1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Chinese Language and Discourse
  4. Volume 8, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 8, Issue 1
  • ISSN 1877-7031
  • E-ISSN: 1877-8798
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

After a broad overview of Mandarin Chinese conditionality marking, this paper presents a corpus-based analysis of two conditional connectives, and (both translatable as ‘if’), from a syntactic and a cognitive perspective. We examine their use in narrative and informative texts along four parameters: clause order, position of the connective within the clause, domain, and counterfactuality. For all parameters, the two connectives displayed robust profiles across genres. Both connectives preferred an antecedent-consequent clause order. They displayed flexibility in their position, behaving like adverbs, with showing a stronger preference for the pre-subject position than . In terms of domains, has a stronger preference for content conditionals than , which is also frequently used in the epistemic domain. In our data, only was used meta-metaphorically and in counterfactuals. We argue that both connectives can be translated with ‘if’, but also matches ‘so/as long as’.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/cld.8.1.06che
2017-09-19
2025-04-26

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/cld.8.1.06che
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Au, T.
    1983 Chinese and English counterfactuals: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis revisited. Cognition15: 155–187.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. 1984 Counterfactuals: In reply to Alfred Bloom. Cognition17: 289–302.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Austin, J. L.
    1961/1979 Ifs and cans. In J. O. Urmson , and G. J. Warnock (eds.), Philosophical Papers (3rd edition). 205–232. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Bhatt, R. , and R. Pancheva
    2005 Conditionals. In M. Everaert and H. van Riemsdijk (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Syntax. 638–687. Malder, MA/Oxford: Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Bloom, A.
    1981 The Linguistic Shaping of Thought. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Chao, Y. R.
    1968 A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. 1976 Aspects of Chinese Sociolinguistics. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Chen, G.
    1988 Ying han jiashe tiaojianju bijiao [A formal description of Chinese expressions of hypothetical conditions in comparison with English]. Foreign Language Teaching and Research73 (1): 10–18.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Cheng, L. , and J. Huang
    1996 Two types of donkey sentences. Natural Language Semantics4: 121–163.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Chierchia, G.
    2000 Chinese conditionals and the theory of conditionals. Journal of East Asian Linguistics9: 1–54.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Chou, C.
    2000 Chinese speakers’ acquisition of English conditionals: Acquisition order and L1 transfer effects. Second Language Studies19 (1): 57–98.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Comrie, B.
    1986 Conditionals: A typology. In E. C. Traugott , A. ter Meulen , J. S. Reilly , and C. A. Ferguson (eds.), On Conditionals. 77–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Dancygier, B.
    1998 Conditionals and Prediction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Dancygier, B. , and E. Sweetser
    2005 Mental Spaces in Grammar: Conditional Constructions. Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Douven, I.
    2016 The Epistemology of Indicative Conditionals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Evers-Vermeul, J. , L. Degand , B. Fagard , and L. Mortier
    2011 Historical and comparative perspectives on subjectification: A corpus-based analysis of Dutch and French causal connectives. Linguistics49 (2): 445–478.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Ferguson, C. A. , J. S. Reilly , A. ter Meulen , & E. C. Traugott
    1986 Overview. In E. C. Traugott , A. ter Meulen , J. S. Reilly , and C. A. Ferguson (eds.), On Conditionals. 3–20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Ford, C. E. , and S. A. Thompson
    1986 Conditionals in Discourse. In E. C. Traugott , A. ter Meulen , J. S. Reilly , and C. A. Ferguson (eds.), On Conditionals. 353–372. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Gauker, C.
    2005 Conditionals in Context. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Gries, S.
    2013 50-something years of work on collocations: What is or should be next …International Journal of Corpus Linguistics18 (1): 137–165.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Haiman, J.
    1978 Conditionals are topics. Language54: 564–589.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Ippolito, M.
    2013 Subjunctive Conditionals: A Linguistic Analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Johnson-Laird, P. N. , and R. M. J. Byrne
    2002 Conditionals: A theory of meaning, pragmatics, and inference. Psychological Review109 (4): 646–678.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. 2010 Conditionals and possibilities. In M. Oaksford and N. Chater (eds.), Cognition and Conditionals. 55–68. New York: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Li, C. N. , and S. A. Thompson
