2.3 Studies on Demonstratives in Mandarin and TSM
2.3.1 Huang 1999
Huang (1999) proposes that definite article is emergent from interactional
contexts in Mandarin where the speaker assumes the identity of a referent is achieved on the basis of community shared knowledge. The identifiability of a referent
assumed by the speaker is the feature of definiteness.
In this article (1999), he divides the pragmatic functions of demonstratives into eight categories, namely (1) the situational use, (2) the endophoric use, (3) the unavailable use, (4) the identifying use, (5) the referent-introducing use, (6) the discourse marking use, (7) connective use, and last (8) the pause marking use.
The basic function of Chinese demonstratives is the deictic use; it refers to an object “saliently situated in the immediate local context”, as in (2.49).
(2.49) The situational use
1 A: ..zhe shi zhongguang liuxingwang=.
this is PN fashion world 2 A: ..ni suo shouting de jiemu shi=, you suo receive DE program is 3 A : ..meige xingqiwu lingchen liangdian dao
every Friday morning 2:00AM till sandian de xingheyeyu
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3:00AM DE starlit chat
A: ‘This is Zhongguang's fashion world network. You're tuning to Starlit Chat aired every Friday from 2:00 to 3:00 am.’
(Huang 1999:79)
Here, the host of the radio program employed a proximal demonstrative as if the show was right running in front of the listeners. This kind of use is termed as the situational use.
Next, the demonstratives are used to track the certain part of the discourse, which is called the endophoric use. Different from Himmelmann (1996) and Diessel (1999), the endophoric use in Huang’s categorization includes both the ideas of anaphoric and cataphoric reference. Observe the following examples:
(2.50) The endophoric use-Anaphoric reference 72 B: ...(0.8) na= suoyi wo chang.
and so I sing 73 B: ..chang dao zhongjian, sing till middle
74 B : ..(l.3) shi koushao de <E Solo E> duibudui?
is whistle DE right 75 B: ..ranhou wo zai likai.
and I again step away 76 B: ..ranhou Liu laosbi zai, and Liu teacher again 77 B: ..zai= chui koushao, again= blow whistle
78 B: ..ba nage chang wan.
ba that finish singing
B: ‘And so I sing up to the middle, then comes the solo part, which is to be whistled.
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Okay? And so I step away, and it is Teacher Liu's turn to whistle the rest of the song.’
(Huang 1999:79-80)
(2.51) The endophoric use-Cataphoric reference 321 B: ..na nide zhege=,
and your this 322 B: ..ta--
he--
323 B: ..tade zhege zhengzhi=, his this political 324 B: ..tade zhengzhi, his political
325 B : ..zhege= lichang hui bu hui yingxiang ni ne?
this stand may not may influence you FP 326 A: ..(h)m=,
327 A: ..yinggai zheyang jiang ba.
..should so talk FP
328 A: ..tade lichang bu hui yingxiang wo.
his stand not may influence me 329 A: ..danshi yinwei--
but because 330 A: ..(THROAT) 331 A: ..uh jiushi-- well 332 A: ..you shihou=, sometimes 333 A: ..um=,
334 A: ...(1.0) m jiushi hui tingdao, well may hear 335 A: ..bijiao duo de,
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more many DE
336 A: ..jiali de ren huoshi pengyou de ren hui-- home de people or friend DE people may 337 A: ..um hui taolun henduo.
may discuss many
B: ‘Did his political stand influence your thinking?’
A: ‘I would like to put it this way: his political stand didn't influence my thinking; but there were occasions when I heard family members or friends talk a lot about it.’
(Huang 1999:80)
According to Huang, the example (2.50) demonstrates the anaphoric usage of the demonstrative, in which the demonstrative nage refers back to the certain part of the discourse. As for example (2.51), the demonstrative expression zheyang refers forward to the certain part of the discourse. However, the two cases here expose a problem that both of the two demonstratives have no antecedent and precedent respectively. In Halliday and Hasan (1976), endophoric use of demonstratives needs an antecedent or a precedent for a tracking expression to decode its meaning;
nevertheless, the two cases fail to meet this criterion in a strict sense. According to Himmelmann (1996) and Diessel (1999),the demonstrative in (2.51) is considered as the discourse deictic use since the demonstrative refers to a whole proposition expressing in the following that the speaker’s political status is not influenced rather than to an NP. In this present work, the tracking use strictly sticks to Himmelmann (1996) and Diessel (1999)’s argument that an antecedent is necessary.
