Browsing results for Chinese
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Ye, Zhengdao (2004). The Chinese folk model of facial expressions: A linguistic perspective. Culture & Psychology, 10(2), 195-222. DOI: 10.1177/1354067X04040928
This study provides much-anticipated information on how facial expressions are perceived and interpreted by people from a non-Western culture by undertaking a detailed, culture-specific case study of their linguistic representations in the Chinese language. It shows that linguistic representations of facial expressions, which represent a local facial encoding system, provide valuable resources with which researchers can obtain a culture-internal view of the perceptions and conceptions of the face.
A folk model of facial expressions characteristic of the Chinese people is revealed through systematic documentation and linguistic analyses of set phrases for describing facial expressions drawn from Hongloumeng, the most popular and important literary work in the Chinese language. This folk model, which shows a way of seeing and thinking about facial expressions that is not commonly reflected in the English language, and is yet most natural to the Chinese people, questions the methodological assumptions underpinning the current dominant paradigm in research of the ‘universals’ of the human face, and highlights the force of culture and folk theories in scientific research programs. It also demonstrates the usefulness and viability of a linguistic perspective and methodology, in particular the cross-cultural semantic theory of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), for a theory of linguistic representations of facial expressions and emotions across cultures.
Explications are provided for the following phrases: mu deng kou dai (‘eyes wide open with strength, mouth dumbstruck’), tu/shen shetou (‘put out/stretch one’s tongue’), mei fei se wu (‘eyebrows fly, facial expression dances’).
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) méi fēi sè wŭ 眉飞色舞, (E) mù dèng kǒu dāi 目瞪口呆, (E) shēn shétou 伸舌头, (E) tŭ shétou 吐舌头
Published on May 7, 2018. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
黄囗盈 [Wong, Suet Ying] (2006). 新加坡华语会话中的语气词’leh’之硏究 [The ‘leh’ Particle in Singapore Mandarin]. BA(Hons) thesis. Singapore: National University of Singapore.
The abundant usage of particles in conversation is one of the most distinctive features of Singapore linguistic culture. It is typical for the conversations of Singaporeans to be littered with particles, whether they are speaking in English or Mandarin. These particles are loaded with pragmatic meanings. Many studies have been carried out throughout the years to explicate the meanings and functions they carry. However, the usage of such particles in conversation often makes no sense to foreigners.
Moreover, most studies have investigated the usage of particles in the context of Singapore English (Singlish) conversation, but are oblivious to the fact that the phenomenon is equally significant in Singapore Mandarin conversation.
This study looks at the particle leh in Singapore Mandarin conversation. Its aim is to investigate the inherent meaning of leh within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework, as well as the functions that come with the different lexical tones of leh, using data from natural conversation. Lastly, the phonetic changes of leh in Singapore Mandarin are also examined.
Tags: (E) leh
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Ye, Zhengdao (2006). Why are there two ‘joy-like’ ‘basic’ emotions in Chinese? Semantic theory and empirical findings. In Paolo Santangelo & Donatella Guida (Eds.), Love, hatred and other passions: Questions and themes on emotions in Chinese civilisation (pp. 59-80). Leiden: Brill.
Among different versions of ‘basic emotions’ based on English, it is uncommon for two emotions from the same cognitive domain of ‘something good happened’ to appear side by side on the same list. The two Chinese emotion terms xi and le, on the other hand, often appear together on lists of basic Chinese emotions. Thus, these ‘twin’ qingganzi have been chosen in the hope of answering a question that few have raised, that is, why are there two basic emotions belonging to this ‘joy-like’ category in Chinese? An in-depth analysis of the meaning of these so-called ‘basic’ emotions (within the Chinese language, and between Chinese and English) not only sheds light on the ‘basic’ Chinese emotional experience, but also has implications for the discussion of whether there are emotions ‘basic’ to people from all cultures, an issue that has been widely debated in studies of emotions.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) le 樂, (E) xi 喜
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 22, 2019.
