The University of Texas at Austin; College of Liberal Arts

Hans C. Boas, Director :: PCL 5.556, 1 University Station S5490 :: Austin, TX 78712 :: 512-471-4566

Syntactic Typology: Studies in
the Phenomenology of Language

Winfred P. Lehmann

5. An Exploration
of Mandarin Chinese

Charles N. Li & Sandra A. Thompson

5.1. Introduction

The language whose typology we are going to describe is Mandarin Chinese; genetically, Mandarin is a member of the Chinese branch of the Sino-Tibetan family. It is the major Chinese language in that (1) it is the native language of more than half of the people of China, (2) these native speakers inhabit about 75 percent of the land area of China, (3) it is the official language of both mainland China and Taiwan, and (4) the written language is structurally and lexically closer to Mandarin than to any of the other Chinese languages.

A number of Chinese languages are mutually unintelligible. This mutual intelligibility is largely due to phonological and lexical factors; from the grammatical point of view, these languages are rather similar. Thus, most of the typological features of Mandarin discussed in this paper are shared by the other Chinese languages with some differences of detail. However, from here on, we will speak of Mandarin without the qualifying phrase "and in the Chinese languages in general." We will point out those few characteristics which distinguish Mandarin from its sister languages.

When Mandarin is compared to other languages of the world, it displays a number of typologically salient features. On the phonological level, Mandarin is a tone language, and its syllable structure is relatively highly constrained. On the grammatical side, we will try to show that the most noteworthy feature is the fact that Mandarin is an isolating language with practically no grammatical morphology. From this fact follow the other typological features that we will be discussing: its word order characteristics, the prominence assigned to the notion of "topic," the lack of a case system, the system of "serial verb constructions," and the fact that there is very little evidence for claiming syntactic (as opposed to semantic) knowledge on the part of its speakers.

5.2. Tone and Syllable Structure

All the Chinese languages are lexical tone languages: part of the lexical representation of each syllable in every word includes the information as to what tone it carries. However, of all the Chinese languages, Mandarin's tone system is the simplest: first, it has only four lexical tones, the smallest number of tones of any Chinese language (e.g., Standard Cantonese has nine tones). Second, Mandarin has relatively few tone sandhi rules, as compared with most of the dialects of the Amoy language, such as Taiwanese and Fukienese. Since excellent descriptions of the tone system of Mandarin are readily available in the literature, we will be very brief here (see, for example, Chao 1961; 1968; Cheng 1971; Kratochvil 1968).

For stressed syllables, there are four possible tones:

High	bā
Rising	bá
Dipping	bǎ
Falling	bà

Pinyin, the official spelling system for Mandarin proposed by the People's Republic of China, which we will be using throughout, represents these tones by four iconic diacritic tone marks, as illustrated above for the ba syllable.

Unstressed syllables have what is known as the "neutral tone": its pitch is determined entirely by the tone of the preceding syllable. Unstressed syllables have no tone diacritic in the Pinyin spelling system.

The syllable structure of all the Chinese languages is relatively simple compared with that of, say, English: for example, all of the languages forbid consonant clusters and allow only a restricted number of consonants in a syllable-final position. But, as with tone, Mandarin is the simplest in syllable structure:

Every syllable has a nuclear vowel; diphthongs and triphthongs may occur; an initial consonant is optional, and the only final consonants which are permitted are the nasal segments n and ŋ.

The essential lack of morphology, which we will show to have significant ramifications throughout the grammar of Mandarin, can easily be seen to affect the phonology of Mandarin as well: there are few morphophonological processes. The phonologically interesting phenomena all center around the effects of rate of speech on tones and segments, and the vowel height constraints on diphthongs and triphthongs (see Cheng 1971 for details).

5.3. Word Order

Since the appearance of Greenberg's milestone paper on word order typologies (1963), linguists have been attempting to characterize languages in terms of his basic three-way distinction according to the position of the verb: VSO, SVO, or SOV. Mandarin is not at all a straightforward example of distinctions of this type, for three reasons.

First, the notion of "subject" is not a well-defined one in the grammar of Mandarin.

A second and closely related fact is that the order in which basic constituents occur is governed to a large extent by pragmatic and semantic considerations rather than grammatical ones. What this means is that both verb-medial and verb-final sentence types exist, neither being clearly more "basic" or "neutral" than the other. Languages which are relatively easy to characterize in Greenberg's terms are always those in which the word order is principally determined on strictly grammatical grounds (i.e., independent of pragmatic or semantic principles), such as French and Turkish.

Third, whether Mandarin is taken to be verb-medial or verb-final, it is inconsistent with respect to the features that correlate with VO or OV order according to Greenberg's typological scheme. For example, sample texts reveal a greater number of VO than OV sentences, yet modifiers must precede their heads, which is an OV concomitant.

Let us examine in more detail each of these three problems in determining word order for Mandarin.

The first problem has to do with the fact that Mandarin is a language in which "subject" is not a clearly definable notion. In Li and Thompson 1976b we suggested that Mandarin is in fact a topic-prominent rather than a subject-prominent language. That is, in Mandarin, the basic structure of sentences can be more insightfully treated in a description in which the topic-comment relation rather than the subject-predicate relation plays a major role, although many sentences, of course, do have identifiable subjects. An example of a topic-comment sentence is:

(1)	Nèikuài	tián	wǒmen	zhòng	daòzi.
	that	field	we	grow	rice
	'That field (Topic), we grow rice (on it).'

In such a sentence, the initial noun phrase nèikuài tián 'that field' is playing the role of the topic with respect to the comment wǒmen zhòng daòzi 'we grow rice.' Evidence that it does not bear the grammatical relation subject to the rest of the sentence includes the fact that there is no selectional relationship between this topic and the comment. Now, in a language in which such sentences are part of the repertory of basic sentence types, it is clearly no simple matter to determine what the basic word order is according to Greenberg's criteria: the verb is preceded by two nouns, but neither the SOV nor the OSV label characterizes sentences like (1).

A second problem in determining the basic word order for Mandarin is the related fact that it is primarily pragmatic and semantic factors rather than grammatical ones which determine the order of major constituents with respect to the verb. Thus, on the pragmatic side, preverbal position is a signal for definiteness for topics, subjects, and objects (see Li and Thompson 1975; 1976a; 1976b). On the semantic side, pre- or postverbal position signals a meaning difference for adverbial expressions (see Tai 1973a and Light 1976).

Let us briefly illustrate these two points. First, we have said that definiteness is signaled by preverbal position for topics, subjects, and objects. Since topics, as in (1), are definite by definition, they are always preverbal, but subjects and objects may appear on either side of the verb:

(2)

Zéi	pǎo	le.
thief	run	Asp.
'The thief has run away.'

Pǎo	le	zéi.
run	Asp.	thief
'A thief has run away.'

(2a) shows that the preverbal subject is interpreted as definite, while the postverbal subject of (2b) is interpreted as indefinite. In (3a) it can be seen that the unmarked post-verbal object is taken as indefinite, while any of the three possible preverbal positions render it definite (3b-d):

(3)

Wǒ	mǎi	shū	le.
I	buy	book	Asp.
'I bought a book.'

Wǒ	bǎ	shū	mǎi	le.
I	def. obj.	book	buy	Asp.
'I bought the book.'

