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NACCL-27 Abstract Book
27th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-‐27) 第 27 届北美汉语语言学会议
第 27 屆北美漢語語言學會議
Univerity of California, Los Angeles April 3-‐5, 2015 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Abstract Book
NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Author(s)
Titile
Ao, Yumin, Xu,
Meimei, Feng,
Junwei & Wei, Jie
Break the Barrier of Chinese Character Instruction: An
experimental study
1
Cao, Fei
汉语因果篇章连接标记二语习得发展阶段研究
2
Chen, Aishu &
Jiang, Ping
Chen Changyong &
Duanmu San
Syntactic constraints on prosodic domains: three types of
Fuzhou phrases
2
汉语双音节复合词词类组合标注和统计分析
3
Chen, Jidong
The emergence of verb argument structure in child Mandarin
4
Expressing conditionality in Mandarin Chinese: a comparative
study of ruguo and zhiyao
5
Chen, Weiying &
Evers-Vermeul,
Jacqueline
Chen, Wei-Yu &
Chung, Siaw-Fong
Chen, Yunchuan
Chief, Liancheng
Do, Hue Sang
Dong, Hongyuan
Dong, Yan &
Duanmu, San
Du, Hang
Endo, Tomoko
Page
反义词多和少在数量名次结构中的不对称现象：以语料库为
本的分析
Auxiliary selection between le and zhe in Chinese locative
inversion sentences and its pedagogical implications
Contrast and Change of State
The linguistic landscape as an additional source of input in
Chinese Language Teaching: A corpus-driven study of written
announcements in public space
Musicality meets tonality: A Tonal Congruence Index (ITG) for
Chinese vocal music
Elastic Word Length in Old Chinese and Middle Chinese
Corpus Linguistic, SLA Research, and Teaching Chinese as a
Second Language
Multi-unit turn construction in Mandarin conversation: Cases
of complement-taking predicates and conjunctions
6
7
8
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10
11
12
14
Fang, Mei
从互动角度看语气词的功能
15
Fang, Sumin
Appropriate Emotions for Intercultural Communication: A Text
Analysis of Two Foreign Language Textbooks
16
Fu, Kun
浅谈后置话语标记的语用增值功能及其对外汉语教学策略
18
Gao, Chong & Tan,
Jingchun
语义透明度理论的分析及其在汉语教学中的运用
19
Ge, Chengzheng
留学生语气词“呢”的使用情况考察
20
Ge, Haoyan,
Matthews, Stephen
& Yip, Virginia
The acquisition of right-dislocation in Cantonese-English
bilingual children
21
Gu, Feng
“都”在东汉有没有语气副词的用法
22
NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Hao, Yen-Chen
Hsiao, Yuchau E.
Hsu, Chan-Chia
Huang, Ting,
Wang, Tianxin &
Yang, Yinghua
Huang, Zhipeng
Nick
Second language learners' Mandarin tone production in
different prosodic contexts
Tone sandhi in Zhuolan Raoping: a perspective from the
syntax-phonology interface
An exploratory data analysis of lexical bundles in written and
spoken Chinese
23
24
25
Using videos to learn Chinese pragmatics
26
Is there syntactic tense in Mandarin Chinese? Some evidence
from jiang
27
Ji Wei
基于用法构建语言习得机制的程度副词认知与教学刍议
29
Jiang, Song
Semantic Structure of Body-Part Originated Classifiers in
Chinese and its implication on Classifier Acquisition and
Teaching
29
Ke, Sihui, Xiao,
Feng, Yu, Yueming
& Nie, Kun
Playing with Words: The Acquisition of L2 Chinese
Morphological Awareness
30
Lai, Yi-hsiu
Lai, Yi-hsiu
Error Analysis of Object and Action Naming in Chinese and Its
Teaching Implications
Preferred Clause and Argument Structures for Chinese as
Second Language Learners
31
31
Larson, Richard K.
On AP-地 Manner Adverbs in Mandarin
32
Lee, Heeju, Su,
Danjie, Tao,
Hongyin
Non-interrogative uses of shenme in Mandarin conversation
34
Lee, Ok Joo
Lee, Sheng-Hsun &
Qian Wu
Lee, Yu-Hui
Li, Mingxing &
Zhang, Jie (KU)
Li, Yan, Wu,
Xiu-zhi Zoe &
Simpson, Andrew
Speaking Rate and Prosody: A Cross-Linguistic Analysis in
Native and Non-Native Speech
Authentic Language and Culture: Scenes from Chinese
Homestays
Discourse Functions of the Manner Demonstrative zheyang in
Taiwan Mandarin
Contrast distinctiveness between dental and palatal sibilants:
Typology survey and perceptual experiment
34
35
36
37
Coherence Relations, Topic Prominence, and the Interpreta.tion
of Pronouns in Chinese
38
Li, Yu
能性述补结构“V 得 C”与动宾结构“能 VC”的语用辨析及其
教学应用
39
Li, Yuchen & Liu,
Zhengguang
基于语料库的“把个”句主观化研究：从事实位移到虚拟运动
40
Li, Xiaoting & Luo,
Jie
Can yinwei be used as a discourse marker? Some
discourse/interactional functions of yinwei in Mandarin
conversation
40
NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Lin, Yuhan
Sibilants across the Strait: A comparison between Xiamen
Mandarin and Taiwan Mandarin
41
Liu, Haiyong
Encoding Counterfactuality in Chinese, Syntactically
43
Liu, Hongyan
Liu, Meichun &
Chang, Jui-Ching
Liu, Yu & Wu,
Xinyi
Lok, Joyce
Lu, Lu
Lu, Xiaoqun &
Weng, Mingpeng
Lu, Yaqiao, Deng,
Xiangjun & Yip,
Virginia
Investigation of situated discourse abilities for Chinese
Alzheimer's patients
Redefining Locative Inversion in Mandarin: A
Lexical-constructional Approach
Native Speakers' Perception of Fluency in Advanced Level L2
Speech
“I’d like to ask if I may borrow your pencil”: Politeness of
non-native learners in daily conversations
A Corpus-based Constructional Analysis of Argument
Realisations of Chinese Light Verb Constructions: A Pilot
Study of jinxing in Mandarin
44
45
46
47
48
法国留学生声调偏误问题的教学研究与对策
49
The Acquisition of Cantonese Unaccusative Verbs in
Cantonese-English Bilingual Children
50
Mao, Li
China as Imagined Communities in CFL Learning and
Teaching
52
Myers, James &
Tsay, Jane
Trochaic Feet in Spontaneous Spoken Southern Min
53
Oralova, Gaisha
Minimal response token en in Mandarin conversation
54
Pan, Victor Junnan
Questions at Syntax and Prosody Interfaces
55
Peng, Chun-Yi
A sociolinguistic investigation of morpho-syntactic variation in
Mandarin varieties
56
Peng, Xinjia
Revaluating the concept of ‘topic’ in Chinese
57
Use of Prosodic Transcription in Teaching Chinese
58
Pospechova,
Zuzana
Prawatmuang,
Woramon
Qian, Zhiying &
Garnsey, Susan M.
Qin, Zhen &
Jongman, Allard
Romagnoli, Chiara
Linguistic research and "applications" on Chinese character
learning
Classifiers Are and Are Not Processed Similarly in Mandarin
and English
Does second language experience with Mandarin Chinese
modulate English-speaking L2 learners' perception of tones in a
third language
Metalinguistic knowledge and language proficiency in L2
Chinese
58
59
60
61
Shen, Yan
浅谈基于搭配理论的高级中文词汇教学
62
Shen, Yang & Shi,
Dingxu
命题否定和反向赋值—试析“才”字句与“就”字句的意义对
立和意义反转现象
63
NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Shi, Xinyuan &
Jiang, Ping
Su, Danjie
Su, Henghua &
Wang, Tianlin
Tang, Marc
Tao, Lian
Tao, Liang
Tian, Feiyang
Phonological evidence for the attributive marker de (的) as a
head.docx
Ba-conctructions, Bei-passives, and Unmarked Passives in
Mandarin Conversation
When Theory Informs Practice: What We Can Do to Better
Teach Tones
A corpus-dischronic analysis of Mandarin near synonyms jiang
and shuo: Is it said enough to be talked about
词语的指导性教学和总结性教学初论
Metalinguistic Awareness and Self-repair in Chinese Language
Learning
The Lexical Characteristics of Chinese in America and Its
Impacts on Vocabulary Teaching
Triskova, Hana
De-stressed words in Mandarin–a parallel with English
Tsui, Tsz-Him &
Chan, Marjorie
Cantonese hip-hop songs and their linguistic devices for
identify formation
Tracing convergence and divergence in Chinese and English
web-mediated university introductions
A Corpus-based Analysis of Modal Serialization in Chinese
and Its Pedagogical Implications
In Search for a Pedagogically Oriented Representation of
Mandarin Tones
Interplay of prosody and discourse functions: the case of
Mandarin connectives
Tu, Wenchao
Wang, Ben
Pin-Yun
Wang, Jenny
Wang, Wei
Wang, Xiaomei &
Lin, Yen-Hwei
Wang, Yan
Wang, Zhimin &
Wang, Xiaomeng
Woo, I-hao
Tone Patterns in Ei Disyllabic Sequences
From subjectivity to intersubjectivity: A functional study of
epistemic markers keneng “maybe” and haoxiang “seem” in
Chinese conversations
基于大规模语料的汉语教学词表更新研究--《汉语国际教育
用音节汉字词汇等级划分》为例
On V-V Resultative Construction in Chinese: Theoretical
Issues and Pedagogical Implications
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68
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Wu, Haiping
Self-repetition in reported speech in Mandarin conversations
80
Wu, Hongshen
英语、韩语母语者汉语否定标记习得研究
80
Wu, Qian & Lee,
Sheng-Hsun
Indexicality of Directives: Developmental Stories of Three
American High School Students in Homestays Abroad in China
The effect of transfer, markedness and linguistic universals on
the acquisition of L2 Mandarin tones
Improving Chinese Language Teaching with Comparative
Applied Linguistics
Yang, Chunsheng
Yang, Henrietta
Yang, Jia
Learners’ acquisition of pragmatic routines in L2 Chinese
81
82
82
84
NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Yang, Wendai &
Li, Xiaoting
Yang, Ying
Yuan, Boping
A multimodal study of dui bu dui in Mandarin conversation
Multimodal stancetaking and speaker alignment in Mandarin
conversation
L1 transfer overridden by linguistic complexity in L2
acquisition Evidence from L2 Chinese daodi...wh-questions
85
86
86
Yue, Yao
从语法-语义-语音关联的角度理解疑问句中的"怎么"
87
Zhang, Hang
Focal Prominence Marking in Second Language Chinese
88
Zhang, Jie (UO) &
Lu, Xiaofei
Zhang, Liulin
Zhang, Wenxian
Zhang, Xiaodong
Zhang,
Zheng-Sheng
Zheng, Mingzhe &
Durvasula, Karthik
Computerized Dynamic Assessment: Measuring Learning
Potentials and Supporting L2 Chinese Development in
Classrooms
Short Passive/Inchoative Selection of Verbs in Mandarin
Chinese
副词“真”的主观性分析及其汉语教学问题
Teaching Narrative to Chinese Language Learners: What a
Genre-based Approach Can Offer
A Multi-dimensional Corpus Study of Mixed Compounds in
Chinese
English loanwords in Mandarin Chinese: A perception
experiment approach
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NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Break the barrier of Chinese character instruction: An experimental study
Yumin Ao1 Meimei Xu1 Junwei Feng1, 2 Jie Wei1, 3
1
Kennesaw State University 2 He Bei University 3 Minzu University of China
Writing characters is one of the biggest barriers for Chinese language learners. Various
factors contribute to the situation that characters are not adequately taught and learnt, in
particular at the beginning level, which consequently affect advanced-level studies. First, the
Chinese writing system is very different from the writing systems of other languages. Second,
conventional character instruction pedagogy emphasizes rote memorization, which is
normally dull and difficult. Third, technology-based methods, to a certain degree proved to be
effective, are not easily accessible, so they have not yet been widespread. Last but not least,
some essential questions, what and how many characters should be taught, and when and
how to teach characters, remain to be explored in our understanding of Chinese character
instruction.
In the process of developing a Chinese curriculum companion to support the Georgia
Performance Standards for modern languages (GPS, K-12), the research team found that
the standards and indicators concerning the issue of writing regulated in the GPS are not
sufficient if we implement them as guidelines in Chinese character instruction. When the
GPS was developed under the supervision of the Georgia Department of Education, experts
focused on more or less phonetic languages, for instance, Spanish, German, French, etc.,
rather than Chinese. Chinese language has become one of the most 5 popular foreign
languages taught at Georgia schools. To change the current situation of low efficiency in
learning Chinese characters, we believe that it is necessary to develop the GPS and specify
the standards regarding Chinese Character instruction.
Prior and current research on Chinese character instruction has discussed topics mainly
concerning university students rather than students at elementary and secondary schools.
We want to find an effective system to teach children and teens Chinese characters and
integrate the system into the development of the curriculum development. By taking account
of children’s cognition development, characteristics of Chinese characters and Chinese
characters acquisition, we try to arrive at a system of multi-phases Chinese character
instruction in our curriculum development: to recognize, copy and write. These three phases
are not absolutely separated from each other. There are overlapping spaces and a priority in
different stages. Taking character instruction at the K-5 level as an example, we believe that
it is sufficient to teach kindergarten students only some pictograms. From grade one on,
students start to learn basic strokes. From grade two on, students copy some simple
characters. From grade three on, students can learn to write some words, and from grade
four on, students can learn to write some simple sentences.
Through distributing Chinese character instruction into each thematic unit, we try to answer
what, how much, when and how to teach Chinese characters, which reflects well on the
entire curriculum development. This project expands the GPS for the purpose of providing
guidance for strengthening Chinese character instruction at Georgia schools.
1 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
汉语因果篇章连接标记二语习得发展阶段研究
曹沸
杭州师范大学国际教育学院
因果篇章连接标记作为篇章连接标记的一个分支，是日常交流使用最频繁的词语之一，有着不
可替代的篇章和交际功能。本研究从学习者母语与目的语因果篇章连接标记使用模式对比角度
切入，选择美国西海岸一所全日制大学本科学生的作文为研究对象，年龄在 18—30 岁之间，
共搜集中介语语篇 439 篇，其中初级 280 篇,中级 69 篇，高级 90 篇。考察母语环境下美国学
习者汉语因果篇章连接标记发展路径。研究表明，美国学习者习得汉语因果篇章连接标记过程
呈非线性路径，两种语言中的共有义较早为学习者掌握；初级阶段较多受到母语语序影响，学
生多使用因标后置式，但与汉语母语者使用比较来看，初级阶段学习者较多使用因果搭配式；
中级阶段出现了多个词项，即母语和目的语标记词一对多或多对一情况增多，学习者容易将母
语词的某个义位相对宽广的语义范围错误地推移到目的语的对应词上。高级阶段中介语因果篇
章连接标记模式的使用类型虽然越来越接近母语者，但化石化现象比较严重，高级阶段学习者
除单用和搭配使用因果篇章连接标记外，还出现了连用和套用模式，即出现了多因一果模式，
多因一果+因果套假设模式，因果套转折模式等等。这表明，初级阶段学习者仅凭借记忆系统
中有限的几个标记词和有限的语法规则，组成套语式搭配模式来完成有限的交际目的，而随着
二语学习时段地提高，和大量目的语输入，学习者在语言输入和输出中不断地验证发现，因果
篇章连接标记可以单用，可以搭配，也可以有选择地连用和套用，这表明高级阶段学习者使用
因果篇章连接标记已进入自觉使用的新阶段。最后，本文总结美国学习者在习得过程中的认知
策略，即：套语策略，简化策略，嫁接策略和补偿—替代策略，并根据学习者的认知策略提出
相应的教学和学习建议。
Syntactic constraints on prosodic domains: three types of Fuzhou phrases
Chen Aishu, Jiang Ping
Chinese University of Hong Kong
This study investigates how tone sandhi domain (TSD) formations are affected by syntax in
Fuzhou. Our data include short phrases where verbs take three kinds of post-verbal
elements: i) Type I VO, verbs taking logical direct objects with theme/patient thematic roles; ii)
Type II VO, verbs taking non-canonical objects; iii) VR, verbs taking resultative predicates.
Type I VO and VR are listed in (1)-(3), most of them are minimally contrasted.
Sandhi tones are highlighted, TSDs are marked by parenthesis.
2 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
In Type I VOs (1a, 2a, 3a), tone sandhi displays a “three-way distinction”. We have proposed
a right-headed prosodic word structure to capture this three-way sandhi patterns within a
TSD (Chen & Jiang 2013, 2014). Unlike the verbs in Type I VO which undergo sandhi
consistently, the monosyllabic verbs always retain their citation tones in VRs (1b, 2b, 3b).
The contrast indicates that the verb stays in the same TSD with its logical direct object.
However, the verb never forms a single TSD with the resultative predicate. The distinct TSDs
formed in Type I VO and VR must be due to syntactic differences, the question arises: what
factors in syntax determine the different TSDs?
We hypothesize that functional phrase boundary blocks the prosodic domain. If two syntactic
elements α and β are separated by a functional phrase boundary, they are prohibited from
being incorporated into one single prosodic domain. According to syntactic literatures, the
surface adjacency of V and R is derived by R raising, as in (4). A functional phrase boundary
‘[FP’ intervenes between V and R, so VR cannot form a single TSD. In Type I VO, V and O
can form a single TSD, because no functional phrase boundary intervenes between V and
NP Obj. (theme/patient), as in (5).
(4) … [VP NPi [V’ V [FP F [sc pro/PROi
R]]]]
(Tang1997)
(5) … [VP V NPtheme/patient]
The above proposed constraint is further supported by evidences from Type II VO with
non-theme/patient objects. Two separate TSDs are formed, as in (6)-(7).
Following Light v analysis of type II VO, the surface adjacency of V and O is derived by
raising V to the Light v heads, as in (8). V and NP Obj. are separated by Light vP boundary,
which is a functional phrase boundary, so they are in separate TSDs.
(8) … [vP vDO [vP NPnon-theme/patient vAT [VP V ]]]
(Lin 2001, 2014)
Current data pose questions to earlier syntax-prosody interface theories, within which
the mapping relations between surface “edges” of morphsyntactic constituents and prosodic
constituents are emphasized, and invisibility of functional projections are assumed. Fuzhou
data show that functional categories are also crucial in parsing TSDs.
汉语双音节复合词词类组合标注和统计分析
1
陈昌勇1，端木三2
2
杭州电子科技大学
密歇根大学
复合词的结构是构词、语法研究的重要题目，也是英汉对比的一个要点。前人对复合词的
分类、统计、和分析往往依据自省，缺乏统一的词类标准和充足的语料（周荐 1995；张登歧
1997；沈怀兴 1998等）。《现代汉语词典》2005第五版（下称《现汉》）率先对词条作了全
面的词类标注，为分析复合词内部语素的词类提供了统一的标准。不过，自《现汉》出版以来，
尚未发现有人对复合词内部语素的词类进行过全面的标注和统计。我们以《现汉》收录的所有
双音节复合词为对象，对其内部语素的词类进行了全面的标注，并统计分析复合词的组合规律。
《现汉》对成词语素标有词类。对非成词语素则通过释义和例词来暗示其词类(徐枢，谭景
3 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
春，2006)。如“观”字有三义，皆未标注词类：(1) 看：~看；(2) 景象或样子：奇~；(3) 对事
物的认识和看法：悲~。但根据释义可以看出 (1) 为动词，(2)、(3) 为名词。
本文汇报单词性条目结果（如“看见”：动词），不包括多词性条目（如“学习”：动词、名词）。
我们也排除拟声词、相同词条（如“宿敌”：同“夙敌”，只计“夙敌”，不重复累计）和无法标注的
词条（如连绵词、音译词）。我们标注的复合词共计32097条。部分统计结果举例如下：
1. 双音节复合词共有92种组合，如名名、动名、动动、形名等。最常见的见下表：
组合
名名
动名
动动
形名
形形
名动
形动
副动
其余
举例
饭桶
绑腿
抱养
薄饼
矮小
癌变
长眠
不料
何苦
百分比
27.5% 20.1% 19.0% 12.6% 5.3% 2.8% 2.5% 2.2% 8.0%
2. 双音节复合词共有11种词类，其中名、动、形分别占50.4%、38%、9.2%，其余共占2.4%。
我们可以考察每一类的内部词类组合。名、动类最常见的三种组合见下表：
名词
动词
组合
举例
百分比
名名
板凳
54%
形名
暗房
23%
动名
绑腿
13%
其余
百忙
10%
动动
拔除
47%
动名
报国
32%
形动
悲叹
6%
其余
百出
15%
3. 十一种词类均可重复组合，如名名、动动、形形、副副等，共占52.2%，多于周荐(1995)
说的6种，和沈怀兴(1998)说的9种。其中重叠词124条(0.4%)，共有5小类: 名名(如：人
人)、动动(如：闪闪)、形形(如：惶惶)、副副(如：仅仅)和量量(如：本本)。
4. Huang (1997) 认为名名组合主要是复合形容词，而非复合名词；动名组合主要是复合形
容词，而非复合动词或复合名词；形形组合主要是复合名词，而非复合形容词。他的说
法多处与我们的数据不符。
5. Williams (1981) 提出了复合词的“中心词右向原则”：复合词的中心就是其最右边的成分。
Packard (2001) 提出了汉语复合词的“Headedness Principle”：名词的右语素是名词，动
词的左语素是动词。据我们统计，只有名词性复合词基本符合上述两个原则，而动、形、
副类复合词的例外很多。
本研究为汉语复合词的分析提供了大量新数据，修改了前人的一些不足，为复合词的研究
开辟了新方向。同时，本研究还为英汉复合词的对比研究提供了新的基础。
The emergence of verb argument structure in child Mandarin
Jidong Chen
California State University, Fresno
Children have been found to have more difficulty in learning verbs than nouns (e.g. Gentner,
1978; Gentner & Boroditsky, 2009; Imai et al., 2008). This may result from the difficulty in
identifying the correct meaning of a verb and the grammatical structures it can occur. The
problem of linking a word to its meaning is known as the “mapping problem”, also known as
the “Quine’s problem” (Quine, 1968): An infinite number of hypotheses about word meaning
are logically possible given the data the child has. Verb learning represents an ultimate
mapping problem - when a verb is introduced in describing an event, there could be an
infinite number of possibilities as to which aspect of the event the verb refers to. To identify
4 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
the exact meaning of a verb is probably difficult enough. The challenge further resides in the
relational nature of verb – it denotes a relation between the event denoted by the verb and its
participants (e.g. eat denotes a relation between an eater and some kind of solid food item).
To use a verb correctly (i.e. grammatically), a child needs to figure out how linguistically the
event participants are mapped out syntactically, i.e. the verb argument structure. Mandarin
presents interesting typological features for the study of verb argument structure and its
acquisition. (1) It has been argued to be a discourse-oriented language (e.g. Li & Thompson,
1981). (2) It also allows extensive argument omission when retrievable from the context. (3) It
is a morphologically impoverished language – there are no morphological marking to indicate
the syntactic or semantic roles of the arguments when arguments are omitted. Only very few
studies have explored the acquisition of argument structure in Mandarin longitudinally (e.g.
Yang, 2006). This study focuses on the emergent properties of verb argument structure in
early child Mandarin. The data analyzed includes longitudinal naturalist speech of one
Mandarin-learning child from age 1;1 to 3;5 (the crucial age for early syntactic development).
A total of 1433 utterances that contain a verb in the child speech were coded for their
argument structure, including the number of arguments, thematic roles, and relevant
syntactic constructions (e.g. negation, wh-questions). Preliminary results indicate that the
most frequent type of argument structure contains 1 argument (51%), followed by verbs
without any argument (26%) and verbs with 2 arguments (21%). And verbs with 3 arguments
are rare (1%). Argument omission is overall frequent (62%), and quite a large number of the
verbs contain full arguments (33%). A variety of thematic roles and their combinations (e.g.
agent, agent-theme, agent-recipient) occur in the child’s use of verbs, among which theme
only (30%), agent only (14%), and agent-theme (13%) are the most frequent types. We
propose that the child’s production of verb argument structure reflects the usage in the input
and that verb argument structure emerges through the interactive uses of verbs between
parents and the child.
Expressing conditionality in Mandarin Chinese: A comparative study of ruguo and zhiyao
Weiying Chen
Zhejiang University
Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul
Utrecht University
Conditionality is very common in everyday language. It reflects our ability to reason about
alternatives, to make inferences, to imagine possible correlations between situations, and to
understand how the world would change if certain correlations were different. This paper
starts with two critiques about some statement about Chinese conditionals. The first is
whether there are explicit lexical or grammatical forms to mark conditionality in Chinese. The
second is whether there are explicit lexical or grammatical forms to mark counterfactuality in
Chinese. Based on these two critiques, we carry out a case study of the two most commonly
used connectives marking the sufficient conditionality in Chinese, i.e. zhiyao and ruguo. Our
proposed research questions are supposed to pinpoint the two markers and their distribution
in the corpus data. Do these two markers have the same role? Do these two have similar or
different degree of formality in use? Do they have different profiles?
5 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
We describe the functions of conditionals that are distinguished in the framework of Mental
Spaces Theory and test its applicability in the study of Chinese conditionals. In our study, we
will also examine whether clauses introduced by ruguo or zhiyao also contain other
indications of conditionality or counterfactuality. Do these two demonstrate some differences
in the indication of counterfactuals? How about their distribution in the corpus as far as the
expressing ability of counterfactuality is concerned?
Corpus study, with its empirical strength, proves the availability of linguistic resources for
conditional talk and thought in Chinese. The two sufficient conditional connectives ruguo and
zhiyao have similar distribution in our corpus study. These two can replace each other in
most cases. One striking difference is that zhiyao cannot express counterfactuality. Results
and findings of this sort will enrich the linguistic theories and benefit conditional teaching and
learning.
反義詞「多」和「少」在「數量名結構」中的不對稱現象
─以語料庫為本的分析
Wei-Yu Chen
National Chengchi University
與「數量概念」相關的反義詞組「多」和「少」，在許多語法環境中呈現失衡的不對稱現
象。例如：失敗多次、*失敗少次。文獻中常見以「標記理論」解釋反義詞的不對稱現象，以日
常生活的常用問句為例，欲詢問他人的身高，一般使用無標形式「你多高？」而不使用有標形
式「你多矮？」然而僅採用「標記理論」並無法有效解釋「多」和「少」在語法表現上的差異。
將「多」視為無標形式，則有標形式「少」邏輯上可以存在，然而，此用法卻不存在於語言事
實中。此外，華語中表達數量概念的「數詞+量詞/分類詞+名詞」(以下簡稱「數+量+名」)形式，
「多」和「少」也呈現明顯的不對稱現象：
(1a)此次競賽有多位選手獲獎。
(1b)此次競賽有*少位選手獲獎。
觀察實際語言使用情況，對應於「多位選手」的反義概念，亦即表達選手數目「少」的句子，
可以使用「一、兩位選手」的形式，換言之，表達「數量」的相對概念，無法單純使用一組數
量反義詞「多」和「少」表達。
「多」可以出現在「數+量+名」中的「數詞」位置，
「少」則無
法進入。(「數+量+名」部分以粗體表示)
(2a)目前學校有二十多位教授，是歷屆人數最多的時候。
(2b)目前學校有二十*少位教授，是歷屆人數最多的時候。
由此觀察為出發點，本文假設「多」是「數詞」形式之一，而「少」無此用法。本文採用中研
院現代漢語平衡語料庫作為研究工具，分析「多」和「少」在語料庫中出現於「數+量+名」形
式中的語法表現差異並檢視「多」應歸類於「數+量+名」的何種句法位置。研究結果顯示，語
料庫中，原「多」的「詞類標記」項目之一「數量定詞(Neqa)」無法精確顯示「多和少」的語
法殊性。本文提出將「多」歸納為「數詞定詞(Neu)」不僅可以區別「多」和「少」的不平衡
現象，並可提出一個合理的「多」的語法化過程。太田辰夫(1958)根據功能將漢語的名量詞分
為「計量」和「計數」兩類，本文認為出現在數詞位置的「多」也具有「計量」和「計數」兩
種功能，並經歷一語法化過程。此語法化過程為：「多」首先由「數詞」發展出表達「約量」
和「鄰近增量」的「數量定詞」功能，最後發展出作為動詞和形容詞「補語」的功能。另外，
本文的研究結果發現：
6 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
(3)聚會來了三十位客人
主人 A(覺得人數多): 來了不少客人。
主人 B(覺得人數少): ?來了「不多」客人。
若根據「標記理論」，無標形式「多」加上「不」的否定形式反而變成有標形式。本文認為，
基於語言使用的經濟原則，語言使用者對於「數量概念」的認知，是認知層面上一種固定一致
的概念，此概念得以反映於上述的語言形式之中。
Auxiliary selection between le and zhe in Chinese locative inversion sentences and its
pedagogical implications
Yunchuan Chen
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Chinese locative inversion structure Loc+V+Aux+Noun might be one of the most difficult
structures to teach, especially since the auxiliary selection between le and zhe seems to be
random. In linguistic research, the constraints on the auxiliary selection between le and zhe
within that structure are far from being settled as well. Liu (2007) argues for a semantic
approach to the auxiliary selection in Chinese locative inversion sentences, claiming that the
selection is determined by the semantics of the event. Three factors are proposed: telicity,
stativity, and agentivity. She also argues that the transitive verbs become detransitivized
when entering the locative inversion structure, and they demonstrate variation in selecting
auxiliaries: some verbs can select le/zhe whereas some select only one of them. It is strong
evidence against the syntactic analysis of auxiliary selection (Huang, 1987; Pan, 1996),
which predicts that the detransitivized verbs should behave uniformly in selecting auxiliaries.
However, by following the assumption that the locative inversion sentence always involves a
locative NP argument (Bresnan and Kanerva, 1989), we need to first investigate whether all
sentences, having a superficial Loc+V+Aux+Noun order, really involve a locative NP
argument and can be regarded as locative inversion sentences. This study will argue that
only two factors determining auxiliary selection in Chinese: telicity and agentivity, which is in
line with Sorace’s (2000) proposal. By examining those sentences having a superficial
Loc+V+Aux+Noun order, I will identify two types of such sentences with no locative inversion.
They are named “Type A psudo-locative inversion sentences” and “Type B psudo-locative
inversion sentences”. When the verb only selects the marker –le, the locative phrase must be
an adjunct and Type A occurs. On the other hand, when a covert pronominal pro appears in
the subject position, the locative phrase must be an adjunct and Type B occurs. After
dismissing those irrelevant psudo-locative inversion sentences, I will reexamine the auxiliary
selection in locative inversion sentences and argue for the telicity and agentivity as two
factors in auxiliary selection in Chinese. There are three pedagogical implications in this
study. First, those psudo-locative inversion sentences should be taught first, since they do
not involve any alternation between -le and –zhe. Second, those locative inversion sentences
involving core unaccusative and unergative verbs may be introduced early, as the learners
can basically know to what extent the use of –le and –zhe is allowed, from which they can
develop their understanding of the auxiliary alternation. Third, our teachers can create a list
7 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
of common verbs that allow auxiliary alternation in locative inversion sentences and also
point out those verbs which only allow –le or -zhe.
Contrast and Change of State
Liancheng Chief
UCLA
This study discusses the connection between the Contrast rhetorical relation and change of
state through the study of the Mandarin sentence final le (hereafter S-le). Most of the
previous studies indicate that S-le signals a change of state. However, little discussion has
been devoted to the discourse functions of the change of state. This paper asserts that
change of state is meaningful only if the context and its discourse functions are taken into
consideration, and discusses it within the theory of Segmented Discourse Representation
Theory (SDRT) (Asher and Lascarides 2003). The present study further claims that the
Contrast relation is the default rhetorical relation of the change of state associated with S-le.
S-le is usually said to signal a change of state. This leaves several issues to be further
explored. The seemingly intuitive term change of state is not precisely defined and has been
applied to describe various linguistic phenomena. Specifically, there are the change of state
associated with the S-le, the change of state associated with telicity (cf., Soh 2009), or the
change of state with causativity (e.g., Tham 2013). The discourse functions of the change of
state are not discussed. Does the change of state signal a particular rhetorical relation? This
study demonstrates that these questions can be formally answered by the present SDRT
account.
