[Lingtyp] argument structure
Chao Li
chao.li at aya.yale.edu
Wed Aug 23 16:24:50 UTC 2023
Dear Randy,
You have cited Y. R. Chao a few times and apparently you adopt the position
that Chinese can be sufficiently explained with the notions of topic and
comment. I do not think that anyone working on Chinese would deny the
importance of the notions of topic and comment in describing and explaining
the functioning of Chinese. Also, probably no one working on Chinese would
deny the fact that Chinese exhibits flexibility in word order, as shown by
the examples you cited in your messages. However, IF your position is that
Chinese (essentially) has no argument structure or that word order has no
place in Chinese grammar, Jianming (as can be seen from his earlier
discussion with you), I, and very likely many others would think that this
position is too extreme. Word order (and argument structure) actually has
an important place in Chinese grammar. Otherwise, why (1) has to be
interpreted as "the cat is/was chasing the dog" (even though in the real
world cats are timid and it is more likely for a dog to chase a cat than
for a cat to chase a dog), why (2b) is odd or bad (particularly when
previous clauses in the same Chinese sentence, as can be viewed by clicking
on the link, remain unchanged), or why 'that girl' in (3), not '(the)
flower' or 'flowers' in the same sentence, has to be understood as the
entity that was consumed? All the three examples contain a transitive verb
and in spirit they are all of the "N-V-N’" format.
(1) Māo zài zhuī gǒu.
cat Progressive chase dog
'The cat is/was chasing the dog.'
(2) a. ... wǒ hē-le nà bēi guǒzhī.
I drink-Perfective that cup juice
'...I drank that cup of juice.' (
https://cn.nytimes.com/style/20170209/the-stir-fried-tomatoes-and-eggs-my-chinese-mother-made/zh-hant/
)
b. ??... nà bēi guǒzhī hē-le wǒ.
that cup juice drink-Perfective I
(3) Huā chī-le nà nǚhái. (name of a movie)
flower eat-Perfective that girl
Best regards,
Chao
On Tue, Aug 22, 2023 at 11:52 PM Randy LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Thanks Christian,
> Chao’s point in using the analogy of the function in logic is just to
> explain how the position of reference phrases in the clause is not related
> to semantic role, as it is in English, so N-V-N’ (actually [Topic
> N]-[Comment V-N’]) can be almost any set of semantic roles, depending only
> on contextual factors for their interpretation, as long as the addressee
> can create a meaning from it. The examples I gave are only a few of the
> possibilities. This is also why he argued there is no passive/active
> distinction in Chinese. It is a matter of inferring the direction of action
> from the overall context/situation.
>
> It is common now for us to assign roles to positions of arguments of
> functions, but Chao was assuming (explicitly) that the order of the
> arguments of the function does not influence the interpretation.
>
> All the best,
> Randy
>
> On 23 Aug 2023, at 9:44 AM, Christian Lehmann <
> christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> wrote:
>
> Hi Randy,
>
> thanks for this report. There would be no point in criticizing Chao,
> doubtless an eminent grammarian. However, it does not seem that his use of
> the term 'argument' throws much light on Mandarin grammar. Given your
> examples, nothing, of course, prevents you from defining a function die(x,
> y) such that x is a being touched by the death and y is the dying being.
> You then get a multiplicity of functions die(v,w), where v and w play
> different roles. I am not sure that this use of the word 'argument' helps
> in understanding how the Chinese constructions work. - On the other hand,
> the analysis in terms of topic and comment seems to have gained foot in the
> literature. It does not seem to necessarily involve the function-argument
> analysis.
>
> Best, Christian
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Am 22.08.2023 um 18:52 schrieb Randy J. LaPolla:
>
> Hi Christian,
> Y. R. Chao argued that the arguments in Chinese are like the arguments of
> a mathematical function. He argued (1968:69-70) that Chinese clause
> structure is simply topic and comment, and “A corollary to the
> topic-comment nature of predication is that the direction of action in an
> action verb in the predicate need not go outward from subject to
> object. Even in an N-V-N´ sequence, such as [gǒu yǎo rén (dog bite
> man)], it is not always certain that the action goes outward from N to N´.”
