status. Later scholars, notably Chafe (1976) and van Dijk (1977) among many others, tried to link information status to syntactic structure with some success. But, after a lengthy discussion of both the prosodic and structural approaches, Brown and Yule conclude: (1983: 189)
Information has generally been treated in terms of two major categories: Given (or Old) vs. New. Given information is often defined as definite or presupposed and new information, as indefinite or asserted. While they are closely correlated to the semantico-syntactic notions of defmite vs. indefinite and the logical concept of presupposition and assertion, the three sets do not completely overlap and therefore can hardly be used to define each other. Indeed, there are frequent cases of given information in the form of a non-definite expression occurring in the asserted portion of a clause and cases of new information in the form of defmite expressions occurring in the presupposed portion of a clause. In spite of efforts to refme the categorization of given and new information by further subcategorizing them, problem of the kind have not been satisfactorily resolved in the literature. In this chapter, we treat 'given' and 'new' as categories on the basis of the source where information comes from. For the actual use of information, we propose the notion of management of information-i.e. whether a piece of information is used to inform or not. In other words, a piece of information, regardless of its source, may be signalled for high or low informative value within a given context. Thus, the structure of information is viewed as consisting of two tiers: source and management. These two tiers are independent of each other, though there is a strong correlation between given information and low informative value on the one hand, and between new information and high informative value on the other. In the sections that follow, we will look at the problems inherent in the dichotomy of given and new information as categories irrespective of source or management. We will try to find solutions to the problems.
It is certainly the case, as Halliday has always insisted, that information status is determined, not by the structure of discourse but by the speaker. It is also certainly the case that there are no 'rules' for the specification of 'new' or 'given' status by the speaker. There are, however, regularities .... regularities which permit us to make statements like 'speakers usually introduce new entities with indefinite referring expressions and with intonational prominence' and 'speakers usually refer to current given entities with attenuated syntactic and phonological forms.' The regularities that Brown and Yule refer to are just correlations between information status and the various signals for notions like definiteness, presupposition and assertion. Within the existing frameworks of information status, to look for perfect correspondence between them would be futile and would only lead to disappointment and confusion. We will therefore work out a different system to accommodate the general correspondences as well as the occasional discrepancies in a more cohesive way. Before doing that, however, we need to look into the problems first.
5.1.1. Information Status and Syntactic Correlates ~rown ~d Yule (1983:170-1) present five different 'syntactic forms' for given mformatIon. In fact, these five can hardly be recognized as different 'forms', but they are rather five sources which given information may be said to come from. They are illustrated below in (1)-(5). (La) Yesterday I saw a little girl get bitten by a dog. b) I tried to catch the dog, but it ran away. (2.a) Mary got some picnic supplies out of the car. b) The beer was warm.
In pragmatics, information is generally classified into two categories: Given (or Old) and New. This tradition can be traced back to the Prague School view, where new Information is defmed as 'information that the addressor believes is not known to the addressee,' and given Information as information 'which the addressor believes is known to the addressee (either because it is physically present in the context or because it has already been mentioned in the discourse.)' (Brown and Yule, 1983:154). Halliday (1967) elaborated on the notions by applying them to spoken English and established correlates between intonation and information
(3.a) I saw two young people there. b) He kissed her. (4.a) Look out. b) It's falling.
The parts in italics in the examples all carry given information. That is, the information they carry is assumed to be known to the addressee. The pieces of information, however, come from five different sources. The dog in (1.b) is the second mention of the entity that has been previously introduced, Le. a dog in (l.a). The beer in (2.b) within the semantic field ofa previously mentioned entity, i.e. some picnic supplies in (2.a). He and she in (3.b) back to the previous mentioned entities two young people in (3.a). It in (4.b) refers to an entity in the physical context of situation. Do in (5.b) represents the same notion as does the previous predicate work in Manchester in (5.a). Despite the fact that each piece of given information in (1)-{5) comes from a different source, there are only three syntactic forms: definite noun phrase in (1) and (2), pronominal in (3) and (4), and proverbial in (5). Pronominals and pro-verbials are considered defmite forms. On the other hand, the information carried by a dog in (1), some picnic supplies in (2) and by two young people in (3) is considered new because it is assumed to be unknown to the addressee at that point oftime. All these expressions are indefinite. From the above facts, it is claimed that there is a strong correlation between given information and defmite expressions (Le. defmite noun phrase and pro-form). An equally strong correlation can also be claimed between new information and indefinite expressions. The problem, however, is not that straightforward. A number of questions can be raised with regard to (i) the adequacy of the dichotomy of given vs. new, (ii) the choice between pronominal and defmite noun phrase, and (iii) the degree of consistency in the correlation between given and definite and especially between new and indefmite. While the choice between pronominal and definite noun phrase can very well be attributed to the organization of discourse units and will be further discussed in Chapter 8, we will take up the other two problems: the degree of correlational consistency and the adequacy of the dichotomy of given vs. new in the next two sections.
!he bal~ eagle ~ (~.a) is defmi.te in b~th ~orm and meaning but the same expression m (6.b) ISdef~lte ~ form.and mde~mlte m meaning, which is known as the generic use. The EnglIsh mdefimte form IS even more notoriously ambiguous. 1 On the oth~r hand, Mandarin Chinese doesn't rely as much on morphology for defmiteness as It ~oe~ on word order. The same nominal expression may be interpreted as defimte . m a preverbal position but as indefinite in a postverbal position.2 Contras!mg Mandarin with English thus yields the two outstanding differences: In Mandarm th~ preverbal position is a device for marking definiteness and a generic noun phrase ISnot overtly marked. Both will be discussed at some length in Section 5.2. For our present purpose, we only need to keep in mind that definiteness in Mandarin.is marked either morphologically by zhe-/nei- and possessive pronouns or syntactically by preverbal position. Now ~ur task is .to find ~ut how much correspondence there is represented ~etw~e~ gIVen/new m~ormatlOn and the notions of definite/indefinite through ~mgUlStIC.form. We will first examine the five sources of given information, Illustrated m (1)-{5), t~ see if they also apply to Chinese. The examples in (7)-{14), all taken from Sel~ctlons /rom .Zhong Fu, Vol. 20, except the one without a page number reference m (13), provide data for our examination and discussion. (7.a) Dangshi Zhongyang Ribao you liangge fukan: that-time Central Daily-News has two-M supplement b) yige shi...Zhongyang-Fukan, one-M be ...Central-Supplement,
lingyige ze shi another-M whereas be
Zonghe-Fukan. General-Supplement c) Dangchu sheji de shihou, Zong-Fu de neirong at-beginning design DE time, Zong-Fu DE contents yuan yi zhishi-quwei wei zhu, originally take knowledge-interest be major
As is well known, defmite and indefinite are semantic notions and they don't necessarily have a one-to-one formal representation in a given language. Besides, they may be represented at more than one level of linguistic expression, e.g. morphological and syntactic. Chinese as well as English appears to be no exception to such complexity. For example, the same definite expression may represent both definite and indefinite concepts in the following: (6.a) The bald eagle we saw yesterday was a rare sight. b) The bald eagle is almost distinct.
d) buguo jigeyue yihou, Zhong-Fu yu Zong-Fu de but a-few-M-month later, Zhong-Fu and Zong-Fu DE neirong jianjiande chongfu qilaL (p.3) contents gradually overlap begin 'At that time, the Central Daily News had two supplements: one was the Ce~tral Supplement and the other, the General Supplement. The initial deSign was for the General Supplement to be mainly for general
knowledge and interest, but in a few months the contents of the two supplements started to overlap.' In (7.c), Zong-Fu is old information because it is the second mention of the entity referred to by a previous noun phrase Zonghe-Fukan 'General-Supplement' in (b). In (d), Zhong-Fu and Zong-Fu are mentioned for another time as old information. Two likely candidates that might be recognized as devices for signalling old information here are proper names and the preverbal position, both of which are for definite concepts. Proper names, however, do not figure prominently for old information in this case. Note that proper names Zhongyang-Fukan and ZongheFukan are used even when the two supplements are mentioned for the first time and treated as new information. As new information, they are placed in the post-verbal position. To see how much the preverbal position figures in signalling old information, we present another example in (8) below. (8) (Shop-Keeper Luo and Hu Sao are next-door neighbors. Hu brought Luo a plate of steamed stuffed buns a few hours ago and now she appears at Luo's door unannounced:) a) L: Wuli zuo, wuli zuo. house-in sit, house-in sit 'Come on in, come on in!' b) H: Wo bu zuo. Bapanzina gei woo I not sit BA plate get for me. 'I won't. Just give me the plate.' c) L: Shenmo panzi? what plate 'What plate?' d) H: ...langge3 chile wode baozi bu ren, how-come eat-PFV my steamed-stuff ed-bun not acknowledge,
Hu Sao, qianyide shuo:) Duibuqi,O hai mei xi. (p.233) Hu Sao, apologetically say:) 'sorry yet not wash 'Shoot! I plain forgot. (With a smile, Shop-Keeper Luo handed the plate to Hu Sao and said apologetically:) Sorry but I haven't cleaned it yet.' In (8.b) of the dialog, panzi 'plate' is mentioned for the first time by Hu Sao. But, as it is placed in front of the main predicate na gei wo 'get for me', it is construed as given information. (The presence or absence of the preposition ba doesn't affect the interpretation.) The intentional placement of the noun phrase in the preverbal position is highly visible because semantically it is the direct object of the verb na 'to fetch,.4 But the basic order of 'V + DO + Prep-IO' (i.e. na panzi gei wo) is infelicitous here because a post-verbal panzi would be construed as indefinite and thus as new information. In (c), L asks' What plate?' to show that he is not familiar with the given information 'the plate'. But as soon as Hu mentions baozi 'steamed stuffed bun' and repeats panzi as given information in (d), L remembers what plate she is talking about and accepts it as given information by using 0 to refer back to it in his speech in (e). The writer of the dialog, knowing the plot well, also accepts it as given information in the narration of the event of Shop-Keeper Luo handing the plate to Hu Sao in (e). This passage explicitly illustrates the important role that preverbal position plays in signalling given information. At the same time, it also shows the use of zero anaphora with regard to information status. This latter problem will be further discussed in Chapter 8. Next we look at how given information is derived from a previously mentioned entity that defines a semantic field. The passage in (9) serves as an example. (9) Yao kaifan Ie, ta jinjinchuchude cong chufang dao going-to serve-dinner LE, she in-in-out-out-DE from kitchen to canting, yu qitade taitai bangmang ba cai duan dao dining-room, with other lady help BA food bring to
panzi dou bu huan gei woo plate even not return to me
zhuoshang.(p.208) table-on
'How come you don't remember eating my stuffed buns? And you won't even return the plate to me?'
'It's dinner time. She and other ladies, going back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, help bring the food to the table.'
e) L: Aiya! Yuanlairuci. (Luo Laoban xiaozhe ba panzi di gei Shoot! Oh-I-see (Luo Owner smile-DUR BA plate hand to
The noun cai 'food, dish' is treated as given information, again, by placing it in front of the predicate duan dao zhuoshang 'bring to the table'. And it is understood as a defmite noun. It can be so treated because it is within the semantic field of Ian
in kaifan 'to serve dinner'. The case is pretty straightforward with regard to the semantic field as one of the sources for given information and one of the ways given information is represented. Another way of representing given information is by anaphoric forms-Leo forms that refer back to a previously mentioned entity. (But see Chapter 8 for a more accurate definition.) The example in (10) illustrates the anaphoric pronoun signalling given information.
(12) (A retired teacher is showing a photo to her former student. The teacher is smoking in the photo.) Zhe shi wo qishiwu sui shi, wo nei da erzi this be I 75 year-of-age time, my that old son gei wo pai de. 0 Buhui xiao laoshi chouyan ba? (p. 67) for me take DE. won't laugh teacher smoke BA
(10) Ying men chulai kai men de ...shi yiwei sanshi zuoyou de answer door out-come open door DE ...is a-M 30 about DE nanshi, fa dui ta weixiaozhe shuo, faxing Yan, ta ye gentleman, he to her smile-DUR say, he surname Van, she also 5
weixiaozhe xiexie fa kai men. smile-DUR thank him open door
(p. 208)
'A gentleman about 30 years old opened the door. With a smile, he told her that he was surnamed Van. She smiled back and thanked him for opening the door for her.' The three instances of the underlined pronoun fa refer back to the gentleman who answered the door. They all carry given information. As a pronoun, each instance is construed as definite. This is another straightforward case of given information derived from a previously mentioned entity and represented by a defmite pronoun. There is another form of anaphora, which borders on the personal and deictic pronoun, zhe-/nei- 'this/that'. The following example illustrates it. (11) Zhangbeimen changjiang zhimindi shidai de kuchu old-folk-PL often talk colonial period DE suffering danshi neixie dou dui wo tai yaoyuan Ie. (p.13) but those all to me too far-away LE 'Older folks often talk about their sufferings during the colonial period, but those all seem too far away to me.' Neixie 'those' refers back to the sufferings mentioned previously and thus carries given information. Both zhe- and nei- are deictic (or demonstrative) in nature but can be used anaphorically. Given information can also be derived from the physical context of situation. The example in (12) below illustrates this source well.
'This picture was taken by myoid son when I was 75 years old. You won't laugh at my smoking, will you?' In the second sentence in (12), the subject 'you' does not show up. In our representation of the text, a 0 is used to fill its position. This non-occurrence or 0 indicates given information. Here, its source is not from a previous mention, but from the physical context of situation, the presence of the listener. Finally, instead ofa pro-verb as in English, Mandarin Chinese makes use of the adverbial conjunction ye 'also' to indicate that the predicate contains old information. This ye must be followed by a copy of the first portion of the previously mentioned verbal expression. The example in (13) below illustrates this device. (13) Nimen jintian wanshang qu kan dianying, wo ye quo y'all today evening go see movie, I also go '(It) y'all are going to the movie tonight, I'm going, too.'