Ye, Zhengdao (2006). Why the “inscrutable” Chinese face? Emotionality and facial expression in Chinese. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context (pp. 127-169). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110911114.127
Abstract:
This study challenges the long-held, unquestioned stereotype of the ‘inscrutable’ Chinese face (and the Oriental face in general), and probes the various factors – perceptual and cultural – that give rise to such stereotypes, which have almost become a kind of truism in the eyes and minds of others. Simultaneously, a Chinese cultural model of facial expressions is revealed through a detailed description and analysis of idiomatic Chinese phrases that refer to the face, along with an in-depth discussion of the cultural norms and values that influence the facial behaviour of the Chinese people.
Explications are provided for the following phrases: 吐/伸舌头 tŭ/shēn shétou (‘put out/stretch one’s tongue’), 撇嘴 piě zuĭ (‘corner of the mouth falls to one side’), 死眉瞪眼 sĭ méi dèng yăn (‘dead eyebrows and staring eyes’), 目瞪口呆 mù dèng kǒu dāi (‘eyes wide open with strength, mouth dumbstruck’), 咬牙切齿 yăo yá qiè chĭ (‘bite the molars, gnash the teeth’), 瞪着眼 dèng zhe yăn (‘having glaring eyes’), 揚眉吐氣 yáng méi tŭ qì (‘raising eyebrows, utter breath’), 眉飞色舞 méi fēi sè wŭ (‘eyebrows fly, facial expression dances’).
The overarching concerns of the study are theoretical and methodological. The chapter exemplifies the methodological issues confronting the study of the Other and demonstrates the usefulness of the NSM approach in demystifying certain persistent and mistaken beliefs about the Other, ultimately striving towards a better understanding between members from different cultural groups, with implications for studies in intercultural communication.
More information:
A more recent chapter that builds on this one is:
Chapter 3 (pp. 67-116) of Ye, Zhengdao (2006), Ways of meaning, ways of life: A semantic approach to Chinese ethnopsychology. PhD thesis, Australian National University.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) dèng zhe yăn 瞪着眼, (E) hé 和, (E) méi fēi sè wŭ 眉飞色舞, (E) mù dèng kǒu dāi 目瞪口呆, (E) piě zuǐ 撇嘴, (E) rĕn 忍, (E) shēn shétou 伸舌头, (E) sĭ méi dèng yăn 死眉瞪眼, (E) tŭ shétou 吐舌头, (E) yáng méi tŭ qì 揚眉吐氣, (E) yăo yá qiè chĭ 咬牙切齿, (S) inscrutable face, (S) laughter, (S) smiling, (S) wailing
Published on May 20, 2018. Last updated on June 22, 2019.
Ye, Zhengdao (2006). Ways of meaning, ways of life: A semantic approach to Chinese ethnopsychology. PhD thesis, Australian National University.
Open access
Abstract:
This thesis attempts to identify some key aspects of Chinese indigenous psychologies reflected in the Chinese language, and to investigate and articulate their meanings from a culture-internal perspective. An in-depth examination and analysis of key Chinese words and expressions reveal the conceptual basis of Chinese social organization and social interaction,
distinctive ways of emotion expression (both verbal and non-verbal) in relation to underlying cultural values and attitudes towards emotion, the relationship between sensory experience and the conceptual structure (especially with regard to the role of ‘taste’ in Chinese conceptual formation), as well as the folk model of learning in relation to ‘memorization’ and knowledge formation.
NSM is employed as a culture-independent conceptual tool for meaning analysis so that the ways of thinking, knowing, feeling and behaving that are fundamental to the Chinese way of life can be made easily accessible and intelligible to cultural outsiders. The cultural scripts theory, a spin-off of the NSM approach, is employed as a conceptual framework for cultural notations, aiming at a closer integration between language, culture and psychology. The study makes an empirical
and conceptual contribution not only to the growing field of the study of Chinese indigenous psychologies, but also to the study of the commonality and diversity of human experience and cognition in general. It has practical implications and applications for intercultural communication.
