The discourse pragmatics of argument structure in Chinese procedural discourse
Tao Hongyi · 2007
Based on a corpus of written Chinese,the Lancaster Corpus of Modern Chinese(LCMC), this paper investigates the realization of argument structure in Chinese procedural discourse. The results indicate that 1)the preferred argument structure exhibits a form ofX+V,i.e. one lexical argument plus a verbal element;2)there is a tendency to suppress the transitive agent(A)and to promote the transitive object(O).As a result there is a preference for OV configurations where O takes on the role similar to that of A and S(intransitive subject). These findings are seen to have important implications for understanding Mandarin basic word order,the status and functions of the OV structure,and the impact of genre on grammar.