> (1968: 70).
>
>
>
> Chao (1955, 1959) also argued that word order is not determined by, and
> does not affect the interpretation of actor vs. non-actor; he said the
> clause is analogous to a function in logic: the argument is an argument of
> the function, and the truth value is unaffected by its position in the
> clause (1959:254).
>
>
> He used the terms “subject” for the topic and “object” for a reference
> phrase (regardless of the semantic role of the referent in the event), as
> in Chinese many sorts of semantic roles can appear after the verb (e.g. 'I
> eat rice’, ‘I eat restaurant’, 'I eat big bowl’,' I eat chopsticks’, 'this
> pot of rice eats ten people (can feed ten people), ‘He died father’ = 'he
> suffered the event of his father dying’,' fall rain CHANGE OF STATE’ = It
> is raining’. In all of these cases he would call the postverbal reference
> phrase the “object”.
>
>
> Chao Yuen Ren. 1955[1976]. Notes on Chinese grammar and logic. In *Aspects
> of Chinese sociolinguistics: Essays by Yuen Ren Chao,* Anwar S. Dil
> (ed.), 237-249. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
>
> Chao Yuen Ren. 1959[1976]. How Chinese logic operates. In *Aspects of
> Chinese sociolinguistics: Essays by Yuen Ren Chao,* Anwar S. Dil (ed.),
> 250 259. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
>
> Chao Yuen Ren. 1968. *A grammar of spoken Chinese*. Berkeley/Los Angeles:
> University of California Press.
>
>
> All the best,
>
> Randy
> ——
> Professor Randy J. LaPolla（罗仁地), PhD FAHA
> Center for Language Sciences
> Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
> Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai
> A302, Muduo Building, #18 Jinfeng Road, Zhuhai City, Guangdong, China
>
> https://randylapolla.info
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>
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> 人文和社会科学高等研究院
> 语言科学研究中心
>
>
> On 22 Aug 2023, at 11:19 PM, Christian Lehmann
> <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> wrote:
>
> I am sure that what I am about to do here is completely inappropriate on
> this list. In the interest of improving communication among us, allow me
> nevertheless to use the message by Hans Götzsche as support: If you think
> you need to use the (mathematical and logical) term 'argument' in a context
> dealing with grammar, then please at least make it clear whether an
> argument occupies a role in semantic relationality or a syntactic function
> in valency. Just one example: English *dine* has two semantic roles, the
> eater and the thing eaten (which may be called, i.a., agent and patient).
> It has one dependent controlled by its valency, taking the form of a
> subject and representing the eater. How many arguments does it have?
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Am 21.08.2023 um 08:03 schrieb Hans Götzsche:
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>
> *From: *Hans Götzsche <goetzsche at ikp.aau.dk> <goetzsche at ikp.aau.dk>
> *Subject: **Re: [Lingtyp] argument structure*
> *Date: *21 August 2023 at 15.44.46 CEST
> *To: *Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com> <panovmeister at gmail.com>
>
> Dear Vladimir,
>
> allow me a late comment. I have no remarks on Christian Lehman’s comment,
> so I shall only mention that the notion of ‘argument’ in theoretical
> linguistics has, to my knowledge, ‘slipped through the back door’, via
> formal approaches, from mathematics, presumably 1865 (see *), and later
> computation theory; meaning
>
> An independent variable of a function.
