Te-hsin Liu | National Taiwan University (original) (raw)
Papers by Te-hsin Liu
Scholars have long demonstrated the effectiveness of using visual representations to aid non-nati... more Scholars have long demonstrated the effectiveness of using visual representations to aid non-native speakers in learning Mandarin tone. Among these methods, presenting pitch contours visually has proven to be the most intuitive and efficient. However, the variability of pitch contours in continuous speech, influenced by coarticulation, poses challenges for learners to follow accurately. To address this issue, we propose a method to normalize pitch contours, mitigating the effects of coarticulation and prosodic phrasing. Experimental results show that subjects can identify the class of tone by looking at the representation proposed in this study and evaluating the quality of the tones of the syllables pronounced by the speakers visually. In addition, our approach can present the mispronunciation with the contours of the relative pitch of the syllables. We believe that our method offers more comprehensive feedback to learners compared to relying solely on a tone recognition model for pronunciation evaluation.
Metaphor and Symbol, 2024
2023 Asia Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference (APSIPA ASC)
Frontiers in Psychology, 2023
Classic linguistic analyses assume that syntax is the center of linguistic system. Under this ass... more Classic linguistic analyses assume that syntax is the center of linguistic system. Under this assumption, a finite set of rules can produce an infinite number of sentences. By contrast, construction grammar posits that grammar emerges from language use. Chinese quadrisyllabic idiomatic expressions (QIEs) offer a testing ground for this theoretical construct owing to their high productivity. To understand the cognitive processing of structure and meaning during reading comprehension, we used a semantic judgment task to measure behavioral performance and brain activation (functional MRI). Participants were 19 Mandarin native speakers and 19 L2 learners of intermediate and advanced levels of Mandarin. In the task, participants were instructed to indicate whether the interpretation of a QIE was correct. Our behavioral results showed that L2 learners processed high frequency QIEs faster than low frequency ones. By contrast, low frequency QIEs were processed faster than high frequency ones by native speakers. This phenomenon may be attributed to semantic satiation which impedes the interpretation of high frequency QIEs. To unravel the puzzle, a further functional MRI experiment on native speakers was conducted. The results revealed that the comparison of high-frequency and low-frequency QIEs promoted significant anterior cingulate activation. Also, the comparison of idiomatic and pseudo-idiomatic constructions exhibited significant activation in the bilateral temporal poles, a region that computes semantics rather than syntactic structure. This result indicated that, for native speakers, processing Chinese idiomatic constructions is a conceptually driven process.
In the literature of tonology, it is generally assumed that contour tones are more marked than le... more In the literature of tonology, it is generally assumed that contour tones are more marked than level tones, as they are more "complicated", or more difficult to produce and perceive (Yip 2002, Zhang 2002). This hypothesis fails to explain why there are Chinese dialects with only contour tones, and why there is no tonal system having only level tones in Chinese dialects. On the basis of a universal tonal periodic skeleton HLHL postulated by Carvalho (2002), we propose a tonal representation capable of naturally accounting for the notion of tonal markedness, the interaction between contour and register, and diverse sandhi systems of Chinese dialects. By comparison with current models in which tonal markedness and licit contours are obtained by stipulation, the present framework yields a completely different picture of tonal markedness. It provides furthermore an unified explanation to the paradoxical nature of Chinese contour tones and offers a straightforward account of the...
Te-hsin Liu, 2015
The present paper analyzes the errors of determiner elements made by English and French learners ... more The present paper analyzes the errors of determiner elements made by English and French learners of Mandarin, with a special focus on bare nouns, a/an+ (classifier)+N and the phenomenon of zero pronouns. According to the Nominal Mapping Parameter proposed by Chierchia (1998) , Mandarin, English and French belong to different typological groups, and English is more similar to Mandarin compared with French in that both of them have bare nouns. The question arises as to whether English learners of Mandarin have advantage over French learners when it comes to the acquisition of bare nouns. Adopting a contrastive analysis perspective, we shall examine the influence of native language on the acquisition of determiner elements in Mandarin, and will further investigate the relationship between topic continuity and error types.
