The Parameter of Aspect
The Parameter of Aspect

Author: C.S. Smith

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-09

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 9401579113

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During the period I have been working on this project I have received institutional support of several kinds, for which I am most grateful. I thank the Institute for Advanced Study at Stanford University, and the Spencer Foundation, for a stimulating environment in which the basic idea of this book was developed. The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen enabled me to spend several months working on the the manuscript. ANational Science Foundation grant to develop Discourse Representation theory, and a grant from The University Research Institute of the University of Texas, allowed me time to pursue this project. I also thank the Center for Cognitive Science at the University of Texas for research support. I thank Helen Aristar-Dry for reading early drafts of the manuscript, Östen Dahl for penetrating remarks on a preliminary version, and my collaborator Gilbert Rappaport for relentIess comments and questions throughout. The individuals with whom I have worked on particular languages are mentioned in the relevant chapters. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the members of my graduate seminar on aspect in the spring of 1990: they raised many questions of importance which made a real difference to the working out of the theory. I have benefitted from presenting parts of this material publicly, including cOlloquia at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at San Diego, the University of Pennsylvania, Rice University, the University of Texas, and the University of Tel Aviv.

Acquisition of the Perfective Aspect Marker "le" of Mandarin Chinese in Discourse by American College Learners
Acquisition of the Perfective Aspect Marker

Author: Lixia Ma

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13:

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The Chinese perfective aspect marker le is one of the most challenging yet very important grammatical features for learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). Based on the observation that there was a lack of width in the study of this feature in the earlier research, the current study presents a new perspective at the discourse level to achieve a more in-depth understanding of the acquisition of le. In response to the obvious need to obtain data on the acquisition of this linguistic feature with a global view, the current thesis study starts with the discourse functions of le, and eventually providing an encompassing guideline in learning le at the prosodic, syntactic, semantic and discourse level in linguistics. Three instruments (UI Placement Test-Grammar Section, Knowledge Test, and Production Test) were administered to 95 American college CFL learners of four different proficiency levels and to 30 native speakers of Chinese as controls.

Aspect in Mandarin Chinese
Aspect in Mandarin Chinese

Author: Richard Xiao

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2004-01-01

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9789027230836

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Chinese, as an aspect language, has played an important role in the development of aspect theory. This book is a systematic and structured exploration of the linguistic devices that Mandarin Chinese employs to express aspectual meanings. The work presented here is the first corpus-based account of aspect in Chinese, encompassing both situation aspect and viewpoint aspect. In using corpus data, the book seeks to achieve a marriage between theory-driven and corpus-based approaches to linguistics. The corpus-based model presented explores aspect at both the semantic and grammatical levels. At the semantic level a two-level model of situation aspect is proposed, which covers both the lexical and sentential levels, thus giving a better account of the compositional nature of situation aspect. At the grammatical level four perfective and four imperfective aspects in Chinese are explored in detail. This exploration corrects many intuition-based misconceptions, and associated misleading conclusions, about aspect in Chinese common in the literature.

Learn to Use Chinese Aspect Particles
Learn to Use Chinese Aspect Particles

Author: Jian Kang Loar

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-26

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1351257668

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Aspect in Mandarin Chinese plays an important role in interpreting the temporal information of a sentence. It is an important verbal category, which is concerned with the speaker’s viewpoint or perspective on a situation: whether the situation is presented as complete (perfective aspect) or as ongoing (imperfective aspect), etc. Learning to understand the aspect particles or markers, and use them correctly, has always been one of the most difficult tasks for learners of Chinese. Learn to Use Chinese Aspect Particles is a pedagogical guide designed to equip teachers with necessary aspectual theoretical knowledge, and is aimed at in-service or trainee teachers, and intermediate or advanced students to reinforce teaching and learning. Challenging exercises are designed and explanations for the correct use of an aspect particle are given, thus making the book more useable and convenient to teachers and enhancing the practical reference value of the book.

The Influence of the Lexifier
The Influence of the Lexifier

Author: Debra Ziegeler

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2024-04-22

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 3110785250

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The study of language contact in the „new" English varieties is frequently influenced by sociolinguistic approaches and reference to substrate languages but much less often to functionally-based contact linguistic theory. In The Influence of the Lexifier, Ziegeler applies grammaticalization and other explanations of language change to many under-researched features of Singapore English, highlighting the role of the co-existing lexifier in the unique contact setting of Singapore.

Essential Mandarin Chinese Grammar
Essential Mandarin Chinese Grammar

Author: Vivian Ling

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2020-09-15

Total Pages: 499

ISBN-13: 1462921280

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Essential Mandarin Chinese Grammar is a systematic overview of Mandarin grammar, oriented toward self-study, English-speaking students. Through explanations of common mistakes learners make, useful example sentences and exercises with an answer key, this book provides a detailed introduction to the unique grammar structures of the Mandarin language. Ideal for any student who is interested in taking their skills to the next level, this book makes the difficult task of perfecting grammar efficient, interesting and rewarding. Essential Mandarin Chinese Grammar is a perfect tool to help you form correct and natural-sounding sentences, and determine how to best use the grammar you need for reading or writing Mandarin. Each example and exercise is written in both pinyin and Simplified Chinese Characters to accommodate learners with varying levels of character literacy, including those who have learned only to speak but not read.