Shū	wǒ	mǎi	le.
book	I	buy	Asp.
'The book, I bought it.' (Topic/Contrastive)

Wǒ	shū	mǎi	le.
I	book	buy	Asp.
'I bought the book.' (Contrastive)

(The pragmatic difference signaled by pre- versus postverbal position holds for nouns which are not morphologically marked for definiteness with a demonstrative; under certain conditions it is possible for a noun marked for definiteness to appear postverbally, particularly when contrastively stressed:

(i)	Wǒ	mǎi	le	nèiben	shu.
	I	buy	Asp.	that	book
	'I bought that book.')

Second, to illustrate the semantic difference between pre- and postverbal position for adverbial expressions, we can examine time phrases and place phrases.

Time phrases. Preverbal time phrases tend to signal punctual time, while postverbal time phrases tend to signal durative time:

(4)

Wǒ	sān-diǎn-zhōng	kāi-huì.
I	3:00	hold-meeting
'I have a meeting at 3:00.'

*Wǒ	kāi-huì	sān-diǎn-zhōng.
I	hold-meeting	3:00

(5)

Wǒ	shuì	le	sānge	zhōngtou.
I	sleep	Asp.	3	hours
'I slept for three hours.'

*Wǒ	sānge	zhōngtou	shuì	le.
I	3	hours	sleep	Asp.

Place phrases. Preverbal position signals location of actions, while postverbal position signals location of participants or object:

(6)

Tā	zài	zhuōzi-shang	tiào.
he	at	table-on	jump
'He jumped (up and down) on the table.'

Tā	tiào	zài	zhuōzi-shang.
he	jump	at	table-on
'He jumped onto the table.'

Tā	zài	zhuōzi-shang	huà.
he	at	table-on	draw
'He is drawing at the table.'

Tā	huà	zài	zhuōzi-shang.
he	draw	at	table-on
'He is drawing (something) on the table.'

With both pragmatic and semantic factors influencing the order of noun phrases with respect to the verb, then, it is eminently clear that "basic word order" will be difficult to establish.

Before leaving this point, however, let us see what happens if we select some criterion according to which we might try to pick either VO or OV order as "basic" for Mandarin. One such criterion, which most linguists would consider reasonable, might be the unmarked pragmatic value for subjects and objects, the unmarked value for subjects being definite, for objects, indefinite. According to this criterion, the least marked word order for Mandarin will be SVO for sentences which have subjects and objects. Corroborating this observation is the fact that a sample text count yields more SVO than SOV sentences.

Unfortunately, we cannot be entirely happy with the results of applying this criterion, because we must still face the third problem in determining a word order for Mandarin: according to Greenberg's discussion, certain features should correlate with the order in which the object and verb occur. Mandarin can be seen to have some of the features of an OV language and some of those of a VO language, with more of the former than of the latter (see Li and Thompson 1974a and 1974b for more discussion). The presence of both OV and VO features has been observed by other linguists, e.g., Tai (1973b), Light (1976), and Teng (1975):

OV Language Features	VO Language Features
1. OV sentences occur.	1. VO sentences occur.
2. Prepositional phrases precede the V (except for time and place phrases) (see above).	2. Prepositions exist.
3. Postpositions exist.	3. Auxiliaries precede the V.
4. Relative clauses precede the N.	4. Complex sentences are almost always VO.
5. Genitive phrases precede the N.
6. Aspect markers follow the V.
7. Certain adverbials precede the V.

Example sentences illustrating each of the OV features are:

1. OV sentences occur.

(7)	Zháng-sān	bǎ	tā	mà	le.
	Zhang-san	Obj. Marker (OM)	he	scold	Asp.
	'Zhang-san scolded him.'

The ba-construction is one of the most-discussed and least-understood constructions in Mandarin grammar. It is a feature not found in most of the other Chinese languages. In essence, ba functions to mark a definite direct object:

(7)

Tā	mǎi	le	shū	le.
he	buy	Asp.	book	Asp.
'He has bought a book.'

Tā	bǎ	shū	mǎi	le.
he	OM	book	buy	Asp.
'He bought the book.'

For further discussion, see Thompson 1973a; Li 1971; and Cheung 1973 and references cited there.

2. Prepositional phrases precede the V, and

3. Postpositions exist.

(8)	Tā	zài	chūfáng-lǐ	chǎo-fàn.
	he	at	kitchen-in	cook-rice
	'He's cooking in the kitchen.'

4. Relative clauses precede the N, and

5. Genitive phrases precede the N.

(9)	Huì	jiǎng	guóyǔ	de	nèige	xiǎohái	shì	wǒ-de	érzi.
	know	speak	Chinese	Rel.	that	child	be	I-gen.	son
	'The child who knows how to speak Chinese is my son.'

6. Aspect markers follow the V.

(10)	Wǒ	qù-guo	Táiběi.
	I	go-experienced	Taipei
	'I have been to Taipei.'

7. Certain adverbials precede the V:

(11)	Tā	mǎn	bù	zàihu.
	he	completely	not	care
	'He is completely indifferent.'

(12)	Nǐ	kuài	yidiǎn	chī.
	you	fast	a-little	eat
	'Eat a little faster.'

Here are examples illustrating the VO features:

1. VO sentences occur.

(13)	Wǒ	xǐhuān	tā.
	I	like	he
	'I like him.'

2. Prepositions exist.

(14)	Tā	cóng	Zhōngguo	lái	le.
	he	from	China	come	Asp.
	'He has come from China.'

3. Auxiliaries precede the V.

(15)	Tā	néng	shuō	zhōngguo-huà.
	he	can	speak	Chinese
	'He can speak Chinese.'

4. Complex sentences are almost always VO.

(16)	Wǒ	tīnshuō	nǐ	mǎi	le	tāde	shū-diàn.
	I	hear	you	buy	Asp.	he-Gen.	bookstore
	'I heard that you bought his bookstore.'

Until more is understood about the basis for these word order correlates, it is difficult to see any clear pattern in this distribution of OV and VO features.

To summarize this section, then: discussions in the literature on word order do not enable us to decide what the basic word order of Mandarin is; the notion of "subject" is not a prominent one in Mandarin; pragmatic and semantic factors influence word order more than grammatical factors do; and Mandarin has properties which have been suggested as concomitants of both OV and VO languages.

5.4. Morphology

5.4.1. Compounding Mechanisms

As we suggested above, Mandarin has very little grammatical morphology relative to other languages. The language, however, is rich in compounds, both nominal and verbal. The most common type of verbal compound is the "resultative" compound, composed of an action verb followed by a stative verb, e.g., dǎsǎo 'dust and sweep' + gānjing 'clean' = 'tidy up'. It is also known as the causative compound since the first verb specifies the cause and the second verb denotes the result. An example of a sentence with such a compound would be:

(17)	Wǒmen	bǎ	fángjian	dǎsǎo-gānjing.
	we	OM	room	sweep-clean
	'We swept the room clean.'

(For further discussion, see Thompson 1973b.) In the formation of nominal compounds, Mandarin is essentially like English: nominal compounds can be created at will, and the language is also full of lexicalized compounds. For example,

Newly Created Compounds

English:

ketchup blot

Mandarin:	jiàng-yóu	wū-diǎn
	soy	stain

Lexicalized Compounds

English:

pocket book

Mandarin:	xiào-yǒu
	school-friend
	'alumnus'

(For more discussion, see Zimmer 1971; 1972; Li 1971.)

