Stereoscopic Study of Chinese Grammar

Author: Shao Jingmin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-08-01
Features: This book is a summary of the author's 20 years of research in Chinese grammar, including 23 representative papers that cover six aspects: syntactic-semantic issues, cross-study of the three planes, valence theory, transformation studies, semantic orientation research, and dynamic studies of linguistic phenomena. It includes both macro-theoretical discussions and empirical verification of specific linguistic facts, making it an important reference book for Chinese grammar research. Essentially, this book is a collection of the author's papers on Chinese grammar, with 23 selected from over 100 papers, divided into six thematic chapters:
Chapter 1: Bifocal Study of Syntax and Semantics (4 papers);
Chapter 2: Cross-Study of the Three Planes (4 papers);
Chapter 3: Valence and Functional Study (4 papers);
Chapter 4: Syntactic Transformation Study (4 papers);
Chapter 5: Semantic Orientation Study (3 papers);
Chapter 6: Dynamic Change Study (4 papers).
These papers were originally published in major journals such as The Chinese Language, providing a comprehensive reflection of the author's overall research approach and level in Chinese grammar. The author believes that the ultimate goal of grammar research should be to reveal the decisiveness of semantics, the coerciveness of syntax, the selectivity of pragmatics, and the interpretability of cognition. This book follows the principle of "bifocal grammar research," which primarily refers to the organic integration of seven aspects: form and meaning, static and dynamic, structure and function, individuality and generality, micro and macro, diachronic and synchronic, and ontology and application.
The innovations of this book mainly lie in:
First, it provides a detailed elaboration on the relationship between form and meaning in grammar, and secondly, it explicitly points out that starting from grammatical meaning to seek formal proof seems more suitable for Chinese, thereby providing a theoretical basis for establishing a semantic grammar of Chinese.
Second, it proposes the "bifocal selective principle of Chinese grammar," which specifically analyzes the principle of semantic consistency, self-sufficiency, and decisiveness. This principle is applied innovatively to the study of Chinese measure words (nominal and verbal), offering new insights.
Third, it conducts a comparative study of several theoretical models of the three planes and proposes the "three-dimensional cross-model," which is used to analyze challenging issues like attributive shift. It also introduces the method of "exclusive grammatical function identification" and applies this idea in the study of interrogative sentences.
Fourth, it provides an in-depth analysis of modern Chinese interrogative sentences and the particle "ne," demonstrating that "ne" is not actually an interrogative particle. It also conducts a comparative study of "ba"-marked interrogative sentences and proposes a correspondence between the structural types of interrogative sentences and their degrees of interrogativeness.
Fifth, it offers new perspectives on Chinese valence theory, proposing the distinction between "semantic valence" and "syntactic orientation." The author argues that the former is merely a possibility, while the latter is a reality, and applies this to analyze the valence combination of disyllabic "V+N" structures.
Sixth, it summarizes new methods for resolving Chinese ambiguity, particularly using semantic orientation, semantic features, semantic roles, semantic structure, and pragmatic presuppositions/focus to differentiate ambiguous structures, thereby providing a theoretical foundation for ambiguity resolution.
Seventh, it employs transformational methods to conduct a comprehensive analysis of "ba"-marked sentences, identifying "causative result" and "causative state" as their true grammatical meanings. It also discusses the transformational relationships and conditions between "ba"-marked sentences and other syntactic structures using the theory of lexical subcategories.
Eighth, it conducts a theoretical exploration of the semantic orientation of adverbs, proposing new concepts such as "point," "link," and "item," which are effectively applied to analyze "you"-marked and "bi"-marked sentences, thereby resolving ambiguities in the omission of the following element in "bi"-marked sentences.
Ninth, it studies distinctive Chinese structures such as "ABB" patterns, "non-X not-Y" patterns, Shanghai dialectal "tou"-marked structures, and the dynamic evolution of generative sentence types in teaching Chinese as a second language, offering new insights.
These papers present original viewpoints, reliable materials, and a broad research scope, offering valuable theoretical and methodological references. Since their publication, they have had a significant impact in the field of Chinese grammar and have been cited over a hundred times.