Ye 'also' signals that the predicate presents the same information as a previous one does. Thus, what it presents is given information. Note that there is no pro-verb in Mandarin and, instead, the first portion qu 'go' of the verbal expression qu kan dianying 'go see movie' in the first clause must be repeated after ye. Another case ofye 'also' seems quite different from the one in (14) below. (14) Ta rendechu qizhong you yibu Kaitelai, hai she recognize among-them there-is a-M Cadillac, still you yibu Benchi, qitade kanqilai ye dou shi there-be a-M Benz, others appear also all be zhanxin faliang. (p.208) brand-new shining
(14) Ta rendechu qizhong you yibu Katelai, hai she recognize among-them there-be a-M Cadillac, still Unlike in (13), the ye in (14) does not introduce a shortened verbal repetition of a previous predicate. What it does is rather introduce a full predicate, the content of which is implied in a previous situation-i.e. the Cadillac and the Mercedes are brand new and shining. Since the information has been implied, it is recognized as given. From the observation and discussion of the data in (7)-(14), we conclude that there is a high degree of consistency in the representation of given information by definite expressions in Mandarin Chinese. Unlike English, which relies almost exclusively on morphological markings for definiteness and given information, Chinese makes use of both morphological markings of zhe-/nei- and syntactic positions. To sum up, given information may come from the following sources: (i) A previously mentioned entity, as in (7) and (8), where a preverbal position for a repeated noun is the signalling device. (ii) A semantic field set by a previously mentioned entity, as in (9), where a preverbal position for a new noun is the signalling device. (iii) A previously mentioned entity, as in (10) and (11), where an anaphoric or deictic (or demonstrative) pronoun is the signalling device. (iv) The physical context of situation, as in (12), where a 0 is the signalling device. (v) A previously mentioned or implied predicate, as in (13) and (14), where the adverbial conjunction ye 'also' plus a repetition of the first portion of the previously mentioned predicate or a full predicate for the implied one is the signalling device. So far, we have discussed the representation of given information by definite expressions. The other side of the coin is the representation of new information by non-definite expressions. We will look at it briefly. The following expressions are non-definite and they occur in post-verbal positions in the examples cited above. They represent new information. (9) Yao kaifan Ie,.... going-to serve-dinner LE, .... 'Dinner is going to be served, ....'
you yibu Bengchi, .... there-be a-M Benz, .... 'She is able to tell that one of them is a Cadillac and another is a Mercedes, .... ' They seem to argue forcefully that there is also a high degree of correspondence between new information and non-definite expressions in Mandarin, if the postverbal position is considered a device for non-definiteness. (But see Section 5.2.) What we have done up to this point is to find positive evidence for the correspondences between given/new information and definite/non-definite expressions. One would inevitably ask: Is there any negative evidence against this high degree of correspondence? The answer is a resounding 'Yes'. The next question is then: How are we going to reconcile between the positive and negative evidence? We will illustrate the problem and try to find a solution to it in the next section.
5.1.3. Can Given Information Be Used To Inform?-Source vs. Management It has often been pointed out that a sharp division between given and new information is not feasible because there is a certain degree of cross-over from either side. Some linguistic forms which ought to be recognized as given information are used as new information and vice versa. E.g.
where the defmite expressions the boss and your performance are judged to be intrinsically given information due to their definite meanings which signal familiarity to both the speaker and the hearer. In fact, however, the two nouns are used to inform the listener and thus should be regarded as performing the function of new information. An even more puzzling case is found in (16) below:
(11) Zhangbeimen changjiang zhimindi shidai de xuduo kuchu, .... old-folk-PL often talk colonial period DE many sufferings, .... 'Old folks often talk about the many sufferings during the colonial period, .... '
which serves as an answer to a question like 'Who took my car?' As did is a proverb, it has to carry given information. But, for the statement in (16) to be useful as an answer, there must be some new information. The only element that can carry it is your husband, which is morphologically marked as defmite and should be
given information as the information is derivable from the common stock of knowledge shared by the speaker and the listener. On the other hand, when the phrase your husband is heavily stressed, the sentence is equivalent to a cleft structure in writing: It was your husband who did. The clefted noun phrase is supposed not only to carry new information but it is also the focus of the message. As a result, there has been this problem of whether to designate expressions like the boss, your performance and your husband in the above contexts as carrying given or new information. Conversely, in (17), the non-definite expression yige 'one-M' is judged to be carrying new information but is used to set the scene and thus serves more like given information. (17) Yige yikuai qian. one-M one-dollar money 'Each (piece) is a dollar-i.e.
expressions are put together for larger information units. This is the MANAGEMENT tier of the system. At this level, information is further organized for informative value (or informativeness). Naturally, a noun phrase with given information tends to be used for low informative value and a noun phrase with new information tends to be used for high informative value. Furthermore, since the topic/subject position generally corresponds to low informativeness and the comment/ predicate position generally corresponds to high informativeness, given information tends to occur in the former position and new information tends to occur in the latter position. However, this is not always the case. A piece of new information may be intentionally placed in the topic/subject position and its value of informativeness is decreased. Conversely, if a piece of given information is intentionally placed in the comment/predicate position, its value of informativeness is increased. The following examples illustrate this placement of information units to increase or decrease their informative value.
a dollar apiece. '
These and other similar examples have long confounded the analyst. (See, for example, Brown & Yule, 1983, Chapter 5; Renkema, 1993, Chapter 13.) This confusion, however, is unnecessary. It all comes from the use of the same set of terminology 'given/new information' for two different circumstances-where the information comes from and how information is used. To see the difference, one needs only to recognize the following facts. As an isolated term, a defmite/indefmite noun phrase signals given/new information by its form. This has to do with where the information comes from, i.e. its source, usually referred to as the status of information. In Section 5.1.1, we discussed how the designation of given or new is arrived at. On the other hand, in a context, the same noun phrase may be part of a larger chunk of information which as a whole functions to set the scene for further information or to inform the reader/hearer. If a noun phrase is used only to set the scene for further information, it is low in informative value. If a noun phrase is used to inform the reader/hearer, then it is high in informative value. In this sense, how a noun phrase is used is distinct from where its information comes from. To distinguish the former from the latter, we use the term management of information in opposition to the source of information. Thus, the boss as a definite noun phrase carries given information in terms of its information status-i.e. considering its source. But when it occurs in a context like (15), it becomes part of a larger chunk of information ('talked to your boss about your performance'), which is used to inform the reader/hearer. In this latter capacity, the noun phrase the boss possesses a high informative value in terms of the management of information. In other words, what we are trying to do is to separate two levels of information structure. One is the phrase level where an expression may intrinsically carry given or new information. This is the SOURCE tier of the system. At this level, there is a high degree of correspondence between given/new and definite/non-definite, as has been shown in Sections 5.1.1 and 5.1.2. The other tier is the clause level where
(18) Dangshi Zhongyang Ribao you liangge fukan: yige shi that-time Central Daily-New has two-M supplement: one-M is zhongsuozhouzhide Zhongyang-Fukan, everybody-know-DE Central-Supplement,
/ingyige shi other-one-M is
Zonghe-Fukan. (Cf. (7) above) General-Supplement 'At that time, the Central Daily News has two supplements: one is the well-known Central Supplement and the other, the General Supplement.' Both yige 'one-M' and /ingyige 'another-M' are non-definite forms. At the noun phrase level, they represent new information. In fact, however, their interpretation must follow from what has just been mentioned /iangge fukan 'two supplements' . Indeed, they each refer back to a part of it. As a result, they are placed preverbally to reduce their informative value. In past literature, such expressions have been arbitrarily interpreted either as definite or as given information despite their form. Our interpretation, however, is that the forms are still indefinite in isolation. Though they intrinsically carry new information, the information does not have a high value of informativeness because of their syntactic positions. Another piece of evidence for their being low in informative value is their inability to be directly preceded by a you in the same context. This you has the effect of causing the following noun phrase to become highly informative. Compare (19.b) with (19.a) below: (19.a) Keren lai Ie. guest come LE 'The guest(s) is/are coming.'
b) You keren lai Ie. there-belhave guest come LE 'A guest is/Some guests are coming.' The preverbal keren in (a) is not as high in informative value as the postverbal keren in (b). As a consequence, the former is generally interpreted as definite and the latter, as indefinite. Returning to (18), the two noun phrases Zhongyang Fukan 'Central Supplement' and Zonghe Fukan 'General Supplement' in (18) are definite by way of their being proper names. By themselves, they carry given information. Yet, as they are occurring for the first time in that piece of writing and by virtue of their position following the main verb shi 'be', they are interpreted as highly informative. The example in (18) illustrates very well (i) how an indefinite expression, which carries new information in terms of the source, can be placed in a preverbal position so that it is interpreted as low in its informative value and (ii) how a defmite expression, which carries given information, can be placed in a postverbal position so that it is interpreted as high in its informative value. Thus, what has been viewed as a dilemma of a form carrying given information but used as new information is now resolved by distinguishing two levels of information structure-{a) status of information which has to do with the source and (b) value of informativeness which has to do with the management. In spite ofthe fact that given information tends to be used for low informative value and new information tends to be used for high informative value, we have seen defmite forms with given information treated as having a high informative value and indefinite forms treated as having a low informative value. The following two passages taken from Shen (1987) serve to further illustrate how the new system works: (20) You YIPI nongjiade ma zhan zai heli, there-be one-M farmer-house-DE horse stand at river-in, shui qizhao xi, lanyangyangde zai nali yaodong water level-up knee, lazily at there wag shilinlinde weiba, (p. 36) dripping-wet tail, . 'There's a farming horse, standing in the river, with the water covering up to the knees, and wagging its tail. ' The nouns xi 'knee' and weiba 'tail' should be interpreted as given information because they refer to parts of the horse that has just been mentioned. In other words, they carry given information by virtue of their reference to things in the same
semantic field as a previously mentioned entity. The facts that they are in postverbal positions (after verbs qizhao 'level-up; come as high as' andyaodong 'wag') and that they occur without any morphological marking (such as fade 'its', neige 'that'}-these facts clearly indicate that they have a high informative value in spite of the given information they carry with them. It seems that in terms of semantic ~elations. with a ~reviously mentio~ed entity, the two nouns do represent ~iven mformatlOn. But m terms of syntactIc structure, they are highly informative. In (21) below another example illustrates the same situation: (21) Zhenli mianqian renren pingdeng, shi xueshu-taolun-zhong truth front everybody equal, be scholarly-discuss ion-middle de yige zhongyao yuanze. Jianchi zhege yuanze, jiuyao DE one-M important principle. uphold this-M principle, must qiu fayang shehuizhuyi minzhu, guanche .... require develop socialism democracy, thoroughly-carry-out..
..
'The most important principle in scholarly discussion is that everybody is equal in front of the truth. To uphold this principle, one must develop socialist democracy and thoroughly carry out....' The noun phrase zhege yuanze 'this principle' is definite in form and carries given information since it refers to the same entity as a previously mentioned noun phrase yige zhongyao yuanze 'an important principle'. Yet, since it directly follows the transitive verb jianchi 'uphold', it is interpreted as part of a construction with high informative value: 'to uphold this principle.' Again, in terms of its form and source, zhege yuanze 'this principle' carries given information, but in terms of its context, it is part ofa larger chunk of highly informative material. From the discussion above, we conclude that, at least in Mandarin Chinese given information CAN be used to inform, i.e. used as highly informative. Thi~ claim can be made, however, only when two levels of structure are distinguished. ~ form s~ch as a defmite expression or a proper name may intrinsically carry given mformatlOn. Or, a form may be interpreted as carrying given information due to its relation with a previously mentioned entity. Both these interpretations operate at the phrase level. They pertain to the tier of source in the structure of information. At ~e cla~se level, however, the same form carrying given information may become hIghly mformative by virtue of its postverbal position regardless of whether it is marked by the definite marker zhe-/nei- or any such form. This pertains to the tier of management in the structure of information. The reverse applies to an indefinite expr~ssion, though an indefinite expression is not as often used preverbally to signal !ow mformativeness as is a definite expression used postverbally to signal high mformativeness.
This two-tiered system of the structure of information does not only interprets the behavior of defmite and indefinite expressions in a clause, it has positive consequences on other areas of linguistic import. They are (i) the justification for the dichotomy of given vs. new information, (ii) the interpretation of the function of word order in Mandarin, and (iii) the distinction between marked and unmarked topic structures. For issue (i), we will just say that with the two-tier structure installed, there is no more need for further subcategorization of given and new information. For details of such subcategorizations, see Prince (1981 and 1992). The other two issues will be addressed in the rest of the chapter.
Word order in Mandarin Chinese became a topic of intense interest in mid1970 when Li and Thompson (1975) brought it up by examining its semantic function. Since then, many interesting articles and theses have appeared on the topic. We will briefly discuss some of the more important ones and follow them up with a hypothesis about the function of word order from a purely discourse point of view. The papers that will be discussed are Li and Thompson (1975), Lu (1984), Sun and Givon (1985), Wang (1988), Hu (1991) and Xing (1993). Li and Thompson (1975: 170-185) treat the correlation between the position of a noun in a clause and the definiteness of the noun as a tendency, which we present in (22) below. (22) Nouns preceding the verb tend to be definite, while those following the verb tend to be indefinite.
