[Lingtyp] argument structure
Wu Jianming
wu.jianming2011 at hotmail.com
Fri Aug 25 12:37:56 UTC 2023
Dear David and colleagues，
The N-V-N structure in Mandarin is indeed used for transitive encodings (or “formal concept” in Martin’s term). In this structure, the verb is placed between two nouns (N1-V-N2), representing the action being performed on the object. For example, consider the sentence "我喝咖啡" (wǒ hē kāfēi), which means "I drink coffee." This structure allows for a concise and clear way of expressing transitive actions in Mandarin.
However, for the sake of discourse continuity and conciseness, the same N-V-N structure or transitive encodings can be used in : 一锅饭吃十个人 yī guō fàn chī shí gè rén, Literal Translation: One pot of rice eat ten people; Better Translation: One pot of rice feeds ten people. Or 这匹马骑过许多人 zhè pǐ mǎ qí le xǔ duō rén; Literal Translation: This horse rode many people; Better Translation: Many people have ridden this horse. The direct translation of the two sentences might not capture the intended meaning efficiently. It is also particularly used when the emphasis is on the action and its direct object, rather than on the subject.
When Mandarin speakers are asked to describe the propositional meanings of the two sentences, they use the canonical SVO/AVP order, because the SVO/AVP word order in Mandarin Chinese reflects a cognitive-semantic iconicity that aligns with the sequence of transitive events in real-world situations. This canonical word order is often used to ensure accurate and natural communication of the intended meaning. In other words , A and P, as semantic roles, can never be symmetric but always asymmetric in cognition (but not in surface forms).
In addition, text frequency counts on word order patterns alone may provide an inaccurate understanding of word order in Mandarin Chinese, as word order can be influenced by discourse-pragmatic factors and cognitive-semantic considerations. But they are not the same things. The basic AVP (agent-verb-patient) order in Mandarin Chinese is often aligned or sequenced with prototypical transitive events in the conceptualized world. This order reflects the typical conceptual structure of events where there is an agent performing an action on an object or patient.
Therefore, in my view, while Mandarin Chinese does have some flexibility in word order, it is not completely free.
Best,
Jianming
Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows
From: David Gil<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
Sent: 2023年8月25日 17:20
To: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] argument structure
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<mailto: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<mailto: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
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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
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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<mailto: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/
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
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