Zihou

Ten of the 11 instances of zhīhòu in the bare form occur with an antecedent RP, displaying the relative time reference use as well as the anaphoric property of zhī. The other zhīhòu takes the speech time as the reference time, locating the TG in the near or upcoming future. We will see the examples with an antecedent RP first and then the example with the speech time as the RT, together with an example of this kind outside the corpus.

5.2.1.1 With an Antecedent RP

In most of the uses of zhīhòu in the bare form, an antecedent RP can be easily identified in the preceding context. Also, the mentioning of the RP is usually close to the use of zhīhòu, typically in the previous or second previous IU (within the same speaker).⁵⁴ In these cases zhī anaphorically links to the RP that is mentioned previously. Sequence is still the basic sense, in that zhīhòu profiles the sequential relationship between two situations or entities. The sequential relationship holds between the RP and the TG and is in theory irrelevant to the speech time. In actual uses of bare-form zhīhòu, we have found that the RP and the TG tend to lie in the past (n = 5), but also found to be general situations (n = 3) and future situations (n = 2).

The first example we will see consists of an RP and a TG that both lie in the past.

A journalist shares that once he overslept in the morning and missed the chance to interview the Minister of Education.

54 Unlike in the relative time reference uses of zhīqián, where the antecedent RP tends to be emergent or an afterthought.

(5-16) (REPORTER)

C: “At 12 o’clock I turned on the TV, and I watched the news for a while, and I knew roughly what Wu Jing [then Minister of Education] had said.”

R: “The news that other journalists had covered.”

C: “But after that, I still had a strong sense of guilt, which did not allow me to stay at home. So I got dressed, and then I went out (for work).”

Here speaker C mentions a series of related events in the chronological order. In this sequential relationship profiled by zhīhòu, the RP is not only the immediately antecedent event of C’s knowing what the Minister had said, but also the other two preceding events, namely his turning on the TV and watching TV news for a while.

Likewise, the TG that is mentioned immediately after zhīhòu is the state of having a strong sense of guilt followed the action of getting dressed and going to work.

There are two points worth noting in this example. The first one the discourse function that we have seen in zhīqián in 5.1.1.1. The use of zhīhòu in the bare form helps to organize a scenario that involves more than just two situations in the RP. In the attached form use, zhīhòu tends to take only one situation as the RP in the preceding element. To use zhīhòu in the attached form, speakers have to plan ahead all the things that they intend to say; they have to have a clear idea about the RP and the TG they intend to put in the sequential relationship. By contrast, the bare form allows speakers more flexibility. Speakers can develop the background that they need to set up in a freer manner, such as mentioning more details in a less rigid way. In this case, the RP is longer and involves more than just one event. The TG introduced by zhīhòu is later added to mark the following situation in the whole scenario. We may translate zhīhòu as ‘after that’, ‘after which’ or ‘afterwards’ to show the anaphoric linking between zhī and the previously mentioned events.

Second, although in Mandarin Chinese describing situations in a chronological order already suffices to reflect their relative sequence, and thus the use of zhīhòu here seems redundant, the bare-form zhīhòu is not only to profile the sequence but

also to mark an important transitional point in the story. The fact that the bare-form zhīhòu occurs after the contrast maker kěshì ‘but’ instead of any other position in the recount of the story indicates that zhīhòu can be used to signal the importance of the TG that is about to be mentioned, in addition to arranging a sequential relationship neutrally. In the NTU Corpus almost all the uses of zhīhòu in the bare form are found to be transitionally relevant in some way, such as occurring after the summarizing marker suǒyǐ ‘so’, taking a topic marker ne, or receiving phonological emphasis.⁵⁵

Recall that Zhao and Li (2009) and Yang (2009) both contend that zhīhòu in the bare form must refer to a time in the past, namely, to modify a TG that lies in the past (cf. 2.3.2 in this thesis). This claim is challenged by the next example, in which both the antecedent RP and the TG lie in the future (or as general situations).

(5-17) (COSMETIC)

55 Transcribed with marcato as in <MRC zhīhòu MRC>, which means that each syllable is distinct and emphasized.

→226 ...之後 呢?/

K: “So you use propolis cream to handle the problem of pimples (for your daughter) first.”

C1: “Hmm.”

K: “Um, after that/and then, your daughter can use skin care products with nucleic acid to strengthen the cells on the face.”

Speaker K gives two pieces of advice in total. The first using propolis cream is the RP.