(23.a) The noun in postverbal position will be interpreted as indefmite unless it is morphologically, inherently, or anaphorically defmite. b) A sentence-initial noun must be interpreted as defmite; it may not be interpreted as indefinite even if preceded by the numeral yi 'one'. c) The noun following bei (the agent-marker in the passive construction), although preverbal, is immune to Tendency A [i.e. the tendency in (22) above]. In terms of isolated sentences, the tendency and refmements seem to work very well. But why is there such a tendency and how meaningful is it? These questions are essentially what Sun and Givon (1985) asked when they challenged the tendency. After a quantitative analysis of both written and spoken discourse by native speakers, Sun and Givon (p. 336) conclude that, while it is true that about 90% of the preverbal nouns are defmite, an overwhelming number of definite nouns also occur in postverbal position. According to their count, the proportion of
definite nouns vs. non-defmite ones in the postverbal position in the written texts is 870:321 and the proportion in the spoken texts is 289: 150.7 Their defmite 'nouns' are actually defmite expressions including pronouns, names, definite nouns without marking, nouns marked by demonstratives and nouns with restrictive modification. Some of their examples (pp. 334-5) follow in (24)-(28). (24) Qing fa dian xi. ask him order play 'Ask him to select the program (ofa show).' (25) Ta ning-kai neizhi chang bozi bai/andijiuping. he twist-open that-M long neck brandy bottle 'He twisted open the long-necked bottle of brandy.' (26) Sun Zhongshan ...rang sheyingshi paixia zhege Sun Yat-sen ... let photographer take-down this-M
nanwang
dejingfou.
unforgettable DE scene 'Sun Yat-sen ...had a/the photographer take a picture of this unforgettable scene.' (27) Yigege liewu dou diaojinle fa yuxian shehao de xianjing. one-M-M hunt-thing all fall-enter-PFV he advance set-ready DE trap 'The game, one by one, all fell into the trap that he had set up in advance.' (28) Wan Shenshi you kanlekan shoushangde dianwen chiyide shuo: Wan Shenshi again look-a-Iook hand-in-DE telegram hesitantly say: 'Ci dianwen dui Dashuai... duo you buxun zhi ci.' 'this telegram toward Marshall ...much have insulting ZHI word Zhang Xun yiba duoguo dianwen.... Zhang Xun one-grab seize-over telegram 'Wan Shenshi took another look at the telegram in his hand and said hesitantly: "This telegram has many disrespectful words directed at Your Excellency." Zhang Xun grabbed the telegram in a quick swoop.' The italicized portions in (24)-(28) are all defmite expressions. Ta 'he' in (24) is a personal pronoun; chang bozi bai/andijiuping 'long-necked bottle of brandy' in (25) is a noun, which is modified by neizhi 'that-M', a demonstrative; nanwang de
jingtou 'unforgettable scene' in (26) is also modified by a demonstrative zhege 'this-M'; xianjing 'trap' in (27) is a noun modified by a restrictive relative clause ta yuxian shehao de 'which he had set up in advance'; dianwen 'telegram' in (28) is definite by virtue of reference to the entity in immediately previous context. The most problematic is the last item, dianwen 'telegram' in (28). Why does the author choose to use an otherwise indefinite form and rely on the context for its definite interpretation? Wang (1988:44), in his comments on Sun and Givon, presents his fmdings on the correlation between word order and definite vs. indefmite as follows: Out of a total number of259 tokens, 33% of the objects in the va construction are defmite and 67% are indefmite. Out ofa total number of360 tokens, 20% of the objects in the SVO construction are definite and 80% are indefinite. For the OV order, including the constructions ofOV, SOY, OSV and the ba-construction, less than 2% (2 out of 120 tokens) are indefinite. He attributes the differences between his results and those of Sun and Given to different interpretations of their data. Whatever the reason and the results, there do exist a large number of postverbal definite nouns, though the number of preverbal indefinite nouns is small enough to be disregarded. Prince's (1981) taxonomy of information status has a category of 'unused given', which seems a good candidate capable of providing a viable explanation for the occurrence of those definite nouns in (24)-(27). Yet, without any previous context, we can not say for sure that 'unused' is the explanation. The most difficult problem, however, lies with the example in (28). The underlined noun phrase dianwen 'telegram' toward the end of the example is defmite in meaning because it refers to the same telegram designated by ci dianwen 'this telegram' two lines above it. If so, it is expected to be either preverbal in position or precede by a morphological marker such as zhe- 'this', nei- 'that', ci'this', etc. But it is neither in a preverbal position nor is it preceded by any such morphological marker. One would naturally ask why it is possible for a noun phrase to be interpreted as anaphorically definite without any overt marking. The answer cannot come from the relationship between definiteness and word order; nor can it come from the correspondence between definiteness and information status. It has to be found in the management of information. While in Mandarin Chinese, definiteness and given information play an important role in setting the scene or forming the topic; they don't play any part in indicating informativeness. In (28), the second mention of dianwen 'telegram' has nothing to do with the topic. It is mentioned only as part of the new message. Its definiteness and given information status can thus be disregarded and simply relegated to the minimally noticeable anaphoric relation with a previously mentioned noun phrase-i.e. postverbally without any morphological marking. All this indicates that viewing definiteness and information status without looking at how a particular piece of information is used-managed-in a clause is a futile exercise. In other words, the explicit morphological form and/or the deliberate placement of a noun phrase in a certain position must not be regarded
simply as a function of definiteness or given information. It must be regarded as a result of the interaction of all three-definiteness, information status, and information management. There are other theories of the function of word order in Mandarin Chinese. They are reviewed briefly in the following just for easy reference. Lu (1984) claims that word order in Mandarin enjoys five distinctive functions. It marks the agent-patient relation, the topic, reference [to second or third person], definiteness vs. indefiniteness, and temporal sequence. Hu (1992) believes that word order is the only means to code topic in Mandarin Chinese, though there are other coding devices in English such as pronouns and articles. Besides, two Ph.D. dissertations appeared on the topic of Mandarin word order by Hu (1991) and Xing (1993). Both of them recognize word order as a general discourse device to achieve textual cohesion and as a specific means to accommodate patient-fronting. Textual cohesion and patient-fronting are closely related to coding a certain portion of a message as given or new information. In turn, the coding of given information is the first step toward the selection of topic in discourse. The following passage is taken from Hu (1991:204) to illustrate our point: (29.a) Xu Fengxian shi chunjie shihou cai jia dao zhe cun Xu Fengxian be spring-festival time only marry to this village lai de xifu, come DE wife b) 0 shi ge neng shuo hui gan de renwu, be (a-)M able speak able work DE personality c) 0 jia dao zheli bu ji tian, marry to here not a-few day d) 0 bei xuan wei fu dui zhang Ie. BEl elect be deputy team leader LE 'Xu Fengxian is a new wife who was married into this village as recently as the Spring Festival [Lunar New Year]. (She) is an able speaker and hard-worker. Just a few days after (she) came to the village, (she) was elected deputy team-leader [ofthe commune].' The three O's in (b)-(d) represent the deleted pronoun ta, which appears as she in parentheses in the translation. Deletion of a noun phrase, or zero anaphora, is a very common device to indicate topic in Mandarin.8 As topics, the three deleted pronouns in a row here serve to organize all four clauses into one unit known as a
topic chain. Note that in clauses (a)-(c) the word order is SV ..., that is, ta shi 'she be ...'in (a) and (b) and tajia 'she was married ...' in (c). The word order in (d), however, is shifted to OV : ta bei xuan ... 'she by (X) elect...' This shift is necessary to maintain cohesion-Leo the four clauses as a discourse unit known as a topic chain. But the reason that she can play the role of topic is that it carries given information. In other words, word order is a reflection of information status on the one hand and on the other the explicit device for topic, which in turn serves to organize discourse. The bei-form in (d) is translated as a passive voice. Its function, Xing (1993) claims, is to move the patient, the 0 in this case, to the front of the clause. It certainly is a device to explicitly mark the OV order. But, without it, an OV order can still be achieved if a different verb is used: dangxuan 'be elected' instead of xuan 'elect'. In our new framework, the reason that 'definiteness', 'given information' and 'topic' tend to be placed in the preverbal or clause-initial position is because they are intrinsically low in informative value. If a definite noun phrase or any piece of given information is meant to be treated as highly informative, it can be placed in a postverbal position or specifically marked. We have discussed the positioning strategy of raising the informative valu~ in this and the preceding section. In the following section some syntactic structu' ~s will be discussed as functioning to raise the informative value of a definite noun phrase or any piece of given information. To sum up, the relative word order of S, V and 0 in Mandarin Chinese has generally been regarded as a reflection of the dichotomy between definite vs. indefinite or given vs. new information. There certainly is a high degree of correlation between preverbal position and defmiteness or given information on the one hand and between postverbal position and indefmiteness or new information on the other. But the correlation is only a rough tendency and there are many cases of discrepancy which detY explanation. The two-tiered information structure of source and management seems to offer an explanation for such discrepancy. Owing to the nature that given information (which is expressed by defmite forms) is intrinsically less informative than new information (which is expressed by indefinite forms), the former tends to occur in the preverbal position while the latter, in the postverbal position. The positioning of a piece of information in a clause, however, has to do with the management of information. The preverbal position is for setting the scene or forming the topic and the postverbal position is for informing the reader/hearer. When a piece of new information is intended to set a scene or forming a topic (though not very often), it can be placed in the preverbal position to do so. Similarly, when a piece of given information is intended to inform, it can be placed in the postverbal position. This is the cases in (20), (21) and (28). Furthermore, a specific slot of the preverbal position is reserved for an important device for textual cohesion in Mandarin. That slot is the clause-initial position and the important device is TOPIC. There is a lot more to say about topic and topic chain in later chapters.
Incidentally, it is true that the ba- and the bei-constructions are explicit markers for (S)OV and O(S)V orders, respectively. (A better label is to use .Agent for S ~nd Patient for 0.) Their primary functions, however, are not to achieve the speCific word order but for ba to increase transitivity (Hopper and Thompson, 1980) and for bei to indicate pejorativity (Chu, 1983 :217).
5.3. Theme, Topic, Focus and Contrast in Information Structure Besides defmiteness and word order, there are other sets of notions that have often been correlated to, or even identified with, given and new information. These are theme, topic, focus and contrast. Their correlations were pointed out most pronouncedly in Chafe (1976). In subsequent years, a number of papers were published on similar subjects. Among them, was a collection of articles on focus and topicalization in Chinese in Tang, Cheng and Li (1983). This collection consists ofChu (I 983a), Lu (l983b), Cheng (1983) and Tang (1983), among others. The general consensus ofthe papers is that topic and presupposition are correlated and that there are certain constructions in Chinese that can be considered devices for marking focus. But none of them specifically treat the information status of topic or focus, though Chu (I 983a) states that specificness, presupposition and topic as correlated notions actually belong to three different levels. In the following subsections, we first claritY some terminological confusion, examine the problems in dealing with the notions, and finally try to find a better approach by applying the notion of information management.
5.3.1. Theme, Topic, Contrast and Their Informative Value There has been quite a bit of confusion between theme and topic. Brown and Yule (1983:68-133) and Renkema (1993:63-66) try to claritY these notions, but there 9 still remain many questions as to the distinctions between them. In Chinese linguistics, however, topic is the more usually accepted term to designate a grammatical unit that serves to link one clause to another by occupying the clauseinitial position and taking various forms. Theme, then, is a term more or less reserved for its use in rhetoric, such as in 'theme of a paragraph or chapter.' But there are exceptions. Ho (1993) uses theme and thematic structure in the same sense as most Chinese linguists would topic and topic structure. Following the general trend, we will use the term topic to designate the structural unit that serves as a link between clauses. In the unmarked case, this unit is a nominal and occurs in the clause-initial position. Tsao (1990:191,199,237) tacitly accepts the topic as carrying old (i.e. given) information. Citing from Tang (1980), he recognizes the differences between the members of each pair in the following as a matter of expressing given information
on different constructions: (Some adjustments have been made in the translation to reflect the differences.) (30.a) Tade tui duan Ie. his leg break LE 'His leg broke.' b) Ta duanle tui le.1o he break-PFV leg LE 'He broke his leg.' (31.a) Tade mama si Ie. his mother die LE 'His mother died.' b) Ta sile mama Ie. he die-PFV mother LE 'As for him, his mother died. ' The members of each pair differ in topic. Sentences (30.a) and (30.b) have tade tui 'his leg' and ta 'he' as their respective topics. And (3 1.a) and (31.b) have tade mama 'his mother' and ta 'he' as their respective topics. The reason why different topics are selected in each pair is that tade tui 'his leg' and tade mama 'his mother' are treated as given information in the (a)-sentences. And selecting them as topics is a way to indicate that they carry given information. The same may be said of ta 'he' in the (b)-sentences. On the other hand, Ho (1993) notes the fact that, in the unmarked cases, a 'theme' (i.e. our topic) carries given information, but 'local conditions may override the globally unmarked pattern of the given within the theme.' (p. 89-90) Unmarked cases of topic are ones like those in (30) and (31). The following example ofHo's illustrates local conditions overriding the global tendency of topics carrying given information: (32) Qian wo meiyou. Ming dao you yitiao. money I not-have. Life rather have a-M 'Money I have not; life, I do have one.' Normally, the topics qian 'money' and ming 'life' would carry given information and the comments would carry new information. Here, according to Ho, the topics carry 'new information' and the comments wo meiyou 'I have not' and dao you yitiao 'rather have one' carry 'given' information. While Ho doesn't spell out what the local condition is that reverses the information status of topic and comment, we can easily figure out that it is the contrast on qian 'money' and ming 'life' that
constitutes the local condition. Ho's account of reversing the information status of topic and comment is at best confusing, if not downright misleading. However, if we distinguish the informativeness of a form from its status of given/new information, then there is no need to stipulate the overriding principle. The reason that topics are marked by special devices such as contrast is not reverse their information status, but to increase their informative value. In this way, such topics can retain their given information status but can be said to be used to inform as part ofthe contrast. To example (32), we can add a well-known topic structure where the topic may carry 'new' rather than 'given' information. It is the comparison construction, as follows: (33.a) Ta bi wo gao. he compare-to I tall 'He is taller than I.' b) Ta shuo de Yingwen bi wo (shuo de) hao. he speak DE English compare-to I (speak DE) good. 'He speaks better English than I do'-literally, 'the English he speaks is better than the English that I speak.' In (33.a), what is being compared is ta 'he' and wo 'I'. They are topics carrying 'given' information by way of the pronominal forms. In (33.b), however, what is being compared is ta shuode Yingwen 'the English he speaks' and wo (shuode 0) 'that which I speak'. (Note that yingwen 'English' could not be compared if it were coded as the direct object of shuo 'speak', as in the English version He speaks better English than I do. It has to be made into a topic in order to be compared.) Here, what is being compared is exactly what the speaker wants to inform the listener of. In this case, the speaker must have already said or implied that he speaks English. Thus, the fact that he speaks the language is given information and not informative in and by itself. What IS informative is rather the comparison being made, including the two entities being compared. The entities in the comparison, represented as the two topics, are therefore part of the essential information being conveyed. They are highly informative despite their given information status. In other words, topics in a marked structure like comparison are not ordinary topics. They set the scene as well as serve to inform. In sum, topic and contrast have generally been considered opposite notions: One carries new information; the other, given information. But when they converge on the same constituent, as in (32) and (33), the dichotomy of given and new alone doesn't provide an adequate account for how they can work together. The additional dimension of information management proves to be an effective tool for the analysis of topic and contrast present on the same constituent.