Mandarin has two other interesting compounding devices, which are somewhat less commonly found in languages of the world. One is exemplified by the so-called verb-object compound. This term is used to refer to compounds consisting of two morphemes which could function in a verb-object relationship syntactically but which are frozen lexical items functioning as nouns or verbs in the language. Examples include:

Nouns

guǎn-jiā

take-care-of-home

'housekeeper'

dǐng-zhēn

push-needle

'thimble'

zhěn-tóu

rest-head

'pillow'

Verbs

dān-xīn

bear-heart

'worry'

jué-shé

chew-tongue

'gossip'

diū-liǎn

'lose-face

'be ashamed'

(This type of compound is discussed at some length in Chi 1974.)

The other compounding device, which is more productive than the verb-object type, involves the shortening of a multi-morphemic phrase into a bimorphemic lexical item called a "stump compound." For example, the official name of the Soviet Union is:

sūwéiāi	shèhui-zhǔyì	lián-bāng	gòng-hé-kuó
soviet	socialism	union	republic
"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"

which is typically shortened to sū lián 'Soviet Union' where sū is the first syllable of the first morpheme sūwéiāi 'soviet' and liān is the first morpheme of the third word liān-bāng 'union'. Another example is:

xiē-nán	lián-hé	dà-xué
west-south	united	university
"South-Western United University"

which is shortened to xiē-nán lián dà. Such "stump compounds" are commonly used in naming agencies and branches of the military or government. (Excellent discussion of the various types of compounds in Mandarin can be found in Chao 1968 and Kratochvil 1968.)

5.4.2. Lack of Grammatical Morphology

5.4.2.1.

We have suggested that the fact that the language has essentially no grammatical morphology may be a significant typological feature. Here we will discuss the implications of this typological fact for Mandarin grammar.

First, there is no case morphology signaling "primary" case relations, that is, the grammatical relations of subject, direct object, and indirect object.¹ While in certain sentence types, the word order SVO indicates that the preverbal noun is the subject and the postverbal noun is the object, we have shown that word order is semantically and pragmatically conditioned in Mandarin, and that there are simple, basic sentence types whose word order does not signal grammatical relations (although in complex sentence constructions, such as serial verb construction to be discussed later in this section, the word order SVO is fairly rigid). Needless to say, Chinese also does not have agreement to signal the notion of subject. Hence, one may conclude that grammatical relations are not systematically manifested in surface coding. In Li and Thompson 1976b, we also argued that there are relatively few grammatical processes that refer to grammatical relations. (There do, however, appear to be certain processes, such as Equi and reflexive, which are sensitive to "subject"; see Li and Thompson 1976b for discussion.) A corollary to this de-emphasis of grammatical relations is the fact that the "topic" notion, as we suggested above, plays a much more prominent role in Mandarin than in languages which predominently code grammatical relations. That is, topic-comment sentences such as the following are basic sentences in Mandarin:

(18)	Nèi-zuo	fángzi	xìngkui	qù-nián	méi	xià-yǔ.
	that-Classif.	house	fortunate	last-year	not	rain
	'That house (Topic), fortunately it didn't rain last year.'

(19)	Yú	wǒ	zuì	xǐhuān	chī	xīnxian-de.
	fish	I	most	like	eat	fresh-Nominalizer
	'Fish (Topic), I like fresh ones best.'

(20)	Tāmen	shéi	zhīdào?
	they	who	know
	'As far as they are concerned, who knows?'

(21)	Zhè-men	kè	wǒmen	děi	dāngxīn.
	this-Classif.	course	we	must	careful
	'This course (Topic), we must be careful.'

(22)	Dà-xúexiào	zhè-jian	zuì	hǎo.
	university	this-Classif.	most	good
	'Universities (Topic), this one is the best.'

A second implication of the lack of grammatical morphology is that Mandarin is missing a morphological system for signaling the definiteness of a noun phrase; correlated with this is the fact that word order is used for that function, as discussed in section 5.3.

The third implication of the dearth of grammatical morphology which we would like to discuss is the serial verb construction. A serial verb construction contains two or more predicates juxtaposed without any morphological marker indicating either (1) the relationship between the nouns and the predicates or (2) the relationship between the predicates. Thus, it takes the form

(NP)

Sentences of this form in Mandarin are understood in radically different ways. For ease of presentation, we group the interpretations into the following types and give examples of each:

5.4.2.2. A. "Canonical" Serial Verbs

(23)

Tā	mǎi	piào	jìnqu.
he	buy	ticket	go-in
'He bought a ticket to go in/and went in.'

Tā	tiāntian	huì	kè	xiě	xìn.
he	every-day	receive	guest	write	letter
'Every day he receives guests and writes letters.'

Wǒmen	kāi	huì	tǎolùn	nèige	wènti.
we	hold	meeting	discuss	that	problem
'We're holding a meeting to discuss that problem/and discussing that problem.'

Tā	shàng	lóu	shuìjiào.
he	go-up	stairs	sleep
'He's going upstairs to sleep.'

5.4.2.3. B. Complementation

1. Object Complementation

(24)

Wǒ	yào	tā	qù.
I	want	he	go
'I want him to go.'

Wǒ	zhīdao	Z. S.	lái	le.
I	know	Z. S.	come	Asp.
'I know Z. S. has come.'

Tā	kànjian	wǒ	xiě	xìn.
he	see	I	write	letter
'He saw me writing a letter.'

2. Subject Complementation

(25)

Tā	shàng	dàxué	shì	dà	shì.
he	go-to	university	be	big	matter
'His going to the university is a big deal.'

Tā	shēng-bìng	hěn	kěxí.
he	get-sick	very	sad
'It's very sad that he has gotten sick.'

Xiě	Yīngwen	hěn	nán.
write	English	very	hard
'It's very hard to write English.'

3. "Pivot" Sentences (i.e., NP2 = Subj. of V2 and Obj. of V1)

(26)

Wǒ	jiào	tā	qù.
I	tell	he	go
'I told him to go.'

Wǒ	pīping	tā	bù	yònggōng.
I	criticize	he	not	diligent
'I criticized him for not being hardworking.'

Wǒ	pài	tā	qù	mǎi	jiǔ.
I	send	he	go	buy	wine
'I sent him to go buy wine.'

Háizi	dōu	xiào	tā	shì	yíge	pàngzi.
child	all	laugh-at	he	be	a	fatso
'The children all laughed at him for being a fatso.'

5.4.2.4. C. "Intention" Clauses

(27)

Wǒmen	zhòng	cài	chī.
we	raise	vegetable	eat
'We raise vegetables to eat.'

Wǒ	yǎng	zhū	mài.
I	raise	pig	sell
'I raise pigs to sell.'

Wǒ	zhǎo	xuésheng	jiāo.
I	seek	student	teach
'I'm looking for students to teach.' (Ambiguous as in English)

5.4.2.5. D. "Descriptive" Clauses

(28)

Wǒ	yǒu	yíge	mèimei	hěn	piàoling.
I	have	a	sister	very	pretty
'I have a sister who is very pretty.'

Wǒ	mǎi	le	yíjiàn	yīfu	tài	dà.
I	buy	Asp.	a	outfit	too	big
'I bought an outfit that was too big.'

