Focus and Background Marking in Mandarin Chinese

Download or read book Focus and Background Marking in Mandarin Chinese written by Daniel Hole and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an investigation into the grammaticalized system of focus-background agreement in Mandarin Chinese. The particles cái, jiù, dou and ye are, in a specific use type, shown to form the core of a highly systematic paradigm. This book is not just a valuable companion for anyone interested in core aspects of Mandarin Chinese grammar. It caters for the interests of theoretical linguists as well as for linguists from other fields with an interest in information-structure, focus and contrastive topics, and quantification. The outstanding characteristic of this book, viz. its effortless integration of findings from formal semantics without heavy formal load, makes it rewarding reading both for linguists with a less formal background, and for researchers with some knowledge of formal semantics.