Before giving the second advice, she continues with nà ‘then’, a marker to signal transition, followed by zhīhòu with the topic marker ne. The second advice is the TG.

In this example, zhīhòu occurs at a transitional point. The sequence sense of zhīhòu is conspicuous, partially contributed by the uses of xiān ‘first’ in the RP in IUs 221 and 222 and the use of zài ‘and then’ in the TG in IU 229. However, the sequence sense between the two steps of skin care procedure still holds even if we remove xiān and zài.

In the use of zhīhòu in the bare form with an antecedent RP, it would be weird to use yǐhòu instead. The anaphoric property of zhīhòu links backward to the previously mentioned RP and thus making zhīhòu more compatible with relative time reference, especially when both the RP and the TG lie in the past. In the NTU Corpus, almost all the uses of yǐhòu in the bare form do not have an antecedent RP, and the speech time serves as the reference time. It seems that yǐhòu in the bare form must locate a TG in the future, i.e., after the speech time. Thus, using yǐhòu in (5-16) is inappropriate, because the TG lies in the past.

However, if we think of the example of skin care in (5-17) from the perspective of absolute time reference, using yǐhòu is still somewhat strange: the TG would be located in the far future, whereas the skin problem of the daughter is better to be handled soon, i.e., in the near future. In 5.2.2 we will show that when there is an antecedent RP, which is rarely the case for yǐhòu in the bare form, yǐhòu can be used only when the TG will take place once the RP is fulfilled, as a prerequisite condition, or when a repetitive TG lies in the past subsequent to an RP that also lies in the past.

5.2.1.2 Without an Antecedent RP

Without an antecedent RP in the previous context, the speech time provides the reference time. Zhīhòu locates the TG after the speech time in the near future, with the meaning of ‘later (than now)’ or ‘soon’. In the NTU Corpus, there is one such example. It is from the same radio conversation in (5-8), in which Speaker D talks about how her husband criticized her behavior in front of his relatives. Here she is describing what she was thinking at that moment.

(5-18) (COUNSEL2)

135 D: ...我 覺得 我-- wǒ juéde wǒ

1SG feel 1SG

D: “I feel that, you are my husband, you should tell me (that you don’t like the way I do it) at a lower voice, or tell me later (in private instead of in front of the relatives).”

This example may be viewed from either relative or absolute time reference perspective. Here we choose the latter to show that zhīhòu has absolute time reference use. In this example, speaker D quotes her own inner speech at the moment after her husband criticized and embarrassed her in front of his relatives. In this inner speech, which is addressed to her husband, the TG situation is her husband’s telling her that he did not like her way of doing things in private. Since her husband already criticized her in front of the relatives, this TG situation is simply a counterfactual wish than actually referring to a future situation. Nevertheless, D uses zhīhòu to locate this wishful situation later than the speech time when she had this inner speech.

Example (5-18) is not a representative example of zhīhòu in the bare form with

the speech time as the reference time. The following example, which is not in the NTU Corpus, can illustrate better the absolute time reference use. This example is said by a graduate student at the beginning of his presentation on a journal article.

(5-19) (personal data)

A: 這 篇 的 觀點 很 新穎

zhè piān de guāndiǎn hěn xīnyǐng this CL NOM opinion very novel 有些 有 點 問題

yǒuxiē yǒu diǎn wèntí

some have a.bit problem

→ 我們 之後 可以 慢慢 探討

wǒmen zhīhòu kěyǐ mànmàn tàntǎo 1PL ZHIHOU can slow.slow discuss

A: “This article’s opinions are novel. Some are problematic. We can take time discussing them later.”

In (5-19), the TG is speaker A and the audience’s discussing the problematic opinions in the article. The reference time is the speech time, meaning that zhīhòu locates the TG shortly after the speech time, in the sense of ‘later’. If we substitute yǐhòu for zhīhòu, it will not result in any oddity. The consequence is simply that the temporal distance between the reference time and the TG becomes longer. In (5-19), it makes more sense that the discussing is expected to take place during or shortly after the presentation, namely, in the imminent future close to the speech time. By contrast, using yǐhòu in this case will give the impression that the speaker expects the discussion to take place at an even later time, at least not on the same day when the presentation is given. If we view the TG as a repetitive situation, then yǐhòu is preferred. In this case, it will mean that the discussing does not take place just once after the speech time, but multiple times (see 5.2.2.2).