Most studies have proved that S-le has functions that are similar to that of perfect (Li et al
1982; Smith 1997; Lin 2003; Soh 2014). Nishiyama and Koenig’s (2010) analysis of English
and Japanese perfect indicates that the function of perfect is to make discourse coherent.
Building on these findings, this study asserts that the use of S-le is to establish discourse
relations between clauses. The change of state introduced by S-le is to show the Contrast
relation by default. The following demonstrates the present analysis. Most of the previous
studies usually use singled-out sentences with some explanations indicating its nature of
change of state. For example, in (1), without context, it can be inferred that the speaker
originally wanted to work but changed his mind; hence, the change of state interpretation.
(1) Wǒ bù xiǎng qù shàngbān le.
‘I don’t want to go to work (anymore).’
Differing from previous analysis, this study proposes that when explaining the use of S-le, the
surrounding context should be taken into consideration. (2) is the extended text spans of (1).
(2) π1 qiān le láodòng hétóng,
'I signed the work contract.'
π2 kěshì bù xiǎng qù shàngbān le.
8 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
'But I don't want to go work.'
By looking at (1) alone, one can only know that the S-le signals a change of state. But what
state is changed? Without the context, the discourse function of change of state is
overlooked. In (2), π2 describes a situation that the speaker doesn't want to go to work. The
use of S-le also presupposes the existence of a prior negative state (Soh 2009). The content
of the prior negative state is provided by the context from π1, which leads the listener to
pragmatically infer that since the speaker signed a work contract and therefore should go to
work. However, π2 corrects this expectation by expressing a state of not going to work. By
including the context, it can be shown that π1 and π2 from a Contrast rhetorical relation.
Without the context, it is unknown what the discourse functions of the change of state are.
Without the context, the previous analyses overlooked the fact that the change of state
introduced by S-le is to make the discourse relation coherent. With the context, the change of
state can be analyzed as signaling the Contrast rhetorical relation by default.
In summary, this study discusses the notion of change of state in SDRT, and relates the
notion of change of state introduced by S-le to the Contrast rhetorical relation. It also
provides an additional analysis on how the change of state and the contrary to expectation
interpretations are related through rhetorical relations (cf. Soh 2009). Finally, it is hoped that
this study will have practical applications to teaching Chinese. For example, the context and
the surrounding sentences of S-le, rather than singled out sentences, should be provided in
the textbooks and discourse functions or rhetorical relations can be integrated into the
pedagogical grammar of Chinese.
The linguistic landscape as an additional source of input in Chinese Language Teaching: A
corpus-driven study of written announcements in public space
Hue Sang Do
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Chinese characters are ubiquitous in public space in China, displayed on restaurant menus,
train timetables, commercial shop signs, official notices, etc. This “linguistic landscape”
illustrates authentic and contextualized language use that is part of the social practice of a
given public domain. Its written texts could serve as a potential source of input in second
language acquisition (SLA) and facilitate the development of literacy skills and pragmatic
competence. In the teaching of Chinese as a second language at beginner and intermediate
level, Chinese script is often portrayed as the physical manifestation of oral speech while
reading is regarded an activity of processing written language, with little meaning in its own
right but primarily as a mean to acquire vocabulary and grammatical structures. Reading
comprehension, however, is not a passive skill but a social act that results from the
interaction between the meaning potential of a text, the context and the reader’s resources
(Cenoz & Gorter 2008). In addition to its relevance in SLA, investigating the language of
public signs and notices also informs Chinese register studies. Linguists have shown great
interest for the nature and relationship between spoken and written registers in the past,
9 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
focusing mainly on the distinction between the two that is evident in the use of lexical
doublets, alternative syntactic patterns, among others. Less attention, though, has been
directed towards a functional interpretation of the different usages as well as the linguistic
variation within respective registers, including text varieties found in public space. The
current study adopted a corpus-driven approach to register variation which allows the
analysis of language embedded in textual discourse rather than looking at decontextualized
items gained from introspection. By following the analytical framework of Biber & Conrad
(2009) it firstly describes the situational characteristics of those texts (participants, settings,
communicative purpose) that have been compiled from various public domains in mainland
China. In a second step, linguistic features are analyzed quantitatively in terms of their
pattern of occurrence, structure, distribution, etc. and compared to those in the Lancaster
Corpus of Mandarin Chinese (McEnery & Xiao, 2004). Finally, a functional interpretation is
attempted to explain why particular linguistic characteristics are associated with certain
situational characteristics.
Musicality meets tonality: A Tonal Congruence Index (ITG) for Chinese vocal music
Hongyuan Dong
George Washington University
This paper proposes a mathematical method for evaluating Chinese vocal music in terms of
the degree of tonal congruence. This system not only takes into account hitherto unnoticed
treatment of the neutral tone in Chinese vocal music, but also puts all tonal accommodation
principles into an index which can be used to judge how well the tonal contrasts in language
are preserved in music. This index is useful when it comes to selection of Chinese vocal
music for teaching purposes in CFL classes.
Chinese is a tonal language that uses pitch contours to distinguish meaning.
Correspondingly tonal properties have been a major concern for vocal music. The conflict
between tonality and musicality calls for strategies to preserve tonal contours while not
limiting melodic variation. Recently, there has been a surge in psycholinguistic and
phonological studies on the mapping between tones and tunes, and on how lyrics are
perceived in various musical melodic contexts, e.g. Wong and Diehl (2002), Wee (2007,
2011). It is a general assumption that if the tones are better preserved in vocal music they are
more easily understood, and composers tend to preserve tonal shapes to some extent in
different ways. However it is still unknown how one can compare two works of vocal music
and judge which one preserves the tones more faithfully. Moreover, the neutral tone in
Beijing Chinese is rarely mentioned. Although the neutral tone is primarily not a tonal contour
property, its pitch realization is nonetheless not random, but to some extent follows from the
previous tonal shape. Therefore in this paper, by combining some of the major tonal
accommodation principles mentioned in Zhang (1998) and the register contrast proposed for
Cantonese by Wong and Diehl (2002), I propose a mathematical method to compare works
of vocal music for Beijing Chinese. These principles include melodic contour resemblance,
10 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
use of embellishments, and register contrast. Each principle is weighted according to their
degree of correspondence with the original tonal shape. Thus melodic contour resemblance
has a weight of 1, use of embellishments has a weight of 0.75, while register contrast has a
weight of 0.5. Although the assignment of these weights still needs more justification, their
exact values should not matter as much as which weight is greater. As for the neutral tone,
since it does not have a tonal contour, the only property that can be used for judging tonal
congruence is its relative pitch, and it has a weight of 1. For all matching cases, it is assigned
a score of 1, and multiplied by its weight, for all unmatching cases, it is assigned a score of
zero, and multiplied by its weight. Thus we can sum the total number of tones, and sum the
weights of all the matching cases, and compare these two numbers to get a Tonal
Congruence Index, defined as:
ITG =
𝒏
𝒊!𝟏 𝒙𝒊
𝒏 𝒊
𝒊!𝟏
where n is the total number of tones, xi is the weight of the tone at i if there is congruence.
By using this Tonal Congruence Index, I will compare two songs written in a contemporary
musical style in Beijing Chinese to show which work has a higher degree of preserving the
tonal shapes.
Teaching students of Chinese to sing is always popular in a less formal setting outside
classrooms. Recently a few institutions are beginning to offer Chinese singing classes to CFL
students. An immediate concern of such a pedagogical approach is whether teaching
students to sing will negatively affect tonal accuracy. Thus the implication of my proposed
Tonal Congruence Index (ITG ) is that selection of works of vocal music with a higher ITG can
minimize any such negative effect on students’ tonal accuracy, if they are indeed a factor in
tonal acquisition.
Elastic Word Length in Old Chinese and Middle Chinese
Yan Dong, San Duanmu
University of Michigan
Chinese has many disyllabic words, such as 煤炭 meitan ‘coal’, 老虎 laohu ‘tiger’, and 学
习 xuexi ‘study’, most of which can be monosyllabic, too, such as 煤 mei ‘coal’, 虎 hu ‘tiger’,
and 学 xue ‘study’. Such word pairs are called to have “elastic length” (Guo 1938).
Most people think the increase of disyllabic words in Chinese occurs after massive loss of
syllable contrast and it is a new phenomenon. Before syllable loss, Chinese does not have
many disyllabic or elastic words (i.e. word pairs with elastic length). That could be true if
elastic words are motivated by homophone avoidance. That is, disyllabic forms are created to
avoid homophony among monosyllables. However, if the occurrence of elastic words is
motivated by prosody, then Old Chinese and Middle Chinese, the sound systems without
11 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
massive syllable loss, should have as many elastic words as Modern Chinese.
Few research provided insight on elastic word length in Old Chinese and Middle Chinese,
while no quantitative evidence has been shown. Guo (1938) argues that Chinese words have
always had elastic length. Guo cites many previous scholars who made similar comments,
along with many examples from Middle Chinese. Lü (1963) suggests that the increase of
disyllabic words started only from the second half of the 19th century; long after Chinese lost
most of its syllable contrasts.
In this study we offer a quantitative analysis of elastic word length in Old Chinese and Middle
Chinese in order to find out whether elastic words are extensively used before syllable loss.
For Old Chinese, we selected Zuozhuan (Zuo’s Tradition) since it is more like a prose and
thus closer to spoken language. For Middle Chinese, we focus on poetry in Tang Dynasty
(618-907 AD) using Quantangshi (Complete Tang Poems) since (1) the phonetic system is
reliable with rhyme books such as Tang Yun (792 AD) and Guang Yun (1008 AD), (2) most
people think disyllabic words occur much later than Tang Dynasty and (3) poetry is a better
reflection of spoken language. We randomly pick 1000 monosyllabic words/morphemes from
each dataset. For each word, we check within each dataset if it has elastic length. A sample
of Tang poetry is provided in (1) to (3). Verses are segmented into words and elastic pairs
are checked through all 42981 poems.
Our initial results shows that in both Old Chinese and Middle Chinese, elastic words were
already in extensive use (Tang poetry, 73.7%, SD = 8.4%). The percentage of elastic words
in Old Chinese and Middle Chinese is as high as that of Modern Chinese (46.8%) (Duanmu
and Dong 2014). The high percentage of elastic words in Old Chinese and Middle Chinese is
predicted by the prosody view, while the homophone avoidance view is not supported and
needs to be reconsidered as the explanation for the creation of elastic words in Chinese.
(1)
(2)
(3)
Elastic words in a Tang poem (underline indicates long forms of elastic words)
Poem
Wds
Gloss
少小离家老大回 5 I left home young and returned old
乡音无改鬓毛衰 6 Accent unchanged, beard fading
儿童相⻅见不相识 4 Children took me as a stranger
笑问客从何处来 6 Smiling, they asked, ‘Guest, where are you from?’
Analysis of the elastic words (long forms) in (1)
少(小) shao-(xiao) young-(small)
老(大) lao-(da) old-(big)
鬓(毛) bin-(mao) beard-(hair)
(儿)童 (er)-tong
(baby)-child
(相) 识
(xiang)-shi (each)-know
何(处) he-(chu) where-(place)
Analysis of the elastic words (short forms) in (1)
离(别)
li-(bie)
leave-(farewell)
家(乡)
jia-(xiang) home-(county)
回(来)
hui-(lai)
return-(come)
12 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
客(人)
ke-(ren)
guest-(person)
Corpus Linguistic, SLA Research, and Teaching Chinese as a Second Language
Hang Du
Middlebury College
This presentation will start with an overview of two learner corpora of American college
students studying abroad in China that I have been building. After that I will share some
preliminary results of my ongoing analyses of these data, and discuss the implications of
corpus linguistics in the research and teaching of Chinese as a secondly language.
Over the past several years, I have built a written corpus of 48,669 characters of student
journals during study abroad in China, and a spoken corpus of about 500,000 characters of
transcribed students’ spoken data, 2/5 of which have been digitized and more recordings are
being transcribed. Language teachers know from experience that learners tend to underuse
certain “difficult” grammatical patterns such as the ba-construction or le, but by comparing
learner corpora and native corpora in a more systematic way the researcher can quantify the
degree of underuse. For example, in my 48,669-character written learner corpus, there were
only 14 instances of ba, account for 0.04% of the total corpus, and most of them are not used
accurately. By contrast, in a similar corpus of native journals, the occurrence of ba is 0.3%.
Learners’ use of ba was only 13% of the native frequency. A better understanding of learner
language can help researchers and teachers develop better teaching material and methods
to teach these constructions more effectively.
After that I will focus on the preliminary results of the study of one student, who spent a year
studying in China, and made tremendous progress in language proficiency (from Novice to
Advanced as measured by a computer-adaptive standardized proficiency test of reading
comprehension). Yet the students' grammatical development in his oral production seems to
be lagging behind. For example, in his 7 monthly recorded conversations in Chinese with the
researcher, totaling 31,317 characters of transcribed speech, there was zero instance of ba.
Concordance lines of his 7 sub corpora show a clear development of le, from unanalyzed
chunks to productive use and overuse. Pedagogical implications will be discussed, including
error correction and "noticing the gap" (e.g. Schmidt, 1990). For example, during study
abroad, even though learners are exposed to authentic native input all the time, they cannot
acquired the target form if they do not notice the gap in their knowledge of the second
language. Also, even at advanced levels, such as study abroad, teachers still should teach or
practice important and difficult grammar, and correct errors.
Native speaker corpora used as reference corpora include those from Center for Chinese
linguistics PKU (CCL), NCCU Corpus of Spoken Chinese, Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin
Chinese, among others. Methods of analysis include keywords list, word List, concordance
13 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
lines, etc., and tools used include WordSmith 6, AntCont, and CQPWeb at Lancaster
University.
Multi-unit turn construction in Mandarin conversation: Cases of complement-taking
predicates and conjunctions
Tomoko Endo
Tsukuba University
Most studies have taken for granted that clause is the most basic unit for linguistic analysis.
In actual language use, however, speakers frequently produce units bigger than a clause.
The production of units bigger than a clause, especially in conversation, has recently been
attracting attention and studied in terms of multi-unit turn construction (Selting 2000; Ford
2004). While grammatical devices used in multi-unit turn construction differ from language to
language, few studies have been conducted on the language-specific devices for multi-unit
turn construction. This study aims to fill in the gap by examining data from natural
conversation in Mandarin.
This study focuses on complement-taking predicates (CTPs) and conjunctions (CONJs).
Items of these two categories combine clauses in different ways; CTPs such as ‘think’ verbs
(e.g. juede) and ‘say’ verbs (e.g. shuo) take complement clauses as their objects, which are
traditionally analyzed as embedded inside a matrix clause. The structure can be schematized
as “[Subject CTP [complement clause]]”. By contrast, CONJs such as ranhou ‘then’ are used
at the beginning of a clause, connecting it to its preceding clause, forming the structure
“[clause 1], CONJ [clause 2]”.
In spite of the structural difference, CTPs and CONJs show a similar pattern of irregular
prosodic feature when actually used in conversation. That is, speakers sometimes produce a
CTP or a CONJ at the end of a clause, and put a pause or an inhale before producing the
following elements. Observe the underlined CTP and CONJ in the examples below.
(1)
(2)
我我我我一个同学跟我说, 她, 嗯: 她她每天晚上她::
两个月每天晚上,做:60 个:仰卧起坐然后把肌 X 肉把腹部的肌肉练出来了她说,
(inhale)那样的话就就不会长肥肉.
我记得我那时候做得特别快然后，
(short pause) >不知道< 那时候留的是短发嘛我头发又特别多，
然后她们就说你的头就像^扫把一样.
In these examples, CTP and CONJ are used at the end of a clause, projecting that there will
be more elements to follow. The structure is represented as “[clause 1]-CTP/CONJ, [clause
2]”. Items of the two categories behave in this way with some difference in frequency.
This study contributes to language teaching by shedding light on the discrepancy between
traditional descriptive grammar and actual language use. Also, it would be helpful for learners
to know how to construct units bigger than a clause in actual conversation.
14 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
从互动角度看语气词的功能
方梅
中国社会科学院语言研究所
在汉语描写语法著作中，不同学者对语气词的类和性质分析差异很大。本文认为，将汉
语语气词归纳为下述三类不同层级，有利于说明汉语语气词的系统、语气词与叹词的关系，以
及语气词在话语中的功能。这个功能三类是：
1）mood 决定语句的基本语气类型。例如句末直陈语气词“了 2”。
2）modality 决定语气的情态类型。例如句末用作传信（evidential）的“的”。
3）interaction 在交际过程中传递言者的交际意图或情感态度。
第三类——互动语气词的成员最多。这类语气词具有下述两个特点：
a. 线性分布的多样性。
b. 因语调不同而体现不同功能属性。
所谓线性分布的多样性是说，可以用在语句当中，包括句法的分界点和非句法分界点；还
可以用在句末。例如语气词“呀、呢”，出现在语句的非句末位置，主要用来提示信息结构的节
点；而出现在句末，则因语调不同而传达不同语气。
所谓因语调不同而体现不同的功能属性是指，这个语气词与不同语调共现时具有不同的
功能解读。例如：“呢”，其基本功能是体现言者的关注，属于互动语气词。当“呢”处于上升语调
的语句中是“传疑”，其表达功能在 mood 层面；当“呢”处于下降语调的语句中则“传信”，其表达
功能属于 modality 层面。“吧”的基本功能是体现言者“建立协商”的意图，是互动语气词。在下
降语调的语句中，“吧”的祈使、确认、应承等语气的解读是“吧”在语境中的浮现意义；“吧”处于
平调语句，传达言者的迟疑态度，仅仅体现其互动功能。
含有第一类和第二类语气词的语句如果要注入或者强化言者态度，往往表现为句末语气
词的连用，如“了+啊”“的+啊”“呢+啊”。而高频合音形式，如 “啦”“哪”，具有独立的话语功能，
与“了”“呢”在分布上形成互补新格局。
从韵律独立性角度看，韵律独立的形式在一些语法著作里定义为叹词，韵律上附着的被定
义为语气词。有些词汇形式，如“啊、诶”，既可以韵律上独立，也可以韵律上附着。尽管如此，
互动语气词与叹词有相似之处，即，其基本表达功能都具有语调依赖性。互动语气词与叹词之
间是一个连续统。
从语调依赖性角度看，词典里有些作为不同的词来描写的形式，与其说是不同的叹词（声
调不同），不如说是同一个词的不同语调表达形式，如“啊”。另一方面，一些不同的音节形式，
当说成相同的“字调”的时候，却具有同类表达功能。以被标为阳平的词为例：欸（表示诧异）、
嗯（表示疑问）、呣（表示疑问）、咦（表示惊异）。其实，这几个词的传疑解读来自并非阳平
字调，而是来自上升语调——疑问调。同样，去声的几个词里，啊（表示应诺）、欸（表示答
应或同意）、呣（表示应诺）、嗯（表示答应）；这些词“应诺”或“同意”的解读，与其说是来自词
汇意义，不如说是来自下降的语调。
15 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
AppropriateEmotions for Intercultural Communication: A Text Analysis of Two Foreign
Language Textbooks
Sumin Fang
University of British Columbia
One day in my Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) class, I greeted one of my students by
saying ni hao ma (how are you) in Mandarin. This student said wo hen hao (I am fine) in a
weary voice. After one second, he asked me: “how do you say ‘I am not happy and I am a bit
frustrated’? We have never learnt these in the textbook.” This question triggered my thinking
about what is missed in foreign language textbooks.
Much prior research in SLA shows that misunderstanding of the interlocutor’s emotion often
leads to barriers in intercultural miscommunication (e.g. Spencer-Rodgers & McGovern,
2002). Since emotions are discursively constructed within languages (Bamberg, 1997; Lutz &
Abu-Lughod, 1990; Pavlenko, 2002), and language provides keys to and contexts of emotion
(Barrett et al., 2007), empirical studies have found that foreign language learners are
especially challenged by recognizing negative emotions in intercultural communication
(Dewaele, 2004; Rintell, 1984). However, as real life situations are not always pleasant,
foreign language learners are very likely to be situated in unequal power relations in
challenging intercultural contexts, due to lack of linguistic and cultural capital (Bourdieu,
1977). Thus, they need to be socialized into recognizing unfriendly affective stances,
expressing negative feelings such as disappointment, apprehension and anger, and
negotiating their interests in the target language and culture.
From the perspective of Vygosky (1980), foreign language textbooks constitute both the
curriculum and cultural artefacts that mediate learners’ cognition; therefore, it is necessary to
investigate how such textbooks incorporate negative emotional experiences and
demonstrate corresponding language usage. Since little literature has explored this problem,
this study applies text analysis to examine two mainstream textbooks for beginners:
Integrated Chinese (IC) level 1 part 1 (Liu & Yao, 2009) for Mandarin and Reflets (R)1
(Capelle & Gidon,1999)for French. Both of them are among the most widely used foreign
language textbooks for adults globally. They are compared because of the significant
contrast between them in emotional variation: R integrates more negative emotional
experiences and display more corresponding language usage than IC.
In spite of various categorizations of emotional expressions in languages (Bradley & Lang,
1999; Grazzani & Ornaghi, 2011; Strauss & Allen, 2008), this study draws upon Herbert et
al.’s (2009) model to divide emotions into two basic categories: positive (pleasant, happy,
excited, etc.) and negative (frustrated, disappointed, stressed, etc.), for coding affective
expressions in the texts of two books. In the vocabulary aspect, up to 77% of emotional
adjectives in IC are positive, compared to only 55% in R. In addition, since studies on the
rhetoric of emotion suggest that rhetoric is an important method of informing, conveying and
transforming people’s emotion (e.g. Patkin, 2004; White, 2010), and story is regarded as a
key form of rhetorics (Polletta & Lee, 2006), this study also investigates storylines in two
textbooks. It finds that 70% of the storylines in IC are completely pleasant plots, whereas up
16 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
to 58% of the storylines in R contain difficult social encounters to elicit negative emotional
expressions and to demonstrate how protagonists negotiate with difficult interlocutors.
On the other hand, this study also discusses possible reasons that why negative emotional
expressions and storylines are incorporated sparingly in these two foreign language
textbooks. First, textbook writers might think that learners’ proficiency is not sufficient to
understand complicated emotional contexts, because proficiency is thought to be a key
variable in understanding emotions in foreign languages (Rintell, 1984). Second, they might
have concerns of having stereotyping representations of race, gender, class, sexuality when
they have “bad characters” such as difficult customers, prickly boss and thieves in their
books as a result of critiques from the academia (Sleeter & Grant, 2011). Third, textbooks are
considered relevant to the national image of the target culture and community (Schneider,
2008). Finally, publishers’ intention of selling foreign language textbooks to the global market
and appealing to a diversified body of potential learners contributes to the sanitization of such
textbooks (Gray, 2010).
In conclusion, findings suggest that textbooks need devote more attention to how learners
can recognize and express negative feelings, and negotiate with others in less-than-ideal
social encounters.
17 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Emo$on Curve of Storylines in 1 Reﬂets Posi1ve 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 From Episode 9 10 11 12 1 to Episode 12
Nega1ve -‐1 浅谈后置话语标记的语用增值功能及其对外汉语教学策略
——以“为（了）P 起见”为例
付琨
东华大学
在现阶段的对外汉语教学中，后置话语标记是一个教学盲区。这一方面和本体研究的不够充分
有关；另一方面和这类标记主要承担语用功能，在教学中很难解释说明有关。事实上，对于一
些在句法、语义或语用层面特征显著的标记成分，我们可以采用对照法进行教学。例如，我们
可以通过分析“为（了）P 起见”对“为（了）P”在各个层面的功能增值，帮助学生很好理解语篇
中“起见”存在的必要性。
1.0 共现频率
“起见”是现代汉语中常见的后置话语标记，北大语料库检索到的“起见”同前置关联标记的
搭配情况见下表：
和“起见”搭配的
前置目的关联标记
无前
前置原因关联标记
前置关联标记
置标
为
为了为着出于
因
由于鉴于
记
为
北大语料库中出现次数
400
393
11
7
10
1
0
0
北大语料库中出现比例
98.7%
1.2%
0.1%
据此，在对外汉语教学中，我们应该重点教授学生“起见”同前置目的关联标记相搭配的框
式用法，尤其是其中的“为（了）P 起见”。
2.0 标记对象
可以出现在“为（了）P 起见”中的 P 可以是形容词、动词或者名词性的词、短语甚至小句，
其中的“起见”都可以缺省，而 “为（了）”却只能有条件缺省。
“P 起见”中的 P 只能是双音节的光杆形容词。
3.0 语用增值
“为（了）P”格式义所要表达的目的是使某人、某种抽象事物或某种动作行为处于动作发
出者所希望达到的正面的、良好的状态中。
18 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
而“为（了）P 起见”中，使用“起见”标记目的成分的语用目的，不仅是为了表达希望正面
的、良好的状态，即 P 的发生，更是为了表达希望非正面的、非良好的状态，即 P 的不发生，
其中，“起见”的语用功能主要表现在从句法上标记 P，使得隐涵在目的成分中的“避免 P 发生”
的主观意图得以凸显。试比较：
（1）高速上不仅车速快，而且车多，为了安全，要与公路立体交叉，路两侧要用防护栅栏。
（1ˊ）高速上不仅车速快，而且车多，为了安全起
．见
．，要与公路立体交叉，路两侧要用防护栅
栏。
例（1）中，“为了”只是标记了客观存在的“目的”——“安全”，和实现目的的“方式”——“要
与公路立体交叉，路两侧要用防护栅栏”，句中并不隐涵有任何说话人的主观感情。而例（1ˊ）
中的“为了安全起见”则在表达了说话人希望“安全”的正面意图之外，还表达了隐涵于其中的说
话人希望避免“不安全”事件发生的主观情感。
正是因为“为（了）P 起见”突显了说话人要避免 P 发生的语用意图，增强了目的成分的主
观性，所以可以出现在这一格式中的 P 多是具有积极致使义的词语而鲜有消极意义的词语。
4.0 标记功能
在“为（了）P，Q”中，目的成分 P 一般是背景信息，是句子的话题成分；方式小句 Q 一
般是前景信息，是句子的自然焦点。但是，“起见”的出现，使得目的成分“P”被框架结构所标记
而在句法层面上得以凸显，于是，目的“P”得以去背景化而变成了话题焦点。
语义透明度理论的分析及其在汉语教学中的运用
高翀
华侨大学华文教育研究院
谭景春
中国社会科学院语言研究所
近年来有不少研究者将语义透明度理论运用于汉语教学中，得到一些启发和收获。但现有
的文献对语义透明度理解不深入，将语义透明度用于分析汉语复合词中过于重视其构成语素
的意义，而忽视了汉语复合词中语素之间的联系。本文认为语义透明度理论还可以再做进一步
推进。要深入研究汉语复合词的语义透明度，首先要对复合词内部的结构进行分析，在充分考
虑语素义的情况下，还要考虑语素之间的联系，即词语内部的组合义。将词义划分为字面义和
非字面义，其中字面义又包含语素义和组合义，语素义需要区分为熟悉的语素义和不熟悉的语
素义，组合义可以划分为抽象的组合义和具体的组合义，具体的组合义又可以划分为可类推的
组合义和不可类推的组合义。动宾结构可分为常规搭配和非常规搭配。非字面义又包含转义和
专科义。
这样，汉语中的复合词语义透明度等级可以分为以下几种：
1．复合词两个成分都是熟悉语素义，如：白云、水桶、热水
2．复合词含有抽象的组合义，如：蓝布、民办、胖瘦
3．复合词是动宾结构，语义上是常规搭配，如：读书、吃饭
4．复合词含有规律性强、能类推的具体组合义，如：奶瓶、茶杯
5．复合词规律性弱，不能类推的具体组合义，如：林立、机耕
6．复合词是动宾结构，语义上是非常规搭配，且规律性弱、不能类推，如：卖唱、种田
7．复合词含有转义或是专科义，如：苦酒、羊毛
等级越靠前的则语义透明度越高，等级越靠后的则语义透明度越低。不同于以往对语义透
明度的等级的分层，本文的划分更为细致。
19 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
在汉语教学中，熟悉的语素是留学生学习汉语词汇的基础和关键，由熟悉的语素和有规律
的组合义构成的复合词语义透明度往往很高，适合为初级或中级水平的留学生系统地学习。从
汉语构词的规律上看，熟悉的语素义其构词能力强，能组成大量的汉语词汇。复合词语义的构
成可如数学公式一般列为：“x+w+y=z”，其中“x、y”是熟悉的语素义，“w”是组合义，“z”是词的
字面义，教师可根据汉语的这一特性，通过建构科学的“词义（字面义）＝语素义 1＋组合义＋
语素义 2”的模式，培养留学生建立起对汉语词汇规律的认识，例如：通过学习熟悉语素“瓶、杯、
缸、盆、壶……”和“水、奶、茶、酒……”，并根据具有规律性的具体组合义“可容物＋容器”构
词，就可以构成“水瓶、水杯、水壶、水缸、水盆；奶瓶、奶壶；茶杯、茶壶；……”，从而最
大限度的帮助留学生扩大词汇量。
因此，在汉语教学中，教师应重视汉语中的语素及其构词的能力，并利用复合词语义透明
等级的特点，适时地改变教学策略，以达到帮助不同汉语水平的留学生掌握学习汉语词汇的目
的，即便面对汉语中出现的新词新语，留学生也能较快的掌握和理解其意义。本文重点细化了
语义透明度的等级，亦是深化了词义的分析，其成果应用于汉语教学中以期帮助学习者扩大汉
语词汇量，对汉语复合词的理解做到以简驭繁，达到事半功倍的效果。
留学生语气词“呢”的使用情况考察
葛成章
北京语言大学
对汉语语气词的学习和使用，在对外汉语教学界已经得到了一定的重视，但还稍显不。
本研究选择语气词“呢”作为研究对象。以往关于语气词“呢”的研究，主要集中汉语本体方面，如
“呢”的语法意义、语用功能等。此外，由于近些年来对外汉语教学事业的迅速发展，出现了一
些关于“呢”的偏误分析和对比研究的文章。但是，截至笔者撰写论文时，尚未发现有关于“呢”
的习得和使用情况的详细考察。本研究即在立足于以往本体研究成果的基础上，遵循语法学界
传统的分类方法，将“呢”按其出现在句中的位置分为句中语气词、疑问句句末语气词、陈述句
句末语气词和感叹句句末语气词四类，分类对留学生语气词“呢”的习得和使用情况进行考察。
在研究方法上采用语料收集和调查问卷并行的方式：通过排查 HSK 动态作文语料库中留
学生使用语气词“呢”的语料，与本族人语料作对比，汇总出留学生和本族人使用各类语气词“呢”
频率对比图。在研究结果中，我们发现留学生对四类语气词“呢”的使用频率与本族人相比有着
一定的差距，而又以用作“疑问句句末语气词”和“陈述句句末语气词”两种用法的频率差较大，分
达到了 18%和 17.91%，其中用作“疑问句句末语气词”的频率大大高于本族人，而用作“陈述
句句末语气词”的频率则大幅度低于本族人。对于这一现象的存在，无疑值得研究者们继续关注。
同时，本研究进一步考察 HSK 语料库中留学生语气词“呢”的使用偏误情况并作了一定的偏
误分析。在关于四类语气词“呢”的偏误现象中——在“呢”充当句中语气词以及“呢”在句末陈述句
中时，“呢”冗余（多词）现象占多数；在充当句末疑问句语气词时，“呢”缺失（缺词）现象较为
明显，其次是用错句末疑问语气词，冗余现象相对较少；在充当感叹句句末语气词时，误代（错
词）语气词的现象相对较多。根据王建勤（2009）中所提及的偏误评估的三条标准，即“可理
解程度”、“可接受程度”和“冒犯程度”来看，HSK 语料库中所呈现留学生语气词“呢”的使用偏误
在严重程度上相对较轻。其使用偏误基本不影响对句子的理解，但从本族人的视角看来，不易
被接受，个的缺失现象可能还会让人觉得冒犯。
此外，由于 HSK 语料库中的语料相对较老，为了保证研究质量，笔者在北京语言大学校
内随机挑选留学生发放了调查问卷 60 份，结合调查问卷考察现阶段留学生语气词“呢”的习得和
20 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
使用情况。通过对有效调查问卷进行总结，可以发现留学生现阶段语气词“呢”的使用偏误在数
量分布上呈现出这样的基本倾向：
感叹句句末语气词 > 陈述句句末语气词 > 句中语气词/疑问句句末语气词
其中越靠右侧的偏误数量越多，所呈现的趋势也与 HSK 语料库偏误语料中按各类具体用
法分类的偏误比率情况基本相符。最后，本文对可能影响“呢”的习得的因素进行了初步推测，
希望能有助于汉语教师进行教学活动。
本研究也存在两个明显的不足：一是由于客观原因，导致调查问卷数量过少，数据说服力
稍差。其二，“呢”是一个语气词，但笔者所收集的语料及调查方法全部为书面形式。因此，还
有待进一步的研究。
The acquisition of right-dislocation in Cantonese-English bilingual children
Ge Haoyan1,2, Stephen Matthews1,3 and Virginia Yip1,2
1
Childhood Bilingualism Research Centre, 2Chinese University of Hong Kong and 3University
of Hong Kong
Right-dislocation (RD) constructions have been discussed in Cantonese (Cheung, 2009;
Matthews & Yip, 2011) and English (Ziv, 1994; Geluykens, 1994). With three options allowed
in both languages, as shown in (1) (2) and (3), RD is a syntactic construction that lies at the
syntax-pragmatic interface and serves the function of focusing and maintaining topic.