Tā	chǎo	le	yíge	cài	hěn	xiāng.
he	cook	Asp.	a	dish	very	delicious
'He cooked a dish that was very delicious.'

5.4.2.6. E. Circumstantial Adjuncts

(29)

Wǒ	zài	chúfang-li	shāo-fàn.
I	at	kitchen-in	cook-rice
'I'm cooking in the kitchen.'

Tā	zuò	zài	yǐzi-shang	kàn	bào.
he	sit	at	chair-on	read	paper
'He sat in the chair reading a newspaper.'

Wǒ	yòng	kuàizi	chī-fàn.
I	use	chopsticks	eat-rice
'I eat with chopsticks.'

Wǒ	bǐ	tā	gāo.
I	compare	he	tall
'I'm taller than he is.'

5.4.2.7. F. Ambiguities

(30)

Tā	tiāntiān	kàn	diànying	chī	píngguo.
he	every-day	see	movie	eat	apple
'Everyday he sees movies and eats apples/to eat apples.'

Tā	tiāntiān	kàn	péngyou	chī	píngguo.
he	every-day	see	friend	eat	apple
'Everyday he sees a friend and eats apples/eat an apple/to eat apples.'

Wǒmen	yǒu	yíge	wènti	hěn	máfan.
we	have	a	problem	very	troublesome
'We have a problem that's very troublesome/That we have a problem is very troublesome.'

Wǒ	yǒu	yíge	jiějie	yǒu	yíge	háizi.
I	have	a	sister	have	a	child
'I have a sister who has a child/I have a sister and a child.'

5.4.2.8.

What is evident from the above examples is that the serial verb construction is used to encode a number of different relationships between predicates in Mandarin. These predicate relationships are structurally distinct in most other languages because of the presence of grammatical markers. The interesting question that such constructions pose is: given such a minimally specified string, how do speakers assign appropriate interpretations to it?

Our answer to this question is that speakers infer the appropriate interpretations for such strings on the basis of four types of knowledge: language-dependent knowledge, pragmatic factors, certain language-independent principles, and universal linguistic principles. Let us elaborate on each of these.

5.4.2.9. A. Language-Dependent Knowledge

Speakers of a language know the meanings of predicates in their language and the nature of the arguments each predicate takes. It is easy to see that this knowledge accounts for a fair amount of a speaker's ability to interpret serial verb sentences. For example, in a sentence such as the object complement type (31),

(31)	Wǒ	xǐhuan	chī	bīng-ji-líng.
	I	like	eat	ice-cream
	'I like to eat ice-cream.'

the interpretation follows directly from the fact that xǐhuan 'like' is a two-argument verb requiring an animate subject; since wǒ 'I' is an animate noun and is in a preverbal position, the sequence chī bīng-ji-líng 'eat ice cream' can only be interpreted as its object. (That such knowledge is, in fact, language-dependent rather than universal semantic knowledge, is evident from the fact that, although verbs such as Mandarin xǐhuan and its English counterpart like are both two-argument verbs, the Mandarin xiào 'laugh' can be either a one-argument or a two-argument verb, corresponding to the English laugh as well as laugh at. These properties of verbs, then, must be viewed as facts which speakers know about their own language.)

Another significant kind of language-dependent knowledge is the knowledge of the range of grammatical devices available in the language. Thus, given a serial verb sentence like:

(32)	Tā	kàn	diànying	chī	píngguo.
	he	see	movie	eat	apple
	'He saw a movie and ate an apple.'

an interpretation in which the two events are understood to have occurred simultaneously is ruled out because there is an explicit construction in Mandarin for signaling simultaneity of two events, the -zhe-construction (see section 5.5).

(33)	Tā	kàn-zhe	diànying	chī	píngguo.
	he	see	movie	eat	apple
	'He ate an apple while watching a movie.'

Similarly, unlike the serial verb construction in Thai which may take on a causative reading, a serial verb construction in Chinese will not be given a causative interpretation. The reason is that there is another grammatical device, namely the resultative verb compound mentioned earlier, available to the speaker of Chinese who wishes to signal a causative relationship between two verbs.

The basic principle suggested here regarding the native speaker's knowledge of the range of grammatical devices available in the language is that a language tends not to employ several distinct multipredicate structures to signal one specific semantic relationship between two predicates. This principle may be viewed as a tendency toward economy in linguistic codification. It does not call for an isomorphism between multipredicate structures on the one hand and semantic relationships between predicates on the other. In fact, a language may employ two distinct structures to signal a specific semantic relationship between two predicates. Such a situation frequently occurs when the language is undergoing syntactic changes involving the structure in question. For instance, the resultative compound historically displaced the causative serial verb construction in Chinese (see Li and Thompson 1976c). But the process of actualization concerning the displacement took several centuries, during which both serial verb construction and resultative compounds were used to signal the causative relation between predicates.

A third type of language-dependent knowledge which must be attributed to speakers is an understanding of certain basic syntactic principles of their language, such as word order in certain constructions. For Mandarin, the fact that in complex sentences word order is consistently SVO plays a role in determining the interpretation of serial verb sentences. Because of this relatively rigid word order in complex sentences, the native speaker is able to identify the first NP in a serial verb sentence as the subject of the first verb and also the potential subject of the second verb. Consider for example:

(34)	Tā	tiāntiān	kàn	diànying	chī	píngguo
	he	every-day	see	movie	eat	apple

By the word order principle, we understand that the subject of see is the first NP of the sentence, tā 'he'. Now the second NP of the sentence, diànying 'movie', which should be the subject of the second verb by virtue of its position immediately preceding the second verb, is an inanimate noun; but the second verb, chī 'eat', requires an animate subject. Hence, the second NP cannot serve as the subject of the second verb, and we are forced to take the first NP as the subject of both the first and second verb. Thus the SVO word order for complex sentences and the meaning of 'the verbs (i.e., their selectional and categorial co-occurrence restrictions) are sufficient for us to determine the grammatical relationships between the NP's and the predicates in sentence (34).

5.4.2.10. B. Pragmatic Factors

Situation-dependent, or pragmatic, factors are responsible for narrowing down interpretations in cases such as the following:

(35)	Tā	yǒu	yíge	wènti	hěn	máfan.
	he	have	a	problem	very	troublesome
	a. 'That he has a problem is very troublesome.'
	b. 'He has a problem that is very troublesome.'

The difference between interpretations (a) and (b) is whether the clause tā yǒu yíge wènti 'he has a problem' is understood as being presupposed, as in (a), or asserted, as in (b). The pragmatic fact of whether this proposition is known to both speaker and hearer clearly determines whether interpretation (a) or (b) is appropriate in a given situation.

5.4.2.11. C. Language-Independent Principles

5.4.2.11.1.

A good part of the knowledge of possible relationships between clauses in a sentence is acquired by normal people as a result of their experiences in the world. This knowledge is language-independent and results from our perception of and experience with the world. Given any two events, there can be only a small, finite number of relationships between them. Language merely reflects and codifies these relationships in various multipredicate constructions, although different languages employ different strategies in their codification.