5.3.2. Focus and Contrast as Means oflnfonnation Management We noted above that contrast in Mandarin Chinese is expressed in the topic position. In spite of the given information status that a topic is usually associated with, a contrast is interpreted as high in its informative value. In the same vein, other structures, though less obviously contrastive in nature, can likewise be interpreted as highlighting highly informative topics. One such structure is the /ian ...dou/ye construction, generally known as a focusing structure. Others are those marked by such connectives as guanyu/zhiyu 'concerning, regarding, as to', shuo dao 'talking about', etc. These latter ones express a mild contrast. Here, we will only discuss the /ian ...dou/ye construction. Again, there is some terminological confusion to clarify. Tsao (1990:249-278) claims that 'the /ian constituent is always a topic ...and the stress that is associated with it is due to the implicit or explicit contrast associated with the /ian constituent.' E.g. (34) Lian Xingqitian ta dou qu shangban. including Sunday he all go work 'Even on Sunday, he goes to work.' (Tsao, 1990:270) Here 'Sunday' is implicitly contrasted with other days of the week. He denies that it carries a focus. His reason for the denial may very well stem from the general belief that focus carries new information and is in direct opposition to topic which carries given information. Therefore, its presence in a topic would be a contradiction in and by itself. In another recent work, Ho (1993:125) treats the lian ...dou/ye construction as a marked focus. E.g. (35) Xihuan chi la de /ian zi dou daizhe ye mei guanxi. like eat hot DE even seed all retain also not matter 'For people who like to eat spicy hot food, they don't mind even if the seeds (of the hot peppers) are in there.' He thinks that zi dou daizhe 'with seeds all retained' is a marked focus by virtue of the /ian ...ye form around it. He uses 'marked focus' vis-a-vis 'unmarked focus'. To him, an unmarked focus invariably occurs at the end of a sentence, such as in (36) below. (36) Wo gebo teng. I arm sore 'I have a sore arm.'
Because an 'unmarked focus' must occur at the end, the Chinese sentence is coded in such a way that the most informative lexical item teng 'sore' occurs in the final position while in English the focus point may be expressed by an attributive, s~re in a sore arm in this case. Furthermore, Ho believes the members of the followmg pair is supposed to differ only in focus: (Ho, 1993:113) (37.a) Shui liu xia shan. water flow down mountain 'The water flows down the mountains.' b) Shui cong shan shang liu xia. water from mountain top flow down 'The water flows down the mountains.' Obviously, what Ho means by foeus is essentially the unit of the most i?ro~ative constituent of the structure that normally occurs at the end of a clause. It IS not the usual sense offoeus in general or Chinese linguistics. Here we have just seen an example of how the term may be used variously by different analysts. Then, what IS focus? There doesn't seem to have been much definitive work on this notion. If it is discussed at all, it is almost always in terms of how it is marked, e.g. by the pseudocleft sentence, parallel construction, contrast, etc. Among the few linguists who discussed focus in its own right are Chu and Cheng. Chu (1983:21) states that 'when emphasis [important information to be transmitted] is concentrated on a small portion of a structure, it becomes focus.' Cheng (1983 :55) identifies focus as 'an element on which the addressee, according to speaker's judgment, will focus his attention for its significance of message.' In thee sense Chu anc Cheng, both (34) and (35) have a focus because there is a piece of concentrated important information to be transmitted (i.e. the /ian ...dou/ye construction) and the addressee will focus his/her attention on it for its significance of message. For (36) and (37), however, it is hard to decide where the important information is 'concentrated' and where the addressee will focus his attention for the significance of message. Relative to the topic wo 'I' in (36), gebo teng 'arm sore' may carry the important information and catch attention. But relative to the topics wo 'I' and gebo 'arm', the stative verb teng 'sore' alone may do so as well. Without a larger context, it is simply an indeterminate case of whether there is a focus. Similarly, in (37), it is true that the important information is more concentrated in (b) than in (a), but is it concentrated enough to be called a focus? Below we cite some of the focalizing devices from Cheng (1983) for further discussion:
Ta zuotian meiyou lai shi yinwei shengbing. he yesterday didn't come SHI because sick 'The reason he didn't come yesterday was because he was sick.'
Dianying ta yao kan, wo bu yao kan. movie he want see, I not want see 'He wants to see the movie, but I don't.'
Shei yao chi dianxin? who want eat snack 'Who wants to eat a snack?'
Ta (shi) zuotian laide. he (SHI) yesterday come-DE 'It was yesterday that he came.' Treating (38.c) as possessing a focal structure is problematic and we will not discuss it any further. The other sentences, however, can all claim to have a genuine focus (indicated by underlining). Each focus carries a significant message, which easily catches the attention of the addressee. At this point, we are tempted to ask, By what means is the addressee's attention attracted to this particular portion of message? The mechanism to make it possible is the markers prominently employed in the structures. Sentence (38.a) is marked by shi and by the reverse order of causeeffect; (38.b) is marked by a contrast; and (38.d) is marked by (shi) ...de. We can thus conclude that a focus is the constituent that carries a significant message which the readerlhearer can easily identify by some special marking without any difficulty. By this criterion, (34) and (35) each do have a genuine focus but (36) and (37) don't. The motivation to encode information in a focus structure, however, is driven by a difficulty to arrange information in the topic-comment configuration-Le low before high informative value. The statement in (38.a), for example, presupposes 'he didn't come yesterday', which is low in informative value and should occur as a topic. But, as a proposition, this presupposed information here cannot be easily made into a topic without adding any special marker to it. Thus, a shi is used to indicate it as a topic and low in informative value. Similarly, (38.b) and (38.d)
presuppose 'go to the movie' and 'he came' , neither of which can be made into a topic by simply putting them in front of the comment. Thus, a contrast and a (shi) ...de construction are used to indicate their low informative value. Conversely, the special markings can just as well be regarded as markers for the high informative value of the rest of the sentences. Since the rest of the sentence in each case is a single constituent, it can be uniquely labelled as a focus. In this sense, a focus is nothing other than a specially-marked highly-informative constituent in a clause. And it has nothing to do with whether it carries given or new information. As a result, there shouldn't be anything to prohibit a focus from being a topic at the same time. The removal of any such prohibition should free the analyst from their unwillingness to designate certain topics as focus. In Sum, we have looked at some treatments of focus in Chinese. Having presented the relevant facts, we conclude that focus is a piece of (concentrated) information specially marked for the addressee to easily recognize it as the most informative portion of the utterance. Whether it is given or new information is quite a separate matter. On the other hand, contrast, such as in (34) and (35), is just a special case of focus where the focus is also a topic. It is a case in which the topic is highly informative (and thus usually receives a stress). Here, we are in partial agreement with Tsao (1990:255-278), Ho (1993:124-9) and other previous researchers. But we believe we have presented a consistent view of all the notions involved: contrast, focus and topic in relation to information structure and to one another. Contrast and focus may be expressed as marked topics, and such topics have their informative value raised from low to high. Therefore, contrast and focus can be viewed as means of information management to increase the informative value of the form in question.
Background and foreground (or grounding) form another set of notions that are believed to correlate with given and new information. The two notions are usually defined in terms of the advancement of the event line of a narrative, though a similar definition is believed to be applicable to other genres of discourse. Foreground materials are said to directly contribute to the advancement of the event line and thus are coded in high transitivity verbs (e.g. activity verbs); background materials don't contribute to the advancement and are coded in low transitivity verbs (e.g. stative verb) and/or in subordinate structures. The correlations of background and subordination will be discussed in detail in Chapter 6. Furthermore, grounding is also believed to bear a high degree of correlation to information status. Background materials tend to carry given information and foreground materials tend to carry new information. E.g. (39) Lao Zhao ba ta shudiao de liangbaikuai qian ying Old Zhao BA he lose-off DE 200-M money win
huilaile jiu zoule. back-PFV then leave-LE
In (39) the event line consists of two sub-events: Old Zhao won back the 200 bucks' and 'he left.' They directly contribute to the advancement of the event line and are thus foreground materials. Sure enough, they are coded as main predicates, which are said to carry 'new information'. On the other hand, the third sub-event that he had lost 200 bucks doesn't directly contribute to the advancement of the event line and thus is background material. Just as expected, it is coded in a relative clause with a preverbal head NP. Both the relative clause as a subordinate construction and the preverbal NP are said to mark 'given information'. Example (39) constitutes positive evidence for a high correlation between grounding and information status. The same event can be told in a different way, as in (40) below:
in the postverbal position. If we rely solely on the dichotomy of given vs. new information and defmite vs. indefmite, we will have to account for the infelicity by pointing out the following fact: The relative clause is associated with definiteness, background and given information, but its postverbal position is for indefmiteness and new information. Therefore there is a clash in information status or defmiteness designation. This account, however, is untenable in either way. First, preverbal defmiteness and postverbal indefiniteness is still a controversy, as we discussed in Section 5.2. Secondly, we have seen cases of 'given information used as new information'-e.g. a defmite NP used to inform. Now, if we subscribe to the hypothesis that the postverbal position is not for indefiniteness or new information but for high informative value, then a new explanation can be offered. We can just stipulate that subordinate structures like relative clauses can only serve as background and cannot be raised for high informative value. Therefore, they can not occur in the postverbal position. Indeed, the infelicity in (41) is a pragmatic problem rather than a grammatical one. The relationship between subordinate structure and background will be the topic of investigation in the next chapter. (Cf. example (13) in Section 6.1.2.1.1.)
(40) Lao Zhao xian shudiaole Iiangbaikuai qian, houlai Old Zhao first lose-off-PFV 200-M money, later (ba qian) ying huilaile, jiu zoule. (BA money) win back-PFV, then leave-LE
The three sub-events in (40) are the same as in (39) but are organized differently. The sub-event of Old Zhao's losing 200 bucks is coded as foreground and is said to be 'new information' in an independent clause. By the time when the second subevent occurs (i.e. when he won it back), the lost money has become 'given information' (i.e. ba qian), and it is coded as background. So far, there is no discrepancy in the correlation. However, there is a third way of reporting the event, as given in (14) below. It is not considered as felicitous as the other two above. (41) Lao Zhao ying huilaile ta shudiao de Iiangbaikuai qian, Old Zhao win back-PFV he lose-off DE 200-M money, jiu zoule. then leave-LE
This chapter addresses the problem of relations between information and concepts such as defmiteness, word order, topic, focus and contrast. It begins with the usual assumption that there are some correlations between information status and definiteness. The correlations are found to be very strong but not absolute. Though definiteness and given information come from the same source, a defmite expression sometimes has to be interpreted as 'carrying new information'. This treatment is not only confusing but also puzzling. That is, an expression is definite owing to the given information it carries on the one hand; but, on the other, it is made to 'carry new information'. In search ofa more reasonable explanation, an examination of the relationship between definiteness and information status is conducted. Despite the fact that defmite vs. indefmite does strongly correlate to the information status of given vs. new, one must add another tier to the structure of information. That is, the tier 'management of information' must be added to the original tier 'source of information'. The source of information-i.e. where the information comes from- determines the status of being given or new, while the management of information designates an expression as high or low in its informative value within a certain message. Thus, in spite of the fact that a defmite noun phrase with given information is generally placed preverbally in a Mandarin clause owing to the low informative value of the given information it carries, it may legitimately be placed in a postverbal position to raise its informative value. This does not only circumvents the awkward way of stating that a definite noun phrase cap be made to 'carry new information'. It also has positive consequences on the following issues: (i) the positive support for the dichotomy of given vs. new
information without any further frivolous subcategorization, (ii) a realistic explanation for the function of word order in Mandarin, and (iii) a reasonable interpretation for such structures as comparison, focus and contrast as opposed to the plain topic structure. The problem of the dichotomy of given vs. new is found to be an adequate categorization without any further refinement of the classification if a two-tiered view of information structure is adapted. If, as has been proposed in the preceding sections, defmiteness and information status are viewed at the level of the source and, at the level of management, a form is assessed of its value of informativeness independently of its information status; then such sub-categories as 'unused', 'inferable', etc. are no longer necessary. The syntactic device of word order in Mandarin has been said to determine the definite or indefinite interpretation of nominals to a large extent. Preverbal nominals tend to be interpreted as definite and postverbal ones, as indefinite. There are, however, numerous exceptions. Definite nominals may occur in the postverbal position and may not be overtly marked by morphology as such. The discrepancy can, again, be resolved by a discourse need, i.e. the demand for definite entities to appear as highly informative. It is therefore best to look at word order not as directly correlated to definiteness, but as a means of information management. The general unmarked word order is one where materials of low informative value are placed preverbally and materials of high informative value are placed postverbally. As definite expressions carry given information, which is intrinsically low in informativeness; they tend to occur preverbally. As indefmite expressions carry new information, which is intrinsically high in informativeness; they tend to occur postverbally. Quite often, however, there is a need for a defmite expression to be (part of) the carrier of a new message; then this defmite expression is placed in the postverbal position to increase its value of informativeness. Marked word order does not follow the above format but it has to be signalled by syntax or prosody as unusual in its interpretation. The focus and contrastive constructions are among the syntactic structures to signal such a marked word order. As a corollary, the term theme is discussed as to how it is used differently than the term topic in Chinese linguistics. Theme and topic are similar but distinct concepts. Chinese linguistics has long adopted topic as the term for the grammatical form (including zero anaphor) that serves to link clauses by occupying the clauseinitial position. Mandarin topics are generally defmite and carry given information. In marked topic structures such as comparison and contrast, however, a topic may be highly informative despite its defmiteness and given information. After some clarification in the use of terminology, contrast and focus are discussed in terms of their information value. It is observed that both of them are highly informative and their informative value is concentrated on one constituent. While focus is expressed by marked structures like the cleft sentence shi ...de, contrast is a special case of focus that must occur in the topic position. The correlation between information status and grounding falls under the same
area of discussion as those between information and the other sets of notions. Our short discussion indicates that there indeed is a certain degree of correlation between background vs. foreground and given vs. new information. But the correlation should be better represented as one between background vs. foreground and low vs. high informative value. The relationship between grounding and subordination will be discussed in detail in the next chapter.
1. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1983: 177) presents a simplified way of how definite and indefinite are distinguished on the basis of speaker's and hearing's knowledge of specific reference. 2. See Chu (1983:137-143) for the different ways of expressing definite vs. indefinite in Mandarin and a comparison between Chinese and English. 3. Langge is the Sichuan dialectal form of zen me 'how come?' 4. The so-called ba-sentence is known as the disposal construction in the sense that something is (to be) done to the object. The use of ba to prepose the direct object can be better viewed as a device to increase the transitivity of the whole sentence. For the defmition of transitivity see Hopper and Thompson (1980). But Ho (1993) thinks that the function of the ba-structure is to free up the sentence-fmal position for something more informative. 5. The third person pronouns in this passage are distinguished in gender in writing but not in pronunciation. Thus, there is no difficulty in translating them. But if read aloud, the passage would be very hard to understand. 6. In some style of writing one does fmd something like yaodong TADE shilinlinde weiba, literally 'wag ITS dripping-wet tail', but it sounds more like a direct translation from a Western language where its is required. 7. The article addresses other problems such as the function of ba (which the ~uthors call Object Marker), the referential distance and potential referential mterference. They are not our immediate concern here and will not be discussed in this connection or with regard to Wang's (1988) comments on them. 8. For details of topic and topic chain, see Chapters 7 and 8. 9. It has now become especially confusing since theme is used in a totally different sense in GB. 10. The sentences in (41.b) and (41.d) are not quite acceptable to me, if they stand alone. But judgment of acceptability in Taiwan seems to be quite different from mine and that of many others from mainland China. 11. In fact, Ho's principle of end focus is more like Ernst's (1988) proposal to allow one unit of new information after the main verb.
Subordination is a powerful device of discourse organization. Linguistics, however, has often treated subordination merely as a structural form in syntax without much consideration of its function. As such, subordination is usually defmed in terms of such structures as nominalization, relative clause, conjunction, non-fmite verb, etc. This approach may be appropriate in autonomous syntax but is far from adequate if syntax is regarded as part of an integral linguistic system. The inadequacy may be reflected in questions like the following: What are the purposes for each and every subordinate structure? Are there different degrees of subordination t~at ~e inherently associated with the different structures? Those and other sundar questions have recently been raised in linguistic literature, and vigorous rese~ch has been carried out to fmd answers to them. (e.g. Thompson, 1987) Some fmdmgs are very revealing and insightful for the better understanding of the functional nature of subordinate structures in English and some other languages. Unfortunately, very little has been done in this area for Mandarin Chinese. This chapter makes an effort to examine the discourse functions of subordination in Mandarin Chinese-the role that subordination plays in the combination of clauses into larger units. More specifically, this chapter will try to clarify the relationships between subordination, information status (Le. given or new) and grounding status (Le. background or foreground). In terms of such relations, major subordinate structures of Mandarin Chinese will be examined to verify their grounding status. The structures examined include the relative clause, conjunctions, nominalization, and 'non-finite' verbs. Finally, whole passages are used to illustrate how subordinate structures contribute to the organization of Mandarin Chinese in this new light.
6.1. Grounding, Information, Subordination, and Their Correlations This section examines questions about whether subordinate structures carry given information and therefore serve as background.
6.1.1. Background and Foreground
though they are frequently used and generally accepted by discourse analysts in connection with narrative discourse. Certain characteristics of grounding have been mentioned and have often been taken for granted without serious discussion. In the literature, for example, foreground is considered to be the material that represents the event line (or story line) of a narrative and thus is temporally ordered, takes nonstative verbs, and is coded in perfective aspect. Background is considered to be the material that represents sidetracks and thus does not have to be in temporal order, generally takes stative verbs, and is usually coded in imperfective aspect. Furthermore, background is believed to be correlated with presupposition, defmiteness, given information and subordination while foreground is believed to be correlated with assertion, indefiniteness, new information and main predicate. Such descriptions of the correlations, however, are not precise and there are numerous exceptions. Thompson (1987), for example, fmds that some event-line events may occur in subordinate structures for 'the multiple purposes to which a writer puts temporally sequenced predicate.' (p. 451) Among the multiple purposes are (i) dependency of one event on another, 1 (ii) simultaneity of one event with another, and (iii) adverbial and participial clauses for the relating back function. The following sentences from Thompson (1987:437-440) illustrate the three, respectively. (l.a) Only after he stopped smiling and shrieking did he go to Stephanie and hug her.
c) I picked him up and threw him away from me. [Three intervening sentences] Getting up, he half-smiled and signed 'play'. In (l.a) the event 'stopping smiling and shrieking' is temporally sequenced with 'going and hugging'. Both events should be foreground. Yet, the first event is coded in a subordinate clause, according to Thompson, just to show that there is a dependence relationship of this event to the other. In (l.b) 'seeing' and 'signing' are two consecutive events. But the former is coded in an adverbial clause to signal its simultaneity with the preceding event of 'Nim's being excited' rather than as being consecutive with 'signing "play'''. In (l.c) 'getting up' has every reason to be in the event line, but it is coded in a subordinate structure just to relate back to 'throwing him away' four sentences ago. Givon (1987), on the other hand, adopts a more dynamic view of grounding, which is quite different from some other views agreed upon in the field. He believes that the grounding status of a given clause is relative to those of its neighboring clauses. He states:
becomes-in the absence of challenge from the hearer-a shared presupposition ('background') at point n plus J. The determination of what is foreground and what is background in actual discourse must then be relative to a particular point in the discourse, the particular frame. And the frame in discourse tends to shift, to be reassembled, to be reframed. (p. 176) He obviously claims that what has happened constitutes a background for what's happening, which in turn becomes background for what's going to happen, if all them are related-Leo in the event line. In the same article, Givon (1987:186) goes one step further to challenge the binarity of foreground and background. To him, the foregroundlbackground distinction 'is useful in carrying us the fIrst step toward a function-based defInition of an important strand in the thematic coherence of discourse.' But it is dangerous if we treat it with undue rigidity and do not look for fmer distinctions between foreground and background on empirical basis. The above observations suggest that there is a general dissatisfaction with the status quo of the binary distinction offoregroundlbackground. Some analysts have tried to fInd more accurate relations between grounding and such other notions as defIniteness, information status and subordination. Others have attempted to examine the notions with more empirical evidence. In this chapter we will try to answer some of the problems raised above on the basis of Chinese discourse.
grounding in a structure two levels removed from it. In Chapter 5 we noted that in spite of the close correlation between information status and informative value, a constituent carrying given information can often be placed in a certain position to raise its informative value. It should be equally possible, then, that in a similar way a constituent carrying new information can be placed in a particular structure to become background. If this assumption is correct, it will not be surprising at all to fInd certain story-line events serving as background in subordinate clauses, as in (1) above, though they actually carry new information, are highly informative, and would normally be foreground. Let's take (1.a) for example. As indefmite gerunds, smiling and shrieking in (La) carry new information at the phrase level and they occur in a postverbal position for high information value at the clause level. The predicate stopped smiling and shrieking is non-stative and advances the story. It should normally be foreground. But at the inter-clause level, it is placed in a subordinate structure after he stopped smiling and shrieking to serve as background to did he go to Stephanie and hug her. This example fully illustrates that given information and background don't have to coincide in one constituent. In other words, as soon as one recognizes the separate levels of operation, the noncorrespondence between the sets of notions is no longer a problem in spite of the generally observed correlations. To contrast the backgrounding in (La), the sentence can be recast as (La') below: (1.a') He stopped smiling and shrieking and then went to Stephanie and hugged her.
In linguistic literature there is an assumption that background is correlated to given information, though foreground is not explicitly mentioned as directly correlated to new information. This assumption has recently been called into question because some background structures represented by subordination do not necessarily carry given information. To clarify this correlation, we need to go back to what exactly is meant by given/new information. As we have noted in Chapter 5, the distinction between given and new information has to do with the source of information and is mainly signalled at the level of a phrase, especially that of a noun phrase. Yet, the determination of background and foreground depends on relations between events, which are realized as clauses in form. (See preceding subsection.) In other words, grounding pertains to the inter-clause level. Therefore, structurally speaking, information status and grounding status operate at two completely separate levels, with an intervening level of clause between them. On one hand, it is certainly true that there is a close correlation between given/new information and background/foreground, as has generally been observed. But on the other hand, there is no reason to expect a 100% correspondence between them because the representation of information at one level of structure does not, and should not, warrant a parallel representation of
In (1.a'), all the predicate verbs carry new information and they are all foreground. The pronouns he and her carry given information. He occurs in the preverbal position and thus is low in informative value while her occurs in the postverbal position and is thus high in informative value. But both of them occur in foreground clauses. All these facts clearly indicate that there is not any necessary relationship between given information and background on one hand and between new informatiop and foreground on the other. To summarize, we claim that a crucial difference between given/new information and background/foreground is that the former pertains to the level of a phrase but the latter operates between clauses. Thus, one cannot talk about given or new information carried by a clause, nor can one talk about whether a nominal or a verb is background or foreground to some other constituent. One can only assign information status to phrasal constituents because information status pertains to the phrase level. Similarly, one can only assign grounding status to clauses, whether in full or reduced form, in relation to another clause because grounding operates at the inter-clause level. Just as we claimed in the preceding chapter, any information unit (whether with given or new information) may be placed in a position for high or low informative value. Similarly, any constituent
(whether high or low in information value) may occur in a structure for background or foreground. As a result, the terms background information and foreground information, which crop up very often in linguistic literature, can only be taken in their non-technical senses within our framework. Integrating all that we have discussed, we offer the following characterization of background and foreground:
Grounding is a relation between events/situations represented by clauses. As foreground material generally pushes a narrative forward, it is in the event line. It tends to be temporally ordered, takes non-stative verbs and is coded in perfective aspect. As background material doesn't generally push a narrative forward, it is not in the event line. It doesn't have to be in temporal order, may take stative verbs and is usually coded in imperfective aspect (e.g. zai- and -zhe in Mandarin). Since background is the basis on which new events/situations (foreground) can be built, a progression from background to foreground is assumed if a combination of clauses is not marked otherwise. This is the unmarked sequence and we will use BFP to represent this principle of Background-to-Foreground Progression. A clause may also be explicitly marked as background by subordination (such as relativization, nominalization, verbal form, conjunction, etc.) so that other events/situations may stand out as foreground more prominently against it. Note that we have incorporated 'situation' as well as 'event' in the characterization in order for it to apply to non-narrative discourse. In essence, we hypothesize that there are three pragmatic relations that contribute to backgrounding. They are: (i) the event line, which also incorporates temporal order, (ii) the basis for the next event or situation to build on, and (iii) the reduction of discourse weight to make other events or situations stand out more prominently. We will use the following shorter terms for them: (i) event-line, (ii) scene-setting, and (iii) weight-reduction, respectively. The remainder of this subsection will be devoted to the confIrmation of the above hypothesis. It will also serve to illustrate the consequences of adopting this three-component hypothesis when grounding is separated from information status but is integrated with subordination. The net effect is a natural interpretation of the smooth organization of discourse. We fIrst look at its application to the analysis of English discourse. The passage in (3) is cited from Thompson (1987:439). (3.a) I PICKED him UP and THREW him away from me.
c) I had thrown him so hard that he ENDED UP HITTING the cinder block wall and not the carpeted floor, as I had intended. d) I quickly DISCOVERED that there was no reason to feel concerned that I might have hurt Nim.
This passage is the full version of (l.c), with the three missing sentences fIlled up in the middle. The main participants of the discourse are the author himself and Nim, a chimp that he has kept and taught to use a specially designed sign language. We follow Thompson here in using italics to indicate background and capitals to indicate foreground. Her criteria for grounding are temporal sequencing and event line. Of course, we could add state vs. non-state verbs and perfective vs. imperfective aspect to the criteria. All of these criteria seem to fall into place nicely except the participial form getting up in (e).2 Nim's getting up after he was thrown away is genuinely part of the event line being reported, but it is coded in a subordinate structure (i.e. a present participle), which, by conventional wisdom, should represent background. Thompson argues that not all subordinate structures represent background but that some subordinate structures can be used to code foreground events if they serve some other discourse purposes. As we noted in the preceding sub-section, she gives three such purposes and one of them is for the subordinate structure to revert back (i.e. to link backward) to an earlier event, which in this case is Nim's having been thrown away in (a). The explanation sounds reasonable enough. But, there is a problem. If coding the event of Nim's getting up in the subordinate structure of the participial phrase getting up as background is to serve the purpose of reverting back to an earlier event, it would then entail that the full form would not be as able to perform the same function. But, replacing the non-subordinate structure (3.e') below for (3.e) above doesn't seem to make any difference in its ability to revert back to the event ofNim's being thrown away in (a).
In fact, the difference between (3.e) and (3.e') is not, as Thompson claims, in their ability to revert back to an earlier event. It is rather in how much weight is assigned to each of the three events in the same sentence.3 It is well known that it is uninteresting to recount all the events one after another in a narrative by giving each the equal weight. Some of them should be signalled as more central to the story than others. Ifbackground is interpreted narrowly as non-event-line material, then there would be no way for a narrator to make the story anything other than a series of events in their temporal order. Subordination obviously is one powerful way to reduce the weight of some events so that other events may stand out more
prominently. Thus, subordinating 'Nim's getting up' makes it less central and carry less weight than other events in pushing the story forward. On the other hand, as part of the event line, Nim's getting up still has to be temporally ordered with regard to the other events: his half-smiling and signing 'play'. Moving it to anywhere else in the sentence makes it incongruous. Obviously, there is an apparent contradiction: if, as we have claimed, sequencing of clauses automatically indicates a background-to-foreground progression, why is there a need to use a subordinate structure to signal background for a clause preceding a foreground clause? Ifwe recall the characterization in (2), grounding may actually encompass three different pragmatic relations: (i) Event-line, which is the most traditional view of foreground and background, (ii) Scene setting, which forms the foundation for the principle of natural background-to-foreground progression, or BFP, and (iii) Weight reduction of a main-line event or situation to make other events or situations stand out more prominently. The three relations may, of course, converge and be present in the coding of one and the same event. The episode in (3) provides a good example of all three existing at the same time in the coding of 'Nim's getting up' as a participial phrase at the beginning of the sentence. Getting up is a foreground clause because it represents one of the events in the narrative. Yet, it is background to the following two clauses (half-smiled and signed "play") because it serves as a basis on which to build the other two events. It is further coded as background in a subordinate structure (Le. present participial), because the author wants to reduce its importance as an event and to give more prominence to the other events that are coded in the fmite forms. Incorporating three different pragmatic relations into the notion 'grounding', as we just did, may be cumbersome, but it does not only make the grounding relationships more concrete, it also gives the classical rhetorical device of subordination a linguistic validation. For convenience of discussion, we will start using the abbreviates names for the three pragmatic relations that we have proposed earlier: event-line, scene-setting, and weight- reduction, in their technical senses. We have just seen an instance of treating an event-line event as background in spite of its inherent foreground status. Its foreground status, however, is preserved by its temporal ordering with the other events and by its non-stative verb. At the same time, it also observes BFP in the sense that it serves as a basis for the ensuing events to happen. Its background status comes from the form of the verb, a participial form to signal subordination. Numerically, the form getting up in (3.e) fulfills two foreground criteria but fails one. It is therefore less foreground than any that fulfills all three but is more foreground than any that fulfills one or none. We thus conclude, that a binary distinction of foreground vs. background is at best imprecise. As a result, we claim that grounding is actually of a gradient nature. The following Chinese example is adapted from the one in (l2.a) of Chapter 5. It is given here to further examine the three pragmatic relations under the rubric of grounding and the correlations between grounding and information status.