(1) 好
叻
喎,
你.
hou2 lek1 wo3, lei5
very smart SP
you
‘You are so smart.’
(2) 佢
好
冇
耐心
嘅,
佢.
keoi5 hou2 mou5 loi6sam1 gaa3, keoi5.
he
very have-not patience SP he
‘He is not very patient (he isn’t).’
(3) 佢
好
冇
耐心
架,
阿明.
keoi5 hou2 mou5 loi6sam1 gaa3, Aa3Ming4.
he
very have-not patience SP AaMing
‘He is not very patient, AaMing.’
RD meets the two conditions on cross-linguistic influence in bilingual acquisition
hypothesized by Hulk and Müller (2000): it is a phenomenon at the interface of syntax and
pragmatics, and shows partial structural overlap at the surface level in the two target
languages (Yip, 2013; Ge, 2014). One might therefore expect cross-linguistic influence to
occur in the bilingual acquisition of RD. However, the area of structural overlap among those
RD constructions is reduced by different input frequency in the two languages (Ge, 2014).
The complex properties of RD in Cantonese and English pose challenges to bilingual
children. Of special interest is whether bilingual children are aware of the limited area of
21 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
overlap and perform differently from their monolingual peers.
The present corpus-based study investigates the acquisition of RD constructions in English
and Cantonese in seven Cantonese-English bilingual children (Yip & Matthews, 2007). The
developmental trajectories and cross-linguistic influence in the bilingual children are
analyzed in comparison to their monolingual peers.
Our data show that bilingual children start to use Cantonese RD before the age of two years
and a half, and produce English RD before three years of age. Cross-linguistic influence
manifests itself quantitatively and qualitatively: bilingual children show a significantly higher
frequency of English RD and produce a different proportion of RD types, compared to their
English monolingual counterparts; with regard to Cantonese RD, significant differences were
observed between bilingual and Cantonese-speaking children in terms of the construction
type. Moreover, non-target forms of English RD and Cantonese RD observed in bilingual
children but absent in monolingual children, provide further evidence for the qualitative
differences between the two groups. Our findings suggest that the complexity of
cross-linguistic influence cannot be fully accounted for on the basis of one or two factors in
isolation. Such influence may be attributed to the interaction of the two proposed conditions
with language dominance and parental input.
“都”在东汉有没有语气副词的用法？
谷峰
南开大学
全称量化副词（universal quantificational adverb）“都”是语法研究的热点1。许多学者研
究过“都”的演变史（李行健，1958；殷正林，1984；解惠全，1987；太田辰夫，1987；柳士
镇，1992；吴福祥，1996；陈宝勤，1998；李宗江，1998）。张谊生（2005）和董秀芳（2010）
认为“都”的演变过程是：名词“城邑” →动词“聚集” →量化副词“全部”→语气副词“完全、根本”。
但杨荣祥（1998）、葛佳才（2005）、贝罗贝、李明（2008）认为量化副词“都”的产生比语气副
词“都”要晚，演变方向应该是“语气→量化”，根据他们的调查，语气副词“都”在东汉佛经就已出
现，汉魏六朝时期表示语气的“都”在数量上上远远多于表示量化的“都”。下面的“都”被看作是语
气副词：
a）菩萨都不可得见，亦不可知处，当从何所说般若波罗蜜？……菩萨都不可得见，亦不可
知处处，了无所有。当从何所法中说般若波罗蜜？（后汉支谶译《道行般若经·道行品》）
b）菩萨在母腹中时，都无有臭处，亦无恶露，亦无不可意。（后汉支谶译《阿閦佛国经·发意
受慧品》）
c）儒[生]不能都晓古今，欲各别说其经；经事义类，乃以不知为贵也？（《论衡·谢短》）
d）然则凤凰、骐驎都与鸟兽同一类，体色诡耳，安得异种？（《论衡·讲瑞》）
1
表示“全部”的“都”传统上叫总括副词或范围副词，这里用 Cheng（1995）的说法，叫全称量化副词。
22 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
也有学者认为上述各句中“都”表示量化（武振玉，2001；Peyraube，2006）。学界对“都”的演
变方向存有争论，很大程度上是因为对具体例句的理解有分歧，例 a、b 的“都”出现于否定句（都
无/不/未～”），学者们经常认为这种“都”是强调语气的（李行健，1957；殷正林，1984；志村
良治，1995；吴福祥，1996）。但是，就这两例而言，“都”实际上是表示量化。如果比对异译
本，就会发现例 a 的“菩萨”是“一切菩萨”的省略，“都不可得见”的“都”相当于“皆、悉”，而例 b
的“都无有臭处”相当于说“无一切臭处”。例如：
c）一切菩萨摩诃萨皆不可得，当云何教菩萨摩诃萨般若波罗蜜？一切求菩萨悉不可得，亦
不可见。当云何说般若波罗蜜教菩萨耶？（西晋法护译《光赞经·摩诃般若波罗蜜等三世品》）
d）菩萨在于母胎之时，一心正念，安庠而起，清净出生，无一切秽，乃至脓、血、屎、尿、
臭处，不秽不染。（隋闍那崛多译《佛本行集经·私陀问瑞品》）
进一步调查东汉的 30部佛经，我们发现只有 10部经出现了 “都 ”（《道行般若经》、《大
安般守意经》、《兜沙经》、《阿閦佛国经》、《遗日摩尼宝经》、《般舟三昧经》（三卷本）、
《法镜经》、《成具光明定意经》、《修行本起经》、《中本起经》），通过“小品般若”六种
汉译异本的比勘，发现《道行般若经》中所有28例“都（卢）”均与“皆、悉、一切、所有、俱”
等对应，“都 ”没有语气用法，只有 “全部 ”义。此外，其他9种佛经的“都”也只有“全部”义而没
有语气强调义。异译本比勘发现副词 “都 ”直到三国时代才出现新用法：
e）尽、不尽为二，尽者都尽，都尽者不可尽。（三国吴支谦译《佛说维摩诘经·不入二品》）
[比较：尽、不尽为二，法若究竟尽，若不尽，皆是无尽相。（后秦鸠摩罗什译《维摩诘所说
经·入不二法门品》）]
支谦译本的“都”在鸠摩罗什译本中作“究竟”，核对梵文本 Vimalakīrtinirdeśa 可知，“都”对译
atyantam“永远、始终”，由此可以推想三国时代发生了“全部＞永远”的演变。
东汉译经中“都”全部是量化副词，48 例表示事物的“全部”，2 例表示时间的“始终”；同时，
《新论》、
《论衡》、
《独断》、
《风俗通》、
《中鉴》、
《中论》、
《潜夫论》、
《伤寒论》、
《金匮要略》、
《太平经》、《焦氏易林》、《老子指归》、《东观汉纪》等中土文献里“都”有些是动词，有些是副
词，有些介于二者之间，如果是典型的副词“都”，它一定表示“全部”。东汉文献未见“都”有语气
的用法。
Second language learners’ Mandarin tone production in different prosodic contexts
Yen-Chen Hao
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
This study examines English-speaking second language learners’ production of Mandarin
Chinese tones in disyllabic utterances and explores the effect of tonal contexts on the
learners’ accuracy. A native speaker of Chinese produced 32 disyllabic non-words which
include all 16 possible tone combinations (four tones in the initial position × four tones in the
final position) realized on two syllable types (wang.yi and you.ma). Ten English speakers
who had studied Mandarin Chinese for approximately two and a half years participated in the
experiment, in which they repeated after each of the 32 auditorily-presented stimuli. Their
production was recorded and evaluated for accuracy by two native speakers of Chinese. The
23 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
results show that these learners generally made more errors with T2 (rising) and T3 (dipping)
than with T1 (high-level) and T4 (high-falling), yet the error rates vary depending on the tonal
context. Specifically, in the word-initial position, the learners’ production of T2 was frequently
heard as T3, while their T3 production in the same position was judged to be highly accurate.
The T2!T3 error pattern is especially common when T2 is followed by T1 and T4,
suggesting that the learners may overly lower the onset of their T2 in anticipation of the
following high pitch. As for the word-final position, the participants’ major problem is that their
production of T3 was often mispronounced as T2. One plausible explanation is that these
learners may follow the formal description of Mandarin tones in textbooks and pronounce T3
as a falling-rising tone, while in fact most native Mandarin Chinese speakers produce T3 as a
low tone. Thus the final pitch rise in the learners’ T3 production may have caused their T3 to
be judged as T2. The findings of this study have two pedagogical implications: 1) Chinese
language teachers should train their students’ tone pronunciation in different prosodic
contexts, focusing particularly on more challenging tone combinations, such as T2T1, T2T4,
and T3 in the final position of disyllabic words. 2) Chinese language teachers should be
aware of the possible causes for their students’ difficulty in achieving native-like tone
production and develop more effective instructional methods to tackle those problems.
Tone Sandhi in Zhuolan Raoping: A Perspective from the Syntax-Phonology Interface
Yuchau E. Hsiao
National Chengchi University
This paper discusses tone sandhi in Zhuolan Raoping, a sub-dialect of Hakka spoken in
central Taiwan. There are four smooth tones and two checked tones in this dialect, including
three high-registered tones, 55, 53 and 5, and three low-registered tones, 11, 31 and 2 (the
checked tones are underlined). Two patterns are observed in this research. First, in a bi-tonal
sequence, the left tone mutates, but the right tone is preserved. Second, OCP scans the
register tier: 53, 55 and 31 map to 11 before a high-registered tone, but to a high-registered
33 before a low-registered tone, as in (1-3).
(1)a. tin53 tien55 ⎯→ tin11 tien55 ‘brain’
b. mun53 heu31 ⎯→ mun33 heu31 ‘entrance’
(2)a. tien55 fa55 ⎯→ tien11 fa55 ‘telephone’ b. lu55 bien11 ⎯→ lu33 bien11 ‘roadside’
(3)a. sui31 tong53 ⎯→ sui11 tong53 ‘pond’
b. Sii31 gie31 ⎯→ sii33 gie31 ‘world’
The recording in this research also shows that the tone changes are sensitive to prosody and
syntactic structure. For example, the pair of NPs in (4) and (5) display different patterns of
tone sandhi.
(4) Trisyllabic NP
fung55 fong53 su55 → fung33 fong33 su55
‘phoenix tree’
(5) Tetrasyllabic NP
fung55 fong53 su55 jiah5 → fung33 fong53 su33 jiah5
‘phoenix leaves’
The trisyllabic NP in (4) forms a single tonal domain, in which both fung and fong undergo
tone sandhi and only su retains its base tone. On the other hand, the tetrasyllabic NP in (5)
24 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
splits into two tonal domains (fung55 fong53)(su55 jiah5) such that fong does not undergo
tone sandhi.
Whereas the number of syllable affects the NPs in constituting tonal domains, it has no effect
on VPs, as in (6) and (7).
(6) Trisyllabic VP
mi5 fi31 go31 → mi2 fi33 go31 ‘to buy fruit’
(7) Tetrasyllabic VP
oi55 mi5 fi31 go31 → oi33 mi2 fi33 go31 ‘to love to buy fruit’
Both the trisyllabic and the tetrasyllabic VPs form single tonal domains. In each domain, all
the non-final tones are changed. The difference in prosody does not affect the construction of
the tonal domain.
This paper intends to present partial findings of an on-going project, which will construct a
corpus that contains 6000 expressions, including disyllabic, trisyllabic and tetrasyllabic words
and phrases. This presentation will address in-depth the tone sandhi in Zhuolan Raoping,
and remarks on relevant theories of the syntax-phonology interface (Nespor & Vegel 1986;
Hayes 1989; Hsiao 1991, 1995, Selkirk 2011, among others). I will pursue the question as to
how prosody may interact with syntactic structure in forming the tonal domain of Zhuolan
Raoping.
An exploratory data analysis of lexical bundles in written and spoken Chinese
Chan-Chia Hsu
National Taiwan University
Over the past decades, considerable attention has been paid to various kinds of multi-word
units. With the development of corpus linguistics, Biber et al. (1999) took a frequency-driven
approach to inductively identify recurrent multi-word strings (e.g., in the case of), referred to
as “lexical bundles”. A lexical bundle is usually semantically transparent and performs a
pragmatic/discourse function. Then a series of follow-up studies in English have been
conducted on the use of lexical bundles in a wide range of text types (e.g., academic
discourse), and these studies have suggested that lexical bundles play a crucial part in
language learning/teaching. So far, however, there has been little discussion about lexical
bundles in Chinese.
In the present study, a computer program was designed to extract three-word and four-word
bundles from the Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese (the written
component: 10,381,319 words; the spoken component: 483,022 words). As in many previous
studies in English, two thresholds were set: i.e., occurring at least twenty times per million
words and occurring in at least five different texts. Moreover, other measures carrying
cognitive implications were also considered here, including another more delicate dispersion
measure (Gries 2008) and two internal association measures (Gries 2013, Wei and Li 2013).
25 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
As summarized in the following table, 667 lexical bundles in total were identified.
Written
Spoken
Three-word bundles
Four-word bundles
66
e.g., de qingkuang xia ‘in the case
of…’
2
e.g., mei ge ren dou ‘everyone…’
514
e.g., you yi ge ‘there is a…’
95
e.g., wo shi juede shuo ‘I feel
that…’
An exploratory data analysis (EDA) approach is then adopted, and two questions are
addressed. First, how do the above measures in the identification of lexical bundles interact
with each other? Second, what are the distributional and functional similarities and
differences between lexical bundles in written and spoken Chinese?
The results of the present study have pedagogical implications. First, the lexical bundles
identified according to various criteria here can be seen as a fundamental part of a Chinese
speaker’s phrasicon, so it is suggested that these bundles be prioritized in teaching materials.
Second, since our discourse analysis can uncover the functions of lexical bundles and the
quantitative measures may unveil how lexical bundles are organized in the mental lexicon,
language teachers will have a better idea of how lexical bundles can be most effectively and
efficiently taught to learners.
Using videos to learn Chinese pragmatics
Ting Huang, Tianxin Wang , Yinghua Yang
University of Rochester
Lu (2014) suggested that Chinese as foreign language (CFL) pragmatics teaching needs to
be approached holistically in a authentic language context rather than in isolated language
facts. Based on this approach of pragmatics teaching, this presentation first reviews the
benefits of using online videos for pragmatics teaching, then shares some sample lesson
plans of incorporating video clips for teaching pragmatics, last it explores the experiences of
students using videos for pragmatics learning. Qualitative data that we collected from six
in-depth student interviews and their weekly reflection entries reveals that CFL learners feel
strongly that video helped them with Chinese pragmatics due to the rich context that videos
provided. The positive outcomes of using video to learn pragmatics could be explained by the
nature of videos learning process such as video creating enjoyment while learning
pragmatics, video catering different students’ pragmatic learning needs, video making the
language input comprehensible with visual aided cultural-linguistic materials, video helping
students activate their background knowledge, video shaping heritage students’ identities,
video arousing emotions while learning pragmatics, and video offering an authentic context
for learning pragmatics. Our presentation will help CFL teachers find some useful ways of
26 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
using videos for pragmatics teaching.
Background: Whether pragmatics is teachable is a controversial question in the foreign
language (FL) field (Rose & Kasper, 2001; Kasper ＆ Rose 2002). Because pragmatics
relate to language behaviors and discourse context, FL learners might not be able to learn
the pragmatics just by knowing the language facts. In fact, the complexities in pragmatics
and the cultural differences between students’ first language and the target language make
many scholars believe pragmatics in FL are not even teachable. However, with the rise of
Internet and the proliferation of video materials, using videos to teach Chinese pragmatics
might be a powerful tool in CFL classrooms (Wu, 2012; Wu, 2014; Xu, 2009; Zhang, 2011;
Zhang, 2013). In the meantime, the attention for using video was first proposed by Walker
(1982) in the CFL context. Walker suggested that video materials could be used as videotext
for CFL learners. Three decades later, with development from DVD machines to online video
resources, in the current CFL college teaching context in the United States, online videos are
not only substantial components used in formal CFL classrooms, but also are essential
elements of learning for CFL learners in informal settings (Yu, 2012; Wu, 2012; Wu, 2014;
Xie & Yao, 2009; Yang, 2013). However, the existing research shows that Chinese teachers
tend to use videos materials for the purpose of cultural learning or learning enjoyment while
neglecting the acquisitions of pragmatics (Fan, 2011; Guan, 2011; Shi, 2011). This
presentation is situated in the discussion of CFL research of using video to teach CFL with a
specific focus on the acquisition of pragmatics. We argue that using videos to teach
pragmatics requires teachers have goal-oriented teaching plans and proper classroom
activities for effective output of pragmatics. In that way, using videos for pragmatics teaching
is a powerful way to help students build awareness how to communicate in cultural and
linguistic ways based on different situations.
Is there syntactic tense in Mandarin Chinese? Some evidence from jiang
Zhipeng Nick Huang
University of Maryland
Whether Mandarin Chinese has syntactic tense has been the subject of much debate. In this
paper, I offer novel observations on a less-studied future-marking particle, jiang, and develop
a syntactic account of its properties. I argue that jiang is syntactically a future tense
morpheme, and Mandarin Chinese clauses are minimally T(ense)Ps, like clauses in
languages with overt tense morphology.
Syntactically, jiang has structural and featural properties that are distinct from other
auxiliaries (e.g. hui and yao “will, be going to”) and time adverbs. Evidence for this claim is
provided via a set of tests after Ren (2008) and Li and Thompson (1981). For example, jiang
precedes and can co-exist with hui or yao (1). Unlike most auxiliaries, it cannot be negated or
27 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
license ellipsis (2). Nor does it precede a subject, unlike future time adverbs (3). I also rule
out the hypothesis that it marks irrealis mood (see Matthewson (2006)), as it is absent in
typically irrealis contexts, e.g. imperatives and conditionals set in the past (4).
I show that empirical evidence supports two predictions that follow from this analysis: first,
jiang is infelicitous in clausal complements of control verbs (5), assuming such clauses are
non-finite; second, jiang is incompatible with the null copula (6), if tense-marking requires an
overt host for feature-checking (J.-W. Lin (2010)). I also argue there is no contradiction
between jiang being tense and its being optional in future expressions, as speakers might
choose to use modals or aspect markers instead. Lastly, I discuss how this proposal fits into
the broader debate over whether Chinese has syntactic and/or semantic tense (see, among
others, for arguments for: Huang (1982), Li (1985), T.-H. J. Lin (2014); arguments against:
Hu, Pan and Xu (2001), Smith and Erbaugh (2005), J.-W. Lin (2006), (2010), Wu and Kuo
(2012).
(1) Zhangsan
mingtian
{(jiang
hui) / (*hui
jiang)} qu Beijing.
Precedes/co-exists
with
aux.
Z.
tomorrow
JIANG
will
will JIANG go
Beijing
“Zhangsan will go to Beijing tomorrow.”
(2) a.
Zhangsan bu
Z.
{hui / *jiang}
NEG will
qu Beijing.
No negation or ellipsis
JIANG go Beijing
- Unlike auxiliaries
“Zhangsan will not go to Beijing.
b. Zhangsan mingtian
{hui / yao
/
jiang}
qu Beijing, Lisi
ye
{hui
?
/
yao
/
*jiang}.
Z.
tomorrow
will going.to JIANG go Beijing L.
also
will
going.to
JIANG
“Zhangsan will go to Beijing, and Lisi will (go to Beijing), too.”
(3) {Mingtian / *Jiang}
tomorrow
Zhangsan qu
JIANG Z.
go
Beijing.
Follows subject
Beijing
- Unlike time adverbs
“Zhangsan will go to Beijing tomorrow / some time in the future [intended].”
(4) a.
(*Jiang) kai-che!
Does not occur in imperatives
JIANG drive-car
or conditionals
“Drive!”
-Unlike irrealis
b. Ruguo Lisi zuotian
if
L. yesterday
(*jiang)
lu-shi
hege, ta
JIANG road-test
jiu
bu
pass he then
hui
choumeikulian le.
NEG will
be.glum
PRT
“If Lisi passed his driving test yesterday, he wouldn’t be looking so glum.”
(5) Lisi quan
Zhangsan (*jiang)
jie
yan.
Complement
verb
L.
urge
Z.
JIANG quit smoking
“Lisi urged Zhangsan to quit smoking.”
(6) Jintian Ø 10 yue
today
30 hao. Mingtian
October 30
th
tomorrow
jiang
*(shi) Wanshengjie.
JIANG
th
be
Halloween
“Today is the 30 of October. Tomorrow will be Halloween.”
28 Overt copula
of
control
NACCL-27 Abstract Book
基于用法构建语言习得机制的程度副词认知与教学刍议
季薇
北京外国语大学/比利时鲁汶大学
本文在认知与功能（Cognitive and Functional）语言学的理论框架下，一方面以“原型范畴”、
“家庭相似性”原理为导向，运用“功能分布分析”的方法，通过对现代汉语书面语和口语平衡语料
库（CCL、BCC、SINICA 等）中，程度副词出现的词数、词次、使用频度（word-frequency）
的定量分析，对以往同类研究中较少关注的——“程度量”认知域“投射（traject）”到句法表层、
所形成的程度副词结构（即“程度副词+X”结构）的组配方式和语义标量层级进行定性考察，初
步概括出基于优势分布的、语体功能分布的“连续统（continuum）”。在此基础上，借鉴“基于
用法构建的语言习得（usage-based theory of language acquisition）”机制，本文还根据对数
百万字的汉语作为第二语言中介语语料（“HSK 动态作文语料库”等）的用例统计，以及学习者
问卷调查、访谈的结果，析分出程度副词习得的语内、语际偏误类型及成因。并从语言本体质
性考察与应用性析因研究相结合的角度，进一步探讨“程度副词＋X”结构功能的整体图解
（schema）、程度量语义表征的范畴化和语用信息的意图解读等策略对程度副词正确习得的
作用。据此，针对包括程度副词在内的汉语功能性词类的教学，本文尝试提出充分利用现实语
境中“用语模式发现”的递归性过程、强化“语体分布特征”的认知、加强对用法建构的“固守
（entrenchment）”和类推性操练等相关教学建议。
Semantic Structure of Body-Part Originated Classifiers in Chinese and its implication on
Classifier Acquisition and Teaching
Song Jiang
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
The embodiment view in Cognitive linguistics believes that language come from the
experience of interaction between people and the objective world and the cognitive process.
All linguistic categories are embodied with objective foundation. Taking body parts and bodily
actions as research objects and drawing data from corpora, this paper reports an
investigation on the etymological origins of Chinese classifiers and their semantic structures
and demonstrates that Chinese classifiers are modeled on Chinese people’s understanding
of the physical and social world, including their personal human embodiment, natural and
constructed surroundings, and social environment. A detailed analysis of the semantic
structures of selected body-part based classifiers, such as 首 (shǒu “head”), 頭 (tóu
“head”), and 顆 (kē “small head”) , 頂 (dǐng “top of the head”) , 項 (xiàng “nape”), 面
(miàn “face”), is presented. This paper features a theory of the classifier categorization
process and principled explanations of the development and the semantic distribution of
these classifiers. The analysis reveals that all classifiers have traceable motivations and can
be reasonably accounted for by various cognitive mechanisms, such as image schema
transformation, metaphorical or metonymic extension, functional association, etc. Based on
this, the meaningful relationship between the embodied bases of classifiers and classifier
acquisition and teaching is discussed from language embodiment and pedagogy
perspectives. It further argues that the embodied bases of Chinese classifiers is an important
reference to classifier acquisition, disclosing the conceptual structure of a classifier and its
29 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
semantic categories formed by its associated nouns is important for teaching and learning
Chinese classifier system. As a pedagogical implication, an argument is advanced favoring
presentation of the conceptual structure of classifier categories in teaching Chinese as a
second or foreign language. A series of practical suggestions on how to teach Chinese
classifiers in classroom is provided.
Playing with Words: The Acquisition of L2 Chinese Morphological Awareness
Sihui Ke, Feng Xiao, Yueming Yu, Kun Nie
Carnegie Mellon University
Morphological Awareness (MA) refers to learners’ sensitivity to the morphological structure in
visual word processing, which contributes to a wide range of word reading and learning skills
in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) reading development (Nagy, Carlise &
Goodwin, 2014). However, little has been known about how learners develop their MA in L2
Chinese and whether such ability is affected by learner-external factors—word properties
and task demands. This paper documents two studies that examined the effects of character
position and linguistic demands of the task on the acquisition of L2 Chinese MA.
Study One administered a paper-and-pencil test among 26 American college learners of L2
Chinese at the advanced level. The test included two measures of MA: morpheme
discrimination (MD) and relational structure analysis (RSA). Each task used a set of
bimorphemic two-character words, with the position of a productive character manipulated
(either on the left position or on the right position). In addition, the morpheme discrimination
measure was less linguistic-specific whereas the relational structure measure was more
linguistic-specific. A two by two repeated-measures ANOVA analysis showed that the
learners performed better in the RSA task than the MD task. Moreover, character position
affected the MD task performance but had no notable impact on the RSA task. Study Two
used the same measures of Study One, but included L2 vocabulary knowledge as a control
measure. Participants were 16 American college learners of advanced-level Chinese. A two
by two repeated-measures ANCOVA will be performed to investigate the effects of the two
focal factors on L2 Chinese MA.
This research examined the effects of two learner-external factors on morphological
awareness in L2 Chinese. The findings can provide implications for evidence-based
practices in college-level Chinese curriculum that take into consideration content (words) and
measurement effects.
30 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Preferred Clause and Argument Structures for Chinese as Second Language Learners
(華語為第二語言學習者偏好之子句與論元結構)
Yi-hsiu Lai
National University of Kaohsiung
In spite of the growing research interest in syntactic patterns produced by Chinese as second
language (CSL) learners, few reports have addressed the types of preferred clause and
argument structures in a story-telling task. The present study aims to elucidate the preferred
clause and argument structures for CSL learners in a narrative discourse, that is, telling a
story. Speech samples were collected from twenty native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and
twenty CSL learners in Taiwan. On the basis of Chinese proficiency levels, CSL learners
were further divided into two sub-groups: ten L2 learners of elementary Chinese proficiency
level and ten L2 learners of intermediate Chinese proficiency level. These participants were
invited to tell two stories based on two sets of four pictures. Oral productions were
tape-recorded and transcribed for further analysis. Five major types of Chinese clause
structures, including high transitivity clauses, low transitivity clauses, copular clauses,
intransitive clauses, and clauses with cognitive-utterance verbs, were examined. Two raters,
including the researcher and another linguist, classified the occurrences of argument
structures into different types. When disagreement occurred, a third rater, who was also a
linguist, was consulted for a final decision. The number of each argument structures was
counted. The data were then entered into SPSS, and both descriptive analysis and
referential statistical analysis were conducted. For the descriptive analysis, frequency and
percentage for each category were presented. For the referential analysis, ANOVA analysis
was done to examine what clause and argument structures helped significantly differentiate
native speakers of Chinese from CSL learners. Results in the current investigation offered a
valuable contribution to the better understanding of preferred Chinese clause and argument
structures produced by the CSL learners, which is of both theoretical and teaching
significance. These in turn point out helpful implications that CSL learners can, and should,
be given help with fully manipulating all kinds of clause and argument structures and that
work in preferred clause and argument structures can also be used as a diagnostic tool in the
future teaching and learning in Chinese syntax.
Error Analysis of Object and Action Naming in Chinese and Its Teaching Implications
華語物件與動作詞語命名錯誤分析與教學啟示
Yi-hsiu Lai (賴怡秀)
National University of Kaohsiung
The present study aimed to elucidate the process of object-action naming for L1 and L2
speakers of Chinese, as revealed in a picture naming task and a category fluency task.
Speech samples were collected from twenty L1 speakers of Chinese and twenty L2 learners
of Chinese in southern Taiwan. Based on Chinese proficiency levels, the L2 learners of
31 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Chinese were further divided into two sub-groups: ten L2 learners of elementary Chinese
proficiency level and ten L2 learners of intermediate Chinese proficiency level. Each
participant individually completed two tasks: a picture naming task and a category fluency
task. Instruments for the naming task were sixty black-and-white pictures: thirty-five object
pitctures and twenty-five action pictures. Object pictures were divided into two categories:
living objects and non-living objects. Action pictures were composed of two categories: action
verbs and process verbs. Each picture contained three pictorial variables: frequency,
familiarity and visual complexity. As in the naming task, the category fluency task consisted
of two semantic categories – objects (i.e., living and non-living objects) and actions (i.e.,
action and process verbs). Participants were asked to report as many items within a category
as possible in one minute. Oral productions were tape-recorded and transcribed for further
analysis. In the naming task, the number of correct responses and of errors was counted.
Both error types and error frequency were calculated and discussed. Possible error types
included no responses, personal comments, fragment responses, semantic-related
responses, shape-related responses, responses about vagueness of picture, and responses
of picture parts. In the category fluency task, scores of action fluency and of object fluency
were a summation of correct responses in these two categories. Statistical analysis was
conducted to examine the possible error types and frequency made by these L2 speakers of
Chinese. In addition to error types and frequency, category effects, pictorial effects and L2
proficiency were also analyzed and discussed. Findings in the present study helped
characterize the process of naming in Chinese for L2 speakers of different Chinese
proficiency levels and contributed to the future vocabulary teaching and learning in Chinese.
On AP-地 Manner Adverbs in Mandarin
Richard Larson
Stony Brook University
The class of Mandarin manner adverbs includes both “movable” and “unmovable” forms (Li
and Thompson 1981). Dasheng ‘loudly’ (lit. ‘big voice’) is movable, occuring both
sentence-medially and sentence-finally (1). Kuaikuaide ‘quickly’ is non-movable; it must
occur sentence-medially (4).
(1)
a. Ta yinggai dasheng chang minge.
he should loud
b.
(2) a.
Ta jingjingde chang minge.
sing folk song
he quietly
sing folk song
‘He should sing folk songs loudly.’
‘He sings folk songs quietly.’
Ta yinggai chang-ge hen dasheng.
b.
*Ta chang-ge jingjingde.
Kuaikuaide derives from the AP kuài ‘quick’ by suffixation of 地 ‘DE’, much as English
quickly derives from quick by suffixation of –ly. Interestingly, Mandarin manner adverbs
sharing this derivation also share the distribution. All AP-地 adverbs are non-movable and
occur only sentence-medially (5)-(8):
(5) a.
Ta
yan-li-de
3sg stern-DE
zebei
wo le.
reproach I
(6) a.
ASP
Lisi glad-DE
‘S/He reproached me sternly.’
help
‘Lisi helped me gladly.’
32 Lisi gaoxing-de bangzhu le
wo
ASP me
NACCL-27 Abstract Book
b.
(7) a.
*Ta zebei wo le yan-li-de.
b.
Tamen jingjing-de chile fan.
They
quiet-DE
eat
(8) a.
meal
*Lisi bangzhu wo gaoxing-de.
Nimen yao hen
kai
che.
You should very careful-DE drive car
‘They ate quietly.’
b.
xiaoxin(-de)
‘You should drive your car very carefully’
*Tamen chile fan jingjing-de
b.
*Nimen yao kai che hen xiaoxin-de.
This behavior is puzzling under either of the two most popular theories of modifiers. Classical
adjunction (Ernst 2002) leads us to expect mobility among manner adverbs in the default
case, whereas Cinque’s (1999) hierarchy of functional projections predicts variation to
pattern with semantic content, not with morphological form. In this paper, I argue that
Mandarin manner adverbs have a uniform low attachment in V complement position and that
preverbal/medial position reflects obligatory movement imposed by the status of 地.as a
“concordializing element”.
