaticalization). The word ba as part of the ba-construction did not have a life of its own such that it would wander off on its own to go down an individual pathway and to end up as a case marker; its story is subject to the actual uses of the ba-construction as a linguistic unit, which are shown to be always contextsensitive. To identify the ba-construction with a context-neutral OV type at the end of a typological drift where ba is an object marker represents a historical determinist view, whose dialect is the sheer denial of the discourse sensitivity of the ba-construction. The notion of grammaticalization is only relevant to the development of the ba-construction insofar as the relatively loose concatenation represented by the serial-verb-construction becomes a tight hierarchical organization of information. Fourth, in the sense that the ba-construction has developed into a pragmatically charged construction out of a special serial verb construction under specific formal and functional conditions, “semantic reduction” towards an empty OM is a wrong notion to describe such a development because it obscures the historical process of a major pragmatic change. In fact, the notion of a semantic-pragmatic enrichment, the very opposite of semantic reduction, is the concept that must be introduced here to capture the essence of the diachronic development observed with the ba-construction. The semanticpragmatic enrichment may be understood as an instance of subjectification. If, however, we insist on assigning a role to the morpheme ba, a proper solution that takes into account discourse pragmatics will be the argument that ba is grammatically a predicate-focus marker that serves as a high dramaticity marker in discourse.

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

. Subjectification The notion of subjectification pertains to changes resulting from the increased expression of speaker/writer’s (SP/W) subjective belief state or attitude. It is defined by Traugott’s in the following way (2003: 126): [Subjectification is] the mechanism whereby meanings come over time to encode or externalize the SP/W’s perspectives and attitudes as constrained by the communicative world of the speech event, rather than by the so-called ‘real-world’ characteristics of the event or situation referred to.

In her paper On the rise of epistemic meanings in English (1989), Traugott shows the general tendencies that are subsumed under the term subjectification. Relevant to my purpose here are the following two tendencies:62 1. Tendency I: Meanings based in the external described situation > meanings based in the internal (evaluative/perceptual/cognitive) described situation. 2. Tendency II [Tendency III in Traugott 1989: 35]: Meanings tend to become increasingly based in the speaker’s subjective belief state/attitude toward the proposition. According to Traugott, both tendencies share the property that “the latter meanings presuppose a world not only of objects and state of affairs, but of values and of linguistic relations that cannot exist without language” (1989: 35).63 Tendency (I) captures the earlier stages of development of the ba-construction. The first stage is from the locative serial verb construction denoting physical change in location to the encoding of transfer of ownership, whereby a recipient NP replaces the locative NP, and to the encoding of general transformation, whereby the perception of any change from one state to another is more freely verbalized. This stage can be characterized as change from a meaning based in external described situation to a meaning based in the internal perceptual situation. Here the perspective, or the “viewing arrangement” adopted by the viewer/speaker has “effects on the situation’s appearance” (Langacker 1990: 6) such that, for instance, the event that ‘she took half of the dumplings’ can be encoded in at least two different ways depending on the viewer’s perspective:

 Dramatized Discourse

(53) Ta na-qu-le yi-ban-de jiaozi 3sg. take-go-pfv one-half-assoc dumpling ‘She took away half of the dumplings.’ (54) Ta ba jiaozi na-qu-le yi-ban 3sg. ba dumpling take-go-pfv one-half ‘She took away half of the dumplings.’ (or: ‘As for the dumplings, she took away half of them.’)

Sentence (53) represents a viewing arrangement whereby the two entities yiban ‘one-half ’ and jiaozi ‘dumplings’ are treated as a conceptual whole ‘half of the dumplings’. The associative marker de actualizes the union by marking yi-ban as a quantitative attribute of jiaozi. The conceptual whole serves as the argument of the predicate na-qu-le ‘took away’. By contrast, sentence (54) features an entirely different viewing arrangement whereby the total dumplings and one half of the dumplings are treated as two separate entities. This treatment has the effect that two instead of one participant appear in the scene. The increase in the number of participants represents an upgrade of situational dynamism such that a change of state is activated: a quantitative reduction of the totality of the dumplings occurs in the conceptualisation. By virtue of this perceptually entailed change, sentence (54) features a more noteworthy and more dramatic situation than sentence (53) does (cf. 6.1 on cognitive salience). The second stage of development is the emergence of the expressive meaning from the perceptually based meaning, as evidenced by the uses of the ba-construction in the Tang poems and the Buddhist translations. The expressive use of the ba-construction is an intermediate stage, a transition towards the highly subjective meaning, that is, the specialization in discourse dramatization as illustrated by the uses of the ba-construction in the colloquial narratives, especially the attitudinal thetic uses. Tendency II well describes the fixation on discourse dramatization whereby the ba-construction is used to feature the speaker’s personal investment of opinions and attitudes. The overall pragmatic change of the ba-construction is a process of progressive subjectification. At the cognitive level, the transfer of location, ownership and identity constitutes prototypical changes that are subject to perception. Situations or events involving such prototypical changes are inherently dramatic, or pregnant with dramaticity, to say the least. This prototypical perceptual dramaticity offers the initial cognitive condition for the change towards explicit discourse dramatization, or subjectification, which is beyond the perceptual sphere.

Chapter 9. The pragmatization of the ba-construction 

From a synchronic perspective, the encoding of noteworthy prototypical changes and the encoding of subjectification coexist in the uses of the baconstruction not only in Modern Mandarin, but also in texts as far back as the corpus Y. In many cases, the two uses overlap, e.g. when a prototypical change is metaphorically encoded with the ba-construction to externalize the speaker’s state of belief or attitudes. The coexistence and the overlapping of the encoding of the basic prototypically dramatic situations and the encoding of the more personally and subjectively dramatic situations suggest that the two messages are structured around the prototype of dramaticity: The perceptual dramaticity inherent in transfer of location, ownership, and state is the prototype from which the conceptual, evaluative, and subjective dramaticity is derived.64 The historical process of subjectification observed in the development the ba-construction was accelerated by social changes at certain historical points, as I have demonstrated in Section 9.3. This has the following indications. First, the change is an interplay of internal (structural and cognitive) factors and external factors. Both internal and external factors as triggers of the change must be examined locally before the change can be taken to support or undermine the claim of a larger trend of directionality. Second, the pragmatization of the ba-construction is a progressive change towards enhanced expression of discourse dramaticity and subjectivity and cannot be identified with a typological drift of word order. Third, the pragmatization of the ba-construction contradicts the belief that cultural progress and literacy are responsible for linguistic objectification, an issue Traugott (1989) touched upon but did not include in her discussion. The opposite proves true at least in the light of the development of the ba-construction and the emergence of a whole cluster of other constructions as a result of literary development.