(4.a) Ni maile zhege diannao you buy-PFV this-M computer b) bu yong, not use c) fangzhe leave-DUR d) gan shenmo? do what 'You bought this computer and are not using it. What' s (the purpose of) leaving it idle?' The sentence is dissected into four numbered clauses for ease of discussion. In terms of event-line, each numbered clause is foreground in its own right. But in terms of scene-setting (Le. relative to the following one), a given clause is background. Because they are not marked otherwise, we canjust follow BFP in the interpretation of their grounding status. Clauses (a) and (b) form a structural unit. The temporal relation of the event (a) and the state (b) is implicit in the linear order of the clauses. But it is also explicitly marked by the perfective -Ie, which indicates anteriority, Le. the event of buying the computer precedes the state of not using it. (Cf. Section 2.3 .1.3.) Clauses (c) and (d) form another unit. The logical relation of the two events (scene-setting) is implicitly marked by the linear order of the clauses. The first event of' leaving (it idle)', however, is explicitly marked by the durative -zhe as the background to the second of 'what for?' (Cf. Section 2.3.2.3.) In other words, 'leaving it idle' is made less prominent in the discourse than the question 'what for?'(weight-reduction). In evaluating the degree of foregrounding of each clause above, we come to this conclusion. Since all of them are in the natural order and all the verbs are nonstative, clause order and stativeness of the verb are not consequential in the evaluation. The only one criterion that is applicable is then subordinate structure. In this case, it is expressed in different forms of the verbs, Le. plain verb, with the perfective -Ie and with the durative -zhe. At this point, let us recapitulate the discourse functions of the verbal suffixes. Recall we ranked the verb forms in terms of their grounding force in Section 2.3.3. In accordance with the ranking, (4.c) can be considered the most backgrounded. The -Ie in (4.a), however, might be regarded as a foreground marker, but actually it is used here for indicating anteriority and thus rather marks (4.a) as background to (4.b). The relationship between (4.a)-(4.b) as a unit and (4.c)-( 4.d) as another unit seems to be one of coordination, though one has to follow the other in a linear order to express the cause-consequence relation. In terms of information status, only the noun phrase zhege diannao 'this
computer' in (a) carries given information. But, there should be a zero-anaphor in both clauses (b) and (c) to refer back to 'the computer'. The zero-anaphors also carry given information. While there is no perfect correspondence between given information and background, it makes sense for clauses (a), (b) and (c) to contain given information because they are background relative to each of their following clauses. Only clause (d) doesn't contain any given information, because it is the fmal clause in the discourse and it plays the role of foreground only in its relation with the other clauses.
In the preceding section, we have mentioned the grounding function of some of the Chinese subordinate structures at one point or another. Now that we have clarified the basic notions of grounding, we will more systematically examine subordination in Chinese. Four subordinate structures will be discussed: relative clause, nominalization, conjunctions and 'non-finite' verb forms. Specifically, they will be evaluated on the basis of the three pragmatic relations of grounding: (i) event-line, (ii) scene-setting, and (iii) weight-reduction. The information status and informative value of any component structure will be discussed only as an aside.
The relative clause gangcai da dianhua fai de 'the one who just called' in (a) occurs with a deleted head NP in front of the main verb shi. By its position in the main clause, the head NP is interpreted as definite and the information it carries is understood as given information. In our framework, the deleted head NP is low in informative value by its preverbal position in the main clause. Since 'someone called' is the only event in the sentence, it is not relevant to consider whether anything is in the event line or not. However, since the relative clause represents an event while the main clause represents a non-event, it is foreground to the main clause. On the other hand, it does seem to set the scene for the main-clause speech act of asking the question 'Who is it?' In this sense, then, it is in the background. Moreover, the weight of the event is reduced by being placed in a subordinate relative clause. So it explicitly serves as background to the main clause 0 shi shell 'Who is (the one ...)?' Everything taken together, we conclude that the relative clause in (5.a) is not completely foreground, nor is it completely background. It has one foreground feature: it is an event vis-a-vis the non-event in the main clause. But it has two background features: scene-setting and weight-reduction. But, by changing the subordinate structure, we can certainly make the event expressed by the relative clause more foreground than it is in (5.a). E.g. (5.a') Gangcai you (yige) ren da dianhua lai, shi shei? just-now there-be (a-M) person call telephone come, be who 'Someone called a while ago. Who was it?'
Relative clauses in Mandarin Chinese are restrictive. When they have a defmite head NP, they serve as background and carmot help advance a narrative. The definite head NP mayor may not be explicitly marked by zhe- or nei- . But as long as it occurs preverbally, it is low in informative value and is interpreted as definite (Le. carrying given information). When a morphologically unmarked head NP occurs postverbally, there are some complications. We illustrate them with the following sentences adapted from Tsao (1986). (5.a) Gangcai da dianhua fai de shi shei? (p. 25) just-now call telephone come DE be who 'Who was it that just called?'-Literally, 'the one who just called was who?' b) Zhe shi Li Xiaojie nian shu de difang. (p. 27) this be Li Miss read book DE place 'This is a/the place where Miss Li studies/studied.' c) Chunjuan shi dajia xihuan chi de shiwu. (p. 29) egg-roll be everybody like eat DE food 'Eggrolls are (a kind of) food that everybody likes to eat.'
In (5.a') the clauses are equally foregrounded. The first clause has one foreground feature: an event vis-a-vis the other non-event. The second clause also has one foreground feature: it is built on the basis of the preceding one. Thus, they can be regarded as equally foregrounded and thus as forming a coordinate structure. Another strong piece of evidence for the claim that the first clause in (5.a') is more foreground than its counterpart in (5.a) is the fact that the clauses in (5.a') is less reversible than those in (5.a). Thus, (6) Shi shei, gangcai da dianhua lai de? [Reverse of (5.a)] be who, just-now call telephone come DE 'Who is it that just called?' (7)?Shi shei, gangcai you (yige) ren da dianhua lai? be who, just-now there-be (a-M) person call telephone come '?Who is it? Somebody just called.' [Reverse of(5.a')] Both (6) and (7) violate the BFP principle. The principle says that the clause order should be from background to foreground if not marked otherwise; in both examples, 'Who is the one ...?' precedes 'Somebody called a while ago.' But, there
is one difference. In (6) the violation in compensated by the subordinate relative clause, which strongly demands that, despite the clause order, the relative clause be interpreted as background. Thus, the reversed order of the clauses is only interpreted as afterthought. In (7), however, the violation is not compensated by any marking and therefore the combination of the clauses in reversed order is not acceptable. Turning to (5.b), the relative clause with its head NP Li Xiaojie nianshu de difang is potentially ambiguous-It may be interpreted to mean 'a place where Miss Li studies/studied' or 'the- place where Miss Li studies/studied'. In the first interpretation the head NP carries new information and in the second, it carries given information. By its postverbal position, the head NP is interpreted as high in informative value regardless of its information status. All this, however, is not directly relevant to the grounding of the clauses because grounding status is determined by other pragmatic factors. As this sentence is not a narrative, there is no event line to begin with and therefore the first pragmatic factor of event-line does not apply. The second pragmatic factor of scene-setting, however, does apply, Le. the event 'Miss Li studied here' or the state 'Miss Li studies here' does provide a basis for the identifying clause Zhe shi ...difang 'This is a/the place.' To express this relation, the most basic device is by clause order-Li Xiaojie zai yige difang nian shu 'Miss Li studied or studies at someplace' precedes zhe Oiu) shi niege difang 'This is the place. ,4 Putting them together in that order gives us a coordinate structure that simply links the event and the identifying act without involving the third factor-weight-reduction. One may, of course, choose to consider the event or the identifying act as more weighty than the other. Sentence (5.b) is an example of assigning more weight to the identifying clause than the event/situation by subordinating the latter in the form of a relative clause. Thus, Li Xiaojie nianshu de is placed in a subordinate structure to be background to Zhe shi ...difang. On the other hand, one might choose to give more weight to the event/situation of 'Miss Li studies/studied at someplace'. In this case, the identifying clause would be made subordinate. Instead of a subordinate clause of any sort, an adverbial phrase zai zhege difang or zai zher would be sufficient for the subordination.5 In other words, the fmal product of subordinating the identifying act would come out as (5.b') below: (5.b') Li Xiaojie zai zer nianshu. Li Miss at here study 'Miss Li studies/studied here.' Thus, the main difference between (5.b) and (5.b') is one of grounding, specifically in terms ofweighting-Le. of the event/situation of Miss Li's studying at a place and the act of identifying the place, one is more prominent than the other in discourse. One of the other two pragmatic factors of backgrounding-the eventline-is not relevant here. The other factor-scene-setting-is generally expressed
by clause order. In the absence or any other linking devices, this order has to be followed. Turning to the relative clause in (c), it again has a postverbal head NP. There are two interpretations. It may be used to identify 'eggrolls' as the popular kind of food that the listener is familiar with, Le. 'Eggrolls are the kind of food that everybody likes to eat.' If so, the head NP carries given information and may be preceded by the morphological marker neizhong 'the/that kind'. On the other hand, it may also be used to describe eggrolls, Le. 'Eggrolls are a kind of food everybody likes to eat.' In this case, the head NP does not carry any given information in and by itself and the morphological marker yizhong 'a kind' may appear in front of the NP. Whichever interpretation, the relationship between the two clauses is constant-dajia xihuan chi chunjuan is background to chunjuan shi yizhong/zhezhong shiwu, where the former carries less weight than the latter. Conversely, one might choose to give dajia xihuan chi chunjuan more weight than chunjuan shi yizhong/zhezhong shiwu. Then, the resulting sentence would be the one in (5.c'). (5.c') Dajia xihuan chi yizhong/zhezhongjiao chunjuan de shiwu. everybody like eat a-M/this-M call egg-roll DE food 'Everybody likes to eat a/the kind of food called egg-roll.' Now let us consider another case. In connection with (5.b), we mentioned that within a scene-setting relation, the first event/situation can precede the second without any special marking. Or, either may be made subordinate to the other by special marking. This so because (5.b) did not involve any temporal order. When the events are also temporally ordered (i.e. in the event line), there is some complication. While clause order remains to be a device for the expression of this scene-setting relation on the BFP principle, there is some restriction on the relative clause as a subordination for reducing the weight. E.g. (8.a) Renjia diudiaole yizhang yizi, tajianhuilaile. people throw-out-LE a-M chair, he pick-back-come-LE 'Somebody threw out a chair, he brought it home.' b) Tajianhuilaile yizhang renjia diudiao de yizL he pick-back-come-LE a-M other-people throw-out DE chair 'He brought back a chair that somebody threw out.' In (8), Event A 'somebody threw out a chair' has happened before Event B 'he brought it back'. Therefore, A naturally precedes B without any special marking device, as in (a), or A may be subordinated to B, as in (b). In other words, the first event in the event-line may either be expressed as scene-setting by clause order or by the relative clause.
Now, given an English sentence like (9.a) below, one is irresistibly tempted to translate the relative clause into its structural counterpart in Chinese, as in (9.b). (9.a) I checked out a book from the library which turned out to be boring. b)?Wo cong tushuguanjiele yibenjieguo bu haokan de shu. I from library borrow-LE a-M turn-out not interesting DE book Yet, such a direct translation is not acceptable in Chinese because the event 'the book turned out to be boring' is not the fIrst event in the event line. In other words, the event of 'the book turning out to be boring' can not be made into background because it neither precedes the other event nor does it form the basis for the other event to build on. It is completely foreground to the event of 'my checking out a book from the library.' Therefore, the Chinese counterpart of(9) can not contain a relative clause for it, but must have it as an independent clause added on to the fIrst clause. This is what Chu (1983 :273) calls an elaborative clause and it is given below in (9.c). (9.c) Wo cong tushuguanjiele yiben shu, jieguo bu haokan. I from library borrow-LE a-M book, turn-out not interesting 'I checked out a book from the library (and it) turned out to be boring.' Here in (9.c), the two clauses form a coordinate structure, with the fIrst clause being the background to the second one. The grounding relation is merely indicated by clause order. On the other hand, one may want to reduce the weight of 'my checking out a book from the library' by subordinating it to the other event through relativization. The result is in (9.d) below. (9.d) Wo cong tushuguanjiede neiben shu jieguo bu haokan. I from library check-out-DE that-M book turn-out not interesting 'The book that I checked out from the library turned out to be boring.' The example in (9.a) shows that in English a foreground event can be encoded in a relative clause as long as the background clause precedes it. This is not permitted in Mandarin Chinese. The reason is quite obvious: Given that the Chinese relative clause must precede its head NP, there is no way for the entire main clause to precede the relative clause in order to serve as background. This accounts for the unacceptability of(9.b). In this section, we have looked at the backgrounding function of the relative clause as a subordinate structure in Mandarin. It is found that, as a pragmatic device for weight-reduction, the relative clause works in conjunction with the other two pragmatic factors: event-line and scene-setting. All three must be considered in the determination of the grounding strength of a clause. That is, a clause may be
background in only one or two of the features or in all three of them. Thus, the grounding status ofa clause relative to another is not a dichotomy ofbackgr?und vs. foreground. Rather, it may vary in degree. The relative clause as a subor~mate structure accounts for only one of the three features of background. In particular, we fInd that, unlike its English counterpart, the Chinese relative clause cannot code a foreground event because of its structural limitations.