A low base projection for manner Advs is moticated under the Mapping Hypothesis (MH) of
Diesing (1992) and its extension to generic event quantification by Condoravdi (1989).
Consider (9a). Assuming this is interpreted by generic event quantification (9b), under MH
the scope (loud(e)) should correspond to the lowest portion of VP and the restriction
(singing(e) & Ag(e,j)) to the residue. These requirements are met in (9c), with loudly in low
complement position. Analogous remarks apply to Mandarin (10a-c):
(9) a.
b.
c.
John sings loudly.
(10) a. Ta chang minge hen dasheng.
Γe[singing(e) & Ag(e,j) → loud(e)]
b. Γe[singing(e) & Ag(e,j) & Th(e,fs) → loud(e)]
[vP John v [VP sings [Adv loudly ]]]
c. [vP Ta v [VP minge [V’ chang [Adv dasheng]]]]
It follows that (2b) is in fact the expected word order under MH given its interpretation as a
generic, despite the ungrammaticality of the surface order. It is thus “as if” even though
obligatorily projected into low complement position (11a) and interprepeted there (11b), AP地 manner adverbs must raise (11c):
(11)a.
[vP Ta v [VP minge [V’ chang [Adv jingjingde]]]]
a. Γe[singing(e) & Ag(e,j) & Th(e,fs) → quiet(e)]
c. Ta jingjingde chang minge jingjingde.
OBLIGATORY RAISING
I argue that obligatory raising follows from the status of Mandarin adverbial DE (地) as a
“concordializing” element, similar to nominal DE (的) as analyzed by Larson (2009). In brief,
phrases marked with concordializers become agreeing elements and hence must be
positioned between a case probe (T) and an element valued for case (DP) in order to form
part of an agreement chain (12):
(12)
[TP
[T’
T
[vP
AP-地
[vP
DP
[v’ … AP-地 … ]]]]]
Movement
Agreement
Thus although Mandarin AP-地 manner adverbs (like all manner Advs) are projected low in
V-complement position, they cannot remain there and must raise to a poetntial agreement
site. By contrast, nominal derived manner adverbs like dasheng can be case-checked
directly in complement position, and so can surface there, reflecting the underlying position.
33 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Non-interrogative uses of shenme in Mandarin conversation
Heeju Lee, Danjie, Su, Hongyin Tao
UCLA
Interrogative pronouns such as shenme in Mandarin Chinese have developed extended uses
beyond interrogation. Such uses may include filling a gap in conversation, softening a
speaker’s epistemic stance, and indicating strong emotions such as surprises or incredulity.
Yet there is little research dealing with crosslinguistic patterns in interactive discourse. In this
paper we investigate the extended uses based on large corpora of telephone conversations.
We show that nine categories of extended use can be identified in the corpora and that most
of the extended uses tend to fall in the negative territory. We provide a social interactive
account for this phenomenon and hope that the taxonomy and coding scheme developed
here will serve as a starting point for future crosslinguistic comparative studies of what-like
tokens as well as of the discourse pragmatic uses of other interrogative forms.
Speaking Rate and Prosody: A Cross-Linguistic Analysis in Native and Non-Native Speech
Ok Joo Lee
The Ohio State University/Ewha Womans University
Much research on speaking rate has been conducted from two perspectives: one is to
examine the contextual, ethological, and socio-cultural factors that affect speaking rate, and
the other is to investigate the effects of speaking rate on segmental production (Amerman
and Parnell 1992, Yuan 2006, Kessinger 1998 Gay 1978, Miller 1981 Tsao et al. 2006a,
2006b etc.). While speaking rate is widely known to affect segmental elements, such as
vowel formants and VOT, the relation between speaking rate and prosodic features, such as
tone, pitch accent, stress, and global pitch trend, is far from being fully understood. The
purpose of this study is to understand the interaction between speaking rate and prosodic
features. Of particular interest is to examine the effects of speaking rate on the pitch range
and variation in native and non-native speech of typological different languages, namely,
Mandarin and Korean. The two languages were chosen for the reason that they reveal an
important typological difference in prosody: Mandarin has lexically-designated tones whereas
pitch accents are post-lexically assigned in Korean.
This study conducted an acoustic experiment in which a script of the story Northern Wind and
Sun (北风和太阳) was produced in both Mandarin and Korean in two speaking rates: fast rate
and slow rate. Ten speakers of L1 Mandarin and L2 Korean and ten speakers of L1 Korean
and L2 Mandarin participated in the recording, and both groups of speakers spoke the L2
near-natively. Therefore, four sets of speech were analyzed: Mandarin speakers’ L1
Mandarin and L2 Korean and Korean speakers’ L1 Korean and L2 Mandarin. The acoustic
analyses of this study show: (1) no significant effect of speaking rate on the pitch range and
variation was found in both the L1 and L2 Mandarin speech, (2) no significant effect of
34 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
speaking rate on the pitch range and variation was found in the L1 Korean speech, (3) the
speaking rate affects the pitch range and variation in the L2 Korean speech. These findings
reveal that the suprasegmental elements including localized tones and global pitch trend can
be more resistant to the influence of changing speaking rate and therefore support some
earlier studies on speaking rate and tone production (Gandour et al. 1999, 2002, Xu 1998).
This study further suggests that the different types of prosodic features (e.g., lexical tones,
post-lexical pitch accents) may be influenced by speaking rate in different manners in native
and non-native speech.
Authentic Language and Culture: Scenes from Chinese Homestays
Sheng-Hsun Lee, Qian Wu
Pennsylvania State University
Among students, language educators, and the public, study abroad has long enjoyed a
reputation for improving students’ language performance and cultural awareness through
exposure to, and engagement with authentic, natural language use reflecting the local
community’s norms. The study of interactions in study abroad settings, however, reveals that
access to authenticity appears to be shaped both by the host community’s reception of the
students and by the students’ own interpretation of particular interactive settings (Iino 2006;
Wilkinson 2002).
To explore an alternative way of understanding authenticity in study abroad, this study
examines the moments in which students’ performances and host community members’
evaluations coalesce into authenticating practices. Data are from audio recordings of dinner
table talk that involves American students and their Chinese host families. Focal participants
include a college student who enrolled in a semester-long study abroad program and a high
school student who joined a short-term summer sojourn abroad program, both in Beijing. We
draw upon ideas from Bucholtz (2003) to distinguish authentication as an interactional
practice from authenticity as form of ideology. In everyday situations during study abroad,
these authentications highlight phonological, metaphorical, and cultural practice-related
elements of Chinese identity such that Beijing rhotacization, a metaphorical expression “收获
很多”, and avoiding meat consumption are essentialzed as sociolinguistic and sociocultural
practices iconically signifying Chinese membership. Authentication is thus a ubiquitous and
important practice by which hosts verbalize their metalinguistic, metapragmatic, and
metacultural awareness in order to evaluate and guide their student guests.
To conclude, we discuss how learning Chinese can be conceived as a process of
hybridization, through which students evolve into sinophones who can operate effectively,
comfortably, and fluently in this increasingly globalized world (McDonald, 2011). To cultivate
such hybrid identities, we suggest that students may benefit from understanding relationships
between aspects of language use and the representation of self. This understanding can be
35 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
fostered by principled, concept-based approaches highlighting sociolinguistic and stylistic
variations as resources to construct social identities, distance, and power.
Discourse Functions of the Manner Demonstrative Zheyang in Taiwanese Mandarin
Yu-Hui Lee
UCLA
In the organization of turns at talk in conversation, one important key is to identify and to
project turn design and turn completion in order to conduct a smooth conversation (Tao 1996;
Drew 2005; Ruiter, Mitterer and Enfield 2006). Previous studies have shown that
conversationalists reply heavily on lexicosyntactic cues to recognize or mark a turn
completion (Ford and Thompson 1996; Ruiter, Mitterer and Enfield 2006). However,
very few studies in the literature have discussed the marking of a discourse unit within a turn,
or across multiple-unit turn as a resource in conversation. This study suggests that Mandarin
speakers in Taiwan use non-deictic zheyang (or zheyangzi) to organize the current discourse
structure by explicitly marking the completion of a discourse unit. Speakers use the
completion marking zheyang(zi) to indicate, for example, that they have reached the
completion of a (brief) joint utterance, lexical or utterance elaboration, or a multiple unitstorytelling, especially when the completion of these discourse genres may not considered
structurally obvious.
In the collected spontaneous conversation (6 hours 11 minutes), the occurrence of
zheyang(zi) shows that 67% of zheyang(zi) (269 out of 399 tokens) is used as a deixis (‘like
this’ or ‘in this way’, as a manner deixis or a discourse deixis), while 33% occurrence of
zheyang(zi) (130 out of 399 tokens) is used as a (non-deictic) completion marker. Regardless
of its non-canonical use which is considered a recently emerged usage (Huang 1999; Liu
2003), conversationalists rarely have any problem projecting and understanding the
completion marking zheyang(zi)in conversation. Joint utterance refers to a short phrase or an
utterance in the next turn is designed to continue the previous turn by elaborating or
paraphrasing the content. zheyang(zi)attaching to the final position of such joint utterances
indicate its discourse completion and can be helpful to the addressee when the utterance
does not contain an explicit grammatical completion.
Lexical elaboration refers to a phrase or utterance, departing from the current turn
development, which provides an alternative term or specific details for its preceding phrase,
possibly a nominal, adjective, or an adverbial phrase. zheyang(zi)attaching to such lexical
elaboration indicates the end of such elaboration and the shifting back to the original turn
development.
In a multiple-unit turn, especially in long responses or storytelling, vivid information (such as
reported speech or actions) is used to provide details of a particular event. zheyang(zi)
attaching to the end of such vivid information indicates its completion and a shift back to the
36 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
main response or the next episode of the story. When a reported speech or action attached
by zheyang(zi) is also the completion of a multiple-unit turn of response or storytelling,
zheyang(zi)provides a clear indication for the next speaker to pick up the next turn.
The findings suggest that, through everyday language use, zheyang(zi) shows the sign of
becoming a conventional completion marker in spoken Mandarin in Taiwan. This study
provides evidence of the importance of identifying utterance design and turn completion in
spontaneous conversation.
Contrast distinctiveness between dental and palatal sibilants: Typology survey and
perceptual experiment
Mingxing Li, Jie Zhang
University of Kansas
Mandarin Chinese has dental and palatal sibilants ([s, ts, tsʰ] vs. [ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ]). The high front vowel
[i] may follow the palatal sibilants and most other consonants but not the dental sibilants, after
which the so-called “apical vowel” occurs. Apical vowels are syllabic approximants that are
homorganic to their preceding consonants (Chao 1968, Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, Lee &
Zee 2003), e.g., the dental apical vowel [ ] as in [s ] ‘thought’, [ts ] ‘resources’ and [tsʰ ]
‘flaw’. Across Chinese dialects, apical vowels are widely observed (Zee & Lee 2007, Lee & Zee
2014).
There are two different views on the formation of apical vowels. A place assimilation account
treats the apical vowels as the result of dental sibilants spreading their place features to the
following /i/ or empty vowel (Wang 1985, Lin 1989, Wiese 1997). A contrast enhancement
account, on the other hand, regards the apical vowels as an enhancement of contrast, whereby
the less distinct contrast /si/ vs. /ɕi/ turns into the more distinct [s ] vs. [ɕi] (Stevens et al. 2004,
Lee & Li 2003, Lee-Kim 2014). Typologically, the assimilation analysis predicts that a dialect
may have apical vowels as long as it has dental sibilants while the enhancement analysis
predicts that apical vowels will appear only when there are phonological contrasts between
“sibilant+i/ ” sequences. A typological survey across 155 Chinese dialects shows that a dialect
may have apical vowels only if it has phonological contrasts between “sibilant+i/ ”, supporting
the contrast enhancement account.
Underlying the enhancement account is the hypothesis that phonetic pairs like [si] vs. [ɕi] are
not sufficiently distinct. Such a hypothesis is supported by the typology across 121 Chinese
dialects that have dental vs. palatal sibilants: the contrasts before [i] are avoided in more than
2/3 of the dialects. To further test this hypothesis, a speeded-AX discrimination experiment was
conducted. The stimuli were dental [s, ts, tsʰ] vs. palatal [ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ] produced in the vowel
contexts [i], [a], [ou] and allophonic [ ~ i]. The inter-stimulus-interval was set at 100ms to
facilitate responses based on acoustic similarity rather than phonological knowledge (Pisoni
1973, Werker & Logan 1985, Johnson & Babel 2010). For a particular sound pair, a longer
37 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
response time is assumed to indicate less perceptual distinctiveness between the two. The
subjects were 10 native Mandarin Chinese speakers and 20 native American English speakers
with no previous exposure to Chinese languages. They were encouraged to provide a “same” or
“different” response within 500ms, which also serves to bypass the influence of native language
and elicit psychoacoustic perception (Johnson & Babel 2010). Consistent with the hypothesis,
for both Chinese and English subjects, the [i] context turned out to introduce significantly longer
response times than other vowels.
In general, the experimental results indicate that, for a particular pair of consonants (e.g. [tsʰ] vs.
[tɕʰ]), the perceptual distinctiveness may vary with different vowel contexts. The [i] context
introduces less perceptual distinctiveness and this correlates to the typology across Chinese
dialects where contrastive dental vs. palatal sibilants in the [i] contexts are dispreferred. This
study thus supports the view that human languages prefer sounds that are more distinct from
each other (Liljencrants & Lindblom 1972, Lindblom 1986, 1990, Padgett 2001, Flemming 2002,
2005).
Coherence Relations, Topic Prominence, and the Interpretation of Pronouns in Chinese
Yan Li
Kansas University
Xiu-zhi Zoe W
Pasadena City College
Andrew Simpson
University of Southern California
In recent years, the acquisition of discourse competence by second language learners has
attracted increasing attention from applied linguists and language practitioners as it is an
indispensable part of the model of communicative competence (Canale & Swain 1980;
Canale 1983, Celce-Murcia, Dornyei, Thurrell 1995). The use of pronouns, among others
devices, is an important means to achieve cohesion and coherence within a speaker’s
speech in discourse. However, identifying the reference of a pronoun is not always an easy
task for second language learners especially when more than one possible reference is
available in the discourse. Native speakers of different languages may potentially use
different strategies to identify the references of pronouns when more than one reference is
possible. There is thus a need to systematically study the use of pronouns in different
languages, as such knowledge can be used to help language teachers guide their students
to achieve native like discourse competence more efficiently. The present paper reports on
the results of a series of four sentence-completion experiments designed to probe aspects of
pronoun interpretation in Mandarin Chinese, identifying whether the strategies that speakers
of Chinese use to resolve the reference of pronouns correspond with those operative in
English, or work along different principles.
The point of departure of the paper is recent work on pronoun interpretation strategies in
English published in Kehler and Rohde (2013). In English, there often seems to be a strong
preference for pronouns to be interpreted as referring to a preceding subject when two
potential antecedents are present, as in examples (1) and (2), regardless of the meaning of
the sentence. In (1) and (2) the grammatical roles of the subject and object are reversed in
active and passive forms of the sentence, but this does not affect the subject preference for
38 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
the pronoun.
(1) Mitt narrowly defeated Rick, and the press then followed him to the next state. [him = Mitt]
(2) Rick was defeated by Mitt, and the press then followed him to the next state. [him = Rick]
However, in other instances, aspects of the meaning of a sentence appear to over-ride the
subject preference for pronouns, as in (3), where the pronoun is naturally interpreted as
referring to the object of the preceding clause (Rick):
(3) Mitt narrowly defeated Rick, and he quickly demanded a recount. [he = Rick]
Kehler and Rohde invoke the notion of (discourse) Coherence Relations/CRs and
competition between CRs and the subject preference to successfully model a wide range of
pronoun interpretation strategies in English, showing how the kinds of discourse connections
that exist between sentences (e.g. cause-and-effect, temporal sequencing, parallelism,
explanation) privilege certain modes of interpretation for pronouns that may be present.
Making use of such new insights about English, a series of four experiments were created in
Mandarin to investigate the degree to which the interpretation of pronouns in Chinese may (a)
exhibit a subject (or topic) preference for the antecedents of pronouns, (b) be strongly
influenced by the Coherence Relations of adjacent sentences containing pronouns and their
antecedents, and (c) parallel the natural interpretation given to pronouns in corresponding
discourse segments in English. Via a controlled manipulation of the telicity of sentences in
experiments 1 and 2, it was also investigated how a highlighting of the end state of an event
may decrease the preference for speakers to interpret pronouns as referring to subjects and
facilitate object co-reference when appropriate Coherence Relations are explicitly prompted
in sentence-completion tasks. The paper presents and discusses the results of this
experimental study of pronoun interpretation in Chinese, and how it’s findings can be used to
help L1 English learners of Chinese develop a more efficient, native-like competence in the
use and interpretation of pronouns in Chinese.
Effects of L2 Contact and Instruction on Chinese Colloquial Idiom Acquisition by Intermediate
Chinese L2 Learners
Yu Li
The University of Iowa
This study examines the effects of L2 contact and instruction on the acquisition of Chinese
colloquial idioms by intermediate learners. Twenty intermediate Chinese L2 learners from a
Midwest university participated in this 8-week study. They were first assigned randomly to
two groups, enhanced and instructed. One experienced Chinese instructor met once every
week with the two groups of participants. In the enhanced group, the participants received
typographically enhanced sentences of 10 target Chinese colloquial idioms and answered
questions about the content of the sentences, meanwhile the instructed group received
explanations of the 10 target Chinese colloquial idioms and answered metalinguistic
questions. Every two weeks, the participants took a 10-minute interview with the investigator
to give personal opinions on learning strategies of Chinese colloquial idioms, informal L2
contact, as well as difficulties in learning Chinese language and culture. In week 3, the
39 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
participants were asked to take a Language Contact Questionnaire, which was derived from
The Language Contact Profile (Freed, Dewey, Segalowitz, & Halter, 2004). In addition, eight
weekly tests and one final test were administered to examine how well the participants
acquire the intended Chinese colloquial idioms. The purpose of the study is to examine the
effects of L2 contact and teaching approaches on the acquisition of Chinese colloquial idioms
by intermediate learners. Pedagogical implications will be provided based on the results of
the study.
基于语料库的“把个”句主观化研究：从事实位移到虚拟运动
李雨晨刘正光
湖南大学
“把”字句中的“把”起源于表示“掌握、控制”的动词，经过历时演变为介词（孙朝奋 1996），
该句式表达了一个以空间位移为基础的意象图式（张旺熹 2001，张黎 2007），即宾语 O 在
外力 V 的作用下发生了变化，可理解为该句式的原型（Langacker 1990）。“把个句”本是“把
（一）个”的缩写形式但是由于“个”的高度语法化，由量词变为助词，而影响了整个句式的意义
（陶红印、张伯江 2000，张伯江 2000，杉村博文 2002）。本文立足于认知语法框架下的
主观化理论（Langacker 1990，1999，2002，2006），基于语料库进行定量统计分析，对“把
个”句做了进一步解释：“把个”句表示事物位移变化的客观义（onstage）削弱了，而表示说话
人的心理预期和对事实结果的评价义（offstage）增加了；说话人对事物的心理预期是通过其
心理活动所呈现的，属于虚拟的运动。从客观位移到虚拟位移，使“把个”句的主观义增量，完
成了主观化过程。
作者从 CCL 语料库中检索到 385 个“把个”句，其中“个”作助词的比率高达 95 %，做量词
仅为 5%。无论“个”的功用为何，“把个”句所表达的事件仍然是某个具体实体的位移变化，对该
变化的理解由说话人在心理上追随实体所处的不同位置而得以实现。但是助词“个”后面的 O 代
表了一类事物（a type），而非一个具体实体（an entity）；因此激发了人们对这一类事物的“已
有认知”，这种认知是通过人们在心理上投射出一条虚拟的路径去追踪这一类事物的变化而得
以实现的。此时，人们心理活动包含了两条路径：个体的运动路径和一类事物的运动路径。两
条路径的发展或多或少会出现偏差,因此“把个”句就获得了承载人们的心理预期、并对事实发展
表示“意外”的新功能。
为了证明上述的分析，作者观察了“把”字句和“把个”句在语料库中的句式投影，接着对两
个句式的主、谓、宾三个成分进行定量分析，从语义和句法角度考察了 28 个变量。统计数据
与句式投影的结果一致：两个句式在 17 个变量的选择趋势上有显著差异 (p<0.01)，且这些差
异的二元变数均呈现相关性 (phi coefficient)。因此本研究得出结论：语法化了的“个”影响了“把
个”句的句法，句式义通过主观化过程获得主观义的增量，逐渐成为一个具有独立句式义的构
式，表达说话人对事物发展结果的评价。
Can yinwei be used as a discourse marker?
Some discourse/interactional functions of yinwei in Mandarin conversation
Xiaoting Li, Jie Luo
University of Alberta
In Mandarin conversation, speakers usually use yinwei-clauses to provide reasons or
40 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
accounts for certain actions in their talk. So far most research has focused on the sequence
of yinwei-clauses. Traditional grammar describes that yinwei-clauses at the beginning is
canonical in Mandarin unless they are an afterthought (Chao, 1968: 113; Li & Thompson,
1981). Based on Mandarin conversational data, Biq (1995), Wang (2002, 2006), Song & Tao
(2008) have shown that post-positioning of yinwei-clause is dominant in Mandarin spoken
discourse. Song & Tao (2008) also compares the post-positioned yinwei-clauses in Mandarin
conversation with because-clauses in English conversation and discovers similarities in their
usage. For example, same as because-clauses in English, yinwei-clauses also serve as
accounts for dispreferred second actions and some sensitive first actions such as assertions,
requests, reproaches, negative assessments (Ford, 1993; Ford, 2002). However, these
usages of yinwei are mainly derived from its truth-conditional meaning of expressing cause or
reason (Lü, 1980:623). Fang (2000) also reports that in contrast to suoyi (effect), yinwei
(cause) is usually used for its truth-conditional meaning and rarely used as discourse marker.
This study explores the discourse and interactional functions of yinwei as well as how they
are collaboratively and contingently accomplished through the deployment of multimodal
resources in Mandarin conversation.
The data for this study are 8-hour video recordings of everyday Mandarin face-to-face
conversation. Adopting the methodology of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics,
this study examines the non-truth-conditional (NTC) uses of yinwei in specific sequential and
interactional contexts. A preliminary examination of the data shows that the NTC yinwei has
three discourse and interactional functions: re-open a storytelling and re-do the punchline in
pursuit of recipient’s affiliative responses, inserting background information, and topic shift.
When performing these functions, yinwei is often produced with disjunctive prosody (e.g.,
pitch reset, loudness, pause) and embodied actions (e.g., gaze shift, postural shift, change of
facial expressions), and through the dynamic coordination of participants in situated activities.
When used to accomplish these functions, yinwei does not display a causal relation between
two units and seems to be used as a discourse marker. The multimodal analysis of the NTC
yinweis not only contributes to our understanding of the dynamic uses of conjunctions in
Mandarin conversation, but also underscores the importance of the interactional teaching
pedagogy, i.e., teaching Mandarin grammar in its interactional context.
Sibilants across the Strait: A comparison between Xiamen Mandarin and Taiwan Mandarin
Yuhan Lin
The Ohio State University
Past research on the varieties in Fujian has focused heavily on Minnan Dialects. Nonetheless,
very few studies have investigated the Mandarin varieties spoken in the area, which, due to
the influence of regional dialects, differ significantly from Standard Mandarin. In contrast, an
increasing number of studies have been conducted on Taiwan Mandarin, a variety that is
also in close contact with the Minnan Dialect.
To fill this gap in the literature, this study reports some preliminary results from a larger
41 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
project that examines the Mandarin variety spoken in Xiamen, Fujian. It focuses on the
alveolar-retroflex contrast of sibilant fricatives. Two research questions will be addressed: 1)
Do Xiamen Mandarin speakers show alveolar-retroflex contrast of sibilant fricatives in speech
production? 2) Do Xiamen and Taiwan speakers of Mandarin have similar patterns in the
production of this variable?
The regional dialect in Xiamen is Minnan Dialect, but a majority of the locals in Xiamen are
also fluent Mandarin speakers. Unlike standard Mandarin, the Minnan Dialect does not have
any retroflex initials. Chen’s (1987) pioneering study concludes that Xiamen speakers tend to
replace the retroflex sibilants [tʂ], [tʂʰ] and [ʂ] with alveolar sibilants [ts], [tsʰ] and [s] when
speaking Mandarin.
The current study examines the production of alveolar fricative [s] and retroflex fricative [ʂ] of
nine XM speakers (F=3, M=6, age: 30-75). Word list data was hand-aligned in Praat and
center of gravity (COG) of frication was automatically extracted. COG is an acoustic correlate
of place of articulation for fricatives. The higher the COG, the more front the place of
articulation is.
Two linear mixed effects model were built to examine the alveolar-retroflex contrast. Both
models use COG measurements for all the tokens as the dependent variable, and speaker
and word as random intercepts. The first model uses segment identity ([s] and [ʂ]) and
following phones as independent variables, while the second one uses only following phones
as the independent variable. A log-likelihood comparison of the two models shows that
segment identity is a significant predictor of COG measurement (p = 0.0014). Nevertheless,
a further analysis reveals that the observed effect seems to be driving mainly by younger
speakers. When the models were re-run for younger (age ≤ 40, N =4) and older speakers
(age > 40, N=5) separately, segment identity was only a significant factor for the younger
speakers (p < 0.01). This may indicate an ongoing language change of Xiamen Mandarin
towards having an alveolar-retroflex contrast.
Alveolar-retroflex contrast is also a widely studied feature in Taiwan Mandarin. This study
compares the results from Chang’s (2012) dissertation, which also uses COG to measure
this phonological contrast in Taiwan Mandarin speakers. The mean COG for alveolar is
8757.6Hz and that for retroflex is 6224.1Hz (Chang 2012, p.52). Only data from younger
Xiamen speakers are used to match the demographics of Chang’s (2012) participants. In this
case, the mean COG for alveolar is 7482.3Hz and that for retroflex is 5735.2Hz. That is to
say, compared with Taiwan speakers, Xiamen speakers produced more back [s] and [ʂ]. It is
also worth noting that although older speakers do not show much place distinction, their
productions are closer to retroflex than alveolar (mean COG – alveolar: 6205.4Hz, retroflex:
6018.6Hz), contradictory to Chen’s (1987) description. This phenomenon can be explained
by the prestige associated with the retroflex variant due to its presence in Standard Mandarin.
This hypothesis is also supported by the occurrence of hypercorrection in Xiamen Mandarin,
a case when speakers produce the retroflex variant for an alveolar target. The similar pattern
of hypercorrection is also found in Taiwan Mandarin, which is also related to the prestige of
retroflex in Taiwan (Chung 2006).
42 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Encoding Counterfactuality in Chinese, Syntactically
Haiyong Liu
Wayne State Univesity
Perceiving Chinese counterfactuals is difficult for L2 English speakers, whose L1 relies on
morpho-syntactical tools. Indeed, cross-linguistically, past-tense morphology frequently
appears in counterfactual constructions (Iatridou 2000; Nevins 2002), as shown by the
contrasts in English:
(1) counterfactual: I wish I was an astronaut.
vs. factual: I hope I am an
astronaut.
(2) counterfactual: If I had gone there, I would have seen it. vs. factual: If I go there,
I will see it.
Past tense used in counterfactuality no longer provides time reference (Iatridou 2000);
instead, it creates another world reserved for counterfactual reasoning; (2) resorts to double
past for past counterfactuality. Iatridou (2000) calls such fake past tense an ‘exclusion
operator’ that excludes the utterance world, or the actual world, in counterfactuals. Chinese,
however, does not mark tense. (3) is ambiguous, unless anchored in a particular discursive
context or restricted by a temporal adverbial like yiqian ‘before’. The absence of tense
marking also causes ambiguity between factual and counterfactual interpretations in Chinese;
as in (4) and (5):
(3) Wo shi laoshi.
I
be
vs.
Wo
teacher
I
‘I am a teacher.’ Or ‘I was a teacher.’
(4) Wo xiwang
I
hope/wish
yiqian shi
wo neng lai.
I
can
come
‘I hope/wish I can/could come.
before be
laoshi.
teacher
‘I was a teacher before.’ NOT: *I am a teacher.’
(5) Yaoshi mingtian nuanhuo, wo jiu lai.
if
tomorrow warm
I then come
‘If it’s/would be warm tomorrow, I will/would come.’
Nevnis (2002) expands the domain of Iatridou’s morphology-oriented counterfactuality
exclusion operator to the semantics of clause complimentizers. Utilizing specialized
complimentizers, e.g. Chinese conditional yaobushi ‘if not for’, for counterfactuality is a
syntactical tool found often in languages without tense. Bhatt and Pancehva (2006) divide
conditionals, which are useful in creating a counterfactual domain, into hypothetical,
relevance, and factual:
(6) If you are late, (then) I will get upset.
(hypothetical; then can be used)
(7) If you are thirsty, (*then) there is water. (relevance; then cannot be used)
(8) If he is smart, why didn’t he find a job? (presupposition involved)
Besides the lexical and contextual tools that facilitate Chinese counterfactual interpretation
(Wu 1989; Yeh & Gentner 2005), I argue that when past reference is interpreted in
hypothetical conditionals, the sentence must be interpreted as counterfactual, as shown by
(9)-(12). Familiarizing L2 students with lexicon, context, and now, syntax reserved for
counterfactual expressions will maximize the teaching outcome.
(9) hypothetical conditional + past reference = unambiguous counterfactuality
43 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Yaoshi zuotian
if
xiayu, wo hui qu.
yesterday rain
I
will go
‘If it had rained yesterday, I would have gone.’ NOT: ‘If it rained yesterday, I will go.’
(10) no clear time reference in conditional = to be disambiguated with context.
Yaoshi wo shi laoshi, wo dei
bang ni.
If
help you
I
be
teacher I got.to
‘If I am the teacher, I will help you.’ OR: ‘If I were the teacher, I would have to help you.’
(11) hypothetical conditional + future reference =
to be disambiguated with context
Yaoshi mingtian xiayu, wo hui qu.…
if
tomorrow rain
wo will go
‘If it would rain tomorrow, I would go.’ OR: ‘If it rains tomorrow, I will go.’
(12) relevance conditional + past reference = unambiguous factual
Yaoshi zuotian xiayu, dianshitai
hui
jilu.
if
will
record
yesterday rain TV.station
‘If it rained yesterday, the TV station will have a record.’
Corpus-based Analysis of Chinese Alzheimer's Patients' Discourse Abilities
Liu Hongyan
Beijing Technology and Business University/UCLA
Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative brain disease which has major impairments on
cognition and memory. The study on discourse of Alzheimer’s patients (AD patients for short)
from linguistic perspective is a brand new field in China. In contrast to traditional analyses
carried out by psycholinguists, neurologists and speech pathologists, with doctor-patient
interaction speech samples elicited in clinical settings, the present research, being
exploratory in nature, will investigate discernible differences between interactive discourse
involving AD patients, and similar discourse involving non-Alzheimer aging speakers of
comparable age and circumstances through the study of situated discourse. The
characteristics of situated discourse abilities and disabilities for AD patients is analyzed
within a framework of corpus-based study so as to explore the dynamic nature of situated
discourse. All data collected both from families and Residential Homes in Beijing consist of
recordings and videotapes of conversations recorded in a range of settings which are quite
familiar to AD patients and non-Alzheimer aging speakers.
The present study takes Alzheimer's patients‘ word-finding difficulties as an instance to
describe part of AD patients' discourse abilities. Five major types of word-finding difficulties
such as circumlocution, mis-chosen words, semantically-related words, empty words and
neologism are analyzed in an attempt to describe how the patients’ word-finding difficulties
are like in comparison with non-Alzheimer aging speakers.