    1981 Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley: University of California.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Li, F. , J. Evers-Vermeul , and T. J. M. Sanders
    2013 Subjectivity and result marking in Mandarin: A corpus-based investigation. Chinese Language and Discourse4: 74–119.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Li, F. , Evers-Vermeul, J. , and T. J. M. Sanders
    2016 On the subjectivity of Mandarin reason connectives: Robust profiles or genre-sensitivity?In N. Stukker , W. Spooren , and G. Steen (eds.), Genre in Language, Discourse and Cognition. 15–49. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Lü, S.
    1942 Zhongguo wenfa yaolüe. [Essentials of Chinese Grammar]. Beijing: Commercial Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. McEnery, T. , and A. Hardie
    2012 Corpus Linguistics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. McEnery, T. , and A. Wilson
    2001 Corpus Linguistics (2nd edition). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Núñez, R.
    2007 Inferential statistics in the context of empirical cognitive linguistics. In M. Gonzalez-Marquez , I. Mittelberg , S. Coulson , and M. J. Spivey (eds.), Methods in Cognitive Linguistics. 87–118. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Sanders, T. , and E. Sweetser
    (eds) 2009 Causal Categories in Discourse and Cognition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Schmied, J.
    1993 Qualitative and quantitative research approaches to English relative constructions. In C. Souter , and E. Atwell (eds.), Corpus Based Computational Linguistics. 85–96. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Shen, J.
    2003 Fuju san yu: Xing, zhi, yan [Compound sentences in three conceptual domains: Acting, knowing and uttering]. Chinese Language294 (3): 195–204.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. 2008 Fuci he lianci de yuanyu yongfa [Meta-linguistic usage of adverbs and conjunctions]. Research on Chinese as a Second Language5: 113–125.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. 2016 Mingci he dongci [Nouns and Verbs]. Beijing: Commercial Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Siegel, M. E. A.
    2006 Biscuit conditionals: Quantification over potential literal acts. Linguistics and Philosophy29: 167–203.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Spooren, W. , and L. Degand
    2010 Coding coherence relations: Reliability and validity. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory6 (2): 241–266.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Stalnaker, R. C.
    1981 A theory of conditionals. In W. L. Harper , R. Stalnaker , and G. Pearce (eds.), Ifs: Conditionals, Beliefs, Decisions, Chance, and Time. 41–55. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Sweetser, E. E.
    1990 From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Tian, Y.
    2006 Pingding fuci “jiu” de qiyi xianxiang [Ambiguities of the evaluative adverb jiu ]. Beijing: Peking University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. van der Auwera, J.
    1986 Conditionals and speech acts. In E. C. Traugott , A. ter Meulen , J. S. Reilly , and C. A. Ferguson (eds.), On Conditionals. 197–214. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Wang, C.
    2010a Hanyu tiaojianju xiaoju jian de yuxu leixing [Ordering patterns of clauses in conditional complex sentences in Chinese]. Shijie hanyu jiaoxue [Chinese Teaching in the World] 24 (4): 468–482.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. 2010b Jiashe xing dengji yu hanyu tiaojianju [Degree of hypotheticality and Chinese conditional sentences]. Hanyu xuebao [Chinese Linguistics] 32 (4): 59–69.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. 2012 Tiaojianju fenlei de guoneiwai bijiao [A comparison of conditional categorization in China and West], Dongfang yuyan xue [Oriental Linguistics] 11: 115–128.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Wang, L.
    1943, 1944 Zhongguo xiandai yufa [Modern Chinese Grammar]. Shanghai: Commercial Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Wang, W. , X. Zhang , M. Lu , and H. Cheng
    1994 Xiandai hanyu fuju xinjie [A New Study of Complex Sentences in Modern Chinese]. Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Wei, Y. , Speelman, D. , and J. Evers-Vermeul
    . (submitted). Collocation analyses at the discourse level using Chinese corpora. Submitted for publication.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Wierzbicka, A.
    1997 Conditionals and counterfactuals: Conceptual primitives and linguistic universals. In A. Athanasiadou and R. Dirven (eds), On Conditionals Again. 15–60. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Xing, F.
    2001 Hanyu fuju yanjiu [A Study of Chinese Complex Sentences]. Beijing: Commercial Press.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/cld.8.1.06che
Loading
Expressing conditionality in Mandarin
Chinese Language and Discourse 8, 95 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.8.1.06che
/content/journals/10.1075/cld.8.1.06che
/content/journals/10.1075/cld.8.1.06che
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): conditionals; conjunctions; counterfactuals; domain; mental spaces; 反事实条件句; 域; 心理空间; 条件句; 连词

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error