Chang, Ying-Ju (2019) The Investigation of Mandarin Aspect: With Special Reference to the Ba-Construction. PhD thesis, University of York.
Abstract
This thesis is an investigation of the aspect system in Taiwanese Mandarin (TM). It examines the four aspect particles le, guo, zai, zhe and two constructions, the reduplicative verb construction and the resultative verb construction. It also explores the aspect of the ba-construction used in TM. Different from previous research, this study adopts the three-dimension model of aspect established by Declerck, Reed, & Cappelle (2006) as the basic framework. To better apply the model to analysing the aspect in TM, I draw from Depraetere's (1995) conceptual definition of (non)boundedness, the semantic feature that the actualisation aspect pivots on, to conduct the analysis at the actualisational level. I also use Klein's (1994) framework, treating the perfect as a category of aspect, rather than of tense. Additionally, Smith's (1997) approach of temporal boundary to define the viewpoint aspect is also used in this study.
Chapter 1 lays the conceptual foundation of the thesis, introducing the general background, the sociolinguistic background of Taiwan, the aims and approach of this research and key terminologies. Chapter 2 reviews Smith’s and Klein’s frameworks of aspect as well as the syntactic account of the ba-construction proposed by Sybesma (1999) and C.-T. J. Huang, Li, & Li (2009). In the end, I propose a syntactic structure for the ba-construction.
Chapter 3 is the full analysis of the aspect in TM on the basis of the three-dimension model. In this approach, TM is analysed as a language having the dichotomous perfective/imperfective opposition. It also distinguishes between the continuous and the progressive aspects. Chapter 4 then analyses the aspect of the ba-construction according to the aspect system developed in Chapter 3.
Metadata
Supervisors: | Sells, Peter and Brown, Dunstan |
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Awarding institution: | University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Language and Linguistic Science (York) |
Identification Number/EthosID: | uk.bl.ethos.811401 |
Depositing User: | Ms Ying-Ju Chang |
Date Deposited: | 31 Jul 2020 21:23 |
Last Modified: | 21 Aug 2020 09:53 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:etheses.whiterose.ac.uk:26759 |
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