44 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Redefining Locative Inversion in Mandarin: A Lexical-constructional Approach
Meichun Liu, Jui-Ching Chang
National Chiao Tung University
This study re-examines the unique properties of Locative Inversion (LI) in Mandarin from a
lexical-constructional approach (Boas 2002b, 2003b, Goldberg 1995, 2003) and proposes
that the Mandarin LI can be best understood as a Ground-anchored Construction of spatial
configuration that profiles the Ground-Figure relation as the end stage of a causal motion
chain. LI has been a much-debated topic in linguistic studies. Bresnan & Kanerva (1989)
associated the construction with unaccusative verbs in English and later Levin & Rappaport
Hovav (1995) argued that passive and other intransitive verbs may also appear in LI if they
encode the arguments Theme and Location and can be interpreted as expressing the
meaning of existence and appearance. The analysis of the English LI was then adopted to
Mandarin and most linguists agree that LI also encodes existence/appearance as it is named
cún xiàn jù ‘existence-appearance sentence’ (Lu 1974, Pan & Yang 2001, Chen & Zhuo
2014). One major difference, though, is that LI in Mandarin allows transitive or tri-argument
verbs (e.g. qiáng shàng guà le/zhe yì fú huà ‘On the wall hangs a picture.’), which is not
typical in English and has triggered various accounts in earlier studies (Lin 2008, Pan 1996,
Chen et al. 1995, etc.).
However, there are still three critical issues that need further examination. First, the default
way of expressing existence in English is nothing but LI, as evident in its grammaticalized
form: there is/are (there being a Locative N), but in Mandarin, existential-yǒu is also
commonly used to denote existence. What is then the difference between the two possible
ways of coding existence as exemplified in (1). Secondly, the distribution of le vs. zhe in
Mandarin LI shows a clear skewing with different verb types; as shown in (2), the intransitive
lái ‘come’ and the transitive xiě ‘write’ can only take le, but placement verbs such as guà
‘hang’ and fàng ‘put’ are fine with both zhe and le. Thirdly, the verb yǒu, either in its
existential use or possessive use, does not normally take the durative zhe, as in (3a-b), but it
may appear with zhe in the expression in (3c):
1) a. Existential-yǒu:
yǒu yi-ge rén lái le
‘There comes a person.’
b. Locative Inversion:
qián miàn lái le yí-ge rén
‘There comes a person.’
2) a. Intransitive:
qián miàn lái le/*zhe yí-ge rén
‘There comes a person.’
b. Transitive:
qiáng shàng xiě le/?zhe yì-háng zì ‘On the wall writes a line of words.’
c. Placement Vs:
qiáng shàng guà le/zhe yì-fú huà
‘On the wall hangs a picture.’
3) a. Existential-yǒu:
*qián miàn yǒu zhe yí-ge rén
‘There is a person.’
b. Pessessive-yǒu: *tā yǒu zhe yí-liàng chē
‘He has a car.’
c. yǒu with zhe:
tā yǒu zhe yì-shuāng dà yǎnjīng
‘She has a pair of beautiful eyes.’
Given the above observations, we propose that the Mandarin LI should be redefined as
essentially encoding Ground-anchored spatial positioning of a Figure (or Theme), which
entails the existence or appearance of the Figure in relation to the Ground. It differs from the
existential-yǒu construction in profiling the Ground, and its constructional meaning is most
compatible with spatial configurational verbs, illustrating a complete fit of prototypical
45 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
lexical-constructional association. Finally, the instance of yǒu-zhe in (3c) can be viewed as a
coerced instance of the Ground-anchored Construction. Ultimately, the study argues that a
lexical-constructional analysis may help account for the intriguing interaction between verb
meanings and constructional meanings.
Native Speakers’ Perception of Fluency in Advanced Level L2 Speech
Yu Liu, Xinyi Wu
Brigham Young University
Oral fluency is an important aspect of L2 production. It is one of the primary features
perceived by ordinary native speakers (Derwing, et al., 2004). This study investigates which
variables Chinese native listeners take into account when judging fluency in advanced-level
Chinese L2 speech, and how they weigh the acoustic features. The relationship between
perceived fluency and perceived accuracy is also discussed.
Ten, approximately two-minute, fragments were extracted from original speech recordings
from six advanced-level non-native, one superior-level non-native and three native speakers
of Chinese. They were obtained from a speaking task that provided speech in the form of
conversational monologue. 60 linguistically untrained Chinese college students from China
Mainland and Taiwan, dividing into four groups of 15, participated in the
computer-administered rating experiment. Four groups were asked to rate the accuracy and
fluency of the speech. They rate fluency respectively based on 1) the overall impression of
fluency, 2) the use of silent and filled pauses, 3) the use of corrections, and 4) the speed of
delivery.
By using regression analysis and SPSS, results indicate that in the speech of advanced level
learners of Chinese silent pauses and the speed of delivery among all features (speed of
delivery, silent pauses, filled pauses, corrections, sentences incompletion, replacement of
Chinese words with English words) are most strongly related to fluency perception. Filled
pauses have least impact on the perception of L2 fluency. Native listeners have strong
agreement in judging the speed of delivery, while they perform less consistently when
judging other features. Based on a comparison of the results from perceptual sensitivity, it
is found that native listeners don’t weigh the importance of perceived fluency especially to a
specific aspect (pauses, repairs or speed) but to an overall judgment. This finding supports
the conclusion in a research study of fluency in Dutch (Bosker, et al, 2012), which implies
that it might be a universal characteristic in human cognition. There are statistically significant
differences between native speakers and advanced-level learners in subjective judgments of
fluency. Fluency has strong correlation with accuracy in the ratings of advanced-level
learners’ speech.
46 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
“I’d like to ask if I may borrow your pencil”:
Politeness of non-native learners in daily conversations
(“我想请问一下我可以借用你的铅笔吗”: 日常会话中非母语学习者的礼貌策略)
Joyce Lok
University of Cambridge
Although request is one of the most frequently studied speech acts in interlanguage
pragmatics research, studies investigating Chinese requests produced by non-native
learners are disproportionally scant compared to learners of other languages. Kienpointner
(1997: 253) argues that “one and the same type of speech act can be polite within one
language and/or culture, but impolite or even rude in other languages and/or cultures”.
Non-native speakers who are unaware of the politeness conventions in the target language
may experience pragmatic failure. With emphasis on the form (grammar) and meaning (on a
semantic and sentential level) only in traditional Chinese language teaching contexts, the
pragmatic aspects are often ignored in teaching materials and curriculum. Moreover, there is
no direct relationship between L2 learners’ grammatical proficiency and their L2 pragmatic
competence (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Boxer & Pickering, 1995; Bouton, 1996). Even learners
who possess an advanced knowledge of the Chinese grammar are not immune to pragmatic
failure and may produce pragmatically inappropriate utterances.
For the reasons above, three sets of data were collected for the study: (i) the spoken
requests in Chinese (L2) by a group of upper-intermediate to advanced non-native Chinese
learners, (ii) their English (L1) requests and (iii) the Chinese requests by native Chinese
speakers. They are compared and contrasted in terms of (i) the level of directness of Head
Acts, (ii) internal and external mitigating devices and (iii) turn-taking behaviour.
Instead of using discourse completion tasks, this study collected spoken requestive
discourse with open role-plays, which allow examination of the turn-taking features and the
full interactive discourse. There are nine role-play scenarios which participants are likely to
encounter in their daily lives; different combinations of role relationships (+/– social distance
and +/– power relations) were incorporated into the scenario design. The role-play data were
analysed with the Cross-cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP)
Coding Manual developed by Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989).
The retrospective interviews following the open role-plays acted as a form of methodological
and data triangulation. The interview response provide justification for the politeness
strategies employed by the three control groups and throws light on the sociopragmatic
aspect, whilst the open role-play data throw light on the pragmalinguistic aspect.
There are a number of rather interesting findings when the three sets of data are compared:
in terms of directness levels of the Head Acts, the three control groups employed similar
strategies across the nine scenarios, but there seems to be other aspects that are ignored by
non-native learners. Also, there are noticeable differences in terms of the use of internal and
47 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
external modifications. Regarding turn taking behaviour, the length of utterances is another
major difference amongst the three control groups.
The tendencies to use certain types of head acts, internal and external modifications,
formulaic expressions and turn-taking behaviour are worth noticing, so a number of
pedagogical implications have been drawn following this research. As pragmatic competence
is a major component of learners’ general communicative knowledge (Brown and Levinson,
1987; Leech, 1983; Levinson, 1983), Chinese language teaching materials targeting
non-native learners should incorporate the conventions of speech act realisations into the
syllabus design. Instead of completely focusing on the technical aspects of L2 production, L2
teachers should pace greater emphasis on teaching communicative competence in
classroom (Savignon, 1998).
Explicit instructions and pragmatic awareness raising activities might help learners to
enhance their pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic competence in the target language
context. Both Alcón Soler’s (2005), Felix-Brasdefer’s (2006) and Takahashi’s (2010) studies
suggest that attention-drawing activities are more helpful for pragmatic learning than
exposure to positive evidence. In conclusion, form focused instruction (Eslami-Rasekh,
Eslami-Rasekh, & Fatahi, 2004; McLean, 2004), contrastive L1-L2 discussions
(Eslami-Rasekh, 2005) and explicit consciousness-raising activities (House, 1996; McLean,
2004) are recommended to be incorporated into lesson plans.
A Corpus-based Constructional Analysis of Argument Realisations of Chinese Light Verb
Constructions: A Pilot Study of jinxing in Mandarin
Lu Lu
University of London
The term “light verb” (LV), first introduced by Jespersen (1954), refers to the verbs such as
have and give in constructions like have a bath and give a push, where the main semantic
content is provided not by the verbs, but by their nominal complements. In Mandarin Chinese,
verbs such as jinxing ‘carry out’ and jiyu ‘give’ are regarded as LVs (Zhu 1982), and the
theme in canonical light verb constructions (LVCs) is introduced by the proposition dui ‘to’.
Although research of Chinese LV(C)s has generated fruitful results to justify what a true LV is
and their argument assignments, these studies are not without problems. Firstly, researchers
(e.g. Kuo and Ting 2007) were interested in the canonical constructions, leaving the
non-canonical ones not well-investigated. Furthermore, the data from previous studies (e.g.
Tsai 2010; Kuo 2008) came from introspective judgements on grammaticality, with rare
references to spontaneous or natural examples. Therefore, the present usage-based
analysis (Stefanowitsch 2008; Mukherjee 2004) attempts to use corpus data to examine
argument structure constructions (Goldberg 1995) of the LVC of jinxing in Chinese.
The data in this study comes from ToRCH 2009 (Texts of Recent Chinese 2009), a balanced
written corpus of one-million words in Mandarin Chinese. Patterned after the Brown Corpus,
48 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
ToRCH 2009 with texts published in 2009 (± 1 year) covers four broad text categories, i.e.
press, general prose, learned writing, and fiction. As LVCs are very productive in Mandarin,
and this is especially true for the jinxing constructions, the present preliminary investigation is
based on the randomly-chosen 100 concordance lines (30% of all lines with the target LV
jinxing).
Having classified the complements of jinxing constructions based on the event structures
(Rappaport Hovav and Levin 1998), this study found that a majority (63%) of the theme roles
are realised with complements denoting externally caused (e.g. jianshe ‘build’) or manner of
contact eventualities (e.g. daji ‘hit’). Based on the above classifications of the complements,
the corpus data shows that, apart from the canonical argument realisation, the theme can be
realised without the preposition dui, and two theme roles can be realised in a single clause.
The family of jinxing constructions further demonstrates that arguments are realised via the
interactions between the constructions, the verb, and the verbal noun complements. The
findings suggest that the use of corpus data can shed more light on how individual acts of
language use shape the meaning-based grammatical constructions. It is also hoped that
this theoretical research could provide some insights into the acquisition and/or teaching of
Chinese LVCs.
法国留学生声调偏误问题的教学研究与对策摘要
卢小群翁明鹏
中央民族大学
本项目选取法国留学生作为研究对象，就是针对国内外有关法国留学生汉语声调教学的研
究很少而展开的。所以项目组法国留学生的汉语声调偏误进行了实验研究，并据此提出了相应
的教学对策。
一、法国留学生声调偏误的特征
（一）实验概述
项目组选取了六位法国留学生作为发音人，运用语音实验软件——MiniSpeech-Lab（桌上
语音实验室）进行实验；接着将软件自动得出的音长、音高、频率值、五度值（T 值）等数据
和五度坐标图再次整理成直观性的图表，并以此作为分析声调偏误和探究教学对策的依据。
（二）法国留学生声调偏误的特征
1．本实验对留学生单字调进行了比较研究。
单字调的检测是考察留学生声调偏误的基础，项目组通过实验得出了两张偏误分布图表：
图表显示，在六位法国留学生的单字调中，调型偏误最为严重的是阳平，其他三种声调均未出
现严重的调型偏误。调域偏误最为严重的是去声，其次是上声，而其共同点是声调发音不够 “低”：
上声是起点不够低，去声是降不下来而致终点不够低。
2．本实验对留学生双音节词的声调进行了比较研究。
由于汉语声调在语流中也会发生变化，为保证实验的科学性，项目组进一步对法国留学生
在汉语习得中的双音节声调进行了实验，得出了四章偏误分布图表：
通过以上的数据和五度坐标图，我们可以将法国留学生声调偏误的特征总结为五点：
（1）调型和调域偏误率最低的是阴平；
49 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
（2）调型偏误最为严重的是阳平；
（3）调域偏误最为严重的是去声；
（4）上声的调型偏误率大于去声和阴平但小于阳平，调域偏误率大于阳平但小于去
声；
（5）单字调比双字调掌握得要好得多。
二、法国留学生声调偏误的原因
（一）留学生未掌握汉语声调的理性知识
（二）留学生未建立汉语声调意识
（三）留学生不重视汉语声调能区别意义的功能
（四）母语的负迁移
三、法国留学生声调偏误的对策
（一）建立良好的声调意识
（二）加强语流训练
（三）使用实验语音学软件进行反馈式教学
四、结语
以上实验语音数据说明，汉语声调教学当中一定要因材施教。对外汉语声调教学虽然是个
老大难的问题，但是只要我们利用先进的手段和科学的实验对留学生的声调进行分析，总会找
到问题的症结。所以，对外汉语的声调教学和研究始终不能离开对留学生实际语音情况的实验
分析。教师只有全面、细致、准确地掌握了学生的语音面貌，才能正确地制定出科学的教学对
策，从而提高汉语声调教学的效率和水平。
The Acquisition of Cantonese Unaccusative Verbs in Cantonese-English Bilingual Children
Yaqiao Lu, Xiangjun Deng , Virginia Yip
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Cantonese, like Mandarin and many other languages, distinguishes two types of intransitive
verbs. One subtype of the intransitive verbs, the so-called unaccusative verbs, is analyzed as
taking a deep-structure object (e.g. Perlmutter 1978, Burzio 1986, Huang 1987, Li 1990). The
present study investigates how Cantonese-English bilingual children acquire the special
properties of unaccusative verbs in Cantonese. Two competing analyses on the derivation of
Cantonese unaccusative verbs will be evaluated based on longitudinal acquisition data.
In both Cantonese and English, only unaccusative verbs alternate between the unaccusative
and transitive causative structure (see 1a&b and 2a&b) (Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995,
Hale and Keyser 2002, Zeng 2007, Huang 2007, Han 2007). However, the two languages
differ with respect to the types of verbs appearing in the causative structure. English licenses
only simplex causative verbs that conflate cause and result in a synthetic manner. In
Cantonese (as in Chinese in general), the causative structure isolates verb resultative
compounds that encode cause and result in an analytic way (e.g. Juffs, 1996; Huang, 2006),
while simplex causative verbs also exist (see Huang 2007) (see (3)). Moreover, due to the
identical morphological shape of the simplex causative verbs and unaccusative verbs in
Chinese, it is difficult to ascertain the derivational relationship between the two. Two
50 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
competing analyses are compared and evaluated. Under the transitivization analysis, the
causative form is derived by projecting phonologically null heads above the unaccusative
form (e.g. Huang 2007, Lin 2008, Tsai 2013). Under the lexical detransitivization analysis
(e.g. Han 2007), the unaccusative variant is obtained by lexically binding the external
argument of the causative variant (see Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995). We focus on the
influence of the different causative encodings in the two target languages on
Cantonese-English bilingual children’s acquisition of Cantonese unaccusative verbs. The
emergence of the causative and unaccusative forms is also examined to seek acquisition
evidence for the derivational relationship between the two.
We examined spontaneous production data from 9 bilingual children in the Hong Kong
Bilingual Child Language Corpus (Yip and Matthews 2007), and 8 monolingual
Cantonese-speaking children in Hong Kong Cantonese Child Language Corpus (Lee et al.
1996) serving as the baseline data. Cross-linguistic influence is found since the prevalent
simplex causative verbs in English lead the bilingual children to produce a higher proportion
of simplex causative verbs than their monolingual counterparts (see the over-causativation of
laan6 ‘broken’ in (4)). Moreover, the two canonical alternating simplex verbs hoi1 ‘open’ and
saan1 ‘close’ were first attested in the causative form across all the 8 Cantonese-speaking
monolingual children producing these verbs. In a similar vein, the verb saan1 ‘close’ was first
attested in the causative form in all 9 bilingual children, and the causative form of hoi1 ‘open’
was produced before the unaccusative form in 8 out of the 9 bilingual children. The
consistent causative-before-unaccusative pattern provides some support for the
detransitivization account for causative alternations (Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995, Han
2007).
Examples:
(1) a. The windows broke.
b. The vandals/The rocks/The storm broke the window.
(L & RH 1995: 103)
(2) a. Dou6 mun4 hoi1
zo2.
CL
door
open
PFV
‘The door opened.’
b. Keoi5 hoi1 zo2
dou6 mun4.
he
open PFV CL door
‘He opened the door.’
(3) a. Keoi5 da2-laan6/haau1-laan6/zing2-laan6 zo2 go3 coeng1.
he
hit-break/knock/break/make-break PFV CL window
‘He broke the window.’
b. Koei5 saan1 zo2
go3 coeng1.
he
close PFV
CL window
‘He closed the window.’
(4) CHILD: ji1
go3 laan6
zo2
aa3.
this
CL break
PFV
SFP
‘This one has broken.’
CHILD: *tau4sin1 tau4sin1 ngo5 laan6
zo2
gaa3.
51 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
just now just now I
‘I broke it just now.’
break
PFV
SFP
(Kasen 3;06.08)
Situation in the video: The child makes a gesture of snapping something when he utters the
target sentence, indicating the verb laan6 ‘break’ is over-causativized.
China as Imagined Communities in CFL Learning and Teaching
Li Mao
University of Alberta
The notion of “imagined community” indicates that human beings are capable, through our
imagination, of perceiving a connection with people beyond our immediate social networks.
For language learners, their imagined communities might have as much impact on their
current identities as the actual ones and they may create new identities at the same time. In
this study, I critically investigated CFL learners’ understanding and construction of China as
imaged communities as well as its influence on their Chinese learning. Furthermore, I
examined how CFL teaching could help to construct China as imaged and desired
communities through supportive classroom practices.
I chose critical hermeneutics as the research methodology. Through purposeful sampling, I
selected 9 American CFL international students in a Northern Chinese urban city as
participants. Semi-structured interviews, daily language-use log (participants’ qualitative
language use survey) and secondary data (participants’ blogs in China) were used for data
collection. Based upon the critical hermeneutic dialectic relationship among “text”, “social
context” and “researcher’s reflexivity”(Prasad, 2002), the data analysis involved developing a
description of the participants’ CFL learning context in their home and target countries (U.S.
and China). In-depth thematic analysis was used to identify patterns pertaining to the
research focus.
The research findings show that American CFL international students’ Chinese learning and
study abroad in China was an investment in their imagined communities of China. Majority of
the participants in this study had a very clear understanding of the role of China and Chinese
in their future life, which would open up their future job hunting and identity options. Their
understanding of China and Chinese people and their choice of the target city and programs
demonstrated in what imagined communities of China they desired and prepared themselves
to invest in.
The alienations between the imagined communities participants aspired to invest in and the
real Chinese social networks they invested in strongly influenced their actual investment in
China. When the CFL learners finally discovered that the real China was far removed from
their idealized China, their disappointment was acute and led them to re-image and
re-assess their access to Chinese social networks and Chinese learning process in China.
Since China as imaged communities may profoundly affected the CFL learners’ investment
52 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
in the target language and their commitment to Chinese learning, the CFL programs and
instructors should purposefully help them create a powerful vision of China, giving them an
important sense of direction for both imagination and re-imagination.
The three pedagogical strategies that I put forward to construct China as imagined
communities in CFL teaching are: First, CFL programs and instructors themselves should
construct open-minded and culturally sensitive imagination of China and CFL learners’ future
in China. Second, the CFL instructors should have clear perceptions of CFL learners’
imagined communities of China and its influence on actual investment. Third, the CFL
instructors should construct China as imagined communities in CFL classrooms for the
purpose of CFL learners’ future investment in the target community.
Trochaic Feet in Spontaneous Spoken Southern Min
James Myers, Jane Tsay
National Chung Cheng University
Evidence from poetry and constructed examples show that Taiwan Southern Min (Taiwanese)
has trochaic (binary, left-headed) feet (see e.g., Hsiao, 2007, and references therein). In this
study we examine whether metrical structure also plays an active role in spontaneous S. Min
speech, by testing three predictions in a large corpus of transcribed radio chat shows.
The first prediction is that the disyllabic word size should be highly productive. This is
confirmed by the growth curves (Baayen & Renouf, 1996) in Figure 1, representing the
increase in the number of distinct words (types) as a function of ever larger corpus samples
(tokens): the slopes show that rare or novel words in fluent speech are most likely to be
disyllabic.
The second prediction concerns the discourse marker /tiəәʔ˦/ ‘right’, which is often repeated
for emphasis. If speakers naturally group such repetitions into trochaic feet, we expect a
preference for odd-number repetitions, which yields a strong-final (hence emphatic) line (e.g.,
[strong-weak]-strong; see Hsiao, 2007, for S. Min children’s rhymes). Since speakers also
favor shorter utterances, our statistical model (Poisson regression) takes both factors into
account. As shown in Figure 2, this model captures the number of /tiəәʔ˦/ repetitions almost
perfectly, much better than a model that does not assume trochaic feet. No such
odd-repetition effect is found for /tiəәʔ˦/ followed by an unstressed particle (e.g., /la/), since it
cannot form a strong-final line.
The third prediction comes from an earlier finding that word production in Mandarin picture
naming is influenced by the metrical structure of names for other pictures in the test set
(Perry & Zhuang, 2005). If S. Min speakers are also primed by metrical structure in fluent
speech, we expect words in the corpus to “clump” together by word size. Thus we divided the
corpus into twenty-word windows and counted the number of unique words of each size per
53 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
window. As illustrated by the wiggly word count lines in Figure 3, all word sizes showed
clumping (significantly higher variance/mean ratios, i.e., “wiggliness”, than for random
orderings of the corpus). Moreover, the monosyllabic per-window counts are inversely
correlated with those for the other word sizes, particularly for disyllabic words. Thus in Figure
3, peaks for disyllabic words correlate with dips for monosyllabic words, again suggesting
word-size priming.
Together our results suggest that metrical structure is actively processed in spontaneous S.
Min speech, with trochaic feet playing a key role.
Figure 1: Productivity
Figure 2: /tiəәʔ˦/ repetition
Figure 3: Clumping
Minimal Response Token en in Mandarin Conversation
Gaisha Oralova
University of Alberta
During talk-in-interaction hearer usually produces brief responses which are most commonly
called "minimal responses" (Gardner 2002). They have been studied in many languages
such as English (Gardner 2002), German (Barth-Weingaten, D. 2011), and Japanese
(Clancy et al. 1996) conversation. However, in the field of Chinese linguistics, little attention
was paid to the study of response tokens. Yin Shichao (2010) provided a list of response
tokens in Mandarin. Clancy et al. (1996) have given a classification of response tokens as
well as the frequency of each type of "reactive tokens" in English, Japanese and Mandarin.
The focus of the current paper is on one of the most frequently used response token en in
Mandarin.
This study examines 6 hours of everyday conversation conducted between native speakers
of Mandarin. The paper explores the frequency, prosodic features and interactional functions
of the response token en in different sequential and situational environments. The analysis
shows that en has several usages in conversation: they serve as a continuer when used in
storytelling; they register the receipt of recipient's responses at the sequence-closing third
position; and they may also be used as an agreement token to the speaker's prior assertion
or claim. This research on this minimal response token is important for second language
teaching and learning as many learners of Mandarin find it difficult to distinguish them from
one another in conversation. This study hopes to shed some light on the usage of response
token en and minimal responses at large.
54 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Questions at Syntax and Prosody Interfaces
Victor Junnan Pan
University Paris Diderot-Paris 7
One of the difficulties that the Chinese learners encounter is the ambiguity of the so-called
interrogative pronouns in Chinese. Traditionally, some scholars treated them as negative
polarity items (NPI) in that their existential reading roughly paraphrased as any in English
looks like polarity reading. It is observed that they appear in typical contexts that license NPIs
such as negation, yes-no questions, if-conditionals, etc. In fact, besides the genuine polarity
reading, wh-words can have normal existential reading (∃) in the contexts that do not license
typical polarity readings, such as in the contexts containing probability adverbs like dagai
‘probably’, adjective determiner yi-dianr ‘a little’, certain psycho main verbs like pa ‘be afraid
of’, etc.
(1) Yi-dianr
shenme jiu
keyi
rang
ta
shangxin.
a.little
what
only
can
make her
sad
‘Some trifle things can make her sad.’
Previous theoretical studies on Chinese interrogative pronouns ignore the function of
prosody completely; however, the illocutionary force should be realized overtly in order that
the sentence is correctly interpreted by the co-speaker. Thus, the prosody is the core factor
in the interpretation mechanism. The original data that I will present show that sentences like
(2) are only ambiguous in written forms. When we put different intonation contours on it, it
becomes unambiguous.
(2)
Ta
zai
chi-zhe
shenme
3SG
Progressive
eat-durative
what
a. (Stress on the verb chi ‘eat’, falling intonation at the end of the sentence)
‘He is eating something.’
(Existential)
b. (Rising intonation at the end of the sentence)
‘What is he eating?’
(Interrogative)
c. (Stress on the wh-word and falling intonation at the end of the sentence)
‘What he is eating! (It smells bad!)’
(Exclamative)
d. (Stress on the subject he and the falling intonation at the end of the sentence)
‘What is HE eating?! = He is eating nothing!)
(Rhetorical question)
This example can be viewed as an evidence to show that the prosodic licensing is in fact a
repair strategy at interface. The ambiguity of the sentence is due to the imperfection of the
system, but the optimal design of the language makes it possible to repair it by using other
mechanisms at interfaces. The four combinations of the stress with the prosody construct a
set: {!(∃), !(Q), !(Rhetorical Q),!(Exclamative)}. Each member gives a different output.
55 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
The prosodic licensing is activated only when the sentence appears in “ambiguous licensing
contexts” that I will study in great detail.
Within the key-element domain
Outside the key-element domain
yes (+ prosody): prosodic licensing no
∃
Q yes (+ prosody): prosodic licensing yes (-prosody): by its default interrogative reading
Table 1
Distribution of the ∃ and Q readings in an ambiguous context
∃
Simple context
*
Unambiguous licensing contexts
√ (- prosody)
Ambiguous licensing within key element domain
√ (+ prosody)
contexts
outside the key element domain
*
Table 2
Q
√ (- prosody)
*
√ (+ prosody)
√ (- prosody)
Distribution of the ∃ and Q readings in three types of the licensing context
Therefore, prosody will help Chinese language learners to master the different readings of
the interrogative pronouns in different contexts. The study based on prosody is not only
important for the theoretical research but also important for Chinese teaching.
A sociolinguistic investigation of morpho-syntactic variation in Mandarin varieties
Chun-Yi Peng
City University of New York
Both the post-verbal gei-phrase and aspectual you are contact-induced variables commonly
observed in southern varieties of Mandarin, but they are perceived very differently by
northern Mandarin speakers in terms of their acceptability and social indexicality. Northern
Mandarin speakers are usually not aware that the postverbal gei-phrase is associated with
southern varieties, whereas they usually associate the aspectual you uniquely with Taiwan
Mandarin.
The present study examines the effects of media exposure on northern Mandarin speakers’
grammaticality judgment of non-standard syntactic variables (i.e. the postverbal gei-phrase
and you as an aspectual marker of completion). Data were collected through an online form
that presented a grammaticality judgment task, a matched-guise attitude test, and a survey
about television viewing habits, social behavior, and demographic attributes. In the
grammaticality judgment task, people exposed to Taiwanese TV programs rated sentences
with the you variable more favorably than did those with no exposure. For the postverbal
gei-phrase, however, no effect was found. The difference is that the aspectual you is
associated by northerners only with Taiwan Mandarin, while the post-verbal gei is not. The
results suggest that media exposure alone is not sufficient to affect grammaticality ratings,
but speakers may also need to be consciously aware of the novel form. In conclusion, media
exposure raises speakers’ awareness of a novel form, but does not contribute to positive
perceptions, nor does more exposure give rise to higher grammaticality ratings.
56 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
The educational implication of this study is that although Mandarin varies greatly across
dialect areas, morpho-syntactic variation has still been largely overlooked in pedagogical
grammar. While a ‘standard’ variety of Mandarin is being promoted and taught to L2 learners,
teachers should also recognize other ‘non-standard’ forms in pedagogical grammar.
(1)
a. Wo dengyixia gei ni da
dianhua
I later
to you make phone call
‘I will give you a call later.’
(Preverbal)
(Standard Mandarin)
b. wo dengyixia da
dianhua
gei ni
I later
make phone call to you
‘I will give you a call later.’
(Postverbal)
(Southern Mandarin)
(2) wo you kan guo zhe bu dianying
I ASP see-ASP this-CL movie
‘I have seen this movie.’
Revaluating the concept of ‘topic’ in Chinese
Xinjia Peng
University of Oregon
The concept ‘topic’ emerges from Li and Thompson’s study of language typology and their
proposal of ‘topic-comment’ languages based on linguistic phenomena as found in Chinese,
Lahu and Lisu. However, the term has increasingly been used in the discussion of
information management (Lambrecht, 1996; Kiss, 2001) as well as the discussion of
discourse structure (Tsao, 1979; Chu, 1998). As one of the languages where this concept
originally stems from, the concept of ‘topic’ in Chinese suffers greater and greater confusion
as literatures on ‘topic’ build up, where arguments have been made based on languages that
typologically different from Chinese. The necessity to distinguish the functions of topic on the
syntactic level and the discourse level had been proposed very early on by Foley and Valin
(1985) and Gundel (1988), and thus this study is an attempt to study the viability of the
concept ‘topic’ in Chinese on three levels: ‘topic’ as a syntactic notion, ‘topic’ as a information
management notion, and ‘topic’ as a discourse notion. In this study, arguments will be made
based on findings of corpus data, which are language data elicited using the pear story from
three different groups of Chinese dialect speakers. However, the study is also subject to the
effect of attention as manipulated by the cinematic lenses of the experiment stimuli
(Myachykov, Tomlin & Posner, 2005).
57 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Use of Prosodic Transcription in Teaching Chinese
Mgr. Zuzana Pospechova
Palacký University Olomouc
This paper aims at description and clarification of prosodic transcription and its rules. The
notational system of prosodic transcription was invented by Prof. Švarný (1920 - 2011) on the
basis of analysis of huge amount audio recordings of spoken Chinese.
Thanks to this transcription we are able to describe prosodic features of modern spoken
Chinese language. Transcription determines various prominences of syllables (not only
stressed vs. unstressed) and linear segmentation of sentences (organisation of syllables into
more or less closely connected binary groups and groups of more than two syllables).
Prominence of syllables and linear segmentation constitute the rythm structures of spoken
Chinese. Use of this transcription helps beginner students to pronounce Chinese sentences
in the right way and has a considerable effect to progress of their studies. From our own
experience reached at our department we can confirm, that the spoken realization of
prosodic transcribed text is much more natural than realisation of the same text in pinyin.
Paper pays attention to rules of prosodic transcription and its value for teaching Chinese as a
foreign language.
Linguistic research and “applications” on Chinese character learning
Woramon Prawatmuang
University of Cambridge
Although mobile applications (apps) for language learning have gained popularity in recent
years, they have rarely been evaluated from a linguistic research perspective. To encourage
an application of linguistic research findings on creation of educational mobile applications,
this study surveys 14 iOS and Android apps that are highly ranked in their respective
marketplace, all of which targets Chinese character learning or character writing. The study
aims to identify various aspects of the apps that can be improved and to provide suggestions
based on existing results from empirical studies. Examples are as follows:
• A study shows that presenting a Chinese character before its pinyin and translation is
beneficial to acquisition (Chung, 2000). There are only 8 apps in our survey that make
use of this strategy (i.e. presenting Chinese characters before anything else). The
other 6 apps, on the contrary, present Chinese characters simultaneously with their
English equivalents (and sometimes pinyin) from the start.