This paper presents a novel analysis on tone sandhi directionality, introducing a family of relat... more This paper presents a novel analysis on tone sandhi directionality, introducing a family of relative markedness constraints, i.e. MINMOD (minimize modulation) and MINAMP (minimize amplitude of contour tones), to account for the apparently ungoverned traffic of sandhi operations. A closer look at the data leads to the conclusion that tone sandhi directionality is not output-driven but directionality-driven. This observation echoes Hyman & VanBik’s analysis on Hakha-Lai, according to which output-based generalizations fail to capture the input-output relations (2002).
The presence of near mergers has long been a puzzle for linguists due to the notions such as cont... more The presence of near mergers has long been a puzzle for linguists due to the notions such as contrast, categorization as well as the postulated symmetry between production and perception (Labov 1994). The present research aims to provide a case study of tonal near merger in Dalian, a less well-known Mandarin dialect spoken in Northeast China. Using a case study of tonal near merger as a jumping off point, this paper draws on insights from the hypothesis of lexical diffusion (Wang 1969) to illustrate that sound change could indeed take a long period of time to complete its course.
Adopting the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar, the present paper aims to examine the... more Adopting the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar, the present paper aims to examine the internal structures, constructional meanings, and syntactic categories of Mandarin parallel idiomatic prefabs A-X-A-Y. The analysis once again confirms the importance of semantic integration between lexical and constructional meanings. Although X and Y seem to dictate the syntactic category of a four-character idiomatic expression, the syntactic category of the whole idiom is indeed adjustable in contextualized real-world language use. This prominent feature, i.e., the flexibility in terms of syntactic behavior, results from the markedness of the four-character skeleton, namely, a grammatical construction. This syntactic flexibility is then argued to be the essential property of Chinese four-character idioms.
Cette these concerne "le caractere positionnel du ton" dans les langues chinoises, et s... more Cette these concerne "le caractere positionnel du ton" dans les langues chinoises, et suggere un retour aux representations pour expliquer, notamment, les divers processus de sandhi constates. L'hypothese d'un squelette tonal periodique HBHB permet de resoudre certains des problemes souleves par les analyses repesentationnelles et OTistes actuelles, et eclaircit deux questions inexplicables en termes substantiels : i) pourquoi existe-t-il des systemes ayant uniquement des tons modules sans ton uni en chinois? ii) pourquoi le ton uni a-t-il une duree egale ou superieure au ton module, alors que ce dernier est cense etre plus complique a produire selon les phoneticiens ? Les representations proposees repondent a ces deux questions en faisant la prediction d'une hierarchie formelle de la marque tonale. La theorie developpee ici implique que le ton module chinois, en tant que ton lexical, est analysable en une succession de tons ponctuels (contour) definie par un r...
UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2009) The Phonology of Incomplete Tone Merger in Dalian ... more UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2009) The Phonology of Incomplete Tone Merger in Dalian 1 Te-hsin Liu liu.tehsin@berkeley.edu Introduction The thesis of tone merger in northern Chinese dialects was first proposed by Wang (1982), and further developed by Lien (1986), the migration of IIb (Yangshang) into III (Qu) being a common characteristic. The present work aims to provide an update on the current state of tone merger in northern Chinese, with a special focus on Dalian, which is a less well-known Mandarin dialect spoken in Liaoning province in Northeast China. According to Song (1963), four lexical tones are observed in citation form, i.e. 312, 34, 213 and 53 (henceforth Old Dalian). Our first-hand data obtained from a young female speaker of Dalian (henceforth Modern Dalian) suggests an inventory of three lexical tones, i.e. 51, 35 and 213. The lexical tone 312 in Old Dalian, derived from Ia (Yinping), is merging with 51, derived from III (Qu), in the modern system. This...