Chapter 10

Final remarks

In an attempt to develop a semantic-pragmatic explanation of the uses of the ba-construction, this study has examined the synchronic properties of the ba-construction and its diachronic development. Our analysis at both the synchronic and the diachronic level rests on one basic assumption, namely that language is a symbolic tool with which people communicate with one another for social purposes. This assumption enables us to view the manipulation of morphemes and syntactic constructions as a strategy of conveying the speaker’s communicative intent. The choice of morphemes and syntactic constructions is not arbitrary, but purposeful and sensitive to discourse contexts. The ability to select suitable syntactic variants in a given discourse context reflects the speaker’s communicative competence and not just grammatical competence. Supported by this idea, we consider the choice of syntactic options a function of discourse. Therefore, we have postulated respective pragmatic meanings for the ba-construction and its syntactic counterpart, the non-ba-construction (including the fundamental SVO, the contrastive SOV, OSV, and the VS thetic sentence) within the system of speaker’s instruction to DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY at the synchronic level. Using objective data from corpora, we have shown that this hypothesis is able to explain the tight interrelations between the otherwise isolated observations of the actual uses of the ba-construction with regard to the semantic, syntactic and informational properties of the subject (or topic), the object, the verb, the verbal modifiers, etc., which previous approaches are unable to explain. Moreover, we have discovered and explained the pragmatic connections between the use of the ba-construction and discourse types, metaphors, intensifiers, textual cohesion markers, subjective moods, and modal verbs. We have argued that all these connections, at both clause and trans-clause level, are motivated by the instructional meaning of the ba-construction, HIGH DISCOURSE DRAMATICITY, and reflect the representational and psychological mechanisms that can be grouped into two basic strategies: (1) COGNITIVE SALIENCE and (2) SUBJECTIVITY and EMOTIONALITY.

 Dramatized Discourse

The disposal approach and the transitivity approach that are oriented to sentence grammar have proved fruitless in elucidating the discourse function of the ba-construction. Nor is the causativity approach able to explain the functional uniqueness of the ba-construction. At the diachronic level, we have traced the origin of the ba-construction back to the serial verb construction containing the locative NP. We have offered an integral view of the origin and the developmental continuity of the ba-construction. We have demonstrated how the structural peculiarity of this source construction has given rise to syntactic reanalysis of the construction, which triggered the use of the simple ba-construction with a new information structure that allows more communicative expressiveness. We have further shown how a functional re-adaptation of this new construction occurred under sociocultural pressure represented by the triumph of poetic language in the colloquial register. We have argued that the propagation of the use of the expressive ba-construction was driven by the socio-economic development of society in the form of urbanization accompanied by the demand for colloquial entertainment. We have introduced quantitative data on the further grammatical regulation and systemization of the ba-construction and its historical rivals. We have made it clear how the ba-construction has come to be used for discourse dramatization, whereby it developed the one-participant attitudinal use as a pragmatic extension of this function. The development of the ba-construction suggests that a construction as a whole has undergone structural reinterpretation and acquired a new function. The morpheme ba is part of the construction and must be viewed as integral to the pragmatic function of the whole. In view of the diachronic development of the ba-construction in our conception, the notion of a typological drift from SVO to SOV is oblivious to the special function served by the ba-construction as complementary to the nonba-constructions in discourse. The concept of an object marker obscures the historical process of pragmatization represented by the development of the baconstruction. Morpheme-based grammaticalization theories, which treat ba as a grammaticalized object marker, are atomistic and misleading. Central to the evolution of the ba-construction is that the pathway of its development is shaped by formal, pragmatic, and social forces (cf. Croft 2000). The pragmatization of the ba-construction, whereby the expression of subjectivity becomes the central function, is by no means a semantic reduction. The subjectification of meanings is a semantic-pragmatic enrichment. Our diachronic analysis shows that the meaning of a sign as part of a symbolic system is not a static phenomenon, but rather a dynamic process of change. Mean-

Chapter 10. Final remarks 

ing is constantly reproduced and reconstituted as a result of the ever-changing sociocultural context and purpose. Thus, in this sense, the development of the ba-construction can be viewed as an adaptive change in grammatical evolution. The emergence of grammar with its form and substance is part of the complex practices of social semiotics (cf. Hodge & Kress 1988). To summarize briefly: Syntax is not an autonomous system independent of the speakers of a language. Instead, the speakers make conscious and meaningful choices among syntactic variations available in the language according to his communicative needs. The ba-construction contrasts with non-baconstructions within the grammatical system of syntax. The syntactic contrast correlates with the degree to which the semantic-pragmatic property discourse dramaticity is expressed in discourse. While the ba-construction ensures the creation of high dramatic forces in communication, its syntactic variants enable the speakers to downplay dramatic forces in communication. In view of the synchronic uses and the diachronic evolution of the baconstruction, it becomes further evident that language use and language change are nonarbitrary, but oriented to human communicative intent under given sociocultural constraints. To emphasize this view, we shall quote DeLancey (2001), who, in addressing the nature of language, aptly articulates: [A] language is a set of constructions, from morphemes to discourse structures. A construction is a pairing of form and function. These constructions are the tools which speakers use to organize and communicate mental representations, and, as with any tool, their form can only be understood in relation to their function. Any tool is the product of a particular culture, and reflects the design history, esthetics, and the particular technological needs and wants of the culture and the individual maker. (2001: Lecture 1)

With this study, we have gone beyond the boundaries of traditional investigation by transcending the barriers of sentence grammar. Once viewed solely in relation to clausal semantics, the ba-construction now profiles the syntaxpragmatics interface. Having brought forward this new insight, we hope that not only the understanding of the ba-construction is deepened and extended, but more importantly, the functional view of syntax within the larger context of symbolic interaction in general is further advanced. The study presented here has hopefully opened a window to an alternative view of the ba-construction in particular and syntax in general. Refreshing as it is, this study is certainly incomplete and leaves much room for future observations. A number of further research tasks suggest themselves:

 Dramatized Discourse

1. Given that our synchronic analysis accounts for the uses of the ba-construction in Modern Mandarin only, our focus has been limited. For the acquisition of a thorough understanding of how the ba-construction has developed within the larger context of the history of Chinese grammar, synchronic studies of the linguistic representations of the semantic-pragmatic substance that we call “discourse dramaticity” in Ancient Chinese, Early Mandarin, and Middle Mandarin, respectively, will have to be done in the future. 2. A finer distinction of Mandarin sentence types is desired, especially one that includes the adversative passive bei-construction, which is not only “dramatic” on intuitive basis but also shows developmental signs of coevolution with the ba-construction. 3. A more detailed data-driven study of the information structures of the contrasting sentences types in Mandarin Chinese will enrich our understanding of how varying ways of pragmatic structuring of information elements correspond to varying discourse intentions. 4. Sophistication of data and improvement in the technical manipulation of data are expected. With respect to the selection of data, more attention should be given to spoken discourse of various sorts in the future. On the other hand, to increase the empirical power of the data, experiments on real-time language production and reception designed on cognitive basis are particularly desired. Well controlled cognitive experiments such as those described in Tomlin (1997) will reliably tease out how sentence types are selected to map conceptual representations. 5. Paralinguistic research is desired to further confirm the dramaticity hypothesis. Concretely, studies of the prosodic properties of ba-utterances will reveal whether and how marked voice qualities, pitch and intonation patterns distinguish these utterances from non-ba-utterances. Similarly, studies of facial expressions accompanying the ba-utterances will help us uncover possible correlations between visual cues of emotion and linguistic forms.

