The pragmatics of existential-presentative constructions in Chinese: A discourse-based study

This study examines the pragmatic and discourse properties of Chinese existential-presentative constructions in written narrative discourse. It demonstrates how the constructions are used in real communicative context. Two sub-types are distinguished: existential constructions and presentative constructions, which differ in verb types, situation types, pragmatic functions, and topic chain patterns they contribute to in discourse organization. Existential constructions designate stative situations; they are topic-comment in nature. In narrative discourse, they actively participate in various types of background descriptions. Presentative constructions introduce new entities into discourse; they designate bounded dynamic events. Some presentative sentences play a foregrounding role by introducing thematically important participants into discourse.