Subordinate conjunctions in Chinese primarily function as a warning to the readerlhearer that there is an order offoreground-to-background, a violation of the BFP principle. They also mark logical relations but it is their secondary func~ion. Another set of conjunctions-generally known as coordmate conjunctions-primarily mark logical relation and they only occur in the second of two iconically ordered clauses-Leo in temporal or logical sequence. The examples in (10) and (11) below illustrate the behavior of subordinate conjunctions with regard to grounding. (Adapted from Li and Thompson, 1981 :644) (10.a) (Yinwei) wo shi Meiguoren, suoyi wo qu Zhongguo xuyao huzhao. (because) I be American, so I go China need passport 'Because I am an American, I need a passport to go to China.' b) (*Suoyi) wo qu Zhongguo xuyao huzhao, yinwei wo shi Meiguoren. (so) I go China need passport, because I be American 'I need a passport to go to China because I am an American.' The clauses in (lO.a) are in a the logical order of cause and effect. They also hold a scene-setting relation, going from background to foreground since the effect builds on the basis of the cause. The two conjunctions yinwei 'because' and suoyi 'so' serve different functions. The coordinate conjunction suoyi indicates that the clause it occurs in is the effect and the preceding clause is the cause. In other words, it marks the logical relation and leaves the scene-setting relation to the BFP principle. Thus, the use of suoyi in (10.a) is sufficiently clear for both relations and the other conjunction is not necessary and becomes optional. On the other hand, the subordinate conjunctionyinwei 'because' indicates that the clause it occurs in is the cause. At the same time, its subordinating force demands that the following clause be recognized as foreground, thus as the effect. The use ofyinwei alone in (10.a) should even more sufficiently mark both of the relations between the clause. Yet, the other conjunction suoyi is NOT optional. The reason has nothing to do with grounding but is that Mandarin strongly demands a conjunction in the second clause.6 Thus,
(lO.a') Yinwei wo shi Meiguoren, ?O/suoyi wo qu Zhongguo xuyao huzhao. because I be American, O/so I go China need passport Turning to (lO.b), the reverse order of the clauses makes quite a difference in the appropriateness of the uses of the conjunctions. First of all, suoyi 'so' is marks only the logical relation of cause-effect and leaves the scene-setting relation to the BFP principle. When the BFP principle is violated by the reversed order, the scenesetting relation is also reversed. Thus, suoyi is out of place in (IO.b). On the other hand, yinwei 'because' indicates that the clause it occurs in is the cause. By its backgrounding force, it also indicates that the other clause is the effect. Since in this case the grounding status of the 'effect'-clause is not determined by the BFP principle but by the subordinate structure of the 'cause'-clause, the reversed clause order does not disturb the interpretation of the grounding relation between the clauses. Now let us examine another set of examples in (II). (ll.a)
Wo (yao(shl}) shi Meiguoren,jiu bu hui shuo zhemo zao de I (it) be American, then not will speak this bad DE Yinwen Ie. English LE
b) Wojiu bu hui shuo zhemo zao de Yingwen Ie, wo yao(shi) shi I then not will speak such bad DE English LE, I if be Meiguoren de hua. American if
In (Il.a), the two clauses are in the logical order of condition and result, with the result building up on the condition. They are again in the scene-setting relation. The subordinate conjunctionyao(shi) 'if' is optional since the clause order follows the BFP principle. In (ll.b), the order is reversed where the result precedes the condition. In order to mark that the clauses have violated the BFP principle, the subordinate conjunctionyao(shl} 'if' is required; it has to cooccur with the final de hua as a highlighted compound conjunction. The presence of the coordinate conjunctionjiu 'then' in (Il.b) must remain mandatory becausejiu here is at the same time an adverb. (Cf. the adverbial connective geng 'even more' in (26.1) later in this chapter.)
Nominalized clauses in Mandarin occur primarily as subjects and objects. Whatever grammatical function they perform, a preverbal nominalized clause is both low in informative value and serving as background to the main clause. A postverbal nominalized clause is high in informative value despite the fact that it may contain given information in it. Its grounding relationship with the main clause is not clear
to us. The following sentences serve to illustrate the points. (I2.a) A: Haizimen yigegede dou yao gaozhong biye Ie women children one-by-one all will high-school graduate LE we haowu jixu, zenmo ban? not-at-all savings, how do 'The children are going to finish high school one after another. What are we to do with no savings at all?' B: Haizimen shang daxue shi tamen ziji de shi. children go-to college be their own DE matter 'Children going to college is their own business.' b) Wo xiwang dajia dou neng fai. I hope everybody all can come 'I hope you all can come.' c) A: Ta zou de yiqian, weishenme bu gen ta yao qian ne? he leave DE before, why not from him ask money NE 'Then, why didn't you ask him for the money before he left?' B: Women houlai cai faxian ta yijing zou fe. we later not-until find he already leave LE 'We didn't find out until later that he had already left.' In (I2.a), the nominalized clause haizimen shang daxue 'children going to college' is used as the subject of shi tamen ziji de shi 'is their own business' and is placed preverbally. It defmitely is low in informative value and serves as background to the predicate. In (I2.b), the clause dajia dou neng fai 'everybody can come' is the object of the verb xiwang 'hope' and is placed postverbally. It is placed there to indicate its high informative value in spite of the fact that it contains some given information in dajia 'everybody', which refers to the hearers and some new information in dou neng fai 'all can come'. In (I2.c), ta yijing zou fe 'he had
already left' is the object ofjaxian 'fmd out' and is placed postverbally. Following from the preceding text, it contains nothing but given information. Yet, by its relative position in the sentence, it is high in its informative value. Because the nominalized clause in (12.a) both carries a low informative value and serves as background to the main clause, it has to stay in front of the main clause, in this case, preverbally. On the other hand, the nominalized clause in (12.b) has a high informative value, it has to stay postverbally. Moving it to the front would make the main predicate sound like after-thought, as in (l2.b') below: (12.b') Dajia dou neng lai, wo xiwang. everybody all can come, I hope 'Everybody will come, I hope.' The situation in (12.c) is a little more complex. The entire nominalized clause fa yijing zou Ie 'he has already left' obviously contains given information following from what Speaker A has just said but is placed here for its high informative value in relation to the main verb. Moving it to the preverbal position, as in (12.c') below, would not change the given information it contains but then it would not be as high in its informative value. (12.c') Ta yijing zou Ie, women houlai cai zhidao. he already leave LE, we later not-until know 'The fact that he had already left, we didn't fmd it out until later.' In this order, the nominalized clause is no longer part of the sentence to inform. It is low in informative value and seems to serve as background to the main clause women houlai cai zhidao 'we didn't find (it) out until later' . The reason for placing the nominalized object in the preverbal position, especially in the utterance-initial position, is the same as placing a non-fmite verbal clause in the initial position. That is, it is most likely for what Thompson terms 'reverting back to a previous event'. (Cf. Section 6.1.2.) We will have more detailed discussion on this issue in the next chapter. There are other object clauses that behave differently than the ones illustrated in (12). They are presented in (13) below. (13.a) Women genben bu zhidao fa hui zhemo bu jiang daoli. we at-all not know he will this-way not talk reason 'We didn't know at all that he would be so unreasonable.' b) Women genben bu zhidao fa hui bu hui zhemo bu jiang daoli. we at-all not know he will not will this-way not talk reason 'We simply don't/didn't know ifhe will/would be so unreasonable.'
c) Ta hui (bu hui) zhemo bu jiang daoli, women genben bu zhidao. he will (not will) this-way not talk reason, we at-all not know In (13.a), the nominalized clause fa hui zhemo bu jiang daoli 'he would be so unreasonable' is the object of the verb zhidao 'know' and is placed postverbally. By the presence of the adverb zhemo in the clause, we can infer that it carries given information, but by the position it occupies in the sentence, we can tell that it is high in informative value. Because of the given information that it carries, it is interpreted as an event that already happened and the main verb zhidao 'know' is interpreted as in the past. Thus, the English translation. Comparing (13.b) with (I3.a), one can easily find out that, because of the question form hui bu hui 'will or will not' in (b), the whole nominalized clause is interpreted as carrying new information. It even affects the interpretation of the main verb zhidao 'know'-i.e. it can be regarded as in the past or the present. Sentence (13.c) shows that the nominalized clauses in (a) and (b) can both be moved to the utterance-initial position even though they grammatically function as objects. Once they are placed utterance-initially, they can only be interpreted as low in informative value and they can only serve as background to the following main clause. The purpose of placing them in utterance-initial position is, just as in (12.c'), to revert back to some previous event or statement.
In Chapter 2, we observed that verb affixes serve the discourse function of ranking verbs in their degree of grounding. Altogether, five affixes were discussed. While the ones in the middle range (i.e. the inchoative -qiali and the experiential -guo) are not very clear-cut as to their capacity of ranking the verbs, the other three (i.e. the perfective -Ie, the progressive zai- and the durative -zhe) are quite clear in their grounding function. The perfective -Ie has the dual function of marking both background and foreground. When used to mark anteriority, it explicitly marks background. Otherwise, it marks foreground. The other two mark background only. Thus, a verb marked with either the progressive zai- or the durative -zhe can be considered a 'non-fmite' form subordinated to another verb that is more 'fmite'. It is in this sense that we will discuss the 'non-fmite' verb forms. In terms of discourse, the non-fmite verb forms in Mandarin are used mainly to mark a clause as background to another clause. The events in the clauses usually develop in the direction of background- to-foreground progression. Occasionally, they may be organized in the reverse direction, background being expressed solely by the verbal form. The sentences below illustrate the grounding function of the durative -zhe. (14) Ta banzhe lian, juezhe zui, dizhe tou jinle she stiff-DUR face, pout-DUR mouth, hang-DUR head enter-PFV
zhengwu. (Fang, 1992:456) main-hall (16) lintian xiawu women zai kan dianshi (de shihou), huran today afternoon we PROG see TV (DE time), suddenly (15) Ta zuo zai yige xiao zhuo pangbian, zhuoshang puzhe shen he sit at a-M small table side, table-top cove-DUR dark luse de rongtan, fangzhe yige hen guya de green DE velvet-cloth, place-DUR a-M very ancient-elegant DE huaping, ping zhong chazhe yizhi qiu hua. (op. cit.) vase, vase middle insert-DUR a-M autumn flower 'He is sitting at a small table covered with a dark green velvet table-cloth, on which there is an elegant vase with some autumn flowers in it.' Sentence (14) contains four verbs: ban 'to be stiff (in the face)' ,jue 'to pout', di 'to hang (low)' andjin 'to enter'. The first three are all marked with the durative -zhe as background to the last one, which is marked by the perfective -Ie. The background here cannot be interpreted as a basis on which to build a further event. With their reduced weight, they are to be interpreted as subsidiary to the main event of her entering the main hall. As the grounding relationship does not involve an event line, the BFG principle doesn't have to be followed. Therefore, the relative order of these four clauses is of no consequence. They can almost be randomly scrambled and still make good sense. Sentence (15) also contains four verbs: zuo 'to sit', pu 'to cover' ,fang 'to place' and cha 'to insert, put inside'. The last three are marked by the durative -zhe as background to the first one, which is not marked by any affix. As their grounding relationship does not involve an event line, the relative ordering of the clause should be of no consequences, either. Yet, none of the clauses can be moved to any other position for another reason. That is, the topic (in the form of a preverbal phrase) in each of the clauses depends on a preceding clause. The phrase zhuoshang 'table-top' in the second clause cannot be a topic without xiao zhuo 'small table' having been introduced in the first clause. The third clause shares zhuoshang as its topic with the preceding clause. The phrase pingzhong in the fourth clause cannot be a topic without huaping having been introduced in the preceding clause. In this sense, each clause provides a basis for the following to build on and each serves as background to its following clause. The examples have illustrated the relative grounding relation between -zhe and -Ie on the one hand and between -zhe and an unmarked verb on the other. It is clear that -zhe is a background marker. The grounding relation, however, is not a temporal one. It is rather one of downgrading the importance of the event and to make the other stand out more prominently in the narrative. (Cf. Chu, 1987a.)
tingdian Ie. stop-power PFV '(When) we were watching TV this afternoon, the power suddenly went out.' (17 .a) Dang you j ishiwan party has hundreds-of-thousands
dangyuan, members
b) tamen zai lingdao renmin, they PROG lead people c) xiangzhe diren face-DUR enemy d) zuo jiankuzhuojue do difficult-extremely
de douzheng. (Beida, 1986:529) DE fight
'The Party has hundreds of thousands of members who are leading the people to face the enemy in an extremely difficult war.' In (16), the first verb kan 'watch' is marked by the progressive zai- and thus is made background to the other verb tingdian 'stop electricity', which is marked by the perfective -Ie and is interpreted as the main event. The grounding relationship here is twofold. One is the scene-setting; the other, weight-reduction. Therefore, the order of the clauses cannot be altered. The expression de shihou 'when' is optical as the verb is already explicitly marked as subordinate. If there were no zai- before the verb kan, then de shihou would be necessary. In the latter case, another subordinate structure is in use for backgrounding-the relative clause. The example in (17) is dissected into four numbered clauses for ease of discussion. Clause (a) forms a discourse unit by itself; the other three form another unit as they share the same topic tam en 'they' in (b). Relative to the other unit, (a) is the background merely by its position. Within the three-clause unit, (b) and (c) serve as background to (d) by both their relative order and their verbal marking. The verb lingdao 'to lead' in (b) is marked by the progressive zai- and the verb xiang 'to face' in (c) is marked by the durative ~zhe while the verb zuo 'to do' in (d) is not marked by any affix. The clause order follows a logical sequence of doing the
three things: leading the people, facing the enemy, and fighting a fight. This sequence is also reflected in the English translation. Even though there is an indication of the relative weight of back grounding between zai- and -zhe in Chapter 2, the weight is not clear in this example. The sentences in (16) and (17) show the grounding function of the progressive aspect marker zai- in relation to the perfective aspect marker -Ie and the unmarked verb. Zai- serves to mark background relative to the other two verbal forms. If there is an event line (Le. temporal sequence) involved, the clauses must reflect this order.
