[Lingtyp] argument structure
David Gil
gil at shh.mpg.de
Fri Aug 25 09:19:22 UTC 2023
Dear all,
Some additional data: In my ongoing cross-linguistic Association
Experiment, I tested 4 sentences of N V N structure to see if they
permitted Pat V Ag interpretations, in (among others) three Sinitic
varieties. (Of these 4 sentences, 2 were semantically symmetric while 2
were asymmetric.) For each variety I tested approximately 30 subjects.
The availability of such Pat V Ag interpretations was as follows:
Mandarin (Beijing): 8%
Cantonese (HK): 7%
Mandarin (overseas Chinese, Jakarta): 18%
What these results show is that while there is a strong disfavouring of
Pat V Ag interpretations in such constructions, they are nevertheless
available.
Best,
David
On 23/08/2023 18:24, Chao Li wrote:
> 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
>>> ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6100-6196
>>>
>>> 邮编：519087
>>> 广东省珠海市唐家湾镇金凤路18号木铎楼A302
>>> 北京师范大学珠海校区
>>> 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>
>>>> <mailto: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>
>>>>>> <mailto: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>
>>>>>> <mailto: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 <http://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/
>>>>>> <https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/deviational-syntactic-structures-9781472587961/>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 19 Aug 2023, at 12.11, Vladimir Panov
>>>>>>> <panovmeister at gmail.com> <mailto: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/
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>>>>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>>>>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> 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
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>
>> --
>>
>> 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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--
David Gil
Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
Email:gil at shh.mpg.de
Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
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