This language-independent knowledge of various relationships between clauses plays a significant role in the interpretation of serial verb sentences in Mandarin. Before discussing how this works, however, let us describe the central relationship between events and/or states commonly occurring in the world. Below we list the relationships together with a description of the construction used in Mandarin for signaling each relationship:

1. Parallel Events

Most languages employ a coordinate structure with a coordinate marker linking the clauses to codify parallel events. In Mandarin, however, they are signaled by the serial verb construction, e.g.,

(36)	Tā	xiě	xiǎoshuo	mài	gǔdong.
	he	write	novel	sell	antique
	'He writes novels and sells antiques.'

2. Consecutive Events

When two events occur sequentially, languages may either use a temporal adverbial clause such as an after-clause, a before-clause, or a coordinate structure with or without a consecutive marker such as the English then. Temporal adverbial clauses with after or before seem to be nearly universal. However, in Mandarin, consecutive events may also be codified by the serial verb construction.

(37)	Tā	tuō-le	yīfu	shàng	chuáng.
	he	take-off-Asp.	clothes	get-into	bed
	'He took off his clothes and then got into bed.'

3. Simultaneous Events

Two events may occur simultaneously. Mandarin signals the simultaneous relationship between two clauses with the -zhe-construction, e.g.,

(38)	Tā	chī-zhe	fàn	kàn	bào.
	he	eat	food	read	newspaper
	'He reads newspapers while eating food.'

4. Result

One event may be the result of another. The construction used in Mandarin to signal this relationship takes on the particle de, marking the predicate denoting the event which leads to the result, e.g.,

(39)	Tā	pǎo-de	hěn	lèi.
	He	run	very	tired
	'He is very tired from running.'

5. Purpose

An action may be carried out for a specific purpose. When both the action and the purpose are expressed by clauses, the relationship between the two clauses may be described as "purposive." In Mandarin, the serial verb construction signals this relationship:

(40)	Tā	huí	jiā	kàn	qīnqi.
	he	return	home	see	relative
	'He went back home to see his relatives.'

6. Cause

One event may be the cause of another. The causative relationship in Mandarin, as mentioned above, is signaled by the "resultative compound," e.g., dǎsǎo-gānjing 'sweep-clean'. The causative relationship between these two verbs is inferred from the juxtaposition of the two verbs just as the meaning 'is made of' is inferred from an English compound such as steel blade.

7. Conditional, Concessive

A conditional or concessive relationship between two events is typically expressed by explicit morphology. All languages appear to have some morphological marker signaling conditional or concessive relationships between two clauses. In Mandarin, a marker such as rúguo 'if on the clause indicating condition is optional, but the marker jiù 'then' on the consequent clause is obligatory. (See section 5.6 for more discussion of conditional clauses.)

(41)	(Rúguo)	tā	lái	wǒ	jiù	qù.
	if	he	come	I	then	go
	'If he comes, I will go.'

Concessional clauses are marked with such pairs as sūirán 'although' ... kěshi 'but'.

(42)

Sūirán	tā	lái-le,	kěshi	wǒ	hái	juéde	bú
although	he	come-Asp.	but	I	still	feel	not

shūfu.

comfortable

'Although he has arrived, I still don't feel good.'

It is clear that the knowledge of such relationships between events and/or states in the world plays a role in the interpretation of serial verb sentences by the speaker of Mandarin. For example, given a sentence such as (40), which juxtaposes two verbs semantically requiring agents acting willfully, the Mandarin speaker knows that given the small set of relationships described above a most likely inference is that the first action was undertaken in order to accomplish the second.

5.4.2.12. D. Universal Linguistic Principles

As we have seen in the preceding discussion, a small set of language-independent principles representing our perception and knowledge of the world accounts for most of the relationships between clauses in multipredicate constructions. However, the relationships between clauses in certain multi-predicate constructions which appear in all languages cannot be understood as manifestations of the language-independent relationships between events in the world, but seem to be purely linguistic. Two of the most important and fundamental of these relations are predication and description.

1. Predication

A proposition may be predicated on another proposition. In other words, a proposition may serve as an argument of a predicate. Multipredicate constructions of this type are currently referred to by the term "complementation." Let us examine two examples given earlier:

(24)	b.	Wǒ	zhīdào	Z. S.	lái	le.
		I	know	Z. S.	come	Asp.
		'I know Z. S. has come.'

(25)	b.	Tā	shēng-bìng	hěn	kěxí.
		he	get-sick	very	sad
		'It's very sad that he has gotten sick.'

In these examples, the underlined propositions are serving as arguments in the propositions whose predicates are respectively zhīdao 'know' and kěxí 'sad'; these predicates can be said to be making a predication, then, on the underlined propositions. The relationship between the two propositions does not reflect the relationship between events/states in the world. It is a purely linguistic relationship.

2. Description

The most commonly found type of sentence in which one proposition serves a descriptive function with respect to a noun phrase is, of course, a relative clause construction. Mandarin has a relative clause construction (see below), but there is also a serial verb construction in which the second proposition (or verb phrase) is understood as a description of the last noun phrase in the first proposition. Consider again an earlier example:

(28)	a.	Wǒ	yǒu	yíge	mèimei	hěn	piàoling.
		I	have	a	sister	very	pretty
		'I have a sister who is very pretty.'

The descriptive clause in Mandarin must be in sentence-final position as shown by the underlined clause in (28a), and the noun phrase it describes must be specific and indefinite. What is being coded in (28a), we are suggesting, is not a relationship between two events or states in the world, but a linguistic relationship between two propositions. The particular construction, which we have labeled "descriptive clause" is language-specific, but the knowledge of the descriptive function of propositions, like the knowledge of complementation, is surely universal linguistic knowledge.

The interpretation of serial verb sentences, then, is best viewed as the result of an interplay of universal linguistic principles and language-dependent, language-independent, and pragmatic factors. The interpretive strategy is an inferential process on the part of the speakers of the language. To illustrate the interplay among these factors, let us examine two examples in more detail.

First consider a serial verb sentence such as (43).

(43)	Tā	tiāntian	huì	kè	xiě	xìn.
	he	every-day	receive	guest	write	letter
	'Every day he receives guests and writes letters.'

Given the small set of possible relationships between predicates, the Mandarin speaker considers those for which the serial verb construction is a possible codification. These relationships are represented as: parallel events, consecutive events, purpose (intention), complementation, descriptive clause, circumstantial adjunct. Sentence (43) is not a case of complementation because neither of the two predicates takes a proposition as one of its arguments. It does not involve a descriptive clause because it fails to meet a requirement of the descriptive clause; i.e., the last NP of the first clause which the descriptive clause modifies must be specific and indefinite. Thus, the sentence-final clause xiě xìn 'write letter' cannot serve as a descriptive clause because the preceding noun phrase kè 'guest' is not specific. Finally, (43) does not involve a circumstantial adjunct because circumstantial adjuncts employ specific predicates — the so-called co-verb in Mandarin. We are now left with only three possible interpretations: parallel events, consecutive events, purpose. In fact, in isolation, sentence (43) is indeterminate with respect to these three interpretations; only contextual information could determine which of them would be appropriate in a given setting.

Next, consider a serial verb sentence such as (44),

(44)	Tā	yǎng	zhū	mài.
	he	raise	pig	sell
	'He raises pigs to sell.'