There are some structures that come somewhere between subordination and compound word on the one hand and between subordination and coordination on the other. In the former category are constructions like serial verbs, e.g. (18) Wo xihuan chi Zhongguo cai. I like eat Chinese food 'I like to eat Chinese food.' where xihuan 'to like' and chi 'to eat' si. lply occur one after the other without any formal marking. The order of the two verbs seems to follow BFP. In the latter category, are constructions like (19) below. (19) Ta you yige meimei, hen xihuan kan dianying. he has a-M younger-sister, very like see movie 'He has a younger sister who likes to see movies.' (Li and Thompson, 1981 :617) where two clauses are used one after the other, with a shared NP meimei 'younger sister'. The order of the two clauses also seems to follow BFP. Another type in this category is known as the pivotal construction (Chao, 1968:124-129) where an NP is at the same time the object of the first verb and the subject of the second verb, as in (20). (20) Wo quan ta nian yi. (Li & Thompson, 1981:607) I advise him/her study medicine 'I advised him to study medicine.' In (20), the pronoun fa is the object of the first verb quan 'to advise' and the subject ofthe second verb nian 'to study'. In this example, the two verbs represent a series of events in the order they may occur, if the second occurs at all. Thus, the first event is the background to the second one. But, in other cases, the clause order may not represent the actual temporal order, e.g.
(21) Gongxi ni de jiang Ie. congratulate you receive award PFV '(i) congratulate you on receiving the award.' In (21) gongxi 'to congratulate' and de jiang 'to receive (an) award' are the two events involved. Their order in the sentence does not reflect the actual temporal order of occurrence. The final Ie may be better interpreted as marking anteriority and thus making 'receiving an award' the background. Li and Thompson (1981:608-610) distinguish between the two types of pivotal construction by the category of the first verb. If the verb is a factive one (like gongxi 'to congratulate' in (21)), the event represented by the second verb is 'realized', i.e. it has happened before the time of the first verb. The order of the verbs is the reverse of the temporal order of the events. If the first verb is a non-factive one (like quan 'to advise' in (20)), the event represented by the second verb is 'unrealized', i.e. it might happen. The order of the verbs is the same as the temporal order of the events if the second one occurs at all.
This chapter started with a general discussion on the relationship between subordination and information status. It was found that there is some close correlation between them but since they operate at different structural levels, background does not necessarily entail given information or vice versa. Then background was carefully examined in terms of its relationship with subordination. Background was found to consist of three pragmatic components: (i) event-line, (ii) scene-setting, and (iii) weight-reduction. They interact each other. On the other hand, subordination is found to be a general device for marking background. The subordinate structures, however, differ in the details of their background-marking functions. Among the subordinate structures discussed, the relative clause and the non-fmite verb forms are used for weight-reduction only. Subordinate conjunctions (e.g. yinwei 'because') are used to explicitly indicate backgrounding, especially when there is a violation of the BFP principle. Nominalized sentential subjects are a device for background, but sentential objects may vary in their grounding status, depending on the nature of the main predicate verb. In the following, we will examine longer passages to see the interactions of some of the subordinate devices working together in the organization of a discourse unit. The first passage is taken from Ke and Xu (1990: 12). (22.a) Neishan Laoban dagai KANCHU Neishan Owner probably see-out
dian shemo miaotou, a-little some clue,
b) jiu XIAOzhe HUITOU dui limian SHUOle yiju Ribenhua, then smile-DUR turn-head toward inside say-PFV a-M Japanese,
c) yuanxian he Neishan SHUOHUA de neige laoren originally with Neishan talk DE that old-man YAOzhe yanzui ZOUle CHULAI. hold-in-mouth-DUR pipe walk-PFV out-come 'The owner Neishan, probably seeing some clue, turned around with a smile and, toward the inside, said something in Japanese. The old man who had been talking with Neishan walked out, holding a pipe in his mouth.' d) Tade miankong huangli dai bai, shoude jiao ren danxin, his face yellow-in with white, thin-DE make people worry, e) danshijingshen but spirit
hen hao, meiyou yidian tuitang de yangzi.. .. very good, not-have a-little despirited DE look ....
'His face was ofa whitish yellow color, (he was) so thin that you would naturally worry (about him), but he looked full of energy.' t) "Ni yao mai zheben shuT' ta KANle wo yiyan. "you want buy this-M book?" he look-PFV me a-look "'You want to buy this book?" he took a look at me.' g) Nazhong zhengzhi cixiang de yanguang, SHI wo like that-kind upright kind DE glance, make me at-once GANDAO shenshang SHOU/e fuqin de fumofeel-reach body-on receive-PFV father DE caressh) yansu he cixianjiaozhizhe de fumo side. solemn and kind interweave-DUR DE caress as-if
contains (aHc), which is in narrative style. The second contains (d) and (e), which is a description. The third section contains (t) only, which is another narrative. The last section contains (g) and (h), which is a mixture of narration and description. The event-line verbs are in capitals and the non-event-line verbs are in italics. The initial narrative, (aHc), is further divided by two topics: Neishan Laoban 'Owner Neishan' and neige laoren 'that old man'. Within the fIrst topic, there are four verbs: kanchu 'to fInd out', xiao 'to smile', huitou 'to turn (the) head' and shuo 'to say, speak'. Xiao 'to smile' is affixed with the durative aspect -zhe. It is thus marked as less important than the other events and interpreted as a manner adverbial. The next two verbs kanchu 'to fInd out' and huitou 'to turn (the) head' are without any affix and the last one shuo 'to say, speak' is affixed with the perfective -Ie. According to Chang (1986: 105-11 0), only the last of a series of subevents is marked with the perfective -Ie to indicate that they form an integral larger episode. The marked one is known as the 'peak' event. Here we see three subevents 'seeing some clue', 'turning his head' and 'saying something in Japanese' in a series, but only the last sub-event of 'speaking' is marked with the perfective -Ie. This is then exactly the way Chang has claimed that sub-events are organized into larger episodes, with the culminating peak event occurring at the end. The other portion of the initial narrative is headed by the topic neige laoren 'that old man' in (c). There are three verbs in this portion: shuohua 'to talk', yao 'to hold in the mouth' and zou ...chulai 'to walk out'. The fIrst verb is in a relative clause yuanxian he Neishan SHUOHUA de 'who had talkedlbeen talking to Neishan' and is thus marked as a background event that happened before. The second verb yao 'to hold in the mouth' is suffixed with -zhe to show that it is treated not as important as a foreground event but as a manner accompanying another verb. The last verb zou ...chulai 'to walk out' is suffixed with -Ie to signal it as the peak event. Summarizing, the grounding structure of(aHc) in (22) can be diagrammed as follows:
Topic!: Neishan Laoban (KANCHU, [manner xiaozhe] HUITOU, SHUOle)
'The upright and kind glance made me feel as if (I were) receiving a fatherly caress on my body-a caress with a mixture of solemnity and kindness.' The fIrst-person participant in the discourse is a poor student trying to buy a book and fmding that he can not afford it. But an old man is to sell it to him for less than half its price. This passage is a narration of the participant's fIrst encounter with the oldman. We have divided the passage into four sections, each being considered a 'sentence' and punctuated with a full-stop in the original text. The fIrst section
The parentheses indicate the domain of the topic. The square brackets enclose background materials. The verbs in uppercase represent events that remain in the story-line after the discourse structuring has assigned background status to the other events. The subscripts describe the subordinate structures: manner = manner adverbial; reI = relative clause.
The descriptive portion in (22), (d}-(e), contains stative verbs only. Though the clause jiao ren danxin 'to make people worry' in (e) may be less stative than the other clauses, yet it represents a result of the preceding verb shou 'to be thin' and can be regarded as a digression from the description. Being descriptive in nature, the clauses do not bear any temporal relationship to each other. But there is another order that the description follows: from the most obvious face to the entire body and then to the less obvious spirit of the old man. In some sense, the clauses do follow an order of some sort. The portion in (f) is obviously a story-line event, as the verb kan 'look' is affixed with -Ie. The direct quote can simply be treated as the direct object of shuo 'to say', which could occur at the very end. The final section in (g}-(h) is a mixture of narration and description. Portion (g) contains three verbs: shi 'to make', gandao 'to feel' and shou 'to receive'. They are in a serial-verb construction. Furthermore, while both gandao and shou are nonstate verbs and are eligible for perfective aspect marking, only the last one is marked to indicate that it is the peak of a series of sub-events. Portion (h) contains the verb jiaozhi 'interweave', which is suffixed with -zhe to make it less prominent. As a matter of fact, the suffix is not necessary because the verb is already in a subordinate structure marked by the relative pronoun de. But, the writer may simply be using the suffix to make it doubly sure that the subordination is unmistakably 7 recognized. The diagram in (25) below shows the grounding structure of(g}-(h) in (22).
c) yinwei guantou biaoqianshang huazhe sanduo hua, because can label-on paint-DUR 3-M flower d) er neizhong hua de mingzi bu shi women yiban but that-kind flower DE name not be we general ren suo xizhi de. people SUO familiar DE 'We Chinese have known Carnation Condensed Milk for a long time; it seems that it was generally called Three-Flower Condensed Milk, because there were three flowers printed on the can label but the name of the flowers was not familiar to most people.' e) finci wo daole zhejia niunai gongsi qu canguan, for-this I arrive-PFV this-M milk company go visit, f) bei jue qinqie, double feel friendly g) haoxiang shi wuyizhong zoudaole yige shou pengyoude seem be accidentally walk-arrive-PFV a-M familiar friend's laojia. old-home
Topic: Yanguang (SHI, GANDAO, SHOUle fumo
<[rei jiaozhizhe de] fumoÂť The pair of the angled brackets indicate an apposition structure to the objectfumo 'caress'. The analysis of the passage in (22) reveals that the subordination devices-relative clause, fmite vs. non-finite verbs and clause order-work together to organize discourse in a hierarchical grounding structure. To cover the other two subordination devices that we have discussed earlier (conjunction and nominalization), we quote another passage from Liang (1989:40). (26.a) Women Zhongguoren laozao jiu renshi Kangnaixin niunaishui, we Chinese old-early soon know Carnation milk-water, b) haoxiang yiban ren cheng zhi wei sanhuapai seen general person call it be three-flower-brand
naishui, milk-water,
'For this reason, when I went to visit this milk factory, I felt especially welcomed; it seemed like I accidentally walked into an old friend's home.' h) Yige gongsi hanghao fei wanbudeyi buhui guachu 'Xiejue a-M company firm not cannot-help not-will hang-out 'Please-no canguan' de paizi, visit' DE sign, i) geng buhui haobukeqide gaobai 'Xianren mian jin,' even-more not-will rudely announce 'Loiterer don't enter.' j) zhaodai canguan zhengshi jigaomingde guanggao shouduan. entertain visit just-be very-smart-DE advertise means
compelling reasons, nor would (any company) rudely announce "No Loiterers"; to welcome visitors is just a very smart way of advertisement. ' k) Kangnaixin gongsi menkou jiu shule paishi, zhidian Carnation company entrance just stand-PFV sign, direct
head NP carries given or new information. Both the grounding relation ~etween the relative and main clauses and the informative value of the head NP rem~m the same. In this particular case, the head NP luxian 'route' seems to be pragmatIcally rather than grammatically defInite because when a sign gives directions to visitors, it would usually suggest only one route as the best and thus the route is defmite by its uniqueness. This kind of defmiteness doesn't necessarily carry given information and it doesn't allow defInite marking by morphology in Mandarin.
canguanren ying caiqxu de luxian, ... visitor should take DE route, ... 'The Carnation Company has a sign standing at its entrance, (which) gives visitors directions, ... ' The passage is also divided into four parts: (a}-(d), (e}-(g), (h}-(i) and U}-(k). The division coincides with the 'sentences' indicated by full-stops in the original. What we are interested in here are the conjunctions yinwei 'because' in (c) and yinci 'for this (reason)' in (e), the adverb geng 'even more' in (i), and the sentential subject zhaodai canguan 'to welcome visit(or)s' in 0). The conjunction yinwei is a subordinate one. It is optionally used to indicate the background status of the clause it is in when the clause order is BFP. But if the order is reverse, the conjunction is obligatory. Here, it is the latter case that necessitates the presence of the conjunction. If the order of clauses (b) and (c) were reversed, then this subordinate conjunction yinwei would become optional, but there would be a need for a coordinate conjunction suoyi 'therefore' to go with the second clause for the logical relatiem between them. (Cf. Section 6.2.2.) The coordinate conjunctionyinci 'for this (reason)' in (e) actually connects the whole section made up of(e}-(g) to the preceding section consisting of(a}-(d). The relationship between these two sections is one of cause-effect and the sections are ordered in BFP. No special subordinate conjunction is needed. The adverb geng in (i) is one of those that work both as an adverb and a connective. It connects two parallel events, with the second being a step further than the fIrst. The clause order of (h) and (i) is one ofBFP. Therefore, only a coordinate conjunction for the logical relation is called for. The clause order can not be reversed in this case, because there doesn't exist a subordinate conjunction for this logical relationship. The sentential subject zhaodai canguan 'to welcome visit(or)s' refers back to what has been mentioned in the same section and in the previous section. It carries given information, is low in informative value and serves as background to the clause with the predicate 'is a smart way of advertisement' . One additional interesting construction is the relative structure ying caiqu de luxian 'route that (one) should take'. The relative clause, as a rule, serves as the background to the main clause. But, since the head NP is postverbal, the entire relative structure is high in informative value. It is oflittle consequence whether the
1. The dependence relationship that Thompson talks about here is one where the subordinate structure is dependent on the main clause. It is structural in nature and is very different from a pragmatic relationship which we will later propose as 'scene-setting' in Section 6.1.2. 2. Clause (c) is still a problem, but see Section 6.2.3. 3. Reverting back will be further discussed in the next chapter. 4. The adjustments in wording do not directly bear on our discussion. This also applies to the variations in the following examples. 5. Nominalization, expressing a proposition in the form ofa nominal, is also a subordinating device. 6. For details, see Chu (1991a), Uu and Chu (1993) and Uu (1996). 7. Another reason for the use of -zhe may have to do with a different perception of the structure by native speakers. The de, though interpreted as a relative pronoun by the present author, may be more comfortably recognized as an adjectival suffix by a non-linguist. If so, the verb jiaozhi 'to interweave' would not be appropriate unless it is turned into a state verb by adding the suffix -zhe to it. Cf., for example, Icaizhe de men vs. ?kaide men 'the open door/the door that is open'.