Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale
Journal issue | 50 | 2014
Research Article | Cognitive Principles and Preverbal Position in Chinese
Cognitive Principles and Preverbal Position in Chinese
Abstract
In Chinese, word order is a powerful linguistic device indicating relations between constituents, on a semantic, syntactic and pragmatic level, and has been the focus of linguistic inquiry over the past decades. Particular attention has been given to the preverbal position, with heated debate on the notion of topic and other pragmatic-related phenomena. This study is a first step towards a better understanding of the order of preverbal NPs and verb modifiers, analyzing them in light of relevant cognition-based word order principles investigated within the cognitive-functional approach. Particular attention is given to the notion of ‘scope’, which pertains both to the discourse and the cognitive level (‘topic scope’ vs. ‘temporal, spatial and semantic scope’), and which seems to better explain the order and the pragmatic role of preverbal NPs. On this basis, this paper suggests a research path towards a deeper cognitive-functional comprehension of the preverbal position that takes into account the interplay of different word order related factors.
Published Dec. 1, 2014 | Language: en
Copyright © 2014 Anna Morbiato. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2385-3042/11p