Notes

. “Mandarin” is the cover term for the northern Chinese dialects that form the basis of the standard language used in Mainland China and Taiwan. See Li and Thompson (1981: Chapter 1), for a definition of Mandarin and a description of the Chinese language family. . Paralinguistic elements and sociocultural information are of course euqually important components of the discourse environment. However, here we are forced to focus on the linguistic aspect of communication and are not able to include all the aspects that are relevant to the understanding of the discourse context. . The question as to what respect is of analytical relevancy depends largely on the general approach to language. Following the sterile orientation of generative grammar, the speaker’s communicative intent is irrelevant to the study of grammar. For the communicationoriented sign-based linguist, however, there are no merely syntactic variations. Every syntactic variation is communicatively meaningful and its unique meaning analytically relevant (see Tobin 1991; Contini-Morava 1995). . Some linguists regard verbal structures with a verb complemented by a resultative such as da-si ‘hit-dead’ as causatives, as the action of hitting causes the result of death. Chinese grammarian L. Wang (1947, 1980) uses the term shidong ‘causative’ to describe verbal complexes such as da-si ‘hit dead’. This type of causative is a part of the lexicon. Note that the ba-construction in sentence (2) is syntactically embedded in a causative construction encoded by the causative verb jiao ‘let’, which signals causality at the syntactic level. This is called the analytic causative and is typologically different from the lexical type, as pointed out by Comrie (1989: 167). The syntactic relationship between analytic causatives and the ba-construction is described in 3.6. . The ba-NP here contains the head noun xiao ‘smile’ modified by a preposed relative construction suo neng jihe qi-lai ‘(that they) could gather’. The associative morpheme -de is used to connect the two. . Chinese locative and directive prepositions are actually circum-positions bracketing the relevant NP, e.g. zai-NP-shang ‘on NP’ is literally ‘on NP’s top’, where shang ‘up, upper part, surface’ is a part of the NP it follows. A similar example from the European language would be the German um-NP(GEN)-willen ‘for NP’s sake’. . Psychologist Dacher Keltner suggests that the forced smile of politeness, which he calls the “Pan American smile” is used by people “to be entertaining, to dramatize” (quoted in TIME February 7, 2005 by M. D. Lemonick, reported by D. Cray). Such a dramatizing expression is represented in our context by the ba-construction. This linguistic manuveur speaks for the dramatic substance inherent in the meaning of the ba-construction.

 Dramatized Discourse . The morpheme zuo is a relic of Ancient Chinese and is predominantly used in written discourse while cheng is more colloquial. . I borrow the term “filial piety” from B. I. Schwartz (1985: 71). It refers to the Confucian primordial concept xiao, which pertains to the fullfilment of selfless obligations such as obedience, service and sacrifice to parents expected of children. . The reader will notice by now that the use of the ba-construction favors the use of a definite preverbal NP, as in the examples (44)–(47). This topic will be discussed in detail in Section 6.1.4.2. . For most of its history, scientific psychology has concerned itself with mental distress of all kinds and its prevention or repair. Comparably, many if not all religions in the world are practiced for the purpose of healing the ill and restalling a positive state of life. Such a preoccupation certainly reflects the markedness of the ailing nature of unpleasant events. . Some linguists differentiate the indicative from the declarative by treating the former as a category of mood and the latter as a sentence type, cf. Lyons (1995: 177, 331). This is the view I will adopt here in my discussion. Others treat the two as both categories of mood and sentence types, e.g. Whaley defines indicative sentence as “a sentence that asserts the truth of some proposition” and declarative sentence as “a sentence that expresses a statement” (1997: 284, 286). Whaley’s definitions of the two are not distinct but rather murky because of the many abstract notions that are left unspecified. Besides, such a treatment draws on verbal inflection as the primary indicator of mood, which diminishes its relevancy to our study of Chinese where verbal inflection is non-existent. ba (not to be confused with ba of the ba-construction!) is not . The interjection restricted to imperatives. When it is used with the imperative, it softens the force with which a directive is issued. It is also observed in use with the indicative, the interrogative, and the optative mood. For a detailed discussion, see Li and Thompson (1981: 307–311, 461–462). . Shi and Li (2000: 40) contrast the two Mandarin negation markers bu and mei(you) in terms of the binary distinction between “continuous” and “discrete” situations they each signal. The two items display complementary distributions in use. Shi and Li’s discussion suggests a correspondence of the distinction between continuity and discreteness to the common aspectological distinction between “unbounded” and “bounded” situations, though they did not use these terms. . The word bei is a passive marker and an agent marker simultaneously. Thus while in English the preposition phrase by + AGENT can be omitted without making the passive ungrammatical, in Mandarin, bei is indispensable for the grammaticality of a passive sentence. . An example would be: Mir wurde das Bein gebrochen. me was the leg broken ‘I got a broken leg.’ Here the sentence initial unit mir is a foregrounded dative forming the topic of the utterance, whereas das Bein is in the nominative case, thus the grammatical subject of the passive predicate.