More information:
Chapter 2 builds on: Chinese categorization of interpersonal relationships and the cultural logic of Chinese social interaction: An indigenous perspective (2004)
Chapter 3 builds on: Why the “inscrutable” Chinese face? Emotionality and facial expression in Chinese (2006)
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Ye, Zhengdao (2007). Taste as a gateway to Chinese cognition. In Andrea C. Schalley, & Drew Khlentzos (Eds.), Mental states: Vol. 2. Language and cognitive structure (pp. 109-132). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.93.08ye
In the Western philosophical tradition, taste is regarded as a lower-level sense. This may explain why few linguistic studies have explored its role in human cognition. Yet, to fully understand the Chinese conceptual world, one has to understand the meanings of its rich ‘taste’-based vocabulary. This study seeks to bring this important aspect of Chinese sensory and cognitive experience to the attention of researchers of human cognition. It proposes a Chinese model of cognitive states in relation to taste, and discusses the cultural bases for the peculiarly Chinese “embodied” way of experiencing. It also discusses the physiological basis that seems to underpin the general principles of the cognitive system observed in Chinese and in some Indo-European languages.
Chinese words explicated in NSM have approximate counterparts in English nouns such as ‘taste’, ‘feeling’; in adjectives such as ‘flavourful’, ‘absorbed [in doing something]’; and in verbal phrases such as ‘enjoy in retrospect’, ‘recollect the pleasant flavour of’, ‘understand through thinking about experience’, ‘taste so as to appreciate’ and hence ‘appreciate’, ‘have good taste’.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) cháng 尝, (E) huíwèi 回味, (E) pĭnwèi 品味, (E) rùwèi 入味, (E) tĭwèi 体味, (E) zīwèi 滋味
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 26, 2020.
Ye, Zhengdao (2007). ‘Memorisation’, learning and cultural cognition: The notion of bèi (‘auditory memorisation’) in the written Chinese tradition. In Mengistu Amberber (Ed.), The language of memory in a crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 139-180). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hcp.21.09ye
This study examines a cultural practice of ‘remembering’ – 背 bèi (‘auditory memorization’) that plays a prominent role in the learning experience of Chinese people. It first conducts a detailed semantic analysis of 背 bèi, using Natural Semantic Metalanguage to reveal a culture-internal view of and belief about memory formation and learning, and contrasts it with Chinese 记 jì (‘try to remember/write down’) and with memorize and learn by heart in English. It then explores linguistic, cognitive and cultural reasons that could explain such a practice. Finally, it addresses the question of why 背 bèi, which exhibits some key features of knowledge transmission in oral cultures, is so prized by the Chinese people, possessors of a long written history.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bèi 背, (E) jì 记, (E) learn by heart, (E) memorize, (E) zì 字
Published on May 24, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2007). A response to N. J. Enfield’s review of Ethnopragmatics (Goddard, ed. 2006). Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(4), 531-538. DOI: 10.1515/IP.2007.027
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) attitude towards someone older, (S) display of emotions, (S) terms of endearment
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2018.
Sun, Gui-Li, & Hsieh, Ching-Yu (2008). Three emotional adverbs in Mandarin Chinese: An application of Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Feng Chia Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 17, 121-139. PDF (open access)
Emotional adverbs are usually difficult for non-native speakers to comprehend. They belong to a category of function words that are not easily defined and that appear to be semantically empty. Few researchers have explored them. This study examines the emotional adverbs 明明 mingming, 萬萬 wanwan and 簡直 jianzhi by means of the NSM approach. The data for the study was mostly selected from the Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese, and from conversations among junior high school students.