•
Only half of the apps in this survey use “mnemonics” to help learners memorize
meaning of Chinese characters, either in a form of image of an object that resembles
the character itself, or a text explaining meaning of the character. This fits with a
58 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
recommendation in Zhu & Fung & Wang (2012). The remaining half does not employ
a mnemonic strategy.
•
Shi (2012) found that learners who saw animation of stroke orders of a Chinese
character gained higher scores in a Chinese character test than learners who did not
see the animation. Our survey, however, shows that only 6 apps have an option for
visualizing stroke animation.
•
A study shows that learners’ writing of Chinese characters improves when they
practice writing without seeing a sample character (柳燕梅、江新, 2003). However,
only 8 apps in our survey allow learners to practice writing in this way. The others
either show a semi-transparent sample character in every practice or provide no
platform for writing practice at all.
Taking into account findings from the abovementioned and other empirical studies, it is
recommended that mobile apps for Chinese character learning separate presentation of
characters from other information (such as pinyin and translation), include or encourage
learners to create mnemonics related to each character, include animation of stroke
movement, read out the name of a stroke, and allow learners to practice writing without a
visual clue. A more extensive survey that includes more apps and more empirical studies on
other aspects of character learning (such as how characters should be grouped in a lesson)
is planned.
Classifiers Are and Are Not Processed Similarly in Mandarin and English
Zhiying Qian,, Susan M. Garnsey
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology/University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
Classifiers (CLs) are words like sheet in sheet of paper and cup in cup of coffee. They
categorize nouns based on their features (e.g., Mandarin tiáo-CL for long, soft and
bendable things; English sheet-CL for thin and flat things). In both languages, the meaning of
a classifier must be congruent with the meaning of its following noun (e.g., it is not sensible to
say a sheet of people in English and three tái-CL chair in Mandarin, as tái-CL means
machine-like). Classifiers in both languages set selectional restrictions for the set of nouns
they can be used with, and therefore should be processed similarly as semantic units.
On the other hand, some linguists (e.g., Greenburg, 1972) hold that Mandarin classifiers are
syntactic entities, since they are required whenever any noun is quantified (e.g., three
zhāng-CL desk) or specified (e.g., this zhāng-CL desk), and the meanings of some classifiers
are completely redundant with the meanings of the noun (e.g., duŏ-CL means flower-like,
and is redundant in one duŏ-CL flower). Mandarin classifiers are more like function words
that must combine with quantifiers or specifiers, rather than content words that can stand
alone. In English, in contrast, classifiers are only required for quantified mass nouns (e.g.,
59 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
two sheets of paper), and they are nouns that can be used alone. Therefore, Mandarin
classifiers should be processed more syntactically than English ones.
In both languages, classifiers vary in specificity: some fit with many nouns (e.g., tiáo-CL can
be used with towel, river, road, leg, news, rope and many more; a piece of can go with pie,
pizza, wood, bread, paper, etc.) while others fit with only a limited number of nouns (e.g.,
duŏ-CL can only be used with flowers and a head of can only modify plants in head-like
shape).
The present study investigated 1) whether or not Mandarin and English classifiers are
processed similarly; and 2) whether the additional constraint supplied by specific classifiers
facilitates the processing of the following nouns. One source of evidence to reveal the nature
of classifier processing is EEG responses. N400, a negative-going peak at 300-500 ms post
the onset of a word has been found to be associated with semantic processing, and P600, a
positive-going peak at 600-900 ms is associated with syntactic processing. Anterior
Negativity, a negative-going deflection beginning at P2 window has been found to indicate
ambiguity detection (Lee and Federmeier, 2009).
In separate studies, 33 native Mandarin and 26 native English speakers read sentences
containing specific and general classifiers and nouns that matched them or did not (There is
a {cup / sheet} of coffee on the table). Classifier specificity was manipulated based on
norming results. A total of 126 Mandarin and 120 English experimental items were used.
Results showed that in both languages, a sustained anterior negativity elicited by the
classifier was larger for general than for specific classifiers, suggesting that readers found the
additional constraint supplied by specific classifiers helpful. Even though violations for other
kinds of agreement in English triggered effects on P600 rather than N400, mismatching
nouns following classifiers elicited larger N400s than matching nouns in both languages,
indicating similar semantic processing. However, the N400 elicited by mismatching nouns
were larger following specific than general classifiers only in English, suggesting that English
readers found it less disturbing when a mismatching noun appeared after a general classifier
than after a specific one. Mandarin speakers, on the other hand, found mismatching nouns
anomalous regardless of classifier specificity. This is informative to the teaching of Mandarin
classifiers, as it showed that native English speakers tended to overlook the importance of
using correct classifiers because of their tolerance to some classifier-noun mismatches in
their native language.
Does second language experience with Mandarin Chinese modulate English-speaking L2
learners' perception of tones in a third language?
Zhen Qin, Allard Jongman
University of Kansas
It is unclear what roles the native language (L1) and the second language (L2) play in
subsequent language (L3) acquisition (e.g., Rothman, 2011). Lexical tone is a good
60 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
candidate to test the question, as listeners with different language backgrounds attend to
different fundamental frequency (F0) cues. Previous studies have shown that English
listeners pay attention to F0 height rather than F0 direction, whereas Mandarin listeners are
more sensitive to F0 direction than F0 height in perception of lexical tones (e.g., Gandour,
1983). The present study hypothesizes that L2 (i.e., Mandarin) could override the influence
of L1 (i.e., English) in modulating listeners' use of F0 cues in the perception of lexical tones
from L3 (i.e., Cantonese), because L2 and L3, but not L1 and L2, have lexical tones in
common. To test the hypothesis, 15 English-speaking L2 learners of Mandarin at
intermediate and advanced levels constituted the target group. 15 Mandarin listeners and 15
English listeners without knowledge of Mandarin were included as two control groups. In
Experiment 1, all groups, naive to Cantonese tones, discriminated Cantonese tones by
distinguishing either a contour tone from a level tone (F0 direction pair) or a level tone from
another level tone (F0 height pair). The results showed that L2 learners patterned differently
from both control groups by using F0 direction as well as F0 height under the influence of L2
experience. The acoustics of the tones also affected all listeners' discrimination. In
Experiment 2, L2 learners were instructed to identify Mandarin tones to measure their
sensitivity to L2 tones. The results of a correlation test showed that L2 learners' perception of
L3 tones was not correlated with their sensitivity to L2 tones at individual level. In sum, while
the acoustics of tones affected all listener groups, listeners' linguistic experience modulated
their perception of non-native tones. When L2 and L3 are structurally similar in terms of the
lexical status of tone, L2 experience modulates the perception of L3 tones.
Metalinguistic knowledge and language proficiency in L2 Chinese
Chiara Romagnoli
Roma Tre University
This paper aims at investigating the levels of metalinguistic knowledge of two different groups
of undergraduate learners of L2 Chinese and the relationship between metalinguistic
knowledge and language proficiency. The focus of this research is on grammar knowledge.
Chinese grammar has often been described as easy to learn compared to other areas of
Chinese and consequently the space devoted to grammar explanation in most didactic
materials has been poorly developed. Nevertheless, learners’ oral and written productions
often reveal the lack of metalinguistic knowledge of grammar and prove the need to deal with
this topic in the field of acquisition of Chinese as a second language. In order to collect data
and obtain a preliminary overview, different tests have been administered to 120 learners to
verify implicit and explicit knowledge (Bowles, 2011; R. Ellis, 2005). The mid- term exam has
been used to check the proficiency level and to show the correlation between metalinguistic
knowledge and linguistic proficiency.
61 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
浅谈基于搭配理论的高级中文词汇教学
Advanced Chinese Vocabulary Teaching based on the Collocation Theory
Yan Shen
UCLA
本文以搭配理论为依托，以笔者执教的高级班中文教学为实例，以学生书面语输出中的词
语搭配偏误为例句，解析搭配理论在高级阶段中文教学中的运用，提出培养学生词语搭配意识，
减少词语搭配错误，提高词汇与写作教学效果的策略与方法。
“搭配”是高级中文教学中使用频率较高的一个术语。上世纪50年代，英国语言学家Firth在
其《意义的方式》中首次提出“collocation”的概念，认为词义不但通过音素、词素、语法形式等
表达出来，也通过搭配有所体现，还强调每个词都有其词汇环境，其著名论断“You shall know
a word by the company it keeps” (观其伴而知意) 广为流传。其后，Halliday 在《英语的衔接》
一文中，从语篇角度提出了搭配的语篇衔接功能。到了80年代，Sinclair 利用计算机技术从语
料库中提取搭配例证，提出词语间不仅具有吸引力，更具有制约力的思想。本文基于Firth 的
理论，将汉语中的词语搭配分为固定型搭配和灵活型搭配，探讨如何利用搭配理论指导学生掌
握汉语词语搭配以提高词汇与写作教学效果的问题。
词汇教学是第二语言教学中不可缺少的一部分。高级中文班的学生虽然掌握了一定的知识，
但在词汇理解及运用上仍存在不少困难，教师亦感到词汇教学效果不佳。由于以英语为母语的
学生已习惯以形态标志认知语言，对无形态的汉语言缺乏必要的语感，常常被可以说“旧房维修”，
也可说“维修旧房”，但只可说“造成后果”，却不能说“后果造成”等问题弄得一头雾水，也常常对
汉语这种依靠虚词和词序，由小到大，层层组合来表达意思的方式无所适从。笔者所选用的高
级中文教科书中，词汇既多又杂，一篇课文中的新词语，既含高频词，又有低频词。既有实义
词，也不乏功能词。在课时有限的条件下，教师常常会不加区别同一标准地区要求所有学生掌
握全部词汇，并以小考作为指挥棒对学生加以督促。这些都无形地增加了学生的学习压力与心
理负担，而在学生书面语输出中，词汇错误占的比例很大，符合语法但不符合表达习惯的英式
汉语句子屡见不鲜，这是学生习惯地通过英汉翻译的方式学习汉语词语的方法造成的。不可否
认，使用翻译的方法对掌握英汉两种语言中一一对应的词语确为捷径，然而当两种语言中的词
汇出现一对多的情况时，运用词语搭配学习新词则变得尤为重要。
根据Alexander的理论，高级阶段的第二语言的学习者应把重点放在学习词汇的
“collocation”, “context” 和“connotation”上。由于汉语词项搭配具有固定性和约定性的特点，这
些都会不可避免地给母语为英语的美国学生带来的学习上的困境，无规律可循，是他们常常感
到困惑的地方。受到课时的影响，教师往往难以针对词语搭配的用法进行讲解，而学生也没有
对词语搭配引起应有的重视，他们大多仅将单个的词语视为生词而去着力记忆词意，当需要使
用这些词语时，又仅将汉英搭配机械地对应起来，造成搭配偏误在所难免，学生因此产生挫败
感也不足为奇。教学实践显示，薄弱的词语搭配能力在很大程度上制约学习者的阅读与写作速
度以及表达的流利度。教学实践证实，在词汇教学中给学生提示词语搭配原则有助于词汇量的
扩大和表达精准度的提高。因此，本文提出在高级中文词汇教学中注意整体输入，鼓励学生加
大阅读量，广泛接触汉语语篇，帮助学生克服母语词汇搭配干扰，掌握并巩固汉语词汇的固定
搭配与常规搭配，并搭配训练中培养汉语语感和汉语词语搭配的敏感度。毋庸置疑，“死记硬背”
不值得提倡，然而“记忆”在第二语言的习得中不可或缺，很多知识就是依靠“记”和“背”积累起来
的。特别是汉语中一部分固定搭配缺乏理据性，如何引起学生的注意以及如何加强对这类搭配
记忆值得教师去思考。
此外，鉴于高级中文课程的阅读材料多为论说文，可将词汇教学、阅读教学与写作教学有
效地结合起来，利用词汇衔接的搭配手段训练学生论证主题句的技能，提高语义表达的连贯效
果。总之，以词汇教学推动阅读和写作教学，高级中文教学的效果在整体上得以提高。
62 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
命题否定和反向赋值
——试析“才”字句与“就”字句的意义对立和意义反转现象
1.
沈阳 1、石定栩 2
南京大学/北京大学；2.香港理工大学/北京大学。
现代汉语包含副词“才”和“就”的句子（简称“才”字句和“就”字句）常常表现出意义上的相反
现象，对此学界早已有较多的关注和研究。比如一般都认为，下面（1）中“才”字句表示“（时
间）晚”，“就”字句则表示“（时间）早”。比较：
（1）a1. 九点才起床（晚）
a2. 九点就起床了（早）
b1. 十岁才上二年级（晚）
b2. 七岁就上二年级了（早）
但以往研究都只注意“才”和“就”这两个副词之间或“才”字句和“就”字句两个句式之间的这种
“意义对立”，却都没有研究甚至很少注意到“才”和“就”各自在特定结构中也会有“意义反转”。也
就是说，就算对（1）的解释并不错，语言事实中也还存在下面（2）（3）的情况：即“才”字句
不但可以表示“（时间）晚”，也同样可以表示“（时间）早”；“就”字句不但可以表示“（时间）早”，
也同样可以表示“（时间）晚”。比较：
a2. 起床才九点（早）
（2）a1. 九点才起床（晚）
b1. 十岁才上二年级（晚）
b2. 上二年级才七岁（早）
a2. 起床就九点了（晚）
（3）a1. 九点就起床了（早）
b1. 七岁就上二年级了（早）
b2. 上二年级就十岁了（晚）
不难看出，“才”字句和“就”字句的“意义对立”和“意义反转”，最主要的表现形式就是句子“才、
就”左右两侧成分的位置发生了“倒置”（尽管倒置后的结构形式略有不同）。也就是说，“意义对
立”，指的是“A才B”和“A就B”之间的某种意义（如“（时间）早—晚”）恰好相反；而“意义反转”，
则是指本来说“A才B”表示的某种意义（如“（时间）早—晚”）在说“B才A”时恰好相反（或者说
“B才A”在这个意义上相当于“A就B”）；本来说“A就B”表示的意义在说“B就A”时恰好相反（或者
说“B就A”在这个意义上相当于“A才B”）。
这样一种现象无疑就对以往“才”字句和“就”字句的研究提出了严重质疑和巨大挑战。既然
“才”字句和“就”字句各自都存在着“意义反转”的可能性，那么反过来看显然从（1）得到“才、就”
或“才”字句和“就”字句分别表“早”或“晚”的结论就不可能也是正确的，至少是不全面的。我们甚
至有理由推论：由于“才”字句和“就”字句都既可能表示“（时间）早”也可能表示“（时间）晚”，
因此不但不能把“早”或“晚”这样的意义（及其他类似意义）分别归为“才”字句或“就”字句的意义，
更不能看作是“才、就”的副词词义。
本文主要就想解释 “才”字句和“就”字句的这种“意义对立”和“意义反转”现象。一方面，检讨
为什么以往对副词“才、就”或“才”字句和“就”字句的解释并不能处理“才”字句和“就”字句的“意义
对立”和“意义反转”现象；另一方面，试图提出“才”字句和“就”字句句内命题与句外命题相互作用
的操作机制，并运用“单侧命题否定”和“交叉反向赋值”来解释“才、就”的“意义对立”和“意义反转”
的形成理据，及“才”字句和“就”字句可能存在的多种解读的限制条件。本项研究还试图表明，内
63 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
部否定和外部参照的相互作用是一种有别于“预设、蕴含”的特殊语法和语用机制。
Phonological evidence for the attributive marker de (的) as a head
Xinyuan Shi, Ping Jiang
Chinese University of Hong Kong
This paper provides a piece of evidence from the domain formation of tone sandhi in Suzhou
Chinese to support the claim that the attributive marker de is the head of the nominal phrase
[XP de YP] (Li, 2008). Each nominal expression in (1) contains one or two tone sandhi
domains (TSD) marked by “[ ]”. On the one hand, the adjective and the noun form one TSD,
no matter the noun is monosyllabic, disyllabic or trisyllabic, as shown in (1a-c). On the other
hand, the attributive marker de, which is pronounced as [kəәʔ] in Suzhou Chinese, breaks
each word string into two TSDs. In particular, each adjective combines with the attributive
marker to form one TSD, and the noun form a separate domain, as shown in (1d-f). In
particular, the right edge of the attributive marker de demarcates the boundary of TSD in
Suzhou nominal expressions.
(1)
a.
b.
c.
d.
Citation form
xoŋLH biəәʔH
xoŋLH kʰeHH biəәʔH
xoŋLH ȵiøLH tsɥHH biəәʔH
xoŋLH kəәʔ biəәʔH
e. xoŋLH kəәʔ kʰeHH biəәʔH
f. xoŋLH kəәʔ ȵiøLH tsɥHH
biəәʔH
Transcription & TSD
[xoŋLL biəәʔH]
[xoŋLL kʰeHH biəәʔL]
[xoŋL ȵiøHH tsɥHH biəәʔL]
[xoŋLL kəәʔH][biəәʔH]
Chinese
红笔
红铅笔
红圆珠笔
红的笔
Gloss
‘red pen’
‘red pencil’
‘red ball-pen’
‘red pen’
[xoŋLL kəәʔH][kʰeHH biəәʔL]
[xoŋLLkəәʔH][ȵiøLL tsɥH biəәʔL]
红的铅笔
红的圆珠笔
‘red pencil’
‘red ball-pen’
The demarcative function of the attributive marker de raises two questions: (1) what causes
the different formation of TSD in the nominal expressions with and without the attributive
marker? (ii) how to capture the formation of TSD in these two types of nominal expressions?
To answer these questions, we claim that a TSD corresponds to a prosodic word in Suzhou
Chinese (Shi & Jiang, 2013). Enlightened by the insight of the syntax-prosody interface, we
attribute the different formation of TSD in these two types of nominal expressions to the
different syntactic structures. In particular, the nominal expression without de is a noun
phrase, in which the noun is the head. On the other hand, the nominal expression with de is a
de phrase, in which de is the head and the noun occupies the complement. Thus, the
syntactic structures of (1a-f) are shown in the second column of (2-f) respectively.
Following Selkirk & Shen's (1990) syntax-phonology mapping rule, we propose that the
syntactic effect in TSD formation can be captured by the alignment constraint, which requires
the left edge of a maximal projection to coincide with the left edge of a prosodic word (Shi &
Jiang, 2014). Thus, the formation of TSD in (1a-f) can be illustrated in the final column of
(2a-f) respectively. The left edge of each phrase is marked by shade.
64 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
(2)
a.
b.
c.
d.
Citation form
xoŋLH biəәʔH
xoŋLH kʰeHH biəәʔH
xoŋLH ȵiøLH tsɥHH biəәʔH
xoŋLH kəәʔ biəәʔH
e. xoŋLH kəәʔ kʰeHH biəәʔH
f. xoŋLH kəә ʔȵiøLH tsɥHH
biəәʔ
Syntactic structure
[NP[AP xoŋLH] xoŋLH]
[NP[AP xoŋLH] kʰeHH biəәʔH]
[NP[AP xoŋLH] ȵiøLH tsɥHH biəәʔH]
[deP[AP xoŋLH] kəәʔ [NPbiəәʔH]]
Prosodic structure
[xoŋLL biəәʔH]
[xoŋLL kʰeHH biəәʔL]
[xoŋL ȵiøHH tsɥHH biəәʔL]
[xoŋLLkəәʔH][biəәʔH]
[deP[AP xoŋLH] kəәʔ [NPkʰeHH biəәʔH]]
[deP[AP
xoŋLH]
kəәʔ
LH
HH
H
[NPȵiø tsɥ biəәʔ ]]
[xoŋLLkəәʔH][kʰeHH biəәʔL]
[xoŋLLkəәʔH][ȵiøLLtsɥHbiəәʔL]
The current study of the two types of nominal expressions not only captures the TSD
formation in Suzhou Chinese, but also provides phonological evidence supporting the view
that the attributive marker de is the head of nominal phrase [XP de YP], by recognizing the
decisive role of syntax in constructing prosodic constituent.
Ba-conctructions, Bei-passives, and Unmarked Passives
in Mandarin Conversation
Danjie Su
UCLA
There are a few major syntactic constructions for a Chinese speaker to choose from when
describing an event that involves causer (e.g. 他), cause (e.g.窗), cause (e.g. 打), and effect
(e.g.破). For example, below are three ways to describe an event in which someone has
broken a window:
(1) Ba-constructions (把字句):
他
把
窗
Ta
ba
chuang
He
BA
window
打
da
hit
破了。
po-le.
broken
(2) Bei-passives (被字被动句):
窗
被
他
Chuang
bei
ta
window
BEI
He
打
da
hit
破了。
po-le.
broken
(3) Unmarked passives (受事主语句):
窗
打
破了。
Chuang
da
po-le.
window
hit
broken
My research question is: How do these syntactic constructions differ from each other when
used by speakers to present the same event in conversations? Chinese syntactic
constructions have the most extensive literature in Chinese linguistics (Jing-Schmidt & Tao
2009). While previous studies focus on individual syntactic forms isolated from context, my
study investigates multiple forms used to describe the same event in a local conversational
exchange with naturally-occurring interactive data.
My data consist of videotaped spontaneous face-to-face conversations from an unscripted
and unedited talk show in China. Using conversation analysis and discourse analysis, I
65 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
demonstrate how different grammatical constructions present the same event from different
perspectives.
My findings are: Ba-constructions assert accountability or contribution. Bei-passives focus on
the nature of the event by categorizing it as adverse. Unmarked passives emphasize
factuality regarding the causee.
Based on these findings, I argue that grammatical constructions are heavily loaded with
speakers’ subjective ideologies and can present the reality in different ways. This study
sheds lights on understanding the subjective aspect of grammar and highlights its
importance in grammatical research.
When Theory Informs Practice: What We Can Do to Better Teach Tones
Henghua Su
Indiana University
Tianlin Wang
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Based on phonological theories and latest research findings in psycholinguistics on tonal
sensitivity identification, this presentation will provide phonological explanations of tonal
features, discuss their implications in the classroom when learners with varying degrees of
sensitivity to tones are identified, and introduce some nuanced developments in
incorporating the aforementioned theory in Chinese lexical tone instructions. The
pedagogical implications of phonological rules will be discussed. And the methods to
incorporate those rules and translate the psycholinguistic findings into classroom teaching
will also be proposed.
Tonemic contrasts, though essential to learning Chinese, are non-native to learners who are
learning Chinese as a second language. For many instructors, making the students able to
perceive and produce tones correctly has been one of the most important yet difficult tasks in
Chinese language classes. The traditional 5-point system (Chao, 1930) is widely used in the
pedagogical setting to describe and teach tones. However, it fails to fully depict the register
feature, which fundamentally differentiates the 3rd tone from the rest of others. A brief review
of autosegmental phonology will clear the mystery up. Also, according to the
phonetic-phonology continuity theory, adult L2 learners need to first possess phonetic level
perceptual accuracy in order to further process non-native phonetic contrasts (Wong &
Perrachione, 2007). Recent research has pointed out that exposing English speakers to
pitch-only stimuli prior to the introduction of lexical items helped participants to better identify
tones at the lexical level in later tasks (Wong & Perrachione, 2007). Moreover, in a series of
tests, native English speaking adults who were learning to identify tones as lexical units
showed neurophysiological, neuroanatomical, cognitive, and perceptual differences,
revealing large individual differences in the ability to perceive tonemic contrasts early on
(Wong & Ettlinger, 2011).
Acknowledging the group differences (high vs. low sensitivity to tones among L2 learners),
we incorporated some of the proposed methods (Lee et al., 2007) in classroom instruction
66 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
and tested students’ performance after a 2-week training session. The validity and
effectiveness of utilizing multi-talker vs. single-talker tone stimuli on groups with differing
sensitivities to tones will be discussed during the presentation. We will also demonstrate and
share our multi/single-talker as well as pitch-only training stimuli with the audience.
A corpus-diachronic analysis of Mandarin near synonyms jiang and shuo: Is it said enough to
be talked about
Marc Tang
Taiwan National Cheng-Chi University
The purpose of this study is to clarify the near synonym status of jiang and shuo (say) in
Mandarin though the combination of corpus approach (Tsai et al., 1996) and diachronic
analysis (Traugott, 1989; Bybee et al, 1994; Su 2004). The implication in language teaching
is to resolve the confusion second language learners are facing with near synonyms, due to
their common semantic domain and syntactic constraints (Hsiao & Hsu, 2012).
Three questions are investigated: 1) Do jiang and shuo share the same semantic core? 2)
What are their peripheral differences and preferred usage among speakers? 3) How do the
historical evolution path of jiang and shuo support our findings in (1) and (2)? By combining
our results we can evaluate the status of jiang and shuo as near-synonyms.
Our methodology combined the approach of syntax & semantics with corpus data (Liu, 1997;
Lian et al., 1998; Liu et al., 2005; Hsiao & Hsu, 2012). Moreover, we also included the
historical development of word meaning (Zhang, 1998; Wang et al., 2003; Su, 2004). Our
data was based on Academia Sinica Corpus 3.0, containing 4.9 million Chinese words, from
which we retrieved 300 entries of jiang and 300 entries of shuo, obtaining a total of 600
tokens.
Our results displayed that: 1) The semantic core by matrix verbs carrying the meaning of ‘say,
talk, speak’ was shared by jiang (54%, 162) and shuo (49%, 147), e.g., Shuo/ jiang yi ju hua
(say one sentence). But jiang carried more the meaning of ‘talk and speak’ (30%, 89), e.g.,
jiang fa wen (speak French), while shuo was tended to be employed as ‘say’ (41%, 124). 2)
The main differences were: First, variation in secondary meaning, such as ‘view importantly’
solely carried by jiang (15%, 44), e.g., Ta hen jiang /*shuo xin yong (He view trust very
importantly). Second, jiang did not share the extended grammatical function of shuo as
complementizer and marker (16%, 48), e.g., Wo jue de hen hao shuo (say, I think that it is
good). 3) The historical approach supported our findings in the way that, jiang and shuo were
near synonyms in competition on the grammaticalization stages (Traugott, 1989; Heine, et al,
1991; Bybee et al 1994). Therefore, jiang did not develop grammatical functions since the
near synonym shuo already occupied their common evolution path.
As a conclusion, our results displayed the convergence and divergence between jiang and
shuo, providing consistent evidence in semantic research and practical application in
Mandarin teaching related to the domain of near synonyms.
67 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
词语的指导性教学和总结性教学初论
陶炼
复旦大学
词语的指导性教学和词语的总结性教学，最根本的差别在于学习者对于所要学习的词语知
识，是否已有相关的运用经验。如果学习者对于所要学习的词语知识，没有任何的词语运用经
验，那我们所进行的就是词语的指导性教学；如果学习者对于所要学习的词语知识，已经拥有
了相关的词语运用经验，在那我们所进行的就是词语的总结性教学。
从学习者是否拥有相关的词语运用经验出发，词语的指导性教学和词语的总结性教学存在
着一系列的差异：从学生学习的角度来说，前者发生在接触词语之初，后者发生在接触词语若
干次之后；前者所接触的知识都是陌生的，后者是知识也是新的，但有经验支撑的，经验是熟
悉的；前者会有比较大的学习压力，因为什么都是新的，后者相对会轻松一些；前者比较难以
理解和掌握，因为缺乏经验的支撑，后者比较容易理解和掌握；前者学到的知识不知道什么时
候能够用上，比较容易忘记，后者结合了过去的经验，知识比较容易被整合起来而得到长期保
存；前者学生难以主动介入，后者学生可以积极参与，把自己的词语运用经验和词语知识关联
起来；前者学得多，用得少，学习效率比较低，后者记得住，也就用得上，学习效率比较高；
前者容易使学习者畏难、有挫败感，后者容易使学习者有成就感，保持和增强学习动机。
自然，纯粹的指导性教学和总结性教学都是近乎不现实的理想状态。我们不可能也不应该
在学生获得了所有的词语运用经验之后再进行词语教学，这样，词语知识的教学的指导性就被
削弱了；而学生先前的词语运用经验的积累，也离不开恰当的指导性教学。学生要理解和掌握
所面对语境中的词语的运用，也离不开词语的指导性教学，但目标性、预见性不明确的指导性
教学，却容易使词语的指导性教学失去价值而滋长负面效应。词语的教学应该在指导性和总结
性之间谋求平衡。
在我们当下的教学实践中，无论是教材还是课堂教学，都比较看重词语的指导性教学。词
语第一次出现的时候列为生词，再出现就没有标记了；第一次出现的时候，就讲解词语的意义
和用法，内容大多超出词语第一次出现时的运用语境，但这些超出的词语知识，何时能够发挥
其指导作用，我们大多不甚了了。其结果，词语的指导性教学的利被削弱了，弊被凸显了。词
语复现的时候，大多不再被关注，其结果，词语的总结性教学的利也就被丢失了。
Metalinguistic Awareness and Self-repair in Chinese Language Learning
Liang Tao
Ohio University
This report proposes an interactive approach for building metalinguistic awareness in
Chinese language students. It promotes the use of repair mechanisms to enhance students’
knowledge of the language to expedite their construction of mental models of Chinese
grammar.
Repair constitutes an important part of the social organization of conversation. The
phenomenon has received increasing attention in the study of interactional needs of human
communication among native speakers. This study initiates this line of research into foreign
68 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
language pedagogy. The practice of repair exemplifies native speakers’ metalinguistic
knowledge of their native languages, as well as their awareness of interactional needs for
their choice of utterances in conversations. The study suggests that such mental
awareness is also highly important for the enhancement of foreign language proficiency.
Furthermore, the study suggests that such practice has also been developed through the
process of foreign language learning. Repair, especially self-repair, can also be observed in
Chinese language learners. However, this mechanism so far has been left for students to
develop as individual strategies, and only by students who are most conscientious on their
language production.
There will be three parts in this presentation, (a) self-repair mechanisms by native Chinese
speakers; (b) repair by beginning Chinese language learners, and (c) comparison of the
mechanisms for the promotion of a curriculum that actively promotes self-repair in the
classroom. Generally speaking, self-repair by native speakers illustrates metalinguistic
awareness at the subliminal level; whereas self-repair by beginning Chinese language
learners reflects their conscious effort and self-monitoring of their utterances to fit into proper
Chinese grammar. The goal, as this study suggests, is to assist students in developing their
metalinguistic awareness of Chinese, and to bring it down to the subliminal level. This is a
long-term process that involves everyday efforts by the instructors. The final result, this
study suggests, may be expedited processes to reach automaticity and accuracy in Chinese
language production.
The Lexical Characteristics of Chinese in America and Its Impacts on Vocabulary Teaching
Feiyang Tian, Weijia Zhang
Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
This paper is a continuous study of Tian (2014, submitted to NACCNL26 ), in which the
lexical characteristic of Chinese in America is analyzed base on a quantitative study of the
local Chinese newspapers. Namely, lexical differences between mainland Mandarin, Taiwan
Mandarin and Hong Kong Cantonese abound in American Chinese. For example, the
"Fangbian noodles"(instant noodles) can also be called "Gongzai noodles", "Jishi noodles" or
"Sushi noodles" in America, just like in English, there exists the difference between
“apartment” and “flat”, “autumn” and “fall”, “first floor” and “ground floor”,etc. Language
users always have decisions to make as to which word to choose. This may affect language
teaching in terms of textbook compiling and curriculum design. For instance, should all the
alternative words be listed and explained in the textbook? Should articles written by
Taiwanese or Hong Kongers be chosen by a mainland textbook? Should sociolinguistic
factors be taken into account when explaining which word is used under which circumstance?
Starting from these problems, the present paper attempts to describe and analyze the lexical
characteristics of American Chinese, and probe into the issue of vocabulary teaching from
the theoretical perspective of lexical acquisition.
69 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
De-stressed words in Mandarin – a parallel with English
Hana Třísková/廖敏
Oriental Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
In TCSL the teachers (especially native Chinese teachers) tend to encourage the beginning
students to enunciate each morpheme / character and pronounce it with full tone (except for
the neutral tone syllables). However, everyday colloquial putonghua sounds quite different –
in rapid connected speech many words (syllables) display various signs of phonetic erosion
as a result of being de-stressed. Namely: reduction or even deletion of tone, shortened
duration, weakened articulation of vowels and/or consonants, and reduction of loudness.
Consequently, such syllables become less distinctive, and consequently may be difficult for
the students to perceive while listening to the native speakers.
