Discourse grounding: The morphosyntax of the Mandarin direct objects

The morphosyntactic contrasts among Mandarin direct objects in three object-containing constructions, the ba-, object-incorporation (O-I) and V;To test the theory that the morphosyntactic differences correspond to discourse grounding options, two empirical studies, a quantitative text-analysis and a speaker-judgement experiment, were carried out in the context of Mandarin narrative discourse. Event-sequentiality and rate-of-mention were adopted as criteria against which the discourse saliency of direct objects could be measured. The results of the studies provide a strong support for the clam that Mandarin speakers use the three constructions differentially to impose different degrees of saliency on direct object referents.;The phenomena under study are introduced in Chapter One. Previous attempts to approach the phenomena are refuted as either superficial or limited in data accountability. A cognition-based function-oriented approach is proposed in Chapter Two. Because this approach is articulated in terms of discourse grounding, earlier grounding studies are compared and contrasted. The theoretical claims posited in this chapter are substantiated in the next, wherein typical uses of the ba- and O-I constructions are presented and explicated in light of the proposed grounding mechanism. Chapters Four, Five and Six report on the empirical studies. Finally in Chapter Seven, the implications of the present study are presented with respect both to some related grammatical structures in Mandarin and to discourse studies of morphosyntax in general.