>
> I first encountered the technical use of the word *argument* at my ‘first
> course in formal logic’ (many years ago), and the use of the term in
> linguistics is one of the reasons why I decided to develop ‘my own’
> nomenclature in formal syntax. As is well known the way we, as linguists,
> use the myriad of technical terms depends on what club (guild, brotherhood,
> you choose) we are members of, and taken as a set of words covering all
> bits and pieces of (by some called) “the language sciences” the set is full
> of inconsistences, and sometimes contradictions. Thus, it is not quite true
> that “we all use the term “argument structure””, and I only use the word
> *argument* in the context of formal logic. The aim of my development
> mentioned above, which was published in
>
> *Deviational Syntactic Structures*†
>
> was to establish a nomenclature that was both consistent and would be able
> to cover all language domains, from speech sounds to semantics (but, so
> far, not pragmatics; which I prefer to see as a matter of cultural
> codifications). This was in line with the well known and acknowledged
> Danish tradition in Theoretical Linguistics (some scholars remember Rasmus
> Rask and Karl Verner, to name a few) and it was based on ideas by Otto
> Jespersen and Louis Hjelmslev – as for the formal systems – and the
> empirical achievements of the grammarian Paul Diderichsen. My suggestions
> were not all cheered by Danish linguistists, but the formal system –
> comparable to, e.g., Montague grammar – was the first and only
> amalgamation of Hjelmslev’s *Glossematics* and the descriptive tradition
> of Danish syntax.
>
> I once read a ‘Dear Sir’ letter to a Danish newspaper in which the writer
> offered the opinion (in translation): “why don’t everybody use words the
> way I do; it would make everything much easier”. But, of course, adopting
> such a view would be impertinent.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Hans Götzsche (MA,PhD)
> *Former President, NAL*
> *Nordic Association of Linguists*
> Emeritus Associate Professor
> Director, Center for Linguistics
> Aalborg University
> Rendsburggade 14
> 9000 Aalborg
> DENMARK
> goetzsche at ikp.aau.dk
> www.cfl.hum.aau
>
> Dr Hans Goetzsche
> Emerito Professore Universitario
> Via S. Apollinare 19,2
> 36063 Marostica (VI)
> ITALIA
>
> *
> https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/144141/what-is-the-sense-of-using-word-argument-for-inputs-of-a-function
> terminology - What is the sense of using word "argument", for inputs of a
> function? - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
> <https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/144141/what-is-the-sense-of-using-word-argument-for-inputs-of-a-function>
> †
> https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/deviational-syntactic-structures-9781472587961/
>
>
> On 19 Aug 2023, at 12.11, Vladimir Panov <panovmeister at gmail.com>
> <panovmeister at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I have a very general question to you. We all use the term "argument
> structure" and we are used to semantic labels like A, S or P or syntactic
> labels like subject, direct and indirect object. Many linguistis,
> especially those adhering to "formal" approaches, would argue that there
> are also adjuncts which are not arguments.
>
> Is anybody aware of any attempts to seriously challenge the adequacy of
> the very notion of "arguments" in general? After all, ir seems that there
> are languages which do not encode or encode little the "roles" of named
> entities (noun phrases, pronouns etc.) anywhere in utterance, especially in
> colloquial language, or encode entities like the addressee rather than the
> agent or the patient. My intuition tells me that there might be such
> critical works in the traditions of usage-based linguistics, interactional
> linguistics, conversation analysis or linguistic anthropology but I have
> found very little. Actually, I've only discovered the very recent Heine's
> book in which he argues for a broader understanding of argument structure
> which includes speech situation participants - a very interestinng view. So
> am looking for more research in this spirit.
>
> I'm sorry if it sounds a bit confusing but if anything like that comes to
> you mind I'll be happy if you can share it.
>
> Best,
> Vladimir Panov
>
> *I condemn the Russian agression in Ukraine*
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> --
>
> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
> Rudolfstr. 4
> 99092 Erfurt
> Deutschland
> Tel.: +49/361/2113417
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> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
> Rudolfstr. 4
> 99092 Erfurt
> Deutschland
> Tel.: +49/361/2113417
> E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
> Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu
>
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