The third category Huang identifies is the unavailable use. Demonstratives of the unavailable use are utilized to indicate a referent that takes a modifier or a noun complement as given in the example (2.52). Without relative clauses or complement clauses, the intended referents mostly are not understood by hearers.
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(2.52) The unavailable use
125 B: ...(1.0) keshi <M taiyu M>
but Taiwanese 126 B: ..you--
some
127 B: ..youshihou nazhong hen guzao nazhong shidai, sometimes that kind very early that kind time 128 B: ..nazhong shengyin hen qiguai,
that kind sound very strange 129 B: ..you meiyou.
right
130 B: haoxiang niezhe bizi nazhong shengyin.
seem pinch nose that kind sound 131 A: (0) liushengji nazhong shengyin.
Phonograph that kind sound 132 B: (0)dui dui dui dui dui Yes yes yes yes yes
B: ‘But in Taiwanese, sometimes in earlier times they made very funny sounds, right?
It seems like the sounds you make when you pinch your nose.’
A: ‘Like the sounds they make on the phonograph’
B: ‘That's right.’
(Huang 1999:81)
In Huang’s view, speaker B uses a series of relative clauses headed by the
demonstrative expression nazhong ‘that kind’ to establish the identity of the referent
‘shengyin’ sound as in line 127 and 130 of this excerpt. The speaker B tried to
describe what he heard; therefore, he/she sought the assistance of the relative clauses.
It can be seen that the hearer giving feedback in line 131 expressed his/her understanding that it sounds like the sound of phonograph.
Fourth, demonstratives in Mandarin introduce a significantly topical referent into the discourse; demonstratives of this use usually occur in topic phrases such as Xiang
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‘be like’, as shown in (2.53)
(2.53) The referent-introducing use
107 A: ..xiang jiangdao nage xitou nage jingying haole.
like speak of that PN that management ok 108 A: ...(0.8) xiang a.
like FP
109 A: ..jian senlin youlequ jiushi women senlin de yige xiangmu.
build forest recreation is we forest DE one item 110 A: ..yingwei women senlin benlai jiu jiangdao nazhong= senlin
because we forest originally talk about that kind forest baoyu ma.
preservation FP l l l B: ..mh
A: ‘Take, for example, the management of Xitou Forest. Building a forest recreation area is one of our jobs, because we in the forest business often talk about forest conservation.’
B: ‘mh.’
(Huang 1999:82)
Normally, it is distal demonstratives that serve to address a familiar referent which occurs at the first time in the discourse or to introduce a major protagonist into the discourse.
Fifth, demonstratives have the identifying function when the referents headed by demonstratives are identified on the basis of the mutual knowledge of the speaker and the hearer due to their community membership.
(2.54) The identifying use
229 B: ..wo gang tidao shenme yige libai cuo yici yanchu.
I just talk about what one week do once show
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230 B: ..yici dao Taichung.
once to PN 231 A: ..mhm.
232 B: (0) na shi yinwei, (0) that is because,
233 B:..you gen= lingwai yige nuhaizi.
PFV with another one girl.
234 B: ..jiushi Surui.
..namely PN
235 B: ..women liang yikuai qu=.
we both together go
236 B: ..ranhou nage lingban yizhi gaosu woman then that boss always tell us 237 B: ..tamen hui zenme zhao--
they can how take 238 B: ..ta--
he
239 B: ..tamen yijia, they family 240 A: .mhm.
241 B: (0)hui zenme zhaogu women, can how take care of we 242 B: ..jiao women fumuqin fangxin.
ask we parents not worry.
B: ‘I just said that we did a show once a week. We once went to Taizhong and that was because we went with another girl, Surrey. We went there together, and the boss told us about how he and his family were going to take good care of us and told our parents not to worry.’