Notes  . The semantic affinity between the causative and the ba-construction, however, does not necessarily yield the conclusion that the ba-construction itself signals causativity. We will discuss this point in greater detail in Section 4.3. . Consult Wilhelm von Humboldt ([1963] 1996) for the typological classification of the world’s languages and other associated speculations. . See Sasse (1987) on the distinction between thetic and categorical sentences and their pragmatic functions. . In Chinese, the difference between the concepts ‘to see/to hear’ and ‘to look at/to listen to’ is not a pure lexical one, but rather a derivational modification: kan and ting are the action of looking and listening, respectively, while kan-jian and ting-jian are the receptive concepts of seeing and hearing, whereby the morpheme jian is a receptive suffix. . The meaning of pian ‘awry’ used in the sense of ‘unexpectedly’ is a case of conceptual transfer from the physical domain to the mental domain of subjective judgment. Unsprisingly, Chinese is not unique in reflecting the operation of such a cognitive process. The English word awry and the German word schief are also used in a similar manner, i.e. in the sense that something is considered “out of the right, expected or hoped-for course”. . In Li and Thompson’s study, the verb you is translated as ‘exist’, which I believe is wrong. The verb you is a transitive verb denoting possession, which is already stated in Xu ([121] 1963), the earliest Chinese dictionary of the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). The meaning of ‘exist’ is expressed by the verb zai. Note that this mistake in translation was unwittingly taken to evidence a grammaticalization change by Christian Lehmann (1982: 27), which really is a misunderstanding. . The translation of liaojie into ‘understand’ is less than accurate because liaojie signals not merely the mental act of understanding, but rather ‘understanding by way of investigating’ whereby the action of investigating is crucial to understanding. Thus, strictly speaking, liaojie and understand are not semantically isomorph. . Note that bie-ti is itself an imperative grammaticalized into an expressive epistemic marker. For similar treatment of the English let alone, consult Brinton (2001: 148). . We will discuss the relationship between causitivity and the ba-construction in detail in Section 4.3. . In his analysis, Sybesma uses the term “basic structure” in an attempt to replace Chomsky’s “deep structure”. . The distinction between textual cohesion and discourse coherence has been recognized as one between surface lexis and underlying speech acts, see Halliday and Hasan (1976), Widdowson (1979b) and Stubbs (1983) on this issue. . The notion of a “frame” is born out of the sociolinguistic research known as symbolic interaction. Bateson, in his celebrated essay A theory of play and fantasy (1972), showed that even monkeys engaged interactive actions that as a whole sequence suggests “this is play” versus “this is combat”. The message that “this is play” is a frame, contrasting to other potential frames such as “I am fighting you” or “I am threatening you”. Goffman (1974) adopted Bateson’s concept and used it in his analyses of human social interaction. The “frame” in his sense is the way individuals define the situation within which the interaction occurs.

 Dramatized Discourse

Fillmore (1975) is one of the first linguists to advocate frame semantics in linguistic analyses. He also uses the term “prototype” in the sense of a discourse frame (for a detailed discussion of the history of frame analysis, see Tannen 1993). . Note that my proposal involves the term “semantic-pragmatic substance” which deviates from Diver’s “semantic substance”. This deviation reflects a conscious effort to take into consideration the pragmatic aspect of the meaning to be postulated. The advantage of postulating a “pragmatic meaning”, as I see it, is that it is less abstract and thus more intuitively satisfying. In terms of analytic convenience, a pragmatic meaning, being more speech-act oriented, more directly reveals the communicative intent and thus depends less on the bridging of the inferential gap between the invariant meaning and its contextual messages (cf. Kirsner 2002 for a discussion of Diver’s limitations). . According to Church, empathy “refers only to the behavior of a bystander who becomes vicariously involved in the action of another person or thing” (1961: 32). . Our claim is measured because, when the object pingguo ‘apple’ is taken to be the topic of the sentence, a bei-passive could theoretically be used, though this would render the sentence odd despite its grammaticality. . In his comprehensive review of recent trends in aspectology, Sasse discussed the confusing use and many readings of the term “event” (2001: 37–38). . Kirsner (personal communication, 2004) points out the similarity between the twoparticipant intransitive ba-construction and the cognate object construction in English such as dream a dream versus dream or give out a squeal versus squeal. One may argue that the creation of an extra discourse entity in both cases enhances the cognitive salience of the action and therefore the discourse dramaticity of the event. . In Mandarin Chinese, the genetive suffix de is added to personal pronouns and nouns to form possessives. However, personal pronouns can be interpreted as possessive pronouns without the explicit genetive suffix de when the possessed entity is a kinship noun, e.g. wo ma ‘my mother’ versus wo-de shu ‘my book’. See Chappell and McGregor (1989) on the issue of inalienability. . The French example comes from my memory of the French course I have taken at UCLA, taught by a brilliant TA whose name has unfortunately escaped my mind. . Given that the intransitive ba-construction has not been officially treated as part of Mandarin grammar, there is no rigorous desription of its grammaticality, especially with regard to the use of the classifier. For this reason, I consider it suitable to use the word “hardly” in my description which reflects both my intuition as native speaker and the statistic tendency observed of the few available examples. . Note especially that the referent of fuqin ‘father’ in (4a) pertains to the phenomenon referred to as inalienable possession. The inalienability and accordingly the definiteness of the referent is rendered undone by means of the referential-indefinite marking ge. . Note that the directives lai signaling direction towards the speaker and qu signaling direction away from the speaker are historically derived from the directional motion verbs lai ‘come’ and qu ‘go’ respectively. They are comparable with the German directives her and hin, respectively.

Notes  . Kirsner (personal communication, 2004) pointed out to me that one could tie a heart in a literal sense if one was writing about a cardiac surgeon. . Chao treats diao as a dialectal equivalent to the perfective le (1970: 246). My text survey suggests that diao and le have different textual distributions in accordance with different semantics in one and the same text by one and the same author. The fact that diao and le can co-occur within one clause also indicates their different semantics. Li and Thompson treat diao as a resultative suffix and do not put it in their list of aspect markers, though they show that diao semantically contrasts with le in that the former is used for neutral requests and the latter indicates more urgent demand (1981: 208–209). This is not the reality. Semantic comparison based on textual distributions shows that wherever diao is used instead of le in a transitive situation, a conscious effort is intended whereas le is used where the natural course of an action or activity in its entirety is being communicated. . The analysis of the Mandarin aspect system given here is presented for convenience, as the ba-construction cannot be properly discussed without reference to the aspect system. However, a detailed analysis of Mandarin aspect will have to be carried out elsewhere. . I adopt Chao’s treatment of verbal reduplication as a tentative aspect marker (1970: 204– 205) and reject the notion of “delimitative aspect” proposed by Li and Thompson in their treatment of verbal reduplication (1981: 185, 232–236). The problem with the latter is that the term “delimitative” is defined in terms of quantity of action, which is irrelevant to the point. The essential function of verbal reduplication is not the quantity, but the action or activity per se irrespective of its result. Of course something tentative is naturally lesser in quantity. Shi (2003: 183–188) offers a detailed discussion of the historical development of the reduplication of verbs as an aspect marker. Though he adopts the term “delimitative” by Li and Thompson, he points out that the function of reduplication is to mark the action in question as bounded. Note that boundedness does not equal reduced quantity. . The tentative aspect of Mandarin Chinese seems to reflect the cultural concern with face, defined as “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself ” (Brown & Levinson 1978: 61), in that the speaker and the hearer cooperate in maintaining each other’s face in order to maintain their own face by showing heedfulness in the linguistic form of verbal reduplication. Tentativeness enables requests to be expressed in a less pushy and more polite manner and makes self-assertion less aggressive. . Linguistic purists dismiss the use of this aspect in German as an instance of bad style, which neither stops the phenomenon nor helps describe it. . Chao argues that guo is an “indefinite past aspect” in the sense that something “happened at least once in the past – ever” (1970: 251). However, guo can be used in non-past conditional sentences, as my example of the hypothetical situation suggests. In fact, the frequency of an action or activity is irrelevant to the situation being communicated. It is the factuality versus non-factuality that determines the use of guo. Certainly the actual occurrence of a fact is more likely to be in the past than in the non-past. Li and Thompson (1981) consider guo an “experiential” aspect marker, which is a more reasonable treatment, for a fait accompli is something that is already available to experience. . The reader may have noticed that our discussion of zai is conducted not in a “purely” sign-based fashion but rather eclectically. Traces of different approaches such as syntactic