De-stressed realization is particularly typical for monosyllabic function words such as
prepositions, measure words, personal pronouns etc. (they carry a lexical tone, thus have a
potential to be stressed). They have two forms in pronunciation. In most contexts they are
pronounced as de-stressed, e.g. tā 他 in Nǐ gàosu tā! (“weak form” 弱化式 [thəә]). Stressed,
full realizations occur much less commonly, being mostly reserved for cases such as logical /
contrastive stress: Nǐ gàosu tā, bié gàosu wǒ! (“strong form” 完整式 [thaː]1). All of these
words are high frequency items (cf. Xiao et al. A Frequency Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese,
2009). This ɡroup of function words is assigned a newly coined term “the Cliticoids” 类附着词
(i.e. the words which mostly behave as clitics, but not always). Note that toneless function
words, such as sentence particles, do not concern us; they invariably behave as unstressed
clitics 附着词, clinging to preceding stressed word.
The students often tend to use “all-strong-form” pronunciation of the Cliticoids. This leads to
clearly foreign accent, blurrs the pragmatic meaning of the utterance and may cause
ambiguity and misunderstanding by a listener. Moreover, unfamiliarity with weak forms often
causes problems in speech perception.
This paper will attempt to provide a taxonomy of the Cliticoids and point out their importance
in L2 teaching. The list contains: monosyllabic personal pronouns, measure words,
conjunctions, prepositions, some monosyllabic postpositions, “low-content verbs” shì 是, zài
在, exist. yǒu 有, and semantically bleached (formal) adverbs hěn 很, dōu 都, jiù 就
(roughly 50 words altogether). The paper will draw an analogy between the Cliticoids and
“Words with weak forms” found in English, which in fact inspired the above described
concept and classification.
Admittedly, the phenomenon discussed above which is typical of so called stress-timed
languages is not equally found in all varieties of Chinese (e.g. in Taiwanese Guoyu, or in
many Chinese dialects). Further, the degree of reductions may vary even within putonghua
itself, depending on speech style, situational context, speech rate, individual speaker´s mood
and personal character etc. However, we claim that familiarity with the reduced forms of the
70 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Cliticoids is essential for the students who aim at a natural, native-speaker-like performance
in Putonghua.
Cantonese hip-hop songs and their linguistic devices for identify formation
Tsz-Him Tsui, Marjorie K.M. Chan
The Ohio State University
Recent qualitative research into Cantonese hip-hop songs has revealed a number of
properties, including the use of Cantonese slangs, explicit lyrics (Lin 2008), and
Cantonese-English code-switching (Chan 2009, Lin 2011). Complementing those studies, we
take a quantitative approach, by studying a corpus of Cantonese hip-hop lyrics from the
current century, and comparing them with their mainstream Cantopop counterparts. Similar
to previous studies, we find an abundance of Cantonese lexical items and code-switching in
Cantonese hip-hop songs but not in mainstream Cantopop. In addition, we find a greater use
of line-final entering tones (involving syllables checked by a stop coda, -p, -t, -k) in hip-hop
lyrics than in mainstream Cantopop (cf. Chan & Chey 2013). These linguistic devices, in
addition to the actual content of the lyrics, together form a humorous, playful, local Hong
Kong identity for the rappers, allowing them to connect with their audience (cf. Tsang & Wong
2004).
Our corpus comprises two sets of data: (1) 129 mainstream Cantonese pop songs from the
RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards (十大中文金曲) between 2000 and 2012, and (2) 59
hip-hop songs from three Cantonese hip-hop groups between 1999 and 2013. Cantonese
lexical items stand out in the hip-hop lyrics, contrasting with the more Standard Chinese
lyrics in mainstream songs. These are illustrated in (1-3) below: 的 “possessive”, 不
“negation”, and 給 “to/for” are from Standard Written Chinese and used in the mainstream
Cantopop songs, while their counterparts 嘅, 唔 and 俾 are vernacular Cantonese words
that surface in the hip-hop lyrics.
(1) Mainstream 誰在唱出我的歌
“Who is singing my songs?”
“左鄰右里” (譚詠麟，李克勤 2003)
Hip-hop 我嘅歌係禁果
“My songs are forbidden fruits”
“禁果” (MastaMic 2013)
(2) Mainstream 不需要抱著你
“(I) don't need to hold you”
“P.S. I love you” (張敬軒 2011)
Hip-hop 唔需要帶現金
“(I) don't need to bring cash”
“全民皆估” (農夫 2007)
(3) Mainstream 所以給你一直寫信
“Therefore I've been writing letters to you” “奇洛李維斯回信” (薜凱琪 2004)
Hip-hop 寫俾你呢隻歌
“This song that (I) wrote for you”
“偉大航道” (農夫 2010)
Defining code-switching as using more than one language in one line of lyrics, we tally their
occurrences in both Cantonese hip-hop songs and mainstream Cantopop songs. We also
71 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
count the number of line-final entering tones in those songs. The results of comparing the two
song types are summarized in (4). Code-switching appears much more often per line in
hip-hop lyrics (chi-square goodness of fit, p<0.05). Code-switching occurs regularly and
frequently in young Hongkongers’ daily conversations; their abundant use in hip-hop songs
thus supplies the rappers with an intimate link to the local-yet-hybrid Hong Kong identity
(Chan 2009, Lin 2011). Entering tones, which have long disappeared from Standard
(Mandarin) Chinese, also occur more frequently in line-final syllables in the hip-hop lyrics
(chi-square goodness of fit, p<0.001). The tempo of songs quickened by the shorter duration
of the checked syllables yields a lively, light-hearted mood, creating humorous and comic
effect to tickle and please local Hong Kong listeners (Chan & Chey 2013).
(4)
# of songs # of lines p(code-switching) p(final entering tone)
Mainstream Cantopop
(2000-2012)
129
4139
0.002
0.020
29
1365
0.062
0.055
18
1003
0.106
0.055
12
1003
0.043
0.029
LMF (1999-2002)
Hip-hop Fama
groups (2006-2010)
MastaMic (2013)
Our current results suggest that rappers in Hong Kong very cleverly and playfully make use
of linguistic devices that are absent or infrequently used in Standard (Mandarin) Chinese.
They purposely select local Cantonese vocabulary written with vernacular (non-standard)
characters, employ frequent Cantonese-English code-switching—a hallmark of educated
Hongkongers before 1997 that persists today (Li 2000, Sung 2010)—and gleefully choose
line-final entering tones with their -p, -t, -k stops. The selection of these multiple linguistic
devices puts a distinct stamp of local, humorous Hong Kong identity to their lyrics, an identity
that appeals to, and is shared, by the local audience (cf. Tsang & Wong 2004).
Tracing convergence and divergence in Chinese and English web-mediated university
introductions
Wenchao Tu
The University of Sydney
This presentation reports on a discourse study of Chinese universities’ self-introduction
webpages in Chinese and English from an intercultural rhetoric perspective. A corpus of 40
university webpages were analysed through an overarching approach of intercultural rhetoric
(Connor & Rozycki, 2013; Moreno, 2010) to uncover the convergence and divergence of
discourse patterns across the two languages (Perales-Escudero & Swales, 2011). Detailed
textual analyses were supplemented by interviews with the producers of the webpages.
The study reveals that a context-sensitive, audience-oriented writing style was applied in the
web-mediated university introductions. The specific feature of the corpus employed in the
study filled the gap of previous studies and provided more direct evidence of cultural patterns,
72 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
contextual backgrounds and their influences to discourse practices across Chinese and
English languages. The information yielded by this study can be incorporated into training
materials for improving sociocultural awareness on Chinese language teaching, intercultural
communication, translation, and media studies.
A Corpus-based Analysis of Modal Serialization in Chinese and Its Pedagogical Implications
Ben Pin-Yun Wang
The Pennsylvania State University
The present study aims to examine the usage patterns of Chinese modal verbs in terms of
their serialization relationship. Compared to English, Chinese modals can co-occur (directly
and indirectly) in a more productive manner. Following the traditional tripartite division of the
domain of modality (cf. Nuyts 2006), previous studies have established that the sequencing
of modal meanings generally follows the EPISTEMIC-DEONTIC-DYNAMIC order. Peng (2004)
further observes that the same subtype of modality can also serialize in Chinese and argues
that the sequence of modals in a co-occurrence relation is overall determined by their relative
degrees of subjectivity. However, there has been little systematic quantitative information
available as to how frequently any two modal verbs may co-occur and what the common
combinations of modality meanings are in language use.
To address the gap above, this study focuses on fifteen modal verbs widely recognized as
prototypical of this class and adopts a corpus-based approach, relying on two balanced
corpora, Chinese National Corpus and Sinica Corpus, to extract the relevant quantitative and
qualitative information. Five modal verbs (i.e., kěnéng, yīnggāi, yīngdāng, yào, huì) are
shown to be more frequently used in conjunction with another modal, which can be attributed
partly to the range of modality meanings that these modals express. In addition, despite the
polysemous nature of Chinese modal verbs, the corpus data indicate that the two modals in a
co-occurring pattern tend to receive a preferred gestalt reading. Finally, adverbs such as yě,
jiù and dōu are also found to participate in the modal serialization construction and how they
interact with the co-occurring modals can be explained by the different semantic scope of
modality meanings.
The findings of this study can be expected to carry pedagogical implications, especially
considering that textbooks and reference grammars for second language learners of Chinese
rarely touch upon the phenomenon of modal serialization. The sequencing principles as well
as the frequency information of modal serialization can well be incorporated into the
pedagogical grammar of Chinese modal verbs.
73 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
In Search for a Pedagogically Oriented Representation of Mandarin Tones
Jenny Wang
United States Naval Academy
This paper explores a possible way to simplify the 5-scale tonal representation as has been
inherited from Chao (1968, 1930) and has stayed popular in use until the present. The
motivation of the effort is from the author’s interest in tonal research as a Mandarin
phonologist as well as in tonal pedagogy as a classroom teacher of Mandarin to non-native
learners. Apart from its reducible phonetic details and lack of accuracy in certain tone
features, the 5-scale representation is also observed as largely limited to the so-called
“citation” tones, i.e., tones of a syllable when it is pronounced alone, even though there have
been several so-called “tone-sandhi” rules inherited from Chao (1968: 26-9) along with the
representation, denoting changes of tone values or tone types caused by neighboring tones
when syllables are strung together. Those rules are often as difficult for the students to follow
as the tones themselves, since they are in general expressed by numerical codes of the
tones in the textbooks (such as T3+T3 -> T2+T3), and, for beginning students who have not
yet memorized how to make a T3 and a T2, they often have to track the tone values and
shapes represented also by numerals, like T3=214, and T2=35. What are worse for the
students are the misleading effects of the tone marks. Just like an alphabetical letter used
in Pinyin which may not represent an actual sound correctly and accurately, a tone mark may
not give a learner the exact information to utter that tone in its correct value and shape. This
is due to a fact that the entire Pinyin system was not designed as a tool for non-native
speakers to learn the Mandarin sound system, but for native Mandarin speakers to learn how
to match the characters to their already correctly pronounced native words and their tones.
In order to assist our non-native students to better acquire such an unfamiliar and difficult
phonological system as the Mandarin tones, the author has proposed the following
alternatives both in phonological representation and in reforming tone marks.
1) Reducing the numerical representation of tone values from [1-2-3-4-5] to [1-3-5]; thus T1
remains as [55], T2 remains as [35], but T3 splits into a [11] as a representation of the
Half-Third, a [13] for the full T3 before a pause, and T4 as [53]. This revision implies
regarding the 2 and 4 in the former T3 value [214] as phonetic details and regarding T1,
T2 and T3 as phonologically [+high] as opposed to the [-high] feature of T3. This latter
suggestion draws heavily from Zhang’s (2009) phonological insight of seeing T3 primarily
as a low tone in the “low register” and secondarily as a dipping-rising contour. The three
high tones differ by a feature of [+/-contour] and a feature of [+/-rise], and if a T4 can
reach an ending value of 1 before a pause, it could just as well be seen as phonetic rather
than phonological.
2) Removing the tone marks from the Pinyin forms to the characters and by more
representative symbols. Tentatively, the six major tones can appear as follows. T1: 吃
¯, T2: 忙⎠, T3 (full): 好∪, T3 (half): 我_, T4: 坐⎞, T5: 的!. This is in line with the
74 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
author’s belief that the Pinyin forms should be minimally (and critically) used in the
students’ learning of new words, to the extent that as soon as a syllable is spelt out and
the sound is uttered, its character form should immediately replace the Pinyin to be
practiced and memorized, and it is at this moment that the correct tone should be added
to the syllable according to the tone mark on the character.
3) Representing “sandhi” affected tones in their post-sandhi rather than pre-sandhi forms.
This should include all tone changes even lexical ones with the words 一 and 不.
Interplay of Prosody and Discourse Functions:
The Case of Ranhou in Mandarin Chinese
Wei Wang
UCLA
Ranhou is traditionally taken as a conjunction indicating temporal relation. Yet in natural
conversation, this form is overwhelmingly used as a discourse connective, which does not
signal any temporal relationship. This study, first of all, investigates the discourse functions of
ranhou in terms of turn management, i.e. turn constructional unit extension, turn continuation
and new turn initiation. Then, it focuses on prosodic features associated with different
discourse functions. Specifically, duration, gap, pitch/intensity matching, sound quality will be
examined. I will focus on how such prosodic resources are utilized by speakers to manifest
different discourse functions. Methodologically, natural conversation data is systematically
used instead of introspective data. In addition, this study will integrate qualitative analysis
and quantitative investigation. That is, individual cases will be presented first, and then
supported by statistics.
The preliminary findings are: 1) the greater the syntactic/pragmatic integration ranhou-clause
has with its preceding utterance, the shorter duration and gap ranhou has. And pitch,
intensity and sound quality tend to be reduced; in some cases pitch and intensity of ranhou
are adjusted to match that of the last syllable of its prior prosodic unit; 2) the weaker the
integration, the longer duration and gap ranhou tends to have. Usually there is no pitch or
intensity matching and ranhou is less likely to be reduced phonetically.
Tone Patterns in Ei Disyllabic Sequences
Xiaomei Wang, Yen-Hwei Lin
Michigan State University
This paper provides a comprehensive description of the tone patterns in disyllabic sequences
in the Ei language (Rongshui, Guangxi province, China) through a multi-speaker acoustic
75 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
study. The results suggest that the tonal changes in Ei are prosodically conditioned and do
not result from tonal coarticulation. They differ from the prosodically-based tone sandhi in Wu
Chinese (Chen 2000) since tone deletion in Ei is not followed by tone spread from the
prosodic head.
Both monosyllabic tones and disyllabic tonal combinations are studied and each item has 10
samples. Four native Ei speakers, older than 65 when the experiments were conducted, took
part in our experiments. All acoustic analyses were conducted in Praat. The F0 at every 10%
of the rhyme duration was extracted, giving eleven F0 measurements for each syllable.
The results show that there are 7 lexical tones in Ei. They are Tone1 52, Tone2 31, Tone3 55,
Tone4 34, Tone5 24, Tone6 55 and Tone7 24. T6 and T7 are checked tones. In disyllabic
combinations, the tone change applies only to the first syllable, and the second syllable
remains unchanged. When the first syllable is T1, T2, T5 or T7, it becomes a low level tone
before any tone. For example, when the underlying tone of the first syllable is T1, it changes
to a low level tone no matter what the second tone is. T3 and T6 remain unchanged in front of
any tone. T4 remains unchanged when it is followed by any tone other than T4.
The attested patterns suggest that Ei tonal changes are prosodically conditioned. The
disyllabic sequence is a prosodic domain in Ei. Only one stressed syllable is permitted in
each prosodic domain and the unstressed syllables do not keep their underlying tones. We
propose that the surface low level tones are default values added at the phonetic level. They
are different from the prosodically-based tone sandhi in Wu Chinese in that the tone of the
prosodic head does not spread to the tone bearing unit that has lost its tone. This is
supported by the fact that the changed low tone values are variable, ranging from 33, 32, 21,
22, 23, to 11, 12, and unaffected by the neighboring tones, hence they do not constitute a
case of tonal coarticulation. They are not neutral tones either because their durations are not
short (Lin & Wang 1985).
The paper has several contributions. First, this is the first acoustic study of Ei based on
first-hand materials. All the testing words were chosen from the first author’s fieldwork. The
paper provides a solid empirical basis for further theoretical study. Second, it contributes to
the typology of tonal changes by providing a detailed case study of prosodically-conditioned
tonal changes. Ei’s tone sandhi has never been examined before, but this type of tonal
changes exists commonly in those Chinese dialects and languages spoken in Guangxi,
China. Third, it enriches our knowledge of an understudied and endangered language (5000
Ei speakers). Finally, a better understanding of different types of tone sandhi also has
implications for the learning and acquisition of tone.
76 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
From subjectivity to intersubjectivity: A functional study of epistemic markers keneng “maybe”
and haoxiang “seem” in Chinese conversations
Yan Wang
Carthage College
Chinese epistemic markers keneng “maybe” and haoxiang “seem,” which are frequently
observed in conversations of Mandarin Chinese native speakers, seem to carry similar
functions and often cause confusion among Chinese language learners, as shown in the
following examples.
1） J: Buguo laomei de jiu wo ye he bulai.
“But I am not used to American’s alcohol”
L: Ta mei wei. He xiaqu dao ye you jiu, danshi dingduo bu chaoguo 40 du
“It does not have flavor. It has alcohol when you drink it up. But it does not go over
40%.”
J: 38 du (0.2) keneng. “38%......maybe.”
L: Shima ì
“Really?”
2) (J mentions the Chinese alcohol she drank with her husband the other day)
J:
38 du de. Women liangge juede zhenshi haohe.
“It had 38% alcohol. We both though it was really tasty.”
L: Nage hen gui de. [haoxiang
“That one is very expensive, it seems”
J:
[Dui, shi hen gui, shi hen gui.
“Right, it is very expensive,
it is very expensive.”
Taking an approach of discourse analysis, this study aims to clarify the similar and different
usage patterns of these two expressions and further explore their discourse-pragmatic
functions in conversational discourse, in hoping to provide linguistic interpretations and
pedagogical hints for Chinese education.
Recent linguistic studies (e.g. Traugott 2003, Fitzmaurice 2004, Pizziconi 2009, Tang 2010)
have proposed a shift in the usages of epistemic markers from the speaker’s epistemic
attitude toward the factualness of the propositional information (subjectivity) to the speaker’s
interactional stance toward the situational and/or social relationship with the addressee
(intersubjectivity). While many studies on Chinese epistemic markers have been focused on
wo juede “I think” (e.g. Endo 2010, Lim 2011), little attempt, however, has been made into
investigation of the usages of keneng and haoxiang. By conducting a sequential analysis of
keneng and haoxiang in approximately five hours of natural conversational data of native
speakers, this study demonstrates that the uses of keneng and haoxiang are motivated by
intersubjective concerns in interaction; namely, the concern of the addressee’s knowledge,
authority, possible objections etc.
In particular, the present study claims that both keneng and haoxiang allow the speaker to
signal to the addressee a lack of commitment toward his/her own utterance. While haoxiang
is more likely to be used to describe objective matters that are often visually observable, or
information in the speaker’s vague memory, keneng tends to appear in contexts where the
speaker makes judgment or assertion. Moreover, in contrary to haoxiang that indicates the
77 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
speaker’s informational uncertainty and display the speaker’s distant stance to the
information, keneng carries function to objectify the speaker’s personal opinion and thereby
to mitigate the speaker’s potential Face-threatening Acts, e.g., disagreements, suggestions
or negative assessments to the addressee (Brown and Levinson 1987).
基于大规模语料的汉语教学词表更新研究
----《汉语国际教育用音节汉字词汇等级划分》为例
王治敏王小梦
北京语言大学
2010 年国家汉办和教育部社科司研制了《汉语国际教育用音节汉字词汇等级划分》简称
《等级划分》，这是面向全球汉语国际教育的国际标准。《等级划分》依据了 30 多亿字次的
当代大型动态语料库和具有代表性的词表和字表，共收录了 11093 个词语，从数量和规模应
该是大数据时代汉语教学词表的代表，但是经过笔者的统计调查，发现《等级划分》中依然保
留一些不常用的词汇。例如：焦距、磁盘、陨石、巫婆、爹、菩萨、辫子、阎王、间谍、霍乱、
几率、经度、惨白、隐身、迭起、从容不迫，这些词都是《等级划分》的 4 级词汇，对留学生
来说学习的意义不大，而广泛出现在中国语言生活中的“提出、展开、达到、批准、人才、农
民工、条例、消费者”等常用词语却被排除在词表之外。如何使《等级划分》保持一种自我更
新的能力，使其真正成为一个名副其实的标准是亟待解决的问题。
判断一个词语是否常用，应该看这个词语在真实的语言生活中的流行程度，如果能够赋予
《等级划分》中全部词语在历时语料中的出现频次，看这些词语在历史语料中的变化，就可以
检验出词表中哪些词语常用,哪些词语不常用，而且通过真实语料的检验，可以看出判断出词
语的层级划分是否合理。这里不仅要考虑语料的跨度、范围、以及常用词语的判定标准。
汉语教学的词语一般是人们语言生活中频繁使用的，那么它在历史语料中也会出现次数很
高，如何设定断点是我们首先需要考虑的问题。因此本文考虑把《等级划分》中的名词放到大
数据背景下，利用 2005-2009 五年《人民日报》和广播电视语料的数据，以季度作为断点，
查看每一个名词在连续季度时点中的分布状态，过滤出过时词汇，提取出新词备选。
《等级划分》名词及兼类名词共计 4479 条，占词表全部词汇的 40.38%。我们把 4479 条
名词全部投到五年《人民日报》和广播电视语料的大背景中。结果发现，能够持续出现在两种
语料季度节点的名词分别为 3367 条，3737 条，具体如下表所示：
《等级划分》名词在语料中的分布名词数《等级划分》中名词总数占比
量
3367
4479
连续出现在《人民日报》中
75.17%
3737
4479
连续出现在广播电视语料中
83.43%
On V-V Resultative Construction in Chinese: Theoretical Issues and Pedagogical
Implications
I-hao Woo
Citadel Military College of South Carolina
Introduction. (1) and (2) both contain a construction that has been referred to the resultative
78 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
construction in the linguistic literature (e.g., Li & Thompson, 1981; Simpson, 1983; Sybesma,
1999; Mateu, 2012):
(1) Lisi ca-gan-le bolibei (Chinese)
(2) John painted the house red. (English)
Lisi wipe-dry-ASP glass
‘Lisi wiped the glasses dry.’
As shown, both sentences contain an adjective, gan ‘dry’ in (1) and red in (2), which
syntactically functions as the complement of the verb. Semantically, these adjectives denote
the resultant state of the direct object of each sentence. There exists variation of word order,
however; in Chinese, the result-denoting adjective is attached to the verb but in English,
these two elements are separated by the direct object. Although the two languages show
some variations, due to their similar semantic functions, many Chinese textbooks have used
resultative complement to refer to the adjective such as gan ‘dry’ in (1).
Problems. However, this type of categorization may cause some confusion to learners of
Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL). For instance, there is a group of words, which
generally express telicity of an event does not have the same properties as a regular
resultative complement. (3) provides an example:
(3) Lisi xie-wan-le na feng xin
Lisi write-finish-ASP that CL letter
‘Lisi finished writing that letter.’
The morpheme –wan ‘finish’ in (3), which has also been identified as a resultative
complement, indicates completion of the letter-writing event. Nevertheless, it acts differently
from a regular resultative complement. First, according to Li & Thompson (1981), the
morpheme differs from a regular complement such as gan ‘dry’ in (1) in that it expresses
‘something more like the type of action described by the first verb or the degree to which it is
carried out than its result (p. 65).’ This morpheme neither denotes the resultant state of the
subject nor that of the object. Instead, it simply signals completion of the verb it is attached to.
Secondly, as shown by (4a), the morpheme -wan cannot function as the main predicate of a
sentence, which differs from a regular resultative complement such as gan ‘dry’ in (4b):
(4) a. *Na feng xin wan le
b. Na ge bolibei gan le
that CL letter finished SFP
that CL glass dry SFP
‘That letter is finished (now).’
‘The glass is dry (now).’
Theoretical issues & Pedagogical implications. To explain the differences presented
above, I argue that –wan should not be analyzed as a resultative complement. Syntactically, I
claim that –wan in (3) is not base-generated in the head of a small clause like gan ‘dry’ in (1),
but in the head of Inner Aspect Phrase between vP and VP. It contains the feature [+telic],
which is responsible for the completive reading of (3). The telic morpheme is strong on V;
therefore, the main verb is required to move. This explains the V-wan order in the surface.
On the other hand, in a regular resultative construction such as (1), I argue that the surface
V-V order is due to the morphological property of adjectives in Chinese in general. The
pedagogical implication is that we should distinguish these two types of V-V compounds in
the classroom. While instructing a regular resultative V-V compound, we emphasize the
resultant state that is expressed by the second element of the compound. In contrast, while
teaching the V-wan compound, we simply show students that the morpheme –wan is an
79 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
element that indicates completion of the verb it is attached to. Also, we should note that there
is no resultant state that is related to a V-wan compound.
Self-repetition in reported speech in Mandarin conversations
Haiping Wu
University of Mississippi
This study examines the prevalent practice of self-repetition in reported speech. Drawing
data from conversational Mandarin, I investigate how and why a speaker repetitively reports
the same past talk in a conversation. My data shows that self-repetition recurrently occurs in
two environments: (1) after the first instance of report has secured a highly affiliative reaction
from the recipients, and (2) in potentially problematic situations (e.g., self-praise,
disagreement concerning the tellability of story) where mutual understanding among the
interlocutors is temporarily lost. Self-repetition in these two environments takes on different
forms, and implements distinct interactional actions. In the former, it is generally delivered as
a brief run-through, which recycles the upshot of the prior report. Functionally, it resembles
an encore performance given in response to the recipients' enthusiastic display of alignment,
and serves to invite the second round of affiliative display from the recipients. In the latter
environment, however, self-repetition is proffered to reformulate one's prior report, and to
adjust the reporter's position in order to make it easier for the recipients to align with. In this
case, a contrastive term (e.g., “但是” but, “不过” however) is usually used to connect the two
reporting sequences, and to project a shift in the speaker’s perspectives. Despite their
differences in form and function, instances of self-repetition in the afore-mentioned two
environments of reported speech exhibit a common feature: they exhibit the intersubjectivity
in interaction, whence a reporter displays his/her ongoing analysis of the recipients'
interpretation of his/her talk, and reconstructs his/her reporting accordingly so as to foster
cooperative participation.
英语、韩语母语者汉语否定标记习得研究
武宏琛
哥伦比亚大学
“不、没”是汉语常用的否定标记，其构成的否定结构是汉语表达否定意义的主要手段，然
而“不”、“没”在句法搭配和语法意义方面存在较大差异。现有研究表明：“不”、“没”的分布对立
可以从二者的语义选择角度进行解释，二者语义的不同，表现在句法上主要是与体标记的不同
搭配以及不同的句法位置。
相较于汉语否定标记存在“不、没”的对立，韩语也有类似的“안/못”两大否定标记的区别，
且汉语否定标记在句中位置非常灵活；韩语母语者在学习汉语否定标记时，常常产出诸如“*我
不去过上海”之类句子。英语的否定标记相对简单，主要依靠于“助动词+not”构成否定结构。已
有研究表明：二语学习者可以较好地掌握汉语否定标记的位置，英语母语者可以正确区分“不、
80 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
没”，韩语母语者不能正确区分。现有研究多为静态的语料库统计研究，且较少涉及不同母语背
景的学习者之间的对比，我们无法得知母语背景在习得过程中的作用，也无从得知学生能否习
得“不、没”的句法位置及其与体标记的搭配规则。
因此本文选取中高级汉语水平的 29 名韩语母语者和 30 名英语母语者作为研究对象，通过
可接受判断测试和组句测试两种测试方法，检验学习者是否能最终习得“不、没”的体标记选择
和语法意义的区别。测试结果表明：1. 被试对于“不、没”在“S-V-O”结构中的句法位置掌握较
好，但是对于其与述补结构的相互位置掌握较差；2.中级组英语母语者的表现与汉语母语者有
较大差异，中级组韩语母语者也与汉语母语者有较大差异；3. 相较于中级组，高级组的表现与
汉语母语者更为接近；高级组英语母语者的表现略优于高级组韩语母语者。最后，本文主要从
语际影响、句法-语义接口、词语习得等三个角度对测试结果进行了分析解释。
Indexicality of Directives: Developmental Stories of Three American High School Students in
Homestays Abroad in China
Qian Wu, Sheng-Hsun Lee
Pennsylvania State University
The purpose of the paper is two-fold: 1) to explore the indexicality, or social meanings (Ochs,
1992; Bucholtz & Hall, 2005) of directives in the context of homestay abroad; and 2) to
longitudinally document the use of directives in everyday interactions between American high
school students and their Chinese host families. Directives in this paper refer to “a large class
of verbal moves aimed at affecting the behavior of others” (Blum-Kulka, 1997, p. 142),
examples of which include offers, requests, suggestions, and commands (Li & Thompson,
1981; Ross & Ma, 2006; Sun, 2006). Directives take on various forms and degrees of
directness (Rue & Zhang, 2008), which may carry substantial indexical implications in terms
of social distance, and perceived and constructed social identity positions. Classroom
learners of Mandarin Chinese are most often exposed to directives for a specific purpose, for
instance, instructional imperatives (He, 2000), and a teacher-student relationship. However,
when these learners endeavor to study abroad and stay with Chinese host families, they are
faced with unfamiliar interpersonal relationships, varied social scenarios, and diverse forms
of directives, making it necessary to reappropriate the mappings between pragmalinguistic
structures and sociopragmatic underlying of the forms. This paper examines three American
high school learners, whose proficiencies ranged from Novice High to Advanced. Assuming a
mixed-methods paradigm, results were triangulated by frequency and discourse analyses of
recorded daily interactions, and by qualitative analysis of interview data of the American
learners and their Chinese hosts. The paper suggests that 1) Chinese native speaking hosts
preferred more straightforward directives expressing neutral and solidarity politeness; 2)
directives index both power and intimacy; and 3) the three focal participants presented
different developmental trajectories with regard to their choice of directives, indicating their
diverse perceptions of social relationships and identities. The results point to the potential of
explicit pragmatic instruction (Kasper & Rose, 2002) and metapragmatic awareness raising
(van Compernolle & Williams, 2013).
81 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
The effect of transfer, markedness and linguistic universals on the acquisition of
L2 Mandarin tones
The University of Connecticut
Chunsheng Yang
Most studies on tone acquisition by American L2 learners have attributed tone errors to the
interference of English intonation to varying degrees, although some researchers argued that
the tone errors in L2 Mandarin were due to linguistic developmental universals (Winke, 2007;
Zhang, 2013), instead of L1 transfer. Meanwhile, most previous studies on tone acquisition
adopted different research designs in terms of data collection and analysis approach, which
have led to the different patterns of tone errors in L2 Mandarin Chinese. To investigate the
effect of L1, transfer, and linguistic universals on tone production in L2 Mandarin Chinese,
this study examines the acquisition of Mandarin tones by L2 learners from different first
language (L1) backgrounds (American English, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Yoruba). Ten
intermediate-level L2 learners from each L1 background were recruited to read a short
passage adapted from the intermediate-level Chinese textbook for L2 learners.
The analysis of tone errors that occurred in each group focused on the confusion between
tones and the position where the frequent tone errors occurred. The analysis of the tone error
patterns across groups showed that the acquisition of L2 Mandarin tones by the L2 learners
from a tonal L1 was influenced by their L1 tone systems. Depending on the similarity (i.e.,
inventory and type) between the tone systems in L1 and L2, the L1 tone systems may
facilitate or impede the acquisition of Mandarin tones, as shown in the better tone production
in the L2 Thai group but not so desirable performance by the L2 Yoruba group. While this
study showed some transfer from L1 to L2, the most typical tone error pattern in all L2 groups
is the tone error type T1-T4, namely Tone 1 was frequently produced as a Tone 4, at the
PW-(prosodic word) initial position. It was argued that this frequent tone error pattern was not
due to the L1 transfer, but derived from the phrase-initial pitch patterns across languages
(Wang and Xu, 2011; Xu, Chen and Wang, 2012), more of a linguistic universal pattern.
The findings of this study have important theoretical and pedagogical implications. It was
suggested that studies on L2 phonological acquisition should employ passage reading or
spontaneous speech as much as possible, in order to tap into the L2 phonology, instead of
revealing idiosyncratic patterns in the reading of monosyllables or short sentences.