The complementation, the descriptive clause, and the circumstantial adjunct interpretations are ruled out in (44) for the same type of reasons that they are ruled out in (43). We will not repeat the discussion here. The question posed by serial verb sentences such as (44) is: why doesn't it convey a reading of parallel or consecutive events in addition to the purposive reading, as sentence (43) does? The answer lies in the structural characteristics of (44). We observe that the second predicate in (44), mài 'sell' requires the presence of at least two arguments: the source of the transaction and the object of the transaction. The goal of the transaction may be absent in both English and Mandarin. However, in (44), the NP, zhū 'pig', immediately preceding the verb, mài 'sell', cannot serve as its subject, which is semantically the source of the transaction on the basis of selectional restrictions. Thus, mài 'sell' in (44) has neither a subject NP preceding it nor an object NP following it. Another structural characteristic of (44) is that the verb mài 'sell' does not and cannot have any aspect marker. A verb lacking the arguments required by its meaning in their normal positions and having no aspect marker is a nonfinite verb, which signals irrealis. An irrealis verb such as mài 'sell' in (44) simply carries the message "unspecified future" with respect to the other verb, which is nonstative and whose arguments are fully specified. Thus sentence (44) conveys two events, one coded in full and one understood to occur in an unspecified future: both require the presence of an agent. The semantics of such a situation naturally results in a purposive reading, just as in English, where the irrealis verb form, the infinitive, is understood in a purposive sense in the translation of (44): 'He raises pigs to sell'. The important point here is that, on the one hand, there is no morphology for signaling irrealis in Mandarin, and, on the other hand, the irrealis interpretation results from the absence of nominal and aspectual concomitants. It is this absence that rules out parallel and consecutive event interpretations for sentences such as (44).

In conclusion, we have seen that the lack of grammatical signals does not impair communication. Furthermore, as the Mandarin serial verb construction shows, the lack of grammatical signals does not necessarily result in other complications. The strategies used by a Mandarin speaker are essentially the same ones available to speakers of any language. One could conclude that many of the familiar grammatical signals for relationships between predicates are not essential for communicative purposes; Mandarin appears to be, however, quite rare among languages of the world in making use of so few of these signals.

5.5. Marked Subordination

In this section, we will discuss those subordinate structures that are characterized by subordination markers.

5.5.1. Simultaneous Action (-zhe-construction)

The -zhe-construction has the following structure:

NP [ [V-zhe (NP)] V (NP) ]VP

where the first NP is always interpreted as the subject of the two following verbs. E.g.,

(45)	Tā	dī-zhe	tóu	zǒu-lù.
	he	lower	head	walk
	'He walks with his head bowed.'

(46)	Tā	kū-zhe	pǎo	huí	jiā	qù.
	he	cry	run	back	home	go
	'He ran home crying.'

(47)	Tā	kàn-zhe	shū	shàng	kè.
	he	read	book	attend	class
	'He goes to class reading.'

The following evidence suggests that the -zhe-clause is subordinate: (a) it is marked with -zhe, which makes the clause nonfinite; its verb may not take any aspect markers. (b) There are a number of semantic constraints on the verb in the -zhe-clause; it must be nonstative and durative. A momentary verb occurs in the -zhe-clause only if the action it denotes can be iterative. Such constraints are typical of subordinate clause verbs, but are not usually found with coordinate clause verbs.

The evidence supporting our claim that the -zhe-clause is part of a VP constituent, shown in the structure

NP [ [ V -zhe (NP) ] V (NP) ]VP

is as follows:

(1) Auxiliaries, negatives, and certain adverbs which normally occur in the second position preceding the VP in Mandarin occur only before the -zhe-clause. (2) The entire -zhe-clause together with the following constituents may be fronted for the purpose of focusing:

(48)	Guāng-zhe	jiǎo	shàng	kè,	tā	yuànyi.
	bare	foot	attend	class,	he	willing
	'He is willing to attend classes barefooted.'

Hence, syntactically, the -zhe-construction involves a nonfinite clause embedded in the verb phrase. Semantically, the construction expresses two simultaneous actions with the action denoted by the verb in the -zhe-clause providing the "background" for the main clause predication. The particle -zhe functions as a subordinate marker.

5.5.2. Relative Clause versus Descriptive Clause

The relative clause in Mandarin, like the genitive, the article, and the adjective, precedes the head noun it modifies. E.g.,

(49)	Wǒ	xǐhuan	de	rén
	I	like	Rel.	people
	'The people I like'

(50)	Xīhuan	wǒ	de	rén
	like	I	Rel.	people
	'The people who like me'

As (49) and (50) show, the relative clause is marked by the particle de, and the NP within the clause that is coreferential with the head noun is deleted. As far as accessibility to relativization is concerned, subject and direct object are most readily accessible in all Chinese languages. In the case of indirect objects, prepositional objects, and genitives, their accessibility to relativization is not as straightforward. For most speakers of Mandarin, indirect object relativization is permissible, but rare:

(51)	Wǒ	gěi-le	tā	yí-běn	shū	de	nèige	rén.
	I	give-Asp.	he	one	book	Rel.	that	person
	'The person I gave a book to.'

Notice that in (51) where the head noun is coreferential with the indirect object of the relative clause, the indirect object is replaced with a pronoun (underlined) rather than deleted.

Relativization of prepositional object and genitive noun is unacceptable to most native speakers of Mandarin:

(52)	??wǒ	cóng	nèr	lái	de	dìfang
	I	from	there	come	Rel.	place
	'the place I come from'

(53)	??wǒ	rènshi	tā	mèimei	de	nèige	rén
	I	know	his	sister	Rel.	that	person
	'the person whose sister I know'

The relative clause sentence is similar to another Mandarin construction, the descriptive clause, mentioned above in the discussion of serial verb sentences, in some respect, but the two constructions also differ from each other both semantically and syntactically. Let us consider a pair of examples:

(54)

Relative Clause:

Wǒ	mǎi-le	yí-tiáo	hěn	xiōng	de	gǒu.
I	buy-Asp.	a	very	ferocious	Rel.	dog
'I bought a dog that was very ferocious.'

(55)

Descriptive Clause:

Wǒ	mǎi-le	yí-tiáo	gǒu	hěn	xiōng.
I	buy-Asp.	a	dog	very	ferocious
'I bought a dog that was very ferocious.'

(54) and (55) are similar in that both sentences contain a clause which says something about a dog being ferocious. But the similarity stops there. (54) and (55) have different meanings. The meaning of (54) containing the relative clause may best be paraphrased as: "I bought one of those ferocious dogs," whereas the meaning of (55) may be described as: "I bought a dog and it happened to be ferocious." Thus, the relative clause construction assumes the existence of a class of dogs, namely, "ferocious dogs," whereas the descriptive clause construction does not. In other words, the descriptive clause describes an incidental property about the object denoted by the preceding noun, whereas the relative clause provides a property for the establishment of a subclass of objects denoted by the following head noun. There are several other salient characteristics of the descriptive clause construction that set it apart from the relative clause construction. One is that the descriptive clause can occur only in sentence-final position. Another is that the clause does not form a constituent with the preceding NP. The last is that the preceding NP must be indefinite. (For a detailed discussion of the descriptive clause, see Li and Thompson, forthcoming a). One important consequence of the distinctions mentioned above is that whereas the relative clause is a prototype of subordination, it is not at all clear that the descriptive clause involves subordination at all.