 Dramatized Discourse

reanalysis, grammaticalization, cognitive linguistics and the method of Immediate Constituents are interwoven in the discussion of the sign to which an abstract meaning is assigned. This has been a conscious decision made on account of the special light each approach sheds on the issue being addressed and, importantly, on account of the conviction that these approaches are not mutually contradictory but mutually complementary. The eclectic mode of description exemplified here is an attempt to connect theories that are unnecessarily segregated. . I adopt the term “booster” from Janet Holmes who discussed the functions of hedges and boosters in linguistic and interactional politeness. It encompasses the linguistic items that increase the force of utterance, also known as intensifier, or strengthener. . Labov used BEV, i.e. Black Vernacular English, for what we call African American Vernacular English (AAVE) today. . The term weighted ratio is defined as the appropriate relation of one item to another in textual frequency. . Birner (1994) is in line with the scalar view of information status and uses the term “discourse familiarity”. . See Li and Thompson (1981), Section 7.1.3, for a discussion of the distinction between the CRS marker le and the perfective aspect marker le. . The pronoun is anaphoric and its deictic salience makes it easy for the hearer to infer the reference and thus needs not resort to stress for extra help. Added stress would only create contrastive emphasis. As for any constituent, the potential to receive stress is more or less real and will surface whenever an emphatic strength is desired with regard to the context. This applies to pronouns as well. Schmerling’s sentence: John insulted Mary and then she insulted him, where him is under primary stress, is a good example. . Note that the word er has been glossed in a number of ways in the analysis, sometimes as ‘while’, sometimes as ‘but’, and sometimes as ‘and’. The versatility of er resembles that of the English and whatever this is in English. Actually, both are discourse sensitive and have several contextual senses including the additive sense and the adversative sense in varying degrees of contrastive intensity, depending on the discourse situation and pragmatic considerations. See Schiffrin (1987), 6.1, for an analysis of and as a discourse connective. . Brooke-Rose (1958) called this kind of metaphor “replacement metaphor” while Dubois et al. termed it “metaphor in absentia” (1972: 114). . The term deontic derives from a Greek word relating to the imposition of obligations. It is used by logicians and linguists to refer to that part of modality that deals with obligation, necessity, desire and permission, etc. . The term epistemic comes from a Greek word meaning “knowledge” and is used to refer to modality related to the knowledge of probability and possibility (cf. Lyons 1995: 254; Whaley 1997: 223–224). . The historical fact alluded to here is the death of the famously voluptuous concubine (Yang Yuhuan) of the Emperor (Li Longji) of the Tang dynasty. She was held responsible for the political corruption and the resulting rebellion that forced the Emperor to desert the capital and take refuge in the remote mountains. She ended up in unwilling suicide when

Notes 

the Emperor was forced by his own officials and soldiers to destroy the concubine as the root of the evil. The helpless Emperor demanded that she commit suicide. . In Modern Mandarin, the jiang-construction is entirely excluded from oral discourse. In written discourse, it is a historical residue which is no longer productive. . The ba-construction as a discourse dramatization strategy is unique to Mandarin. Other Chinese dialects do not have such a construction (cf. L. Wang 1980: 412). Sociocultural factors, especially the influence of colloquial literature (after the Tang dynasty) on language use, are crucial to the elucidation of the region-specific linguistic phenomenon. . In contrast to other novels of the Ming dynasty, Jin Ping Mei Cihua is concerned not with historical legendary heroes or fantastic figures, but with the intertwining life stories and relationships surrounding a large urban family. Because of its occasionally explicit eroticism, Jin Ping Mei Cihua has been the continuous target of censorship, which has inadvertently obscured the true literary values that make it a milestone in Chinese Literature (cf. Tao 2000). . Li and Thompson did not overtly use the term grammaticalization in their studies. The term grammaticalization has been increasingly used in the literature since C. Lehmann’s (1982) paper Thoughts on grammaticalization: A programmatic sketch. The term is defined as referring to the historical process whereby a lexical unit becomes grammatical (or relational) or a less grammatical unit becomes more grammatical. For example, the German derivational suffix -lich in glücklich ‘happy’ has developed from a full noun lîk ‘body’ in Old High German. For detailed discussions of grammaticalization and related issues, see C. Lehmann (1982), Heine et al. (1991), Hopper and Traugott (1993), Bybee et al. (1994), papers in Traugott and Heine (1991) and papers in Ramat and Hopper (1998). . Another tendency in Traugott’s discussion pertains to the change from propositional meanings towards meanings that serve textual cohesion, which is of little relevance to my discussion here and is therefore left out. . Here, too, the notion of “linguistic relations” refers to textual cohesion meanings, cf. Note 27 above. . See Aijmer (1985) on the dynamic flexibility of the prototypical organization of meanings.

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Author index

A Aijmer 307 Anderson 115 Austin 1 B Bernstein 284 Besnier 212 Birner 306 Bolinger 219 Brinton 303 Brooke-Rose 306 Brown 100, 180, 227, 305 Bruner 1 Bybee 159, 259, 307 Bynner 256 C Cacciari 212, 213, 216 Chafe 15, 119, 132, 133, 167, 168, 170, 181, 182 Chao 25, 26, 31, 35, 42, 82, 83, 86–91, 95, 96, 107, 130, 154, 186–189, 233, 305 Chappell 40–42, 105, 304 Cheng 106 Church 116, 117, 304 Clark 182 Comrie 151, 152, 301 Contini-Morava 6, 14, 113, 301 Cooreman 94, 100 Crocker 213 Croft 43, 196, 258, 291, 298 D Darwin

245–247

Dayley 62 DeLancey 196, 299 Diver 1, 114, 123, 304 E Edelman 115 Edwards 219 Eifring 51 Erbaugh 289, 290 F Faarlund 255 Fauconnier 115 Ferrara 212 Fillmore 258, 304 Fischer 292 Friedrich 15 G Geis 236 Givón 60, 62, 94, 100–102, 115, 180, 289, 290 Glucksberg 212, 213 Goffman 14, 303 Goldberg 258 Greenberg 60–62, 247 Grice 190 Gumperz 1, 284 H Hé 248, 249, 251–255 Haiman 79 Halliday 73, 181, 189, 194, 197, 198, 204, 209, 228, 303 Hasan 194, 197, 198, 204, 209, 303 Haviland 182

