A semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic analysis of the temporal markers zheng, zhengzai, and zai in written and spoken Mandarin discourse

This dissertation presents a corpus-based contextual analysis of the temporal markers zheng, zhengzai, and zai in authentic discourse of both written and spoken Mandarin. The purpose of this empirical study is to investigate when and why speakers choose one of these competing forms in a given context to convey their temporal perspective of an ongoing situation.; These temporal markers have been described as interchangeable in the traditional grammar used in teaching Mandarin as a second or foreign language since they can occur in the same position in a syntactic frame. In the linguistic theory of aspect, only zai is usually treated as an imperfective aspect marker, and it is often analyzed vis-a-vis other imperfective aspect markers such as zhe and ne, which occur in different syntactic positions.; A combined quantitative-qualitative approach is used in the analysis. Frequencies and distributions of the tokens of zheng, zhengzai, and zai occurring in three genres of written text (novel, autobiography, and news) and three types of oral communication (radio, television, and telephone) are analyzed in terms of semantic import, syntactic constraints, and pragmatic functions. This study claims that semantically, zheng focuses on the external reference time of an ongoing situation, zai focuses on the internal temporal structure of the situation, and zhengzai is relevant to both the external time and the internal process. For instance, pragmatically, stative situations involving inanimate subjects and nonvolitional participation on the part of the subject are most likely to be marked by zheng. Syntactically, zheng has a higher tendency to precede a predicate adjective than zhengzai or zai. The functions of zai are further analyzed in terms of temporality and nontemporality (locative function).; Explanations for the above findings along with other related results are accompanied by numerous examples from the data to substantiate the claims. In addition, native speakers were consulted via questionnaires and follow-up interviews. Variations across genres, media, and modalities are also explicated. Furthermore, semantic collocations with xianzai 'now,' nashi 'at that time,' yao 'going to,' and hai 'still,' and syntactic co-occurrences with zhe'-ing,' zhong 'in the middle of (an ongoing situation),' and shi 'while' are examined. Finally, contributions of this research to linguistic theory and the implications for language pedagogy are discussed.