The result shows that each of the adverbs has different implications and can be used in certain specific situations. For example, 明明 mingming is used to express negative emotions like disaffection or anger, while 萬萬 wanwan can be used to show speakers’ positive and negative feelings, although it is used only in negative sentences. 簡直 jianzhi is usually followed by a metaphor or simile and implies a complaint and incredibility. The underlying cognition of the three emotional adverbs is revealed by an analysis of explications.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) jianzhi 簡直, (E) joyful, (E) mingming 明明, (E) wanwan 萬萬
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Tien, Adrian (2009). Semantic prime HAPPEN in Mandarin Chinese: In search of a viable exponent. Pragmatics & Cognition, 17(2), 356-382. DOI: 10.1075/p&c.17.2.07tie
HAPPEN is part of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) inventory of primes. Its most appropriate exponent in Mandarin Chinese was previously thought to be fa1sheng1. This article argues that fa1sheng1 is not the correct exponent of HAPPEN as it is marked for ‘adversity’ as well as what I call ‘serious mention’ or ‘noteworthiness’ of the event, i.e., that an event is sufficiently serious or noteworthy to fare a mention. This article puts forward you3, lit. ‘have, exist, happen’, and zen3(me)yang4 / zhe4(me)yang4, lit. ‘like how/like this’ instead, as allolexic exponents of HAPPEN in Mandarin Chinese. Though highly polysemous each in its own way, the HAPPEN sense of you3 and zen3(me)yang4 / zhe4(me)yang4 can, respectively, be shown to be semantically irreducible and pragmatically neutral. This article delineates some of the syntactic and contextual distributions attesting to the viability of you3 and zen3(me)yang4 / zhe4(me)yang4 as the Mandarin Chinese exponents of HAPPEN.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (T) Chinese (Mandarin)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Tien, Adrian (2009). Singaporean culture as reflected by the shared Chinese-based lexicon of Singapore English and Singapore Chinese. In T. Shabanova (Ed.), Humanistic inheritance of great educators in culture and education (pp. 71-74). Ufa: BSPU.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Tien, Adrian (2010). The semantics of human interaction in Chinese E-communication. In Rotimi Taiwo (Ed.), Handbook of research on discourse behavior and digital communication: Language structures and social interaction (pp. 437-467). Hershey: IGI Global. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-773-2.ch028
The current study investigates typical, everyday Chinese interaction online and examined what linguistic meanings arise from this form of communication – not only semantic but also, importantly, pragmatic, discursive, contextual and lexical meanings etc. In particular, it sets out to ascertain whether at least some of the cultural values and norms etc. known to exist in Chinese culture, as selected in the Chinese language, are maintained or preserved in modern Chinese e-communication. To achieve his aims, the author collected a sample set of data from Chinese online resources found in Singapore, including a range of blog sites and MSN chat rooms where interactants have kept their identities anonymous. A radically semantic approach was adopted – namely, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) model – to analyse meanings that arose from the data. The analyses were presented and compiled in the way of “cultural cyberscripts” – based on an NSM analytical method called “cultural scripts”. Through these cyberscripts, findings indicate that, while this form of e-communication does exhibit some departure from conventional socio-cultural values and norms, something remains linguistically and culturally Chinese that is unique to Chinese interaction online.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) leh, (S) Chinese CMC usage, (S) crude language, (S) downplay of mian zi ‘face’, (S) greater self versus smaller self, (S) non-preservation of guanxi, (S) pronominal highlighting, (S) small talk, (S) topic prominence, (S) what Chinese CMC users say, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Wakefield, John C. (2010). The English equivalents of Cantonese sentence-final particles: A contrastive analysis. PhD thesis, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Open access
Abstract:
Cantonese has a lexical tone system that severely restricts its ability to manipulate pitch. As a result, many of the speaker-oriented discourse meanings that are expressed through intonation in languages such as English are expressed in the form of sentence-final particles (SFPs) in Cantonese. Although this is widely known and accepted by linguists, apparently no study to date has made a systematic attempt to discover whether any of the more than 30 Cantonese SFPs have English intonational equivalents, and if so, what those equivalents are. To work towards filling this research gap, this study examines the English intonational equivalents of four Cantonese SFPs that divide into the following two pairs: particles of obviousness: 咯 lo1 and 吖吗 aa1maa3; question particles: 咩 me1 and 呀 aa4.
The English equivalent form of each of the four SFPs of this study is identified by examining the pitch contours of Cantonese-to-English audio translations, provided by Cantonese/English native-bilingual participants. A definition using Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is proposed for each SFP, which is hypothesized to apply equally to its English intonational counterpart. Following earlier proposals by Hirst regarding emphatic intonation, these pitch contours are proposed to be floating tones that exist as lexical entries in the minds of native speakers of English. Syntactic positions are proposed for the SFPs and their English equivalents adopting Rizzi‘s split-CP hypothesis.