 Dramatized Discourse

Heine 307 Herweg 151, 152 Hodge 299 Holmes 219, 306 Hopper 85, 93–95, 100–102, 169, 180, 194–196, 208, 212, 307 Huang 106, 169, 289 J Janda 248, 292 Ji 250 Johnson 115, 145, 211, 212 Joseph 248 K Kay 258 Keysar 212, 213 Kiang 256 Kiparsky 292 Kirsner 13, 14, 115, 170, 304, 305 Koopman 106 Kress 299 L Lü 138, 169 Labov 164, 212, 221, 223, 225, 247, 282, 306 Lakoff 115, 145, 211–213, 229 Lambrecht 175, 181, 183, 184, 186 Langacker 79, 115, 117, 158, 168, 169, 171, 211, 229, 268, 284, 293 Lazard 94, 95, 102, 103 Lehmann 60, 303, 307 Levinson 100, 180, 227, 305 Li 2, 5, 55, 60, 61, 67, 75, 77–79, 81, 98, 106, 107, 118, 152, 158, 168, 169, 175, 179, 188, 233–235, 285, 286, 288, 289, 301–303, 305–307 Lieberman 8, 245–247 Light 60, 62, 289 Lightfoot 248, 286 Liu 18 Lyons 44, 46, 54, 85, 125, 152, 211, 230, 302, 306

M Mei 75, 76, 138, 169, 249 Milroy 269 O Ortony 211, 212 P Peyraube 248–250, 258, 259 Prince 181, 182 R Ramat 307 Reid 17 Riggs 117 Rosen 15 S Sadock 9, 49, 114 Sapir 9, 14, 122, 212, 213, 223 Sasse 8, 13, 64, 65, 73, 114, 135, 184, 186, 188, 191, 303, 304 Schiffrin 1, 306 Schmerling 306 Schwartz 302 Searle 1, 14, 226, 284 Seiler 40 Shi 55, 261, 286, 302, 305 Slobin 123 Stevens 14, 123 Stubbs 107, 303 Sun 60, 62, 93, 133, 169, 170, 250, 289, 290 Sweetser 212, 213, 228, 229, 231 Sybesma 6, 18, 26, 94, 105–107, 169, 303 T Tannen 15, 187, 226, 284, 286, 304 Tao 270, 307 Thompson 2, 5, 60, 61, 77–79, 81, 85, 91–95, 100–102, 107, 118, 152, 168, 169, 179, 180, 188, 196, 233–235, 259, 289, 301–303, 305–307

Author index

Tobin 14, 115, 301 Tomlin 42, 115–118, 125, 300 Traugott 9, 171, 172, 211, 212, 229, 261, 262, 293, 295, 307 Tsao 64, 93 Turner 15

X Xu 303

U Ullmann 213 V von Humboldt

Watson 256 Whaley 44, 230, 302, 306 Wheelwright 214 Woolf 250

303

W Wang 14, 26, 30, 42, 67–76, 81, 82, 87, 91, 95, 97, 107, 130, 138, 248–250, 256, 260, 261, 282, 283, 288, 301, 307

Y Ye

249

Z Zhu 248–250 Zwicky 49, 114



Subject index

A accusative 64, 103, 243, 289, 292 acquisition 289, 290 action verb 135, 255, 258 activity verb 135, 136 adaptive change 8, 245, 247, 299 additive 198, 208, 209, 232 adult-child communication 290 adverbial 28, 29, 165, 220 adversative 41, 55, 198, 201, 203 affectedness 93, 95, 97, 101 argument 184, 186, 249 aspect 95–97, 138–141, 150–165, 261–264, 285 attention 42, 43, 61, 64, 87, 100, 112, 116–120, 122, 123, 129, 132, 136, 142, 168, 169, 183, 188, 190, 193, 208 attention allocation 117 attitudinal thetic sentence 18, 187, 242, 265, 276, 286 authoritarian speech 284, 291 B background of expectations 8, 64, 66, 191 booster 160, 219, 306 boundedness 142, 260–262, 285, 305 C cardinal transitivity 94–100, 169 case marking 64, 84, 103, 243, 292 catastrophic change 286 causative 40–42, 56, 57, 72, 87, 93, 105, 106, 260, 261 causativity 40, 41, 94, 105, 106, 112 chain shift 282, 288

changing situation 152, 161 classifiers 133, 172, 286 clause level 10, 66, 122, 125, 126, 193, 242 cognitive salience 114, 116–118, 122, 123, 125, 126, 129, 130, 134, 135, 138, 140, 142, 165, 167, 168, 180, 190, 193, 194, 196, 197, 210 coherence 107–109, 176, 204, 303 cohesion 197, 198, 201, 206, 208, 209 colloquial register 187, 298 colloquial urban literature 285 communication 1, 6, 9, 14, 112, 114–116, 123, 134, 178, 181, 211, 226, 246, 247, 299 communicative intent 1, 6, 8–10, 17, 66, 92, 113, 123, 297, 299, 301, 304 completive 151, 152, 155–157, 159, 160 conceptual metaphor 212–217 conditional 196, 198, 201 Confucian tradition 290 see also authoritarian speech constant situation 151 Construction Grammar 258 contextualization cues 6, 7, 123, 290 contrastive focus 64, 242, 243 contrastive topic 63, 168, 189, 190, 242, 243 conversational discourse 14, 15 conversation, constructed 226, 283, 284, 287, 288 D dative passive 56 definite 36–40, 76, 77, 82, 119, 128, 133, 170, 172, 175, 178–180

 Dramatized Discourse

deontic 228–231, 233, 306 directionality 25, 142, 145, 167, 295 directive 23–25, 139–145, 165, 167 discourse dramaticity 8, 113–124, 131, 134, 136, 138, 150, 161, 165, 169, 181, 190, 193, 211, 220, 237, 240–244, 290, 295, 297, 299, 300 see also discourse dramatization 8, 122, 130, 167, 169, 175, 180, 212, 219, 265, 280, 282, 285, 286, 288, 289, 291, 294, 298 discourse environment 2, 37, 109, 112, 137, 189, 226 discourse frame 131, 150, 161, 164, 232, 304 discourse selection 138, 165 discourse sensitivity 93, 292 discourse type 283 discrete situation 55, 302 dismissive 148 disposal 67–75, 77–81, 104, 107, 235, 236, 243 dramatic discourse 158, 285 drift 289–292 see also typological drift durative 125, 151, 152, 154, 156–158, 162, 163 dynamism 28–31, 135, 136, 138, 165 see also verbal dynamism

event 122, 125–126, 134, 136–139, 145, 152, 156, 206, 208, 261–263, 285, 286, 304 see foreground/background event see also sudden event strategy evolution 245–247, 258, 298, 299 experiential 151, 152, 156, 157, 164, 305 exposure 290 extentative 18, 19, 80, 81, 149, 150, 236 external factor 295