Adopting the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar, the present paper aims to examine the... more Adopting the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar, the present paper aims to examine the internal structures and constructional meanings of six Mandarin idiomatic prefabs: da-X-da-Y ‘big-X-big-Y’, da-X-xiao-Y ‘big-X-small-Y’, xiao-X-xiao-Y ‘small-X-small-Y’, da-X-wu-Y ‘big-X-no-Y’ and wu-X-wu-Y ‘no-X-no-Y’. The analysis has not only identified five constructional meanings among them, but confirmed the weightiness of semantic integration between lexical and constructional senses. The semantic map approach is further applied to characterize these sense relations in illustration of any multiple inheritance nested among distinct constructional meanings. For instance, the sense of intensification or emphasis is prominent in parallel constructions: meanings inherited from the reduplication structure. On the contrary, non-parallel constructions may carry such senses as overallness, equivalence, contrast, or serve a subjunctive mood.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
The present study aimed to investigate the neural mechanism underlying semantic processing in Man... more The present study aimed to investigate the neural mechanism underlying semantic processing in Mandarin Chinese adult learners, focusing on the learners who were Indo-European language speakers with advanced levels of proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging technique and a semantic judgment task to test 24 Mandarin Chinese adult learners (L2 group) and 26 Mandarin Chinese adult native speakers (L1 group) as a control group. In the task, participants were asked to indicate whether two-character pairs were related in meaning. Compared to the L1 group, the L2 group had greater activation in the bilateral occipital regions, including the fusiform gyrus and middle occipital gyrus, as well as the right superior parietal lobule. On the other hand, less activation in the bilateral temporal regions was found in the L2 group relative to the L1 group. Correlation analysis further revealed that, within the L2 group, increased activation in the left middle t...
Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學
Chinese Quadrisyllabic Idiomatic Expressions (henceforth QIEs) are highly productive in the moder... more Chinese Quadrisyllabic Idiomatic Expressions (henceforth QIEs) are highly productive in the modern language. They can be used to understand the cognitive processing of structure and meaning during reading comprehension, as in the patterning of [qian-A-wan-B] ‘1k-A-10k-B’ (e.g. one-thousand army ten-thousand horse). However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms of QIEs during reading comprehension. Adopting the framework of Construction Grammar, in the present study, we aimed to study the convergence and divergence between native speakers and L2 learners in the processing of Chinese idiomatic constructions. In the present study, twenty-three native university-level Mandarin speakers and twenty-three L2 learners of intermediate and advanced levels of Mandarin, all speakers of the non Sinosphere, participated in the experiment, and were instructed to make a semantic congruency judgment during the presentation of a QIE. Our results showed that, for both native speakers and L2...
漢學研究 , 2020
「的」字結構在中文出現的頻率極高，不論在語義或語法的定義與分類極為複雜，歷來許多學者已從不同面向對「的」字結構進行研究，但對於兩岸用法是否有所差異，著墨不多。本研究從認知語言學的觀點，比較兩岸四... more 「的」字結構在中文出現的頻率極高，不論在語義或語法的定義與分類極為複雜，歷來許多學者已從不同面向對「的」字結構進行研究，但對於兩岸用法是否有所差異，著墨不多。本研究從認知語言學的觀點，比較兩岸四位人文領域的大學教師「的」字結構於口語和書面語之異同。本文發現兩岸教師在書面語的「NP的VP」用法不同，台灣教師在寫作時，偏好突顯賓語，將賓語作為「參照體」來建立和相關目標的心理聯繫，大陸教師則無此偏好。兩岸教師書面語裡動詞名物化使用的差異性，除了映證語法的漸層性 (gradience) 外，也呼應了Wasow (2009) 所言，語言結構的漸層性並非來自於使用者的語言表現 (linguistic performance)，相反地，語言使用者是有意識地選擇要使用的語言形式，這正是說話者的語言能力 (linguistic competence) 的最佳展現。
Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies
More than 90 percent of Chinese idiomatic expressions are four-character forms, yet the research ... more More than 90 percent of Chinese idiomatic expressions are four-character forms, yet the research in the field is still far from complete. In general, linguists of Chinese agree that the four-character pattern achieves musical rhythm, structural symmetry and semantic condensation; however, research truly based on the above-mentioned properties has failed to make prominent of the specialty of Chinese four-character idioms. Adopting the framework of Construction Grammar, in this research, we aim to discuss their interrelated syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features, by examining four-character forms with the patterning of [yi-X-#-Y] ‘one-X-number-Y’. In particular, we will look into instances that fall under three specific prefabs: [yi-X-yi-Y] ‘one-X-one-Y’, [yi-X-er-Y] ‘one-X-two-Y’, and [yi-X-qian-Y] ‘one-X-thousand-Y’, as well as investigate their syntactic function. We will also explore the relationship between XY and construction from the perspective of metaphorical extension. The multifaceted nature of the compositionality issue of Chinese four-character idioms can be accounted for based on the interactive approach.