The findings of this study have far reaching implications regarding the descriptions and classifications of intonation, as well as regarding the classifications of the various forms of suprasegmentals. This study used segmental discourse markers to discover their suprasegmental counterparts in English, exploiting a unique window through which to examine the forms and meanings of English discourse intonation, which is one of the least understood and most difficult to study aspects of English. This research has arguably provided the strongest and clearest evidence to date regarding the forms and meanings of the particular forms of English intonation with which it deals.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) aa1maa3 吖吗, (E) aa4 呀, (E) lo1 咯, (E) me1 咩, (T) Chinese (Cantonese)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.
Sun, Jaclyn Kayen (2010). Deciphering the Chinese smile: The importance of facial expressions in linguistic communication. Cross-Sections, 6, 105-120.
This paper explores the role of facial expressions in Cantonese people’s communication, with a focus on 笑 siu3 (lit. ‘smiling’, ‘laughing’, ‘grinning’). The communicative implications underlying linguistic communication are discussed with reference to two core cultural values, 和諧關係 wo4 haai4 gwaan1 hai6 or wo6 haai4 gwaan1 hai6 (lit. ‘harmonious relationship’, ‘together relationship’) and 含蓄 ham4 chuk1 (lit. ‘implicit’, ‘contained’, ‘control’), which govern the facial movements of the Chinese. Semantic explications of cultural key words and cultural scripts are generated based on the author’s personal reflections as a native speaker of Cantonese who has resided in Hong Kong for 20 years. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is used as the methodology of this paper so that these cultural values can be captured through an insider perspective, in a language that is culture-independent. The use of NSM in this present study effectively avoids ethnocentrism, while meanings can be spelt out in an undistorted way that can be understood and translated systematically across different languages, serving as a rigorous tool for comparing different cultural norms. It is hoped that this will aid better understanding of the communicative styles involved and so help to facilitate an effective intercultural communication between Chinese speakers and cultural outsiders.
The following Cantonese words are explicated: 臉色 lim5 sik1 ‘complexion, look’; 賠笑 pui4 siu3 ‘compensating smile’; 苦笑 fu2 siu3 ‘bitter smile’
Note: Provided the first line (“many people think like this”) is dropped, the cultural scripts proposed by the author for particular types of smiles are at the same time semantic explications for the phrases used in Cantonese to identify the smiles in question.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) fu2 siu3 苦笑, (E) lim5 sik1 臉色, (E) pui4 siu3 賠笑, (S) communicative styles, (S) conflict, (S) emotions, (S) relationships, (S) smiling
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Ye, Zhengdao (2010). Eating and drinking in Mandarin and Shanghainese: A lexical-conceptual analysis. In Wayne Christensen, Elizabeth Schier, & John Sutton (Eds.), ASCS09: Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science (pp. 375-383). Sydney: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science. DOI: 10.5096/ASCS200957. PDF (open access)
Slightly revised as:
Ye, Zhengdao (2012). Eating and drinking in Mandarin and Shanghainese: A lexical-conceptual analysis. In Cathryn Donohue, Shunichi Ishihara, & William Steed (Eds.), Quantitative approaches to problems in linguistics: Studies in honour of Phil Rose (pp. 265-280), Munich: Lincom Europa.
There are many activities that humans cannot do without. Eating and drinking are two of them. But, do people conceptualize these ‘basic’ human activities in the same way? This paper provides a Chinese perspective from two varieties of Sinitic languages – Mandarin Chinese and Shanghai Wu, which is spoken in the Shanghai metropolitan area by approximately 14 million native speakers. Both of these forms of Chinese suggest two different ways of conceptualization. In Mandarin Chinese, a lexical distinction is made between 吃 chī and 喝 hē, comparable to eat and drink in English (but not exactly the same); whereas in Shanghai Wu one single lexical item čhyq is used to describe any activity involving ingestion. The paper conducts a detailed contrastive semantic analysis of these concepts, explores the motivations behind their figurative meaning extensions, and uses the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) to articulate the conceptualizations reflected in these concepts. The findings of this paper are consistent with those emerging from crosslinguistic investigation of less familiar languages in recent times, in that there are variations in linguistic coding of eating and drinking. However, this paper also illustrates that one perhaps should not underestimate the variations of conceptualization within one ethnic group.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) chī 吃, (E) čhyq, (E) hē 喝
Published on August 16, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Kornacki, Paweł (2010). Studies in emotions: Ethnolinguistic perspectives. Warszawa: Wydział Neofilologii UW.
