by Tang Siu-Lam. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 48-54). / Appendix in Chinese. / Acknowledgements --- p.I / Abstract --- p.II / Table of Contents --- p.III / Appendix --- p.IV / Introduction --- p.1 / Parsing Models --- p.3 / Possible Causes for the Discrepancies Observed in Past Studies --- p.7 / Language Specific Properties and Parsing --- p.13 / The Present Study --- p.15 / Experiment1 --- p.19 / Method --- p.22 / Results and Discussion --- p.25 / Experiment2 --- p.28 / Method --- p.30 / Results and Discussion --- p.30 / Experiment3 --- p.35 / Method --- p.38 / Results and Discussion --- p.38 / General Discussion --- p.45 / References --- p.43 / Appendix --- p.55 / "Instructions used in Experiments 1, 2, and3" --- p.55

by Chiu Sung Pui. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-100). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Chapter Chapter I --- Introduction --- p.6 / Chapter 1.1. --- An overview of Chomsky's Binding Theory --- p.7 / Chapter 1.2. --- Referential and Bound pronouns --- p.9 / Chapter 1.3. --- Definition of bound pronouns --- p.9 / Chapter Chapter II --- Literature on bound pronouns --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1. --- Higginbotham (1980) --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2. --- Reinhart (1983) --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3. --- Koopman & Sportiche (1982) --- p.20 / Chapter 2.4. --- lappin (1985) --- p.21 / Chapter 2.5. --- "aoun & hornstein (1991), aoun & li (1990)，aoun & li (1993)" --- p.23 / Chapter Chapter III --- Binding Facts in Chinese --- p.31 / Chapter 3.1. --- Patterns in which the antecedent c-commands the pronoun --- p.32 / Chapter 3.2. --- Patterns in which the antecedent does not c-command the pronoun --- p.53 / Chapter 3.3. --- Summary of the binding facts --- p.67 / Chapter Chapter IV --- A revisit of the proposals on Bound pronouns --- p.69 / Chapter 4.1. --- Review of Higginbotham (1980) --- p.69 / Chapter 4.2. --- Review of Reinhart (1983) --- p.70 / Chapter 4.3. --- Review of Koopman & Sportiche (1982) --- p.72 / Chapter 4.4. --- Review of Lappin (1985) --- p.73 / Chapter 4.5. --- "Review of Aoun & Hornstein (1991)，Aoun & Li (1990), Aoun & Li (1993)" --- p.74 / Chapter Chapter V --- Discussion & Conclusion --- p.78 / Chapter 5.1. --- Bound Pronoun Condition for Chinese --- p.78 / Chapter 5.2. --- Wh-phrases as A'-binders --- p.78 / Chapter 5.3. --- The Empty Reflexive Puzzle --- p.80 / Chapter 5.4. --- pro-drop & Montabeltii's Overt Pronoun Constraint --- p.81 / Chapter 5.5. --- Factors affecting pronominal binding --- p.82 / Chapter 5.5.1. --- Nature of Verbs --- p.82 / Chapter 5.5.2. --- Quantifier types and the size of the extension denoted by the QP --- p.90 / Chapter 5.5.3. --- Sentence types & the number feature of the quantified NPs --- p.94 / Conclusion --- p.98 / References --- p.99 / Appendix I --- p.101 / Appendix II --- p.102 / Appendix III --- p.105

published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This dissertation is a contrastive study of the semantics, pragmatics, and discourse functions of demonstratives in English and Chinese.It is shown that there is a metaphorical relationship between the basic semantic properties of demonstratives and their various uses in the two languages. The proximal demonstrative tends to be used for spatial, temporal, or emotional closeness, or for a foregrounded referent, whereas the distal demonstrative is usually used for spatial, temporal, or emotional remoteness, or for a backgrounded referent. However, details of the metaphorical extensions in the two languages may vary. Functional differences between demonstrative pronouns and neuter pronouns in English and Chinese are also discussed. It is shown that demonstrative pronouns tend to code a higher degree of topic discontinuity or topic change, and neuter pronouns a greater degree of topic continuity in the two languages.In addition to contributing to an understanding of the basic factors governing the uses of demonstratives in English and Chinese, which could be used as a basis for further cross linguistic study, this research should also have some pedagogical value for teaching both English and Chinese as foreign languages. / Department of English