E economy 252 emotionality 120–122, 211, 214, 219, 225, 227, 238 empathy 116, 120 emphatic reduplication 80, 236 English 21, 23, 49, 56, 58, 59, 81, 82, 87, 91, 132, 143, 145, 170–172, 175, 178, 189, 219–221, 224, 233, 235, 237, 293 entity-central 65, 73 epistemic 44, 228–231, 293, 306 event-central 65, 73 see also event-reporting sentence event-reporting sentence 186

G Generative Grammar 301 German 56, 58, 61, 64, 175, 301, 303, 304, 307 given information 181 gossip 133, 134, 187 grammaticalization 141, 151, 153, 159, 248, 258, 260, 261, 281, 289, 292, 298, 307

F face 100, 227, 305 focus 64–66, 181, 184–187, 189, 190, 255, 261 focus domain 65, 184, 186, 187 focus projection 184 foreground/background event 194–195 foregrounding 194–197 Form-content Analysis 10, 13 formal pressure 250–255 see also structural pressure frame 131, 133, 137, 147, 148, 150, 161, 164, 232, 303, 304 see also discourse frame frame analysis 304 free variation 6 functional fixation 286, 289 functional re-adaptation 256–269 future marker 269, 281

H human factor 9, 115, 116 hyperbole 79, 80 hyperbolic quantifiers 225

Subject index 

I iconicity 189, 259, 262, 269, 288, 289 illocutionary act 14, 284 illocutionary intention 14 imperative 46–48, 99, 100, 118, 119, 179, 227 imperfectivity 152, 153 inalienability 304 inchoative 151–153, 157 indefinite 36–39, 82, 133, 134, 147, 170–172, 175, 177, 180, 187, 223 indexical meaning 116 see invariant meaning indicative 44, 46, 48, 302 inflection 44, 58, 64, 151, 302 information structure 180, 181, 183, 184, 189, 190, 193, 194–241, 242, 255, 298 instrumental 18, 167, 248, 249, 251, 268–271, 274, 280, 281, 287, 288 intensifier 107, 219–225 intensity 79, 89, 100, 132, 164, 189, 221, 223–225, 232, 236 inter-event level 125, 194, 210, 241, 243 see also trans-clause level interactivity 57, 122, 126, 134, 135, 138, 140, 157 interrogative 48–50, 227 intra-event level 125, 126, 210, 241 see also clause level intransitive 18, 40–43, 65, 73, 84, 87, 93, 105, 128–134, 184, 265–268, 304 invariant (instructional) meaning 9 irrealis 95, 97, 195, 196 L lexical item 212 lexical replacement 250, 281 linguistic sign 6, 289, 291 linguistic system 282 literary discourse 14, 15 locative 23, 68, 141, 142, 155, 158, 159, 248–255, 293, 301 locutionary subjectivity 211

M major biactant construction 94, 102 markedness 61, 64, 66, 291, 302 Ming dynasty 265, 270, 287–289, 307 misfortune 87 see also unpleasant event modal verb 90, 91, 231–233, 235–237 modality 52–54, 228–230, 232 momentary-stative 118, 155, 157–159 mood 44, 46, 48–51, 226–228, 302 morpheme 248, 249, 258, 291, 292 morpheme-centered approach 248, 289, 292 N narration 177, 197, 221, 226, 263, 286 negation 54, 55, 97, 161, 286, 302 new information 147, 165, 167, 169, 181–191, 255 nominative 168, 302 number of participant 17, 119, 126–129, 134, 294 O object inversion 60–66, 243 object marker 43, 63, 243, 248, 289–292 oblique object 84, 103 P partitive 36, 37, 97 passive 55, 56, 286, 302 pathway 291, 292, 298 perception 114, 118, 125, 135, 261, 262, 287, 293, 294 perceptual salience 118, 120, 121 perfective 24, 26, 28, 31, 101, 120, 148, 151–153, 161, 162, 164, 261–264 performative 111, 219, 229 phonological reduction 262 poetic language 255, 298 popular narrative 286 postverbal modifier 18–27, 141, 145, 150, 165 potential construction 233, 234, 236, 237

 Dramatized Discourse

pragmatic change 262, 292, 294 pragmatic presupposition 184 pragmatization 245, 247, 295, 298 pretransitive 82, 86, 88, 91 preverbal modifier 28, 31, 165 primary accent 184, 186, 187, 189, 190 propagation 263, 285, 286, 298 prosody 74–75 prototype 196, 295, 304 prototype of dramaticity 295 prototypical action 94, 102, 103 prototypical change 295 prototypical transitivity 94, 100–103 Q Qing dynasty 270, 288 quantifier 30, 31, 68, 69, 145, 160, 165, 223–225 universal quantifier 145, 148, 160, 223–225 verbal quantifier 22, 31, 68, 69 quantitative data 17, 124, 134, 191, 298 R re-adaptation 130, 256, 263, 264, 298 realis 95, 101, 195, 196 reanalysis 158, 247, 252–255, 298, 306 see also syntactic reanalysis recipient 31–33, 35, 36, 141, 248, 249, 251, 259, 263, 293 redundancy 123 regulation 269, 270, 280, 282, 289, 298 resultative 18–23, 57, 77, 89, 140, 141, 145, 147–150, 233–236, 260, 261, 263, 264, 285 S semantic change 248 semantic reduction 248, 292, 298 semantic-pragmatic substance 8, 114, 243, 300, 304 sequentiality 17, 59, 195, 204, 207, 208, 241 serial verb construction 248–255

situation type 151 social semiotics 299 Song dynasty 263, 285, 286, 289 specific 76, 77, 99, 119, 167, 169–172, 175, 177, 180 speech act 1, 6, 50, 112, 113, 115, 265 spoken discourse 14–15 static verb 135, 136, 154 structural pressure 252 subjectification 229, 261, 262, 292–295, 298 subjectivity 79–81, 83, 114, 116, 120–123, 125, 138, 142, 211, 214, 215, 219, 227, 228, 230, 232, 236, 237, 239, 262, 263, 267, 286, 295 subjunctive 51, 226, 227 subordinate 58, 154 successive 151–154, 157 sudden event strategy 188 synchronic grammatical constraints 286 syntactic change 8, 9, 245, 247, 291, 292 syntactic reanalysis 158, 247, 254, 298 syntactic transformation 34, 105 106 syntactic variant 5, 6 syntactic variation 301 syntax 9–11, 17, 37, 43, 112, 246, 247, 282, 286, 299 systemization 269, 270, 280, 282, 289 T Tang dynasty 255, 256, 258, 261, 263, 289 temporal 125, 126, 152, 155, 158–160, 198, 204, 208 tentative 151, 152, 154, 155, 163, 305 textual linking 197–209 topic 34, 40, 42, 61, 63, 64, 93, 128, 129, 131–133, 167, 168, 183, 184, 186, 189, 190 topic-prominent language 61, 168 trans-clause level 122, 123, 125, 194, 242, 297 transformation 38, 122, 249, 251, 259, 264, 293 transitivity 82–86, 91–103, 196