Yue dialects, i.e. Cantonese, Bobai and Xinyi, have a process whereby a rising tone replaces the ... more Yue dialects, i.e. Cantonese, Bobai and Xinyi, have a process whereby a rising tone replaces the lexical tone of the head noun to derive diminutive forms, referred to as Pinjam (changed tones) in the literature. Chao (1947) and Benedict (1942) noticed that, in Cantonese, this derived rising tone has a slightly longer duration than the lexical rising tone. The same phenomenon is observed in Bobai and Xinyi, where the derived rising tones are longer than the lexical rising tone (Wang 1932, Ye & Tang 1982). Establishing a correspondence between the Mandarin diminutive suffix [-] and the Cantonese high rising Pinjam, Chao (1959) used mora to describe this additional length, suggesting that the Cantonese mora is a suffix taking the form of a high tone rather than sound segments. This conjecture, capable of explaining the additional length associated with the Pinjam, is contrary to current theories according to which tones, being suprasegmental objects, have no temporal basis of their own. How to solve this paradox? Following O'Melia (1939) and Whitaker (1956) according to whom the additional length is to compensate the elided diminutive suffix [¯in25] in Bobai, a more conservative dialect compared to Cantonese, we claim that tones, rather than vowels, lengthen in order to fill the vacuum left by the elision of the neighboring syllable. A conjecture based on the segmental compensatory lengthening will encounter one problem: if the additional tonal duration had to be explained by the compensatory lengthening of vowels, no change in length would be expected to occur in closed syllables. Now, the additional length is observed in both open and closed syllables in Pinjam. Consequently, it is tone that lengthens under syllable elision, not vowel. In other words, the vowel lengthens under the pressure of the tone, not the tone under the pressure of the vowel.
UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report, 2009
Scholars have long demonstrated the effectiveness of using visual representations to aid non-nati... more Scholars have long demonstrated the effectiveness of using visual representations to aid non-native speakers in learning Mandarin tone. Among these methods, presenting pitch contours visually has proven to be the most intuitive and efficient. However, the variability of pitch contours in continuous speech, influenced by coarticulation, poses challenges for learners to follow accurately. To address this issue, we propose a method to normalize pitch contours, mitigating the effects of coarticulation and prosodic phrasing. Experimental results show that subjects can identify the class of tone by looking at the representation proposed in this study and evaluating the quality of the tones of the syllables pronounced by the speakers visually. In addition, our approach can present the mispronunciation with the contours of the relative pitch of the syllables. We believe that our method offers more comprehensive feedback to learners compared to relying solely on a tone recognition model for pronunciation evaluation.
Metaphor and Symbol, 2024
2023 Asia Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference (APSIPA ASC)
Frontiers in Psychology, 2023
Classic linguistic analyses assume that syntax is the center of linguistic system. Under this ass... more Classic linguistic analyses assume that syntax is the center of linguistic system. Under this assumption, a finite set of rules can produce an infinite number of sentences. By contrast, construction grammar posits that grammar emerges from language use. Chinese quadrisyllabic idiomatic expressions (QIEs) offer a testing ground for this theoretical construct owing to their high productivity. To understand the cognitive processing of structure and meaning during reading comprehension, we used a semantic judgment task to measure behavioral performance and brain activation (functional MRI). Participants were 19 Mandarin native speakers and 19 L2 learners of intermediate and advanced levels of Mandarin. In the task, participants were instructed to indicate whether the interpretation of a QIE was correct. Our behavioral results showed that L2 learners processed high frequency QIEs faster than low frequency ones. By contrast, low frequency QIEs were processed faster than high frequency ones by native speakers. This phenomenon may be attributed to semantic satiation which impedes the interpretation of high frequency QIEs. To unravel the puzzle, a further functional MRI experiment on native speakers was conducted. The results revealed that the comparison of high-frequency and low-frequency QIEs promoted significant anterior cingulate activation. Also, the comparison of idiomatic and pseudo-idiomatic constructions exhibited significant activation in the bilateral temporal poles, a region that computes semantics rather than syntactic structure. This result indicated that, for native speakers, processing Chinese idiomatic constructions is a conceptually driven process.