Improving Chinese Language Teaching with Comparative Applied Linguistics
Henrietta Yang
University of Mississippi
Teaching a language effectively requires more than better-informed pedagogical approaches.
A language teaching practitioner needs to be able to explain language patterns
systematically and to help students understand grammatical structures by providing simple
generalizations that they can follow. The goal of this presentation is to demonstrate how
82 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
linguistic research helps language teaching by simplifying grammar explanations. Take
copula verbs as an example. Several experienced Chinese instructors were interviewed and
asked how they explain the Chinese examples in (1)-(4) to beginners. Their explanations
were similar to those given in Ross and Ma (2014): in (1), shi is an equational verb; in (2), shi
is not present because congming ‘smart’ functions as a verb, specifically an adjectival verb;
in (3) shi is treated as part of a pattern, shi….de, which is applied to focus on a specific detail
of an event; and in (4), shiba sui ‘18 years old’ is a time verb. Examples like (1)-(4) are found
in the first year of Chinese classes. What students are told is whenever a verb is not present,
whatever follows the subject is assigned the role as the verb of that sentence. This kind of
explanation provides no rules for learners to follow and does not help them acquire basic
Chinese syntactic structures.
Many languages exhibit two types of copula verbs, a visible one and an invisible one (or
“zero copular”). For example, in Russian, the invisible copular is used in the present tense,
while the visible one must be specified in past-tense sentences as in (5) and (6). I propose
that Chinese, like Russian and many other languages, has two types of copula verbs, visible
one and invisible one. In Chinese, the visible copular verb functions as an equation which
connects two phrases that have the same syntactic features. This generalization will account
for the examples in (1)-(4). In (1), wo ‘I’ and laoshi ‘teacher’ are both nouns and have the
[+human] feature. Therefore, the visible copula verb shi is present. In (2), ta ‘he’ is a pronoun,
and congming ‘smart’ is an adjectival phrase modified by an adverb hen ‘very’. Syntactically,
pronouns and adjectives do not belong to the same category. Therefore, the invisible copula
verb shi is used. In (4), the invisible copular is utilized for the same reason. In (3), there is
actually a noun, shu ‘book’, following the adjectival marker de as in (7). It is omitted to avoid
redundancy. As in (1), the subject in (7) is a noun, shu ‘book’, and we see on the other side of
shi another noun shu ‘book’. Therefore, a visible copula verb is present. Sentences (3) and (7)
may have another alternative as in (8), which displays a noun after the adjectival de. In (8),
when shu ‘book’ is present after de, the head noun in the subject position is omitted.
Linguistic research, especially research in comparative linguistics, can enhance language
teaching and learning by providing explicit comparisons and generalizations that language
learners can easily follow. Generalizations by no means explain every structure. There are
always exceptional cases. However, it is more beneficial for language learners to have
generalizations at their disposal when dealing with exceptions.
(1) wo
I
shi
am
laoshi
(2) ta
hen
he
very
teacher
‘I am a teacher.’
(4) wo
shiba
I
18
sui
(7) zhe
this
ben
shu
CL
book
this
is
CL
book
shi
is
shei
who
(p.251, Ross and Ma, 2014)
uchitel'
(6) Ja
teacher
I
shei
who
xie
write
de
DE
byl/ byla
xie
de?
write
DE
uchitelem
was (Masc./Fem.)
teacher
‘I was a teacher.”
(shu)?
book
‘Who wrote this book?’
(8) zhe
this
ben
shi
CL
is
shei
who
‘Who wrote this book?’
83 shu
(p.61, Ross and Ma, 2014)
‘I am a teacher.’
shi
ben
‘Who wrote this book?’
I
‘I am 18 years old.’
intelligent
(3) zhe
‘He is very intelligent’
(5) Ja
years
congming
xie
write
de
DE
shu?
book
NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Learners’ acquisition of pragmatic routines in L2 Chinese
Jia Yang
University of Dayton
Pragmatic routines refer to any expression with a stable form that is commonly repeated in
the routinized social interactions of a given culture. Expressions, such as “how are you?”
“Nice to meet you,” are examples of such repetitions in the context of “greetings” in American
culture. Pragmatic routines are easily recognizable to members of a given culture so that no
special efforts are needed to interpret desired meanings. However, research in
second/foreign language education reports that learners often underused such pragmatic
routines (Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992; Schmitt, 2004; Edmondson& House, 1991; Kasper &
Blum-Kulka, 1993; Kecskes, 2000; Roever, 2005). These studies point out that even
advanced learners who have learned the language for a long time often fail to “chunk”
language in the same way that native speakers do in given contexts.
Considering the importance of conventional expressions in foreign language learning, this
presentation reports on a written-discourse-completion production test and a multiple-choice
recognition test that were conducted to investigate American learners’ acquisition of
pragmatic routines in typical social routines in Chinese culture, such as greetings, refusals,
apologies and displays of gratitude. Previous research shows that data collected through a
written-discourse-completion test accurately reflects, in many ways, the content expressed in
natural data. It can also provide the typical response that occurs in one’s actual speech in
any given situation, which can stratify the research purpose of this study to elicit students’
prototype use of a certain expression in a particular situation.
Results obtained from this study show that the length of exposure to the target language
environment enables students to recognize more conventional expressions, but it does not
ensure the students’ abilities to produce these expressions. Students’ successful production
of the target forms are more likely to be related to their uses of different study strategies. In
the data, high-performing students use the strategy of “making a mental picture of a situation
in which the expression is used” and the strategy of “connecting a new expression to an
image or picture associated with the expression” more frequently than low performing
students do. The adoption of these deep mental processing strategies enable high
performing students to store and retrieve useful expressions better, and hence they are more
likely to successfully produce and recognize conventional expressions. The obtained results
suggest three developmental stages for students’ ability to produce pragmatic routines:
recognizing the pragmatic routine in context, distinguishing the communicative intention
conveyed by a set of related routines, and producing the form automatically in typical
contexts that evoke the target pragmatic routine.
This presentation will bring the CFL field’s attention to the fact that training of students to
recognize, to understand, and then to automatically use pragmatic routines in typical social
situations in Chinese culture can enable students to be effective communicators in Chinese.
Results from this study also suggest that the training should not only provide ample
opportunities of practice for students to perform the target routines in contexts, but also
84 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
provide the coaching of effective strategies for students to notice, to interpret and then to
remember these expressions.
A multimodal study of dui bu dui in Mandarin conversation
Wendai Yang, Xiaoting Li
University of Alberta
The lexico-syntactic construction dui bu dui can be used as predication in "A-not-A" question
or tags of question (Li and Thompson, 1981). The current studies focus on the latter usage,
namely, dui bu dui as tags. Chen and He (2001) discussed the application of dui bu dui as
pragmatic marker in a Chinese classroom, where dui bu dui were employed to help teacher
to maintain students’ attention during classroom activity. Chen (2007) investigated the
prosodic forms and function of dui bu dui in TV talk show programs. The host tends to
accentuate dui bu dui to maintain the audience’s attention and arouse their interest. In these
previous studies, dui bu dui is investigated in institutional settings and TV talk show program.
There is very limited research on the functions of dui bu dui in everyday Mandarin interaction.
The objective of this study is to investigate the functions and multimodal resources used in
the production of dui bu dui in everyday Mandarin face-to-face conversation.
Adopting the methodology of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, the present
study explores dui bu dui in Mandarin face-to-face interaction from a multimodal perspective.
The data used in this study are audio and video recordings of 8 hours of Mandarin
face-to-face conversation. All the 24 participants are native Mandarin speakers from
mainland China attending a university in North America. The participants in the data are
conducting everyday activities in everyday settings (e.g., chatting, playing games, etc.).
There are 69 occurrences of dui bu dui in the data.
This study examined the function of dui bu dui in the data and their prosodic features, visual
features and the sequential environments in which they occur. Dui bu dui is used to serve two
interactional functions: seeking acknowledgment and seeking affiliation. The first type of dui
bu dui occurs after the topic component of an utterance and it is produced to seek
acknowledgment or recognition of the referent specified in the topic. The second type of dui
bu dui occurs after a TCU performing the action of assertion. The TCUs are usually produced
with affirmative sentence structure, universal quantifier, or adverbial clause structure. These
dui bu dui serve to seek recipient's affiliation with speaker’s stance revealed in the speaker’s
previous assertion. Participants concurrently use "bodily-visual practices" (Ford, Thompson
and Drake 2012) such as gaze, chin jut, eyebrow raise when producing dui bu dui with
relatively level pitch movement. These findings suggest that different interactional functions
of dui bu dui are performed through specific prosodic and visual features. This study will shed
new light on our understanding of the use of dui bu dui from a multimodal perspective.
85 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
Multimodal stancetaking and speaker alignment in Mandarin conversation
Ying Yang
UCLA
The common factor of earlier studies on stance is that stance is first and foremost speaker
oriented and was within the realm of individual speaker’s point of view (e.g. Biber & Finegan,
1989). This is closely related to the notion of subjectivity, the major function of which is to
semantically or pragmatically “index speaker attitude or viewpoint” (Traugott, 2011: 32). More
recently, scholars who highlight stance’s interactional nature advocate the social and cultural
dimensions of stancetaking phenomenon and are in search of a prototype definition (Du Bois,
2007). A notable update of Du Bois’s definition is that it highlights the dynamic features of
stancetaking from an interactional perspective and stance is influenced and shaped by
individual contributions as well as those of other discourse participants.
Using videotaped data, I will analyze two different scenarios—a positive stance alignment
when the two speakers share a common stance, and a negative stance alignment when the
two speakers argue with each other respectively. Dialogical analysis will demonstrate that
stance involves not only the speaker’s attitudes, feelings, judgments, or commitment, but
steps into an interactional dimension to articulate the intersubjective aspect (or speakers’
awareness of showing alignments with one another, conversantly or divergently) (Du Bois,
2007, 2014). More importantly, I will show how speakers take their stances by taking into
account not only verbal behaviours, but also other bodily conducts such as gestures, facial
expressions, and gaze orientations. In particular, how these semiotic recourses interplay and
compensate each other in speakers’ stancetaking.
L1 transfer overridden by linguistic complexity in L2 acquisition:
Evidence from L2 Chinese daodi…wh-questions
Boping Yuan
University of Cambridge
This paper reports on an empirical study of attitude-bearing wh-questions in English
speakers’ second language (L2) Chinese. Although English and Chinese wh-questions are
different in that the wh-word in the former moves to the sentence initial position while that in
the latter stays in situ, the two languages share some characteristics in their attitude-bearing
wh-questions. In the literature, Chinese daodi…wh-questions are considered approximate
counterparts of English wh-questions with phrases such as what the hell, who on earth, what
the dickens. Like the wh-the-hell question in English, daodi in a Chinese daodi…wh-question
can co-exist with a wh-adjunct such as weishenme “why”, the instrumental/manner zenme
“how”, as well as a wh-nominal, such as shenme “what”, shei “who”. However, daodi cannot
co-exist with the causal wh-word zenme “how come” in a Chinese wh-question. The
unacceptability of this type of daodi…wh-questions is argued to be due to the fact that the
wh-question bears two attitude features in it, an attitude feature of impatience borne by daodi
86 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
and another attitude feature of counter-expectation carried by the causal wh-word zenme
“how come”. This is similar to the unacceptability of how-come-the-hell question in English.
Similar to the wh-the-hell-question in English, the wh-question in Chinese can accommodate
daodi in it as long as the wh-word does not carry an attitude feature with it.
It is widely assumed in L2 research that first language (L1) structures similar to or the same
as those in the target language can facilitate the course of L2 acquisition, i.e. positive L1
transfer, but L1 structures which are different from the target language interfere with
successful L2 acquisition, i.e. negative L1 transfer. However, neither positive L1 transfer nor
negative L1 transfer is found in our study. That is, wh-movement in English wh-questions is
not transferred into English speakers’ L2 Chinese wh-questions, and the similarities between
English and Chinese have very limited facilitating functions in English speakers’ handling of
Chinese attitude-bearing wh-questions. 95 English speakers as subjects and 18 native
speakers of Chinese as controls participated in the empirical study, and the results indicate
that although English speakers’ L2 Chinese grammars are sensitive to attitude features, they
are not able to rule out the ungrammatical Chinese wh-question with two attitude features
embedded in it. This is argued to be due to the morphosyntactic complexity involved in this
type of attitude-bearing wh-questions. On the basis of the findings, we argue that L1 transfer
is not inevitable in L2 acquisition and that it should be treated as a relative phenomenon
rather than an absolute phenomenon. The possibility of L1 transfer in L2 acquisition can be
relative to the target language construction, and it can be overridden by the linguistic
complexity involved.
从语法-语义-语音关联的角度理解疑问句中的“怎么”
乐耀
中国社会科学院
朱德熙（1982：92）讨论“怎么”用法的时候，有如下例子：
（1）a. 你现在'怎么想了？（过去是那么想的，现在怎么想？“怎么”重读问方式）
b. 你现在怎么'想了？（过去不想，现在为什么又想了？“想”重读问原因）。
朱先生认为可以通过句子重音来解读“怎么”，即：“怎么”重读问方式；“怎么”后的动词重读问原
因。但（1b）问原因的“怎么”句，重音可以（但不唯一）落在动词“想”上，也可落在其他成分，
如“现在”上，同样问原因。而（1a）问方式，重音只能落在“怎么”上。
若将例（1）朱先生的例子做如下变换，会发现重音的区分不起作用了，如：
（2a）你现在'怎么想？（问方式）（2b）*你现在怎么'想？（问原因）
将句尾的“了”字拿掉后，如（2a）的重音落在疑问词“怎么”上，还是问方式，这符合朱先生的
重音解读规则；但是（2b）的重音落在“怎么”后面的动词“想”上，则该句不可能问原因。可见，
重音区分不能完全解决“怎么”问方式还是原因两解的歧义。
负载重音的位置和“怎么”的两解不是一一对称的关系。因为当“怎么”问原因时，其重音可以
落在其他成分上。例如：
（3）'你怎么来了？（人称）
（4）你怎么'今天来了？（时间指示）
（5）
你怎么来'这里了？（地点指示）等。
这里的问题是：一般情况下，特殊疑问句中，疑问词本身就是焦点之所在，应该重读。但
是问原因的“怎么”句，其重音不会落在“怎么”上。这是为什么？
87 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
关于此，我们认为“原因”是一个事件外的角色，跟事件内的“论元角色”可能有别。“原因”离
一个句子的中心动词的距离远，可以强调，也可以不强调（或者不大能用语音手段强调）。跟
“怎么”类似的“为什么”也可以不重读，“怎么”和“为什么”都可以出现在主语前面（句首）的位置。
例如：（6）怎么（为什么）老张没有去参加会议？（这也说明“原因”的句法位置要高一些，离
中心动词远一些）（参看邓思颖 2011）。
而其他的疑问词一般都是替代一个论元成分或动词的附加语（状语）成分，都是跟中心动
词语义关系很近的成分。例如：（7）你吃了几个馒头？（8）你吃了谁的馒头？（疑问词都
是跟受事角色有关的成分）。和“原因”相比而言，“方式”跟“工具”等角色，都是跟动词语义关系
较近的。“怎么”问原因比“怎么”问方式离动词的语义距离远，在对应的语法表层形式上，以及深
层树结构上，也都是如此。蔡维天（2000；2007；2008）的一系列研究也谈到，问原因的“怎
么”比问方式的“怎么”的句法位置高，意思也都是如此。
这里有一个语法-语义-语音关联的相似原则：某一语法成分与句子的中心动词语义关系的
亲疏，对应着与句子谓语动词语法位置的远近或高低，也对应着该成分在语音上是否能够重读
强调。换言之，能够重读强调的语法成分，在语义上与谓语动词关系亲，一般是事件内论元，
在语法位置上也靠近谓语动词。
有些例子看似是问原因的“怎么”，好像可以重读，例如：（9）允许州官放火，'怎么就不
允许百姓点灯呢？（10）咱们厂'怎么就不能出个万元户呢？这类可以重读强调，但有条件限制：
它们一般是由“怎么”和否定词构成的反问句。本文认为这类“怎么”与其说它表疑问，还不如说表
语气。这个反问句不需要回答，答案是肯定的。反问句虽是疑问句形式，但实际上，说话者是
在强调某种肯定或否定的答案。所以，这里不是问原因，而是一种语用上的修辞问。又如：
（11）
她今天'怎么没来？明明来了啊，我和她一起进的办公室。（“怎么”重读，反问）（12）她今天
怎么'没来？不会是家里有啥事儿吧？（“怎么”不能重读，疑问表原因）。
Focal Prominence Marking in Second Language Chinese
Hang Zhang
George Washington University
Sentence focus is usually marked by prosodic prominence (Truckenbrodt 1995). According
to Jun (2005), the realization of post-lexical or sentence level prominence depends on what
supra-segmental features the language employs for the realization of lexical prosody, so the
acoustic correlates of post-lexical prominence are language specific. Modern standard
Chinese is a tonal language and sentence level prominence is expressed mainly by
expanding pitch range, intensity and duration but not changing the lexical tone
identity/contour, nor inserting IP boundary to the left edge of a focused constituent (Flemming
2008; Chen 2004; Jin 1996). The acquisition of Chinese focus marking poses a difficult
challenge for learners whose native languages are non-tonal, such as English and Japanese.
English and Japanese represent stress languages and pitch-accent languages at the level of
word prosody. In terms of sentence level prominence marking, English is considered as a
“Head Prominence” language and its post-lexical pitch accents have particular pitch targets
and are associated with stressed syllables, which can be marked by increased duration,
higher peak and amplitude, and spectral changes (Ladd 2008; Beckman 1986). Japanese
(and Korean) is taken as a “Edge Prominence” language which uses a variety of prosodic
88 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
mechanisms to mark focal prominence, including local pitch range expansion, prosodic
restructuring to set off the focal constituent, and post-focal subordination, but not manipulate
accent and duration (Ladd 2008,Venditti et al. 2008; Jun 2005).
This study examines two sets of second language (L2) research data. The first set is
non-native tonal productions of Chinese monosyllabic and disyllabic focused constituents
embedded in identical tone sequences (sentences) made by 20 American English-speaking
learners and 20 Tokyo Japanese-speaking learners. The second set of data includes 10
English-speaking and 2 Japanese-speaking leaners’ productions of narrow- focused
constituents embedded in regular Chinese, English and Japanese sentences. The study
attempts to answer the following questions. What lexical tones do the learners often use to
mark Chinese narrow-focused constituents? What prosodic mechanisms do non-tonal
language speakers employ to realize Chinese monosyllabic and disyllabic focus? Do they
use the supra-segmental features the first language (L1) employs for the realization of lexical
prosody? In analyzing the research data, particular attention is paid to the error patterns and
substitution patterns in non-native Chinese lexical tonal productions. Data analysis is still
underway, but so far it is found that although the learners’ error patterns are similar (high
accuracy rates of high falling tones), the tones they used to substitute for target Chinese
tones vary when errors occur. Some strategies the learners employ to mark L1 sentence
level prominence are observable in L2 Chinese tones.
Computerized Dynamic Assessment: Measuring Learning Potentials and Supporting L2
Chinese Development in Classrooms
Jie Zhang
University of Oklahoma
Xiaofei Lu
Pennsylvania State University
In most college Chinese language programs, students’ language proficiency is mainly
determined using program standards (e.g., operationalized as classroom contact hours)
supplemented by standardized tests such as the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI).
Such placement and assessment models primarily measure students’ language abilities that
have fully developed, while in reality students who are placed in the same Chinese class may
show considerable variability in their language performance, possess varying levels of
learning potentials, and thus need differentiated support from teachers. By offering mediation
when students experience difficulties and tracing their responsiveness to such mediation,
dynamic assessment offers an appealing alternative for quantitatively assessing students’
learning potentials (Poehner & Lantolf 2013; Poehner, Zhang & Lu, forthcoming).
This study reports the application of a computerized dynamic assessment (C-DA) of Chinese
listening and reading comprehension in intermediate-level Chinese classrooms. The C-DA
tests consist of multiple-choice questions of listening and reading comprehension that
incorporate the use of mediation. Specifically, each test item is accompanied by a set of
89 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
prompts graduated from implicit to explicit. In this way, the C-DA test scores report not only
whether learners answered correctly (their actual score) but also the amount of support they
required (mediated score) during the test. The C-DA tests also generate a learner profile of
each test taker showing how much support the learner required in different linguistic
constructs (vocabulary, grammar, phonetics, pragmatics, contextual inference, and so on).
We discuss the predicative power of the C-DA scores on students’ learning potentials, and
how the learner profile generated from the C-DA tests can be used to guide individualized
instruction and student placement. Based on the learning potential scores (LPS), students
can be categorized into high, mid, and low scorers (Kozulin & Garb, 2002). Qualitative data
from interviews, teacher observation, and think-aloud protocols will be used to discuss
whether and how responsiveness to mediation predicts learning potentials. We conclude by
proposing instructional and placement suggestions for college Chinese programs, which take
into account not only students’ fully formed language abilities, but more crucially abilities in
the process of developing.
Short Passive/Inchoative Selection of Verbs in Mandarin Chinese
Liulin Zhang
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Bei construction has long been recognized as a difficult point in Chinese teaching and
learning. One of the difficulties is that many agentless English be passive sentences cannot
be expressed by Chinese bei construction, but an inchoative structure is needed. Specifically,
it seems that some verbs in Mandarin Chinese have a preferred structure between short
passive and inchoative.
(1) a. Dangao zuo-le. 蛋糕做了。
b.?Dangao bei zuo-le. 蛋糕被做了。
cake make-Perf
cake BEI make-Perf
The cake was made.
(2) a. ?Xiaotou da-le. 小偷打了。
b. Xiaotou bei da-le.
小偷被打了。
thief
hit-Perf
thief BEI hit-Perf
The thief was hit.
Despite the context, lexicalized structures, and the arguments involved, this paper focuses
on how the sematic features of verbs make their selections of short passive/inchoative
structure, specifically from the causal approach to lexical semantics.
Set in the framework of functional and cognitive linguistics, the causal approach to lexical
semantics was first introduced by Croft (1991), and then addressed by Levin & Hovav (2005)
as “takes the facets of verb meaning relevant to argument realization to involve the causal
structure of the events denoted”. Tsunoda’s simplified hierarchy (1981, 1985: 388-389) of the
“affectedness” was taken to illustrate the semantic classes of two-place arguments.
Change of state verbs > Surface contact verbs > Perception/ cognition/ emotion verbs
Change of state verbs (including change of location verbs) are perceived as inherently
causative, and identifies force recipients, like break and open. This type of verbs tend to
90 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
prefer inchoative structure, like 开 kai ‘open’ and 丢 diu ‘throw, lose’. Whereas surface contact
verbs (including exerting force verbs), which identify a force recipient but does not entail
change of state, generally select short passive, like 打 da ‘hit’ and 踢 ti ‘kick’. Perception,
cognition, emotion verbs involving neither force recipients nor change of state normally
cannot license any of these two structures without special context and other elements, like
看 kan ‘look’ and 想 xiang ‘miss’. What catches special attention is verbs of creating, like 做
zuo ‘make’ and 造 zao ‘build/ create’ dominantly select inchoative structure.
The application of Chinese inchoative structure is highly in line with the factors licensing
causative-inchoative alternation in English, which seems natural considering causal
approaches to verb semantics were originally introduced in the analysis of English causative
alternation. What is comparatively special in Mandarin is the use of short passive is
semantically constrained by the verbs. However, given Chinese short passive construction
syntactically resemble English get passive but not be passive (Hoshi 1991, 1994a,b), and
that the passive marker 被 bei assigns the theta-role experiencer/affectee to the subject
(Huang, Li & Li,2009:135), this finding is not surprising either. Moreover, if a verb denotes
creation of the theme, then the creature (theme) cannot be affected by any means since it
does not even exist without the verb. This is why short passive is basically prohibited for
creating verbs.
Based on our analysis, the difference between short passive and inchoative structure needs
to receive special attention in Chinese teaching. The causal approach to lexical semantics
can also shed light on the investigation of Chinese resultative verb compound and
topicalization, both of which caused great hardship for English-speaking learners of Chinese.
副词“真”的主观性分析及其汉语教学问题
张文贤
北京大学
经过调查 HSK 作文语料库，我们发现，“很”和“真”混淆的用例较多（“很”用成“真”有 52 例）。
例如：
（1）“*姐姐在城市里上班，您只有一个人在家真孤独吧？”（HSK）
这说明即使到了中高级阶段，学生已经达到较高的水平，可以写出一定篇幅的作文，但对
于“很”、“真”这样的常用副词仍然没有完全掌握。
对于“真”的性质，前人的认识并不一致，主要有语气说、程度说、评注说和传信说四种看
法。吕叔湘（1979）、厉霁隽（2003）认为“真”接近语气副词；朱德熙（1999）认为“真”属于
程度副词；张谊生（2004）、颜红菊（2010）认为“真”是评注副词；李琳（2005）认为“真”是
一个传信语气副词，对整个命题进行确认，是将一个新的命题加在已有的命题之上。
我们认为，这些看法都不同程度地认识到了“真”具有主观性。本文应用主观性与交互主观
性的理论以及语篇分析方法，对“真”的主观性意义进行概括，，并对“真”的出现环境进行具体分
析，从而对“真”的用法有更深入的认识，也使“真”能与“很”等程度副词更好地区分开。
91 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
在对“真”的主观性意义有了充分的认识之后，我们对教材中“真”的注解与例句进行考察与
分析，认为某些教材还有可以改进的余地。文章最后提出了具体可行的副词“真”的教学方法。
Teaching Narrative to Chinese Language Learners:
What a Genre-based Approach Can Offer
Xiaodong Zhang
The University of Georgia
Recent research shows that there is still a shortage of Chinese teachers with a strong
linguistic background at the tertiary level of American education as the majority of them were
trained in the department of comparative literature for their doctoral education (Orton, 2008;
Zhou, 2010). For an advanced level of Chinese teaching that focuses on the reading of a text,
this points to an urgent need for a useful linguistic tool that these Chinese teachers can use
for explicit instruction of both the meaning and grammar in a specific text type. However, little
research has attempted to show a dual analysis of meaning and grammar in a specific text
type. To address this gap and show how a dual focus on language in a text can benefit
Chinese language learners, this paper presents a genre-based approach to show its power in
deconstructing a familiar genre - narrative (Martin & Rose, 2008; Li, 2007). I first outline this
genre-based approach that originates from Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1994).
I then use this genre-based approach to conduct a detailed four-dimension analysis of a
sample Chinese narrative text: (1) the generic structure of the text；(2) the ideational content
of the text and its grammatical realization (i.e., transitivity system)；(3) the interpersonal
meaning of the text and its grammatical realization (i.e., mood system and appraisal system );
and (4) the text organization and its grammatical realization (i.e. theme-rheme). Implications
for teachers’ education in the context of American tertiary education are also discussed,
including providing Halliday’s (1994) Systemic Functional Linguistics-based professional
development for in-service Chinese teachers so that they can provide explicit genre-based
teaching at the discourse level (e.g., reading and writing).
A Multi-dimensional Corpus Study of Mixed Compounds in Chinese
Zheng-Sheng Zhang
San Diego State University
In his 2012 book length study, Sun argued quite convincingly that literary elements are an
integral part of modern written Chinese. Native intuition also supports strong association
between literary elements and the written style. Left answered, however, is the question of
how much literary elements contribute to the modern written style.
Using Biber’s multi-dimensional framework for register variation, Zhang (2013) revealed that
there are not one, but two prominent dimensions in written Chinese. In addition to the
92 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
literary dimension, there is a stronger, independent dimension of ‘literate vs. non-literate’,
which distinguishes written from colloquial styles. Hence, genres with more literary
elements are not necessarily more literate; conversely, the most literate genres are not
necessarily most literary. This empirical finding dovetails nicely with the two dimensions
proposed by Feng (2010) on purely theoretical grounds. Given the independence between
the two dimensions, the question also arises whether there is any natural association
between the two dimensions at all.
Mixed compounds, consisting of one literary and one non-literary morpheme, provide an
interesting case for studying the stylistic contribution of literary elements, especially when the
two parts are kept synonymous. An example is gòumǎi, with a literary gòu and a
non-literary mǎi. Intuitively, these compounds are stylistically distinct from both of their
components (as stand-alone words), as perhaps shown in the different translations: While
mǎi is translated as ‘buy’, gòumǎi is best rendered as ‘purchase’.
The present project sets out to study the stylistic characteristics of mixed compounds
empirically, using the same multi-dimensional framework that allowed the discovery of the
afore-mentioned two dimensions. The result is visualized on a two dimensional map,
showing the spatial distribution of the elements in question.
The distributional pattern both supports the independence of the two dimensions and
confirms our intuition that there is intimate association between them. As expected, mixed
compounds are on average less literary than the literary component used alone but more
literary than non- literary component by itself; on the other hand, they are interestingly more
literate than both of their components. This is most clearly seen with the contrasting triplet
jù:yǒu:jùyǒu ‘have, possess’. On the literary dimension, jùyǒu is predictably mid-point
between the literary jù and the non-literary yǒu, the stylistic value of the compound seemingly
derivable compositionally from its constituents; on the Literate dimension, however, jùyǒu is
more literate than both jù and yǒu. Strict independence of the two dimensions predicts that
mixed compounds with components differing only in literariness should remain neutral on the
literate dimension. The fact that they lean towards the more literate end explains the
intuition that literary elements are indeed an important contributing factor to the written style.
English loanwords in Mandarin Chinese: A perception experiment approach
Mingzhe Zheng, Karthik Durvasula
Michigan State University
In the field of Mandarin Chinese (MC) loanword study, there is no clear consensus among
researchers about tonal adaptation patterns. Nevertheless, some previous studies based on
corpus and experimental results suggest that there is an effect of syllable onset in the source
word on the tonal adaptation of a MC loanword from English (Wu H. 2006; Chang & Bradley
2012). These studies however had notable confounds. The previous corpus study was
limited by the source and size of the data. The experimental results of different studies were
93 NACCL-27 Abstract Book
confounded by (a) the fact that participants could only choose between two tonal options
written in MC characters (Wu H. 2006), (b) the participants all knew English (Chang &
Bradley 2012). The purpose of the current study is to re-examine the syllable onset effect in
MC native speakers’ online adaptation of English words.
Two perception experiments were conducted. Twenty MC native speakers were recruited
and classified into monolinguals and MC/English bilinguals (10 participants for each group).
In Experiment 1, participants listened to disyllabic English nonsense words with initial stress
(N = 24 items × 6 times); while, in Experiment 2, they listened to the same items embedded
in different MC carrier sentences (N = 24 items × 6 carrier sentences). They were asked to
choose the tone that sounded most natural for the target syllable. All four MC tones were
provided in the form of MC tone markers.
The results from the two studies can be summarized as follows: (i) The overall adaptation
pattern is HH>HL>MH>L [“>” = more likely]. This is consistent with the pattern found in Wu
C.’s (2006) loanword corpus; (ii) The experimental results also show that the tone distribution
is not constrained by syllable onset type as has been claimed previously. For all three types
of onsets, [-asp]/[+asp]/[son], HH was the most preferred tone. The discrepancy of source
words onsets’ influence on tonal adaptation between the previous corpus results with current
experiment study follows Silverman (1992) and Yip (1993)’s model of loanword phonology,
suggesting that the online adaptation of foreign nonsense words is in the first perception
scansion stage, compared with established loanwords, which are the output of the second,
phonological operation stage; (iii)The experimental results also reveal that the participants’
knowledge of English affects tonal adaptation patters: the monolinguals were more variable
in tonal preference, while the bilinguals were more likely to choose HH. We propose that the
bilinguals are more familiar with the fact that English stressed syllables have higher pitch,
and are thus more sensitive to the high pitch on the stressed vowel in the target syllable. As a
result, they prefer to identify the stressed vowel in the target syllable with HH, which is
acoustically the most similar tone. In contrast, the monolingual patterns appear to be
consistent with the MC tone frequency suggesting that the monolinguals depended on the
tonal frequencies in the absence of knowledge about English pitch in stressed vowel.
We suggest that there is a difference in the patterns that are observed in established
loanwords with settled orthography in MC and those that are observed in online adaptation
tasks. Perhaps, established loanwords go through more nativization/standardization
processes after the initial adaptation. Furthermore, we show that bilinguals are more
sensitive to the phonetic characteristics of the source words than monolinguals suggesting
that one needs to carefully evaluate how particular loanwords have entered the language
before attempting to propose an account for them.
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