5.5.3. Time Adverbial Clause

There are three noteworthy characteristics of time adverbial clauses in Mandarin: (1) they must precede the main clause; (2) they are marked with time adverbial particles; (3) these particles appear at the end of the time clause, unlike the markers for such clause types as conditional and concessive (see section 5.6). For example,

(56)

When:

Tā	lái	de	shíhou,	wǒ	hěn	gāoxing.
he	come	Rel.	time,	I	very	happy
'When he came, I was very happy.'

Before:

Tā	rènshi	nǐ	yǐqián,	wǒ	chángchang	jiàn	tā.
he	know	you	before,	I	often	see	him
'Before he knew you, I often saw him.'

After:

Tā	zǒu-le	yǐhou,	wǒmen	chīfàn.
he	go-Asp.	after,	we	eat
'We'll eat after he goes.'

In the when-clause and the before-clause, the verbs may not take an aspect marker:

(57)

*Tā	lái-le	de	shíhou,	...
he	come-Asp.	Rel.	time,	...

*Tā	pīping	-le	nǐ	yǐqián,	...
he	criticize	-Asp.	you	before,	...

In an after-clause, the verb must take the completive aspect marker -le, as in (56c), or a completive expression, as in:

(58)

Wǒmen	niàn	dào	dì-	wǔ	kè	yǐhou,	jiù.
we	read	to	Ordinalizer-	five	lesson	after,	then

róngyi	le.
easy	Asp.

'After we've read to the fifth lesson, it will be easy.'

The meaning of the Mandarin subordinator yǐhou 'after' requires that the proposition to which it is suffixed be explicitly marked as completed.

5.5.4 Extent Clause Construction

The extent clause construction signals roughly the same meaning as so ... that in English, as in:

(59)	He is so fat that he can't dance.

However, in Mandarin, the clause that indicates the extent appears to be the main clause, while the predicate whose "extent" is being discussed appears to be in the subordinate clause:

(60)	Tā	pǎo	de	tóu	dōu	hūn-le.
	he	run		head	even	dizzy-Asp.
	'He ran to such an extent that he got dizzy.'

(61)	Tā	pàng	de	bù	néng	tiàowu.
	he	fat		not	can	dance
	'He is so fat that he can't dance.'

(62)	Tā	xiào	de	wǒmen	dōu	bù-hǎoyìsi.
	he	laugh		we	all	embarrassed
	'He laughed to such an extent that we were all embarrassed.'

The first verbs, pǎo 'run', pàng 'fat', xiào 'laugh' in (60) - (62) are marked by the particle de. They cannot be followed by aspect markers or preceded by the negative particle bù or by auxiliaries such as néng 'can'. However, (60) - (62) show clearly that aspect markers, bù, and auxiliaries can occur in the extent clause. These facts provide some of the evidence indicating that the first clause in the extent construction is the subordinate clause, whereas the second clause, the extent clause, is the main clause.

It can now be seen that the result clause, exemplified above in (39), repeated here, is simply a special case of the extent construction:

(39)	Tā	pǎo-de	hěn	lèi.
	he	run	very	tired
	'He is tired from running.'

The only difference between (60) - (62) and (39) is that in (39) the extent clause consists of simply a stative verb plus a modifier, while the predicates in (60) - (62) are more elaborate. Note that in both (6l) and (39) the nonexpressed subject of the second predicate is understood as coreferential with the subject of the first verb. (For more discussion of these constructions, see Hashimoto 1971.)

The four types of subordination characterized by the presence of subordinate markers which we have discussed in this section are: the -zhe-construction (simultaneous action), the relative clause construction, the time adverbial clause construction, and the extent clause construction. The relative clause obligatorily precedes the head noun. As for the other three constructions, the subordinate clause generally precedes the main clause. If the subordinate-main relationship may be viewed as analogous to the modifier-modified relationship, then the constraint that the modifier must precede the modified is a very strong one in Mandarin. This constraint also extends to simple adverbs such as hěn 'very', tài 'too', bù 'not', chángchang 'often', tiāntiān 'every day', which must precede the word they modify. For example:

(63)

Tā	hěn	gāo.
he	very	tall
'He is very tall.'

*Tā	gāo	hěn.
he	tall	very

(64)

Tā	tài	lèi.
he	too	tired
'He is too tired.'

*Tā	lèi	tài.
he	tired	too

(65)

Tā	chángchang	shēng-bìng.
he	often	sick
'He often gets sick.'

*Tā	shēng-bìng	chángchang.
he	sick	often

(66)

Tā	tiāntiān	kàn	shū.
he	every-day	read	book
'He reads books every day.'

*Tā	kàn	shū	tiāntiān.
he	read	book	every-day

5.6. Paired Correlative Markers

As suggested above, certain relationships between events and states are signaled by structures involving two clauses each of which begins with a marker, although one of the pair may be optionally deleted:

CONJ S CONJ S

Examples include the following:

5.6.1. A. Reason

(67)	Yīnwei	wǎn	le,	(suǒyi)	wǒ	méi	qù.
	because	late	Asp.	so	I	not	go
	'I didn't go because it was late.'

(68)	Jìrán	tā	bù	kěn,	(jìu)	suàn	le.
	since	he	not	willing,	then	forget	Sentence Ptc.
	'Since he is not willing, forget it.'

5.6.2. B. Concessive

(69)

Sūirán	wǒ	xǐhuan	nèige	fángzi,	kěshi	wǒ	méi
although	I	like	that	house	but	I	not-have

qián.

money

'Although I like that house, I have no money.'

(70)	Sūirán	nǐ	néng	jiègei	wǒ	qián,	háishi	bú	gòu.
	although	you	can	lend	me	money,	still	not	enough
	'Even if you can lend me money, it still won't be enough.'

5.6.3. C. Conditional

1. Future

(71)	(Yàoshi)	nǐ	qù,	wǒ	jiù	qù.
	if	you	go,	I	then	go
	'I'll go if you go.'

(72)	Chúfei	nǐ	máng,	bùran	wǒmen	yídìng	lái	kàn	nǐ.
	unless	you	busy,		we	certainly	come	see	you
	'We'll come to see you unless you are busy.'

2. Unreal Hypothetical

(73)	(Yàoshi)	jīntian	fàngjià,	wǒ	jiù	shuìjiào.
	If	today	holiday,	I	then	sleep
	'If today were a holiday, I would sleep.'

(74)	Jiùshi	wǒmen	qù	de	zǎo,	yě	děi	zǒu	yíge	zhōngtou.
	even-if	we	go		early	still	must	walk	one	hour
	'Even if we left early, we would still have to walk an hour.'

3. Unreal Counterfactual

(75)	Jiǎru	wǒ	shì	nǐ	fùqin,	wǒ	jiù	bù	xǔ	nǐ	qù.
	If	I	be	you	father,	I		not	let	you	go
	'If I were your father, I wouldn't let you go.'

(76)	(Yàoshi)	tā	zǎo	yìdian	huílai,	jiù	hǎo	le.
	if	he	early	a-little	return,	then	fine	Asp.
	'If he had returned a little earlier, it would be fine.'

It is to be noted that the three subcategories of the conditional clause constructions are not determined by the paired markers in each sentence. The markers in (71), which is a future conditional, for instance, are exactly the same as the markers in (76), which is an unreal counterfactual, and in (73) which is an unreal hypothetical. Thus, whether a structure marked with such paired coordinators as yàoshi ... jiù, jiǎru ... jiù, jiùshi ... yě, or chúfei ... bùran is interpreted as a simple future conditional construction or an unreal hypothetical construction or an unreal counterfactual construction depends entirely on pragmatic factors. For example, (76) would be interpreted as counterfactual in a context in which it is known to all participants that "he" in fact returned too late.