In the literature of tonology, it is generally assumed that contour tones are more marked than le... more In the literature of tonology, it is generally assumed that contour tones are more marked than level tones, as they are more "complicated", or more difficult to produce and perceive (Yip 2002, Zhang 2002). This hypothesis fails to explain why there are Chinese dialects with only contour tones, and why there is no tonal system having only level tones in Chinese dialects. On the basis of a universal tonal periodic skeleton HLHL postulated by Carvalho (2002), we propose a tonal representation capable of naturally accounting for the notion of tonal markedness, the interaction between contour and register, and diverse sandhi systems of Chinese dialects. By comparison with current models in which tonal markedness and licit contours are obtained by stipulation, the present framework yields a completely different picture of tonal markedness. It provides furthermore an unified explanation to the paradoxical nature of Chinese contour tones and offers a straightforward account of the...
Te-hsin Liu, 2015
The present paper analyzes the errors of determiner elements made by English and French learners ... more The present paper analyzes the errors of determiner elements made by English and French learners of Mandarin, with a special focus on bare nouns, a/an+ (classifier)+N and the phenomenon of zero pronouns. According to the Nominal Mapping Parameter proposed by Chierchia (1998) , Mandarin, English and French belong to different typological groups, and English is more similar to Mandarin compared with French in that both of them have bare nouns. The question arises as to whether English learners of Mandarin have advantage over French learners when it comes to the acquisition of bare nouns. Adopting a contrastive analysis perspective, we shall examine the influence of native language on the acquisition of determiner elements in Mandarin, and will further investigate the relationship between topic continuity and error types.
This paper presents a novel analysis on tone sandhi directionality, introducing a family of relat... more This paper presents a novel analysis on tone sandhi directionality, introducing a family of relative markedness constraints, i.e. MINMOD (minimize modulation) and MINAMP (minimize amplitude of contour tones), to account for the apparently ungoverned traffic of sandhi operations. A closer look at the data leads to the conclusion that tone sandhi directionality is not output-driven but directionality-driven. This observation echoes Hyman & VanBik’s analysis on Hakha-Lai, according to which output-based generalizations fail to capture the input-output relations (2002).
The presence of near mergers has long been a puzzle for linguists due to the notions such as cont... more The presence of near mergers has long been a puzzle for linguists due to the notions such as contrast, categorization as well as the postulated symmetry between production and perception (Labov 1994). The present research aims to provide a case study of tonal near merger in Dalian, a less well-known Mandarin dialect spoken in Northeast China. Using a case study of tonal near merger as a jumping off point, this paper draws on insights from the hypothesis of lexical diffusion (Wang 1969) to illustrate that sound change could indeed take a long period of time to complete its course.
Adopting the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar, the present paper aims to examine the... more Adopting the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar, the present paper aims to examine the internal structures, constructional meanings, and syntactic categories of Mandarin parallel idiomatic prefabs A-X-A-Y. The analysis once again confirms the importance of semantic integration between lexical and constructional meanings. Although X and Y seem to dictate the syntactic category of a four-character idiomatic expression, the syntactic category of the whole idiom is indeed adjustable in contextualized real-world language use. This prominent feature, i.e., the flexibility in terms of syntactic behavior, results from the markedness of the four-character skeleton, namely, a grammatical construction. This syntactic flexibility is then argued to be the essential property of Chinese four-character idioms.
