A study of pattern path expressions in Mandarin Chinese from the perspective of motion event typology Sai Ma Abstract: Given that pattern paths, one type of fictive motion, have been understudied so far, this paper examines pattern path expressions from the perspective of motion event typology. Through manually collecting Mandarin pattern path data from books and magazines, we first explored the semantic elements in pattern path expressions with a focus on the Figure and the Ground, and then investigated their lexicalization pattern by studying the grammatical slots encoding the Path, the semantic elements integrated in the verb, the expression of manner information, and the complexity of

Conversational uses of Mandarin Chinese buran (‘not so’) in casual conversations Yu-Fang Wang, Wayne Schams, Ming-Fang Lin and Shih-Yao Chen Abstract: Chinese buran, literally meaning ‘not so,’ can be a marker of negative conditionality expressing the speaker’s (un)desirability toward some event and can be used to introduce a proposal or suggestion. Although many studies have analyzed buran, most of them have examined its usage in written texts and have focused on its meaning and/or functions as a negative conditional conjunct. In conversation, buran frequently co-occurs with questions in “nonconventional uses” and as such deserves closer attention. This study attempts to explore both the conventional and nonconventional uses of buran in casual

The topics were conditionals: The origin and evolution of a rGyalrong topic marker (in Chinese) You-Jing Lin 摘要:专论话题标记来源的相关研究中，尚未有文献提到话题标记可能来自条件结构。尽管学界接受Haiman(1978)“条件就是话题”的主张，但有学者进一步陈明：“话题不是条件”(Shin 1987)。本文考察嘉戎语口语材料，论证嘉戎语话题标记=mənaŋorə的来源为动词条件结构mə-na-ŋôs=rə [COND-PFV-COP=TOP]。笔者认为卓克基话的条件句之所以能发展成话题，主要因素有三。第一，条件动词的主要词干是不具语义的系词；第二，条件小句一如嘉戎语大多数小句，是动词置于句末；第三，条件小句与主要小句的相对位置不具对调的弹性。条件标记赋予了系词标示“已知”、“预设”信息的功能，系词条件小句在信息属性和补语与动词相对位置两方面，都与带话题标记的名词短语雷同，从“条件小句+主要小句”演变为“话题—述题”就万事俱备了。基于以上论据，加上嘉戎语和突厥语族语言的相关例证，我们可以说在这些语言中“话题曾是条件”。

Diffusion of the interrogative pronoun Sha ‘啥’ from Mandarin to Wu: A view of dialect contact (in Chinese) Yimin Sheng 摘要：本文是一项吴语虚词史的研究，探讨吴语疑问代词“啥”的来源。一般认为吴语的“啥”来源于“什么”类的合音，可是吴语声母存在清浊对立，需要解释为何“什”类浊声母在吴语中合音的结果是清声母的“啥”。文章首先讨论了“啥”在吴语中的地理分布样态和表意功能差异，然后构拟了其早期语音形式。在此基础上，文章主张“啥”的合音是在宋代汴洛地区完成的，而吴语中的“啥”则是宋室南渡之后，由汴洛移民带入的成分。

On the modeling of homophony syllabary in Chinese dialects Nankai Wu, Xingquan Hou and Jiangping Kong Abstract: Phonetic comparison of Chinese dialects has been an important issue of academic interest. There are still some prominent problems with various existing metric comparison methods, such as randomness of phonemic processing and insufficient sampling of cognates or core words. Therefore, this paper proposes a new method using homophonic syllabary as the modeling object. Compared to existing methods, the present method has more advantages in terms of materials and methods. On the one hand, compared with phonological systems, syllabic lists or limited number of selected words, homophonic syllabaries are more representative

Ethic integration and evolution of the phonological features of Northern Standard Chinese Language Weimin Wang ABSTRACT: Ethnic integration is often accompanied by language contact and language shift. The process of “ethnic integration” is the process of “remolding” northern standard Chinese language into an inter-ethnic language and ultimately into a common national language. Only by reevaluating the phonological rules and structure of the languages (mainly Altaic) of northern non-Han ethnic groups and investigating the interference with and influence on Chinese during the language shift by the non-Han ethnic groups, can we comprehend that the common national language is a language community jointly shaped by the Han people

Acoustic patterns in Hong Kong Cantonese hesitation markers: Vowel quality and omnisyllabic tone Robert Marcelo Sevilla ABSTRACT: Hesitation markers (HMs) lie somewhere on the dividing line between linguistic and sub-linguistic, evincing at the same time crosslinguistic commonalities as well as language-specific features (Candea et al. 2005; Dingemanse and Woensdregt 2020). This study seeks to expand on understanding of these lexically peripheral items by analyzing their acoustic properties in Hong Kong Cantonese (HKCT), including vowel quality and F0. Recent work by Dingemanse and Woensdregt (2020) discusses phonetic similarities in HMs across languages, which are constrained by adherence to the phonologies of their respective languages. However, it is

Investigating dayue: An LFG-OT approach to its subcategorization and structure Yu-Ching Tseng ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the subcategorization and structure of dayue, taking a Lexical Functional Grammar–Optimality Theory (LFG-OT) approach to account for the different uses of this word. It argues that dayue can be identified in the category of either an adverb or a preposition, depending on the function it takes and the structure it has. As an adverb, dayue modifies the clausal element or the quantifier phrase directly following it. As a preposition, dayue takes a noun phrase (NP) or an adpositional phrase as the complement, occurring in the adjunctive position. There may be

Word frequency modulates the selection of semantic access pathways of spoken words in the second language Hao Yan,  Yingying Huang,  Yanqin Feng,  Limin Zhang,  Yanlong Zhang,  Anna Zhen amd Jie Dong ABSTRACT: Most second language (L2) learners comprehend words more difficult in its spoken form than the written form (Bekleyen 2009). Based on the findings of previous studies, we assumed that word frequency and language proficiency may be two critical factors in spoken word identification. To investigate how these two factors modulate L2 spoken word identification, we recruited Chinese-English bilinguals with different English proficiency levels, and manipulated words’ orthographic consistency, and word frequency. Our results supported

Y. R. Chao’s fāngyīn diàochá biǎogé and its role in the evolution of Chinese dialect research methodology Richard VanNess Simmons ABSTRACT: The present study compares and contrasts the phonologies of the Y. R. Chao’s Fāngyīn diàochá biǎogé 方音調查表格 and Jerry Norman’s Common Dialectal Chinese Hànyǔ fāngyán tōngyīn 漢語方言通音, also with reference to the Fāngyán diàochá zìbiǎo 方言調查字表, for what they reveal about their compilers’ approaches to Chinese dialect phonology and it’s applicability in dialect fieldwork and related research. We find that both were designed as tools to help shed light on the diachronic relationships between dialects. A significant feature that separates the two is how they