Subject index 

cardinal transitivity 94, 95, 100–103 prototypical transitivity 94, 100–103 transparency 216, 252 typological drift 289, 291, 292, 295, 298 U unbounded 101, 147, 195, 302 unmarked 29, 30, 33, 34, 62–64, 92–94, 98, 100, 187 unpleasant event 42, 43, 73 urbanization 263, 285, 286, 298 V verbal dynamism 135–138 verbal modifier 18, 19, 26, 79, 167 verbal reduplication 22, 26, 28, 31, 96, 151, 155, 157, 163, 305

volition 97, 156 viewing arrangement 293–294 W word order 60–66, 289, 291 word order change 255, 289, 291, 295 word order variation 60, 62 contrastive word order 61 fundamental word order 60, 62, 66, 289 Y Yuan dynasty 263, 270, 285, 289 Z zoom-in device 177, 206–208

In the series Studies In Functional And Structural Linguistics the following volumes have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 56 JING-SCHMIDT, Zhuo: Dramatized Discourse. The Mandarin Chinese ba-construction. 2005. xxii, 337 pp. 55 BEEDHAM, Christopher: Language and Meaning. The structural creation of reality. xvi, 212 pp. + index. Expected September 2005 54 ŠTEKAUER, Pavol: Meaning Predictability in Word Formation. Novel, context-free naming units. 2005. xxii, 289 pp. 53 EDDINGTON, David: Spanish Phonology and Morphology. Experimental and quantitative perspectives. 2004. xvi, 198 pp. 52 GORLACH, Marina: Phrasal Constructions and Resultativeness in English. A sign-oriented analysis. 2004. x, 151 pp. 51 CONTINI-MORAVA, Ellen, Robert S. KIRSNER and Betsy RODRÍGUEZ-BACHILLER (eds.): Cognitive and Communicative Approaches to Linguistic Analysis. 2004. viii, 389 pp. 50 DUŠKOVÁ, Libuše (ed.): Dictionary of the Prague School of Linguistics. Translated from the French, German and Czech sources. Author: Josef Vachek †. In collaboration with Josef Dubský. Translated by Aleš Klégr, Pavlína Šaldová, Markéta Malá, Jan Čermák and Libuše Dušková. 2003. x, 216 pp. 49 HLADKÝ, Josef (ed.): Language and Function. To the memory of Jan Firbas. 2003. x, 339 pp. 48 REID, Wallis, Ricardo OTHEGUY and Nancy STERN (eds.): Signal, Meaning, and Message. Perspectives on sign-based linguistics. 2002. xxii, 413 pp. 47 MARTÍN-VIDE, Carlos (ed.): Issues in Mathematical Linguistics. Workshop on Mathematical Linguistics, State College, PA, April 1998. 1999. xii, 214 pp. 46 ŠTEKAUER, Pavol: An Onomasiological Theory of English Word-Formation. 1998. x, 192 pp. 45 MARTÍN-VIDE, Carlos (ed.): Mathematical and Computational Analysis of Natural Language. Selected papers from the 2nd International Conference on Mathematical Linguistics (ICML ’96), Tarragona, 1996. 1998. xviii, 391 pp. 44 JESSEN, Michael: Phonetics and Phonology of Tense and Lax Obstruents in German. 1999. xx, 394 pp. 43 ANDREWS, Edna and Yishai TOBIN (eds.): Toward a Calculus of Meaning. Studies in markedness, distinctive features and deixis. 1996. xxviii, 432 pp.

Dramatized Discourse: The Mandarin Chinese Ba -construction (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

Chinese (Mandarin)

Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar

Language And Meaning: The Structural Creation of Reality (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

Chinese Discourse LE (Routledge Studies in Asian Linguistics)

Streetwise Mandarin Chinese: Speak and Understand Everyday Mandarin Chinese

Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis: Studies in Social Change (Open Linguistics)

Dictionary of the Prague School of Linguistics (Studies in Functional & Structural Linguistics)

Dictionary of the Prague School of Linguistics (Studies in Functional & Structural Linguistics)

Grammar of Mandarin Chinese

Functional Categories (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

Rapid Literacy in Chinese (Mandarin Chinese and English Edition)

Studies in Interactional Linguistics (Studies in Discourse & Grammar)

Studies in Interactional Linguistics (Studies in Discourse & Grammar)

Structural linguistics

Phrasal Constructions and Resultativeness in English: A Sign-oriented Analysis (Studies in Functional & Structural Linguistics)

Linguistic Theory and Empirical Evidence (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

Lexical Creativity, Texts and Contexts (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

Gender and Discourse (Sage Studies in Discourse)

Teach Yourself Beginner's Mandarin Chinese

Switch-Reference and Discourse Representation (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

Switch-Reference and Discourse Representation (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

Teach Yourself Business Mandarin Chinese

Structural and Functional Relationships in Prokaryotes

Structural and Functional Relationships in Prokaryotes

Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language

Structural Nativization in Indian English Lexicogrammar (Studies in Corpus Linguistics)

Philosophical Analysis and Structural Linguistics

The Noun Phrase in Functional Discourse Grammar

Structural Linguistics (Midway Reprints)

Discourse in Ritual Studies

Dramatized Discourse: The Mandarin Chinese Ba -construction (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

Chinese (Mandarin)

Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar

Language And Meaning: The Structural Creation of Reality (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

Chinese Discourse LE (Routledge Studies in Asian Linguistics)

Streetwise Mandarin Chinese: Speak and Understand Everyday Mandarin Chinese

Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis: Studies in Social Change (Open Linguistics)

Dictionary of the Prague School of Linguistics (Studies in Functional & Structural Linguistics)

Dictionary of the Prague School of Linguistics (Studies in Functional & Structural Linguistics)

Grammar of Mandarin Chinese

Functional Categories (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

Rapid Literacy in Chinese (Mandarin Chinese and English Edition)

Studies in Interactional Linguistics (Studies in Discourse & Grammar)

Studies in Interactional Linguistics (Studies in Discourse & Grammar)

Structural linguistics

Phrasal Constructions and Resultativeness in English: A Sign-oriented Analysis (Studies in Functional & Structural Linguistics)

Linguistic Theory and Empirical Evidence (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

Lexical Creativity, Texts and Contexts (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics)

Gender and Discourse (Sage Studies in Discourse)

Teach Yourself Beginner's Mandarin Chinese

Switch-Reference and Discourse Representation (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

Switch-Reference and Discourse Representation (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

Teach Yourself Business Mandarin Chinese

Structural and Functional Relationships in Prokaryotes

Structural and Functional Relationships in Prokaryotes

Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language

Structural Nativization in Indian English Lexicogrammar (Studies in Corpus Linguistics)

Philosophical Analysis and Structural Linguistics

The Noun Phrase in Functional Discourse Grammar

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