Cette these concerne "le caractere positionnel du ton" dans les langues chinoises, et s... more Cette these concerne "le caractere positionnel du ton" dans les langues chinoises, et suggere un retour aux representations pour expliquer, notamment, les divers processus de sandhi constates. L'hypothese d'un squelette tonal periodique HBHB permet de resoudre certains des problemes souleves par les analyses repesentationnelles et OTistes actuelles, et eclaircit deux questions inexplicables en termes substantiels : i) pourquoi existe-t-il des systemes ayant uniquement des tons modules sans ton uni en chinois? ii) pourquoi le ton uni a-t-il une duree egale ou superieure au ton module, alors que ce dernier est cense etre plus complique a produire selon les phoneticiens ? Les representations proposees repondent a ces deux questions en faisant la prediction d'une hierarchie formelle de la marque tonale. La theorie developpee ici implique que le ton module chinois, en tant que ton lexical, est analysable en une succession de tons ponctuels (contour) definie par un r...
UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2009) The Phonology of Incomplete Tone Merger in Dalian ... more UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2009) The Phonology of Incomplete Tone Merger in Dalian 1 Te-hsin Liu liu.tehsin@berkeley.edu Introduction The thesis of tone merger in northern Chinese dialects was first proposed by Wang (1982), and further developed by Lien (1986), the migration of IIb (Yangshang) into III (Qu) being a common characteristic. The present work aims to provide an update on the current state of tone merger in northern Chinese, with a special focus on Dalian, which is a less well-known Mandarin dialect spoken in Liaoning province in Northeast China. According to Song (1963), four lexical tones are observed in citation form, i.e. 312, 34, 213 and 53 (henceforth Old Dalian). Our first-hand data obtained from a young female speaker of Dalian (henceforth Modern Dalian) suggests an inventory of three lexical tones, i.e. 51, 35 and 213. The lexical tone 312 in Old Dalian, derived from Ia (Yinping), is merging with 51, derived from III (Qu), in the modern system. This...
Adopting the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar, the present paper aims to examine the... more Adopting the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar, the present paper aims to examine the internal structures and constructional meanings of six Mandarin idiomatic prefabs: da-X-da-Y ‘big-X-big-Y’, da-X-xiao-Y ‘big-X-small-Y’, xiao-X-xiao-Y ‘small-X-small-Y’, da-X-wu-Y ‘big-X-no-Y’ and wu-X-wu-Y ‘no-X-no-Y’. The analysis has not only identified five constructional meanings among them, but confirmed the weightiness of semantic integration between lexical and constructional senses. The semantic map approach is further applied to characterize these sense relations in illustration of any multiple inheritance nested among distinct constructional meanings. For instance, the sense of intensification or emphasis is prominent in parallel constructions: meanings inherited from the reduplication structure. On the contrary, non-parallel constructions may carry such senses as overallness, equivalence, contrast, or serve a subjunctive mood.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
The present study aimed to investigate the neural mechanism underlying semantic processing in Man... more The present study aimed to investigate the neural mechanism underlying semantic processing in Mandarin Chinese adult learners, focusing on the learners who were Indo-European language speakers with advanced levels of proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging technique and a semantic judgment task to test 24 Mandarin Chinese adult learners (L2 group) and 26 Mandarin Chinese adult native speakers (L1 group) as a control group. In the task, participants were asked to indicate whether two-character pairs were related in meaning. Compared to the L1 group, the L2 group had greater activation in the bilateral occipital regions, including the fusiform gyrus and middle occipital gyrus, as well as the right superior parietal lobule. On the other hand, less activation in the bilateral temporal regions was found in the L2 group relative to the L1 group. Correlation analysis further revealed that, within the L2 group, increased activation in the left middle t...
Language and Linguistics / 語言暨語言學
Chinese Quadrisyllabic Idiomatic Expressions (henceforth QIEs) are highly productive in the moder... more Chinese Quadrisyllabic Idiomatic Expressions (henceforth QIEs) are highly productive in the modern language. They can be used to understand the cognitive processing of structure and meaning during reading comprehension, as in the patterning of [qian-A-wan-B] ‘1k-A-10k-B’ (e.g. one-thousand army ten-thousand horse). However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms of QIEs during reading comprehension. Adopting the framework of Construction Grammar, in the present study, we aimed to study the convergence and divergence between native speakers and L2 learners in the processing of Chinese idiomatic constructions. In the present study, twenty-three native university-level Mandarin speakers and twenty-three L2 learners of intermediate and advanced levels of Mandarin, all speakers of the non Sinosphere, participated in the experiment, and were instructed to make a semantic congruency judgment during the presentation of a QIE. Our results showed that, for both native speakers and L2...