Noun phrases (NPs) with the same reference may take a number of different forms. For example, in English a particular conference can be referred to as a conference, the conference, that conference, this conference, that, this, or it. This dissertation attempts to account for the use of such referring expressions in Chinese, based on Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski's (1993) Givenness Hierarchy, and compares the discourse use of Chinese referring expressions with those of English.The Givenness Hierarchy is given below:THE GIVENNESS HIERARCHY:inuniquelytypefocus > activated > familiar > identifiable >referential> identifiable that{it}this{that N}{the N}{indefinite this N}{a N}this NThe Givenness Hierarchy correlates the form of referring expressions with their cognitive statuses, with each status being necessary and sufficient for the appropriate use of a different form or set of forms.The dissertation tests the Givenness Hierarchy to see if it adequately explains the use of referring expressions in Chinese. The data for this study are drawn from spoken and written texts from several different text types (cf. Biber 1986, 1988). The spoken data represent three different speech situations, i.e., face-to-face casual conversations, news broadcasts, and public speeches. The written texts represent different types, including short stories, novels, academic prose, magazine and journal articles, published letters and personal letters. The spoken and written data cover a range of formality and degree of planning.The results of the study show that the Givenness Hierarchy cannot account for the choice of form when two forms meet the sufficient cognitive requirements for appropriate use. More specifically, the Givenness Hierarchy fails to account for choices in Chinese between yi `one' NP and a bare NP when type identifiable is a necessary and sufficient condition for the appropriate use of both, or between nei `that' NP and a bare NP when uniquely identifiable is a necessary and sufficient condition for the appropriate use of both.It is proposed that within the individual categories of the Givenness Hierarchy, further distinction of the degree of discourse salience must be made in order to account for the distribution of Chinese NP forms in discourse. For example, the study shows that nei `that' encodes a uniquely identifiable referent and is used to increase referential salience, while a bare NP encodes a referent of neutral referential salience. Following Givon's (1984) line of research, the use of the numeral yi `one' is to code pragmatically important referents in discourse vs. the use of a bare NP to indicate referentially unimportant referents.To interpret the distribution of referring expressions in Chinese discourse, a number of properties of different expressions have been identified and characterized. The distal demonstrative determiner nei `that' has an associative anaphoric use, encoding an entity whose referent is uniquely identifiable based on what Hawkins (1978, 1991) calls P-sets, association sets. This function of nei as an associative anaphor demonstrates that its deictic function has become weak. In this regard, nei is beginning to function like the English definite article the.The distal demonstrative determiner nei has a recognitional use in talk-ininteraction, to use Schegloff's (1996) terms, negotiating shared knowledge and personal experiences.The demonstrative determiners zhe/na 'this/that' are studied in terms of word order variation. When in postverbal position, they function as definite markers, precluding indefinite interpretation of the postverbal NP. In preverbal position, they tend to increase referential salience of the subject/topic NP.The demonstrative pronouns are compared with the neuter pronoun to `it' and zero when referring to inanimates. The neuter to and zero tend to continue a topic, while demonstrative pronouns are likely to signal topic shift. This distinctive feature is shared by both English and Chinese.In sum, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of the use of referring expressions in both Chinese and English, which should be of interest both to linguists and to language teachers. / Department of English

文章討論了潮汕澄海話虛指的第三人稱"伊"的語法特點并進行澄海話、普通話和粤語蒙受結構的對比分析。第一部分描寫了澄海話三種虛指代詞"伊"的相關結構──"乞伊"結構、"佮伊"結構和"V伊R"結構的語法特點。"乞伊"結構和"佮伊"結構各可分為A、B兩類，兩種結構內部分別在動詞的選擇、"伊"的所指和"乞/佮"的隱現上表現出不同。兩種結構之間的主要差別則在於主語的題元角色及"乞/佮"的句法位置高低上。"V伊R"結構是"佮伊"結構的一種條件變體，主要用於表達祈使等語氣。 / 文章第二部分分析了澄海話三種蒙受結構的生成機制。并進一步概括出"伊"的種類:從所指對象題元角色的角度可以分為兩類，一是施事或致事、二是蒙事；從所指對象位置的角度也可以分為兩類，一是所指在句中，二是所指在句外。以及"伊"的句法位置：一是，位於"中間層次"；二是，緊鄰輕動詞。 / 文章第三部分嘗試以澄海話蒙受結構的分析方法為角度和基礎，分別分析普通話蒙受結構"V他O"和粤語蒙受結構"VR佢"。通過三種方言蒙受結構的對比分析，我們看到三種方言類型上的不同，也驗證了劉丹青（2001）、鄧思穎（2006）的分析：澄海閩南話是"最弱的SVO"，動詞傾向於留在原地；粤語是"最強的SVO"，動詞傾向於長距離移位；普通話是"溫和的SVO"，動詞移位但距離不長。 / This thesis discusses the syntax of the Chinese non-referential pronoun 伊 yi ‘it’ in Chenghai Southern Min in three different affective constructions: keyi 乞伊 construction, kaiyi 佮伊 construction and V伊R construction. After examining the syntactic and semantic properties of these three yi affective constructions, we figure out that firstly there are two types of keyi 乞伊 construction and two types kaiyi 佮伊 construction. Secondly keyi 乞伊 construction differs from kaiyi 佮伊 construction in theta-roles of the subject and the position of yi. Thirdly V伊R construction is a conditioned variant of keyi 乞伊 construction. The following part we explore the hierarchical order of these three yi affective constructions, and we employ high and middle applicatives to capture their syntactic and semantic idiosyncrasies. In this part yi is classified into two ways according to the property of the object it refers to. For example, in keyi 乞伊 construction, yi always refers to a causer or a agent, and in kaiyi 佮伊 construction, yi refers to an affectee. In both constructions, yi is situated in a middle position which close to light verbs. The last part of this paper compare the affective constructions of Chenghai Southern Min with affective constructions of Mandarin and Cantonese. The main differences among these three dialects match with the claim proposed by Liu(2001) and Tang(2006): Chenghai Southern Min is the weakest SVO construction in which verbs prefer to stay in situ; Cantonese is the strongest SVO construction in which verbs prefer to take long-distance movement; Mandarin is the moderate SVO construction in which verbs will move but won’t move far. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / 金佳. / Thesis (M.Phil.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-93). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Jin Jia.