Based on the methodology of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage, the work analyses selected aspects of conceptualization and verbal expressions of emotions in contemporary Chinese (pŭtōnghuà) and Polish. Referring to intercultural anthropological and psychological research on emotions, its chapters discuss the importance of the Chinese cultural key word “heart/mind”, the semantics of words for bad feelings in Chinese, colloquial Polish speech practice, and the main conceptual elements of Early-Chinese and Indian cultural emotion models.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2010). Universals and variation in the lexicon of mental state concepts. In Barbara C. Malt, & Phillip Wolff (Eds.), Words and the mind: How words capture human experience (pp. 72-92). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195311129.003.0005
Abstract:
The first two sections of this chapter provide an overview of NSM research and findings, with a particular focus on mental state concepts. The next two sections show how NSM techniques make it possible to reveal complex and culture-specific meanings in detail and in terms that are readily transposable across languages. Examples include emotion terms, epistemic verbs, and ethnopsychological constructs in English, Chinese, Russian, and Korean. The next section discusses the relationship between linguistic meanings (word meanings) and cognition and elucidates the theoretical and methodological implications for cognitive science. The chapter concludes with the suggestion that people’s subjective emotional experience can be shaped or coloured to some extent by the lexical categories of their language.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bēi 悲, (E) believe that, (E) chóu 愁, (E) heart, (E) maum 몸, (E) mind, (E) sad, (E) sčitat’ считать, (E) unhappy, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Wakefield, John C. (2011). Disentangling the meanings of two Cantonese evidential particles. Chinese Language & Discourse, 2(2), 250-293.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.2.2.05wak
Abstract:
Some linguists have argued that sentence-final particles (SFPs) are only meaningful in relation to discourse content. Adopting as a working hypothesis the idea that SFPs have core meanings independent of the discourse context, this paper proposes definitions for two evidential SFPs in Cantonese with related meanings: 咯 lo1 and 吖吗 aa1maa3.
Corpus-based examples and constructed minimal-pair dialogues are used to demonstrate that the definitions succeed at accounting for all the contexts that allow one, the other, both, or neither of the SFPs to be used based on acceptability judgments from native speakers of Cantonese. In addition to furthering our understanding of the two SFPs under discussion, this paper provides empirical evidence in support of the idea that discourse particles have context-independent meanings.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) aa1maa3 吖吗, (E) lo1 咯
Published on July 1, 2017. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Leung, Helen (2011). *The semantics of Cantonese particles laa1 and laa3. BA(Hons) thesis, Australian National University.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Common language of all people: The innate language of thought. Problems of information transmission, 47(4), 378-397. DOI: 10.1134/S0032946011040065
English translation of a Russian text (2011) published in Problemy Peredachi Informatsii, 47(4), 84-103.
As is well known, Leibniz was interested in language throughout his life, and he saw in it a key to the understanding of the human mind. Many of his ideas about language were expressed in unpublished manuscripts, and what has come to us is not always clear. Nevertheless, some of his ideas — even if he did not always consistently adhere to them himself — seem to be both clear and extremely appealing.
I would summarize these ideas as follows:
1. All human thoughts can be decomposed into a relatively small number of elementary concepts;
2. All explanations depend on the existence of some concepts which are self-explanatory (otherwise, they would lead to an infinite regress);
3. The elementary concepts are common to all languages, and can be found by means of semantic analysis;
4. These concepts are the foundation of an innate language, “lingua naturae.” Just as mathematics is, as Galileo said, the language of the physical world, so the innate “lingua naturae” is the language of the inner world, the language of thoughts;
5. This language can be identified;
6. This language can serve as an auxiliary means of mutual understanding for speakers of different languages;
7. This language can help us to reach a greater clarity in our thinking;
8. This language can serve as a means for clarifying, elucidating, storing and comparing ideas.
These are also the main ideas which lie at the basis of the NSM program and from which this program has derived and continues to derive its inspiration.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) cross, (E) God, (E) Máwú, (T) Russian