漢學研究 , 2020
「的」字結構在中文出現的頻率極高，不論在語義或語法的定義與分類極為複雜，歷來許多學者已從不同面向對「的」字結構進行研究，但對於兩岸用法是否有所差異，著墨不多。本研究從認知語言學的觀點，比較兩岸四... more 「的」字結構在中文出現的頻率極高，不論在語義或語法的定義與分類極為複雜，歷來許多學者已從不同面向對「的」字結構進行研究，但對於兩岸用法是否有所差異，著墨不多。本研究從認知語言學的觀點，比較兩岸四位人文領域的大學教師「的」字結構於口語和書面語之異同。本文發現兩岸教師在書面語的「NP的VP」用法不同，台灣教師在寫作時，偏好突顯賓語，將賓語作為「參照體」來建立和相關目標的心理聯繫，大陸教師則無此偏好。兩岸教師書面語裡動詞名物化使用的差異性，除了映證語法的漸層性 (gradience) 外，也呼應了Wasow (2009) 所言，語言結構的漸層性並非來自於使用者的語言表現 (linguistic performance)，相反地，語言使用者是有意識地選擇要使用的語言形式，這正是說話者的語言能力 (linguistic competence) 的最佳展現。
Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies
More than 90 percent of Chinese idiomatic expressions are four-character forms, yet the research ... more More than 90 percent of Chinese idiomatic expressions are four-character forms, yet the research in the field is still far from complete. In general, linguists of Chinese agree that the four-character pattern achieves musical rhythm, structural symmetry and semantic condensation; however, research truly based on the above-mentioned properties has failed to make prominent of the specialty of Chinese four-character idioms. Adopting the framework of Construction Grammar, in this research, we aim to discuss their interrelated syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features, by examining four-character forms with the patterning of [yi-X-#-Y] ‘one-X-number-Y’. In particular, we will look into instances that fall under three specific prefabs: [yi-X-yi-Y] ‘one-X-one-Y’, [yi-X-er-Y] ‘one-X-two-Y’, and [yi-X-qian-Y] ‘one-X-thousand-Y’, as well as investigate their syntactic function. We will also explore the relationship between XY and construction from the perspective of metaphorical extension. The multifaceted nature of the compositionality issue of Chinese four-character idioms can be accounted for based on the interactive approach.
Yue dialects, i.e. Cantonese, Bobai and Xinyi, have a process whereby a rising tone replaces the ... more Yue dialects, i.e. Cantonese, Bobai and Xinyi, have a process whereby a rising tone replaces the lexical tone of the head noun to derive diminutive forms, referred to as Pinjam (changed tones) in the literature. Chao (1947) and Benedict (1942) noticed that, in Cantonese, this derived rising tone has a slightly longer duration than the lexical rising tone. The same phenomenon is observed in Bobai and Xinyi, where the derived rising tones are longer than the lexical rising tone (Wang 1932, Ye & Tang 1982). Establishing a correspondence between the Mandarin diminutive suffix [-] and the Cantonese high rising Pinjam, Chao (1959) used mora to describe this additional length, suggesting that the Cantonese mora is a suffix taking the form of a high tone rather than sound segments. This conjecture, capable of explaining the additional length associated with the Pinjam, is contrary to current theories according to which tones, being suprasegmental objects, have no temporal basis of their own. How to solve this paradox? Following O'Melia (1939) and Whitaker (1956) according to whom the additional length is to compensate the elided diminutive suffix [¯in25] in Bobai, a more conservative dialect compared to Cantonese, we claim that tones, rather than vowels, lengthen in order to fill the vacuum left by the elision of the neighboring syllable. A conjecture based on the segmental compensatory lengthening will encounter one problem: if the additional tonal duration had to be explained by the compensatory lengthening of vowels, no change in length would be expected to occur in closed syllables. Now, the additional length is observed in both open and closed syllables in Pinjam. Consequently, it is tone that lengthens under syllable elision, not vowel. In other words, the vowel lengthens under the pressure of the tone, not the tone under the pressure of the vowel.
UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report, 2009