5.6.4. D. Miscellaneous Paired Conjunctions

(77)	Búshi	wǒ	lái,	jiùshi	tā	qù.
	not	I	come,	be	he	go
	'Either I come or he goes.'

(78)	Nǐ	yuè	dàshēng	shuōhuà,	wǒ	yuè	tóu-teng.
	you	more	loud	talk,	I	more	headache
	'The more you talk so loudly, the worse my headache gets.'

(79)	Tā	búdàn	mǎi	chēzi,	yě	mǎi	fángzi.
	he	not-only	buy	car,	also	buy	house
	'He is not only buying a car, but is also buying a house.'

It is clear that in constructions such as these, the relationships between the clauses are made explicit by the correlative markers, which have very specific meanings.

One of the most interesting questions raised by these constructions is whether the clauses are in a coordinate or a subordinate-main relationship. Our position is that these constructions are syntactically parallel to each other, though semantically they may express relationships which other languages express with subordinate clauses, such as conditionality and reason.

Before leaving the correlative clauses, we note that, again, it is quite possible for two clauses to simply be juxtaposed, with no markers, leaving the relationship to the inferential abilities of the participants. For example,

(80)	Bú	gòu	zài	jiào.
	not	enough	again	order
	'If it's not enough, we'll order more.'

5.7. Pronominalization

Mandarin has a six-person pronoun system, representing one of the most common pronoun systems in languages of the world.

wǒ	'I, me'			wǒmen	'we, us'
nǐ	'you'			nǐmen	'you' (Pl.)
tā	'he/she, him/her'			tāmen	'they, them'
		zìji	'self'

As the glosses clearly indicate, pronouns in Mandarin are not distinguished on the basis of gender or case, and their plural suffix is the invariant -men. It should be mentioned that pronouns in Mandarin refer only to humans. In the twentieth century, due to the influence of European languages, the third person pronoun in Mandarin has been extended from human reference to animate reference in the written language. In speech, however, it is still not common to use the third person pronoun to refer to a nonhuman animate being. Pronominalization follows strictly the "precede" constraint, i.e., if NP₁ and NP₂ are coreferential and NP₁ precedes NP₂, then only NP₂ may be pronominalized. For example,

(81)

Zhāngsān	zhǐshi	xiǎngdao	(tā)-zìji.
Zhangsan	only	thinks-of	(he)-self
'Zhangsan only thinks of himself.'

*(Tā)-zìji,	Zhāngsān	zhǐshi	xiǎngdao.
(he)-self,	Zhangsan	only	think-of

(82)

Yàoshi	Zhāng-sān	dào	nèr	qù,	tā	jiù	bù	gāoxing.
if	Zhang-san	to	there	go,	he	then	not	happy
'If Zhang-san goes there, he'll be unhappy.'

*Yàoshi	tā	dào	nèr	qù,	Zhāng-sān	jiù	bù	gāoxing.
if	he	to	there	go,	Zhang-san	then	not	happy

If (82b) is to be grammatical, tā and Zhāng-sān cannot be coreferential. The "command" relationship, which may supercede the "precede" constraint in English to allow the first of two coreferential NPs to be pronominalized, is not operable in Mandarin. The typologically distinct characteristic of Mandarin pronominalization is that often an NP preceded by another coreferential NP is simply deleted. This deletion process may occur within a complex sentence or across sentence boundaries in discourse. Languages that allow such a deletion process are called zero-pronominalization languages. Let us consider some examples in Mandarin.

5.7.1. A. Zero-Pronominalization for Subject Obligatory in Adverbial Clause Construction

(83)

Zhāng-sān	qù-le	měiguó	yǐhòu,	jiù	bù	gāoxing.
Zhang-san	go-Asp.	America	after,	then	not	happy
'After Zhang-san went to America, he was unhappy.'

*Zhāng-sān	qù-le	měigúo	yǐhòu,	tā	jiù	bù.
Zhang-san	go-Asp.	America	after,	he	then	not

gāoxing.

happy

5.7.2. B. Zero-Pronominalization for Subject Optional in Correlative Structures

(84)	Yīnwei	Zhāng-sān	xǐhuan	nǐ,	suǒyi	(tā)	lái	zhèr.
	because	Zhang-san	like	you,	therefore	(he)	come	here
	'Because Zhang-san liked you, he came here.'

The pronoun, tā, in the second clause is optional in (84) as well as in (82a).

5.7.3. C. Zero-Pronominalization in Discourse

The most common type of zero pronominalization in discourse is topic-controlled, i.e., a topic followed by a sequence of comments each of which is an independent clause. For example,

(85)

Nèichang	huǒ	xìngkui	xiāofang-dùi	lái	de	kuài.
that	fire	fortunately	fire-brigade	come		quick

Zhǐ	shāo-le	sān-ge	fángzi,	fàng-le	yì-xie	yān.
only	burn-Asp.	three	house,	release-Asp.	some	smoke

Wǔ-fēn-zhōng	yǐhòu,	jiù	miè-le.
five-minutes	later,	then	extinguish-Asp.

'That fire (Topic), fortunately the fire-brigade came quickly. It only burned up three houses, and released some smoke. Five minutes later, it was extinguished.'

Zero-pronominalization is a complex and widespread phenomenon in Mandarin, which we have not yet begun to elucidate here (but see Li and Thompson, forthcoming b, for some discussion). We mention it here as an important typological characteristic of Mandarin.

5.8. Conclusion

We have considered here a number of typological parameters and outlined the position of Mandarin with respect to these parameters. We have concluded that the lack of grammatical morphology has a number of far-reaching consequences for the grammar of this language, and that such a language may provide important clues to the understanding of language use which we might miss if we restricted our attention to languages with complex morphological systems.

Note

1. An apparent counterexample to the claim that grammatical relations are unmarked is the indirect object. The indirect object is marked with the preposition gěi 'to' in sentences with certain three-place predicates such as sòng 'present', jì 'mail', huì 'to send by money order'. For example,

(i)

Wǒ	sòng-le	yí-ben	shū	gěi	tā.
I	give-Asp.	a-classifier	book	to	he
'I gave a book to him.'

Wǒ	jì-le	yí-feng	xìn	gěi	tā.
I	mail-Asp.	a-classifier	letter	to	he
'I mailed a letter to him.'

However, with other three-place predicates, the indirect object is indeed unmarked:

(ii)

Wǒ	wèn	tā	yíge	wènti.
I	ask	he	a	question
'I'll ask him a question.'

Wǒ	gěi	tā	yí-ben	shū.
I	give	he	a-classifier	book
'I'll give him a book.'

For a typology of indirect object constructions, see Chao 1968: 317-319.

Another putative exception to the claim that Chinese does not have case morphology is the ba-construction described earlier:

(iii)	Wǒ	bǎ	Zhāng-sān	pīping	le.
	I	OM	Zhang-san	criticize	Asp.
	'I criticized Zhang-san.'

In the ba-construction illustrated by (iii), the patient noun is marked with the particle ba. However, as pointed out above, this marker appears only when the patient is in preverbal position.

Syntactic Typology: Studies inthe Phenomenology of Language