(Huang 1999:85)
The demonstrative nage introduces the referent linban ‘the head of a troupe’.In
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Huang’s explanation, speaker B was one of the members of this troupe so that it is impossible for speaker A to access the identity of the troupe; however, whether the hearer fully identifies a referent is not a necessary condition to consider a referent is fully identified (Du Bois 1980). The only necessity is that a reference position has established and the addressee accepts the existence of the position. Hence the hearer in this case may not exactly know who the head of the troupe is but he/she does know there must be a head of the speaker B’s troupe. Huang (1999) points out that this use is termed the recognitional use by Himmelmann (1996) and Diessel (1999);
nevertheless, the recognitional use excludes the use in which the referent is identified based on the general knowledge that is known to all the members of the same
community but identified through shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer. Thus, the recognitional use actually differs from the identifying use.
The sixth use of demonstratives is to mark a boundary in the discourse; in a broad sense they serve as discourse markers that organize the discourse (Schiffrin 1987).
They are utilized to start a conversation or to signal the end of a conversation. Look at the example (2.55) for this use.
(2.55) Marking discourse boundary
26 A: ...(l.5) ni zenme hui xihuan nazhong ge a.
you how can like that kind song FP.
27 B: ...(1.0) qishi wo ye bu xiaode a.
actually I also NEG know FP 28 B: ..wo jiu juede,
I just feel, 29 B: ..ganjue hen hao,
feel very good
30 B: ..tingqilai hen qingchun zheyangzi.
hear very pure this way
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31 A: ...(1.5) haiyou ^hesheng.
moreover duet
32 B: ...(1.3) <P yinggai shi ba P>.
should be FP
A: ‘Why do you like that kind of song?’
B: ‘Actually I don't know either. I just feel good about it. It feels so pure as you listen to it. That’s all.’
A: ‘There is also the duet.’
B: ‘I guess so.’
(Huang 1999:87)
This excerpt demonstrates that the demonstrative expression zheyangzi ‘this way’
signals the end of a turn contribution as shown in line 30. Haiyou “moreover” in the line 31 introduces a new turn, which makes evidence that the line 30 is an end of a turn closed by the proximal demonstrative expression.
The last use of demonstratives serves to connect propositions. Na in Mandarin can be an epistemic connective, logical connective or a simple connective as in (2.56).
(2.56) Connective
179 A: ..na shihou haiyou zhezhong mingci o.
that time still have this kind noun FP.
180 A: ..jiao changpian gexing [o].
called album singer FP.
181 B: [dui].
Yes
182 A: ..na=
and
183 A : ...(0.8) zhege= jiali de ren dui ni de ganjue ne ? this home DE people to you DE feel FP
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((4 lines omitted))
187 A: ..jiushi ni muqin zai ni, that is you mother at you,
188 A: ..jiushi= jiechule change zhetiao lu o.
that is= contact sing this path FP 189 A: ..ta--
she
190 A: ..xiwang ni neng ba zhege.. shu nian hao ma.
like you can ba this book study well FP.
191 B: ..hmhm.
A: ‘At that time they still had this kind of term, called "album singer".' B: ‘Yes.’
A: ‘How did your family feel about you? I mean after you decided to go into the singing career, your mother wanted you to first finish school, right?’
B: ‘hmhm.’
(Huang 1999:89)
Na in line 182 illustrates the use of the distal demonstrative as a simple connective.
Here the demonstrative functions as a transition from one topic to another.
Observing genuine spoken data, Huang found that the meaning of distal
demonstratives in Mandarin becomes neutral with respect to spatial distance. In other words, demonstratives in Mandarin do not indicate distance contrast. Instead, they are used in contexts where the speaker assumes the identity of a referent to be community shared knowledge. As previous literature states that the definite determiner is
diachronically derived from de-marking demonstrative, Huang observes that the distal demonstrative nage is toward the same grammaticalization path. He further argues that the emergence of the distal demonstrative nage as a grammaticalized definite article is originated from the use as an introduction of familiar objects into a
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conversation, which is considered